Greetings! ScoreKeeper here peddling a two-for-the-price-of-one conversation with a pair of rising stars in the scoring community. Composers Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman have been exercising their superpowers for quite some time on both the large and small screen but with the success of their latest venture, HEROES (2006-2009), this dynamic musical duo find themselves in the best creative shape of their professional lives. I had the pleasure of chatting with Wendy & Lisa about their work on this vaulted series and also dabbled a bit into earlier chapters of their lives. They’ve been in the business a long time and their tandem approach to scoring is truly one of the tightest and most enduring collaborative relationships in show business. While you’re reading you’ll stumble upon several audio responses I’ve inserted into the text portion of the interview in order to enhance the experience. It was a pleasure talking with them. I hope you enjoy their time as much as I did. …and don’t forget… Save the cheerleader, save the world…

ScoreKeeper: You both have worked with Allan Arkush on several projects in the last decade including the long running series, CROSSING JORDAN (2001-2007). Were you the automatic pick for HEROES or are there any interesting stories behind how you were chosen as the composers? Wendy Melvoin: I think the most interesting story is that we were the first choice. Tim (Kring) came to me and Lisa even before it had been filmed and asked if we wanted to come along and be a part of this incredible idea that he had. We were thrilled to do that for him.
SK: About how early in the development phase was that when he first approached you? WM: I think he was just starting to write the pilot. We were still working on CROSSING JORDAN and we went out to dinner…I don’t even know…we go out to dinner sometimes – that’s how we celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah together – we go out with Tim and Allan Arkush and everybody’s wives and we have a really good time. We have a really good relationship with them. I think it was in December and Tim just sprung it on us at the table. He said, “You guys, I have this idea and I want you to come along and do the music for it. I think you would be great for it.” He started to describe this idea that he had about people with super powers and that there were… Lisa Coleman: …ordinary people with extraordinary abilities from all around the world and the way he described it was so fantastic. We were excited. WM: We had a really good and exciting “dream-wish” dinner except it actually came true and ended up being a hit the first season. It was a pretty magical “dream-come-true” kind of thing. LC: Definitely!
SK: When you get an idea like that planted in your head, as composers are you automatically starting to think about music or do you hold off until you start seeing footage? WM: That depends on the project. In this circumstance, Lisa and I had a pretty good idea of what we were going to try and achieve musically, but I think we were able to hone it in once Tim showed us dailies. We started getting DVDs of the first few scenes of the pilot and as soon as me and Lisa saw it, we just knew where we were going to go. When we scored the finished pilot, there was one specific scene that basically became the entire concept for our score and it was the scene where Claire, the cheerleader, rescues a fireman from a burning building and she doesn’t get hurt. We put a beautiful piece of music behind it instead of fast paced action music. We went in the opposite direction and tried to make it very beautiful, haunting and evocative and used the voice of Shenkar to represent the otherworldliness of the ability that you are going to witness in this young girl. We took all the production sound out while we composed the scene. We listened to the score with just her running into the building. When Tim and the other executives saw that scene – the way we imagine it – they all voted that that would be the actual tone of the show.

