Strange things happen: a life with the Police, polo, and pygmies

by Stewart Copeland

  Anjelica is leaving town for ten days so I’ll have the score pretty much completed by the time I show her anything. This is good because I can really tweak it before the first show-and-tell but bad because I may go down a wrong path and waste effort. Usually, I like to do about a third of the score and then get some feedback earlier in the process. This is a new client and music can hit people in unpredictable ways.

  Well, I have a terrific week. Scoring is fun and this is a good film. I’ve been doing a lot of comedy lately and this deep emotional stuff makes a change. When actors direct, you know the performances will sing. Actually, very little music is needed. Rosie and Andie don’t need much help from me.

  After the composing phase I call up my favorite players and start recording. For this score I call Michael Thompson for guitar; a small string ensemble, led by Charlie Bisharat; and my all-round Swiss Army knife of music, Judd Miller.

  On the appointed day Larry and Anjelica arrive for the first show-and-tell. It’s time to face the music. I sit them down and ply them with coffee and cakes (blood sugar saturation is good for business).

  The first thing they hear is the main title music. It’s an upbeat piece, and I can see that their toes are tapping and they have assumed appreciative body postures. This is good.

  Soon however, as we get into the movie, a cold chill has entered the room. I normally play all of the music cues in a row so that the director can get the overall picture before going back to discuss each cue individually. By the time we get to the end of the first pass, the temperature has dropped thirty degrees. There is silence in the room, but the body language is growling. Uh-oh. I have already mentally rearranged my upcoming week since I know that I’ll be rescoring this movie. Or not.

  Tempting as it may be to meet unlove with outraged indignation at the nonappreciation of my work, it is actually smarter to be suave. There are just a couple of things wrong but since they apply to cue after cue, by the end of the presentation these faults have the curse of Magog upon them.

  One offender is the rack of cymbals and crotales that I like to use for an atmosphere of magic nostalgia. I probably mixed them a little hot, but if you decide not to like them, they cut through everything. Cue after cue. The biggest surprise is Larry’s reaction to all of Judd’s stuff. He spots the sampleness of it instantly. I have never been busted for Judd’s work before. I rely heavily in all of my scores on Judd’s ability to give me rich woodwinds and brass (as well as all other kinds of weird drones and wails), which he plays with great sensitivity. Although I congratulate Larry on his eagle ears, I silently suspect him of having peeked behind my curtain. For cue after cue Larry is like a Puritan fingering witches. Out, Fake Instruments! Out! And just to rub it in he keeps referring to Judd’s lovingly recorded, crafted, and performed samples as “synthesizers.”

  Anjelica has just one problem. It’s the fundamental approach of the composition. Since the actors on the screen are creating much of their own music, I have just given them wafts of atmosphere (the accursed crotales and woodwinds) with unconnected pangs from a solo acoustic guitar. Wrong. Being Irish, Anjelica needs actual melody. A waft here and a sprangle there would work well for many directors, but not if they are Celts.

  To their credit, neither Larry nor Anjelica appears to be panicked by this parade of dud cues, and they leave the studio mollified by the remedies that I have smoothly proposed. I award myself a D-for the presentation and then start rescoring the entire movie. Whole new composing concept, whole new sound palette.

  Meanwhile, there is the issue of a song that is required for one scene in the movie. It’s a three-minute scene of the two sisters frolicking by the lake and rediscovering their love for each other. It is the emotional center of the movie. My job is to commission a songwriter, find a singer, and record an original track. There is a process for this. Pro songwriters will normally work on spec for this kind of thing since a good song can have many uses (if we don’t use it) and having one appear on network TV in an Emmy-potential movie is good enough bait to get several guys across town competing for the gig. A couple of the guys stabbing at it have won awards and had big hits. This ought to be easy.

  Well, I have a productive week. Scoring can be challenging work; I’m not as fresh as I was the first time around, but at least I’m better educated as to the proclivities of the client. I write some actual melodies and get my players back. As I work, songs are beginning to arrive via e-mail. One of them is hand-delivered by the most unlikely contestant of all, a slightly scraggly and darkly mysterious young woman. Very young, very nonindustry.

  After completing the second pass at the score I collect up the four songs that have arrived and lay them against the scene. Two of them just plain suck, one of them is right on the money, and one of them has a mysterious, haunting charm that works not with picture. Pity, it’s got a kind of charisma to it. All of the other three, written by flinty-eyed professionals, follow the contours of the scene perfectly. Even the ones that suck soar when the scene lifts and duck when the scene goes to dialogue. The haunting one just sits there.

  Now it’s time for round two with the director and producer. They are in good cheer as they arrive and I briskly caffeinate and seat them. Then I hit Play on my keypad.

  I run down the cues, one after another, without stopping for comment. The body language is not bad. Every now and then Larry’s head jerks to a forty-five-degree angle (skeptical) but mostly, he’s relaxed. Anjelica is leaning forward intensely (engaged). I figure, anything less than major improvement would be reflected by morose hunching of the shoulders, brooding forward tilt of the head, ugly sideways glances.

  When we get to the song scene, none of the submissions pass muster. They are just too straight, too perfect. Except for the strange one, which is kind of cool but just sits there.

  With the score, Anjelica declares herself pleased. She likes the tunes and the sounds and looks very relieved to have something to work with. Most directors leave the studio happy at this point. Anjelica is just getting started. We spend the rest of the afternoon microscoping each cue. She is fixed like a laser on the pace and nuance of every line of dialogue. Although she likes the music I wrote, she likes even more to move it around like paint on a palette. She cheerfully moves cues around, switching them, mixing and nixing them. After mashing down the entire length of the movie, she and Larry leave, exhausted but happy.

  All I have to do now is tidy up after the carnage. Wherever we grabbed phrases and pasted them here and there, I have to smoosh the seams and make beautiful the new transitions.

  On the song front, two more wrong songs have arrived and I’m starting to worry. Meanwhile the hippy tune is reappearing in my head. I give Jesca Hoop a call and she comes right over. I put her song against the picture and try to explain the dynamic of music and movies. When the scene goes up the music needs to go up, I gesticulate. Lift, rise, swell, release, grow, up. Although it appears that the words coming out of my mouth are Chinese to her, she nods vaguely and offers to take another stab. It needs to go up.

  Next day she comes back with a new version. I put it to picture. At the place where it should go up, it becomes more beautiful. Very beautiful, in fact, but not UP.

  Over the course of the next week Larry and Anjelica come over several more times. I think they like my place. My studio, situated on a leafy knoll, is a large square tower with windows on all sides. Facing the ample screen and terrifying array of speakers is a large couch, from which directors love to play with music. Who wouldn’t?

  Most of the score is done by now, but there is one scene that evades us. Anjelica has the idea of using an ancient Irish air (melodies that are ancient are always bankable) so I find a version of “She Moves Through the Fair.” Michael comes back and plays it like a leprechaun. Just one mournful solo acoustic guitar with long reverb. Everybody in the room is weeping. How about if we try laying it over some of those other scenes?

  For the song there is only one way forward. I strap J
esca’s demo (which is just her voice and an acoustic guitar) on to my computer, figure out the tempo, analyze her fingerpicking guitar part, and insert a section of my own device that goes up. I build up the backing track with drums, bass, electric guitar, and whatever else I can throw into the pot. I give her the track, which has a piano tune indicating a melodic line for the new section, and she goes away to write some more lyrics.

  By the time she comes back and sings all her stuff into my fancy microphones, this song is beginning to really pop. She has a great voice, and her pitch is good enough for her to stack up some pretty oblique harmonies. Time for the Huston/Sanitsky shredder. Actually the bosses are pretty happy with the song, but how about if we take that cool part which goes “Yeah, Yeeaah” and put it over this shot? And that second verse sounds a bit vocally light. How about if we get a big black voice to sing the song? OoooK….

  Damn, at three o’clock, the day before the dub (which is the giant mixing session for all of the music, sound effects, and dialogue) I have to find a black lady singer. Vicki Randle, my favorite, is out of town, so I have to take a chance on a stranger. Actually, two of them, since the first sounds like Ethel Merman and we have to find another. Finally, Alex Brown comes over and is able to match Jesca’s exotic phrasing, adding that rich black timbre to the vocals.

  On the morning of the dub, the bosses swing past my studio to check out the song. Eureka! Huzzah! It’s good! How about if we take the Yeah Yeeaahs and put them over the end section? No problemo. With a trifling flick of sound editing we are at the finish line! With bittersweet hugs and kisses I bid them Godspeed at the dub and they leave. Aaaaaaaaaghhh. Jeff Seitz staggers off to pick up the threads of his life. I quit the applications; decouple the crevulators, and power down the hard drives.

  For the first time in weeks I notice that the birds are singing outside my window. The sunshine is dappling gently through the trees on a gorgeous California morning. I drift down to my Jeep and glide down the valley to Venice Beach for coffee and a newspaper. Lunch by the pier stretches into a meandering afternoon of idleness and light contemplation. I’ve got a hot date with Fiona tonight, so I eventually head home, but on the way, I stop by the studio. There are six messages for me. Larry and Anjelica want to know if we could….

  CHAPTER 21

  FOO FLYING WITH THE FLY FOOS

  JUNE 2005

  I

  feel like the winner of an MTV prize. Here is my itinerary: Whisked by limousine from my home to an airport in Van Nuys, where I will meet the Foo Fighters. We board their Gulf Stream IV jet, which will take us to San Francisco to attend a concert there before flying to New York to participate in an MTV special event. Duration of adventure: thirty hours. Professional obligations: none (almost). Now look at the itinerary of these young professionals who are my hosts. They just returned from a trip to Japan and Australia. Last night they played the Tonight Show. Tonight is the gig in San Francisco (for twelve thousand fans). Within an hour of the last note of the show, they are airborne for New York. Arriving at 9:00 A.M., pretty much sleepless, they get half an hour in their hotel rooms before going live in front of the cameras to host MTV for twenty-four hours! The event is called “24 Hours of Foo.” For them it will be fifty hours without sleep. For the last twenty-four of those hours, they will be holding the attention of worldwide MTV viewers, pretty much with only their charisma and what’s left of their vitality. A long day, even for soldiers like these guys.

  But I’m whistling a happy tune as my car pulls up to the plane. Charter jets are not just about lavish leather-lined luxury. The main deal is the pulling-up-to-the-plane part—dispensing completely with the airport terminal. Ten yards from car door to plane door.

  Dave and Jordyn Grohl are the first Foo Fighters to arrive. As bandleader, Dave sets the example. But always one step ahead is the band’s tour manager, the bearlike Gus Brandt, and his black-clad assistant, Nick Flynn—who ushers me on board.

  As the bandsters show up, we luxuriate in the rarefied atmosphere of Million Air. No shit, that’s what the charter company is called. Things wake up when Taylor and Alison Hawkins arrive. As in many bands, the drummer is the life of the party. As in many bands, Nate Mendel, the bass player, is the mysterious one. Chris Shiflett, the guitar player, is already at the gig—he’s playing earlier in the day with his side project band. As an hors d’oeuvre to the MTV marathon, Chris is playing two shows today, with two different bands! This rock star thing can sometimes look just like hard work.

  For me it’s a vicarious thrill to ride along with this team. Back in the day, when this was my life, I didn’t enjoy it so much because even for a hardened pro, there is constant preshow tension that dampens any day-of-show activity, no matter how exotic.

  Flying up to Frisco is a breeze and soon we are arriving at the gig. It’s an all-day radio station–sponsored affair (kind of like the KROQ/Incubus thing) with bands playing all day and the Foos headlining.

  As the van pulls into the backstage enclosure, the huge stage is booming and the crowd is roaring. There is the usual horde of tattooed stage crew heaving gear around, and the scaffolding reaches right up to Rock Heaven.

  The band zone is a cluster of trailers/dressing rooms like circled wagons. It is populated by a happy throng of strangely clad, unnaturally hued musos, and their (often weirder-looking) friends. The Foos have many chums among the other bands and our arrival is greeted with fraternal warmth and intricate handshakes all around. The last person anyone expects to see trailing in the Foos’ wake is me. But these are all muso types back here and I feel the love of my kind, even though they’re all strangers and I haven’t heard of a single other band on the bill.

  There are two bands to go before showtime, so Taylor and I wander over to inspect his drums, which are set up on his riser backstage. By now he has persuaded me to join them for one song during their set, so I had better check out his sticks and kit to see how dented my knuckles are going to get.

  Every drum set is different. Unlike guitars, which are pretty standard, drum sets are very personalized for the height, arm length, and physical style of each drummer. Playing someone else’s kit isn’t like driving someone else’s car; it’s more like wearing someone else’s clothes. But you don’t just look funny; you dent your knuckles.

  I’m kind of long-armed; I sit back on a high seat and flail most comfortably at distantly placed cymbals and drums. Since I play orthodox grip, my snare is tilted away from me. Matched grip players tilt the snare toward themselves. Taylor is a matched grip forward-leaner on a low stool.

  But I hate to be precious about these things. I always respect the musicians who just plug and play so I try to shun public tweakage. I spend hours at home tweaking my kit but this is Taylor’s gig, and the guy whose name is on the ticket is the one who has to shine. So, despite my misgivings about how close his cymbals are, I declare the kit to be playable and we head back to the dressing room.

  Pre-gig tension. Almost every performer of every kind suffers from it. Everyone in the dressing room is upbeat but there is a shortness to the laughter and a distraction to the banter. Everyone is twanging their instruments, warming up their fingers. Dave is reminding them about recent adjustments to the arrangements. He has decided to start the set with the first song on their new CD, a song that they haven’t rehearsed or played live before, so now they run through the tune acoustically just to tune it up.

  The lads have got it into their heads to play an old Police song called “Next to You.” It’s probably the most scorching Police track that they could have chosen. It was an epic even when I was twenty-four. I darkly suspect Taylor of thinking, “Here’s one the old bastard can’t play anymore.” But it turns out that he knows the words to this one and he’s going out to the front of the stage to sing it while I hit his drums. So we run this song down one time, with me clacking sticks on the table and them strangely able to play the whole song from memory. They remember it better than I do.

  Gus gives them th
e nod, and it’s showtime.

  There is always an excited thrill in the wings as a band emerges from its trailer and mounts the stage. It’s dark but there is enough light for the players to plug in and find their spots. Actually, most bands these days don’t plug in with wires anymore. They have radio connection from axe to amp and they could play the show from the dressing room if they chose.

  The band starts up with a mysterious wind of noise, Dave is shouting something, and the crowd is roaring. The band kicks in, the lights flare up, and the show is on. This band has the most gigantic array of back line speaker cabinets that I’ve ever seen. The amp stacks tower over the players, rising to at least twenty feet. It’s an iron curtain of sound. These stage speakers are very directional, so from the wings, the volume is not too extreme, but it’s kind of muffled. They run through their set briskly with hardly any gap between the songs. They keep the pace up and the crowd rages along with them.

  Then I see Taylor jump off his riser and go downstage to the mic, and he’s looking over his shoulder at me. It is a mere three feet from the darkness of the wings to the blazing light of the stage, and it’s now time for me to jump in.

  The drummer prepares.

  Brat-un, Brat-un, Brat-un, Brat-un, Brat-un, Brat

  da Dada Dada

  Chug, chug, chug, chug…

  Ouch! Fuck!

  My left knuckle slices the hi-hat on its way to the front tom. My right stick snags the ride cymbal on its way to the floor tom. I can hardly hear the band through the din of the house monitor system. The seat is so low that my right ankle is at an uncomfortable angle on the bass drum pedal. This all seemed comfy enough tapping around earlier backstage, but now that there are twelve thousand people in front of me who have been revved up by an energetic band, larger gestures are required.