SK: I’ve said many times that I think we are at the dawn of a new golden age of television scoring. It was not very long ago when television was not the place you would go to find creative scoring and yet, television is now riddled with great music. With each new hit series we are discovering scores that take very daring, very unique approaches to the material. How difficult is it to dive into a brand new series and give it a distinctive character though music? LC: I think we were really super lucky on this particular project. We have worked on other network shows and they have been a little more straight forward. In the 80s and 90s, television shows started getting really stagnant in a certain style and the music was all pretty much the same kind of exercise in action and drama…piano and strings, drums and maybe electric guitar or something. It was pretty limited so we have had to deal and fight that fight a few times. We would stretch it out a little bit more with ethnic instruments or… WM: We weren’t the first people to try all of these things but I think both Lisa and I got incredibly lucky. There was an already inherent trust with the creators of this show when we moved on to HEROES. LC: Absolutely! The series lends itself so much to something different and Tim wanted and requested, “Let’s not do something that you normally see.” When he was first editing the pilot and looking for temp music it was difficult. He really searched high and low and found things that even he admitted were “Close but not really it.” He would play us things that he was thinking about and toying with ideas while asking us, “What do you guys think? How can we stretch this out?” Now it’s just such a dream come true because he totally trusts us with scoring the show. We don’t do playbacks anymore. After the first few shows during the first season there were no more playbacks…that’s when you have to play your score for the director and producers and get notes. WM: You have to get them to sign off. LC: You know, to do fixes and stuff like that. He just totally thought “You guys have it nailed. Let’s go with this.” And that was that. WM: Yeah, and we have been involved in the stories since the very first episode so Lisa and I know this story as well or better than most of the writers do that get hired much later into the season. LC: That’s true. Sometimes we find continuity mistakes when there’s a new writer that wasn’t in on the first season or so…“You can’t do that to that character!” SK: Can you break down a week in the life of scoring HEROES? What is the process and how does the music get from your two minds onto the show. LC: Usually we spot the episode… WM: Usually Allan Arkush was at every spotting session. A spotting session is where you sit in the editor’s bay and watch a cut of the show and you look for where you think music should come in and out. A lot of the times the editor has already, with the director, sat and worked out where they thought the music should be or where it should start and stop. We go through and agree or disagree where it should come and go. So let’s say that happens on Monday, we then usually receive the locked picture the next day on a Tuesday and we start composing. LC: We have to load the picture and digitize the picture first and then get notes from our music editor… WM: You get the timings and then we compose in real time. Then the mixing day is usually on Friday so we need to deliver it Thursday evening to the music editor so she can start cutting it in to mix on Friday morning. There’s only a couple of days to turn it around so the good news is that we were in from the beginning and we know the characters so well. We know their motifs. We know what we want to do and so we start from reel one. A lot of times our engineer says “Why don’t we just do it by character and maybe skip around?” LC: You can’t get the actual arch of the show that way. You have to start from reel one and you have to build it in the right places and you can’t do that if you jump out of sequence. WM: We like to go from beginning to end, score it, and experience the show as it happens and build it. LC: With other shows we can skip around. We do this show, NURSE JACKIE (2009), now on Showtime starring Edie Falco…we can totally go out of sequence on that.
SK: How much into future HEROES shows are you privy too and how does that affect what you are doing presently? WM: We are usually four ahead of what the public sees. LC: It doesn’t affect us, because we are really just fans of the show and are riveted by what we are doing. Sometimes it’s hard when our friends haven’t seen what we are doing yet. We have had friends drop by the studio and then they look up on the screen and see a shot… and it’s like “Wait, I don’t want to see that!” WM: And then we have to kill them. LC: It’s kind of fun.
SK: Between harmony, melody, and rhythm, what do you connect more with when you are composing? WM: Being that Lisa and I are kind of two heads on one body, I think my strengths lay in rhythm and mood and Lisa’s – for this show – lay in melody and mood. The combination together really works well for this particular show. SK: What would each of you characterize as being your weakness and how do you as a composing team remedy them? [[[Wendy & Lisa's AUDIO RESPONSE!]]]
SK: Lisa, are you always on the keys and Wendy, are you always on the guitar or do you enjoy switching it around? WM: We switch around a lot. Lisa does spend most of her time behind the keys…but we switch around.
SK: Is there a particular character on the show that each of you might identify the most with and if so, how does that affect scoring the scenes involving that particular character? LC: Well, I used to say I really liked scoring Claire but lately I really love scoring HRG because he’s so complex and he’s actually the only guy…no, well actually yeah that’s still true…He’s the only one who doesn’t have a super power. He’s a regular human being…well, he’s not regular. He’s a human guy and it’s like “Is he a bad guy or a good guy?” WM: His duplicity is so amazing to compose to. LC: Yeah! He’s like “Oh Claire bear!” He can be this softy square guy with horn rimmed glasses and then he can be this spooky hit man killer…He’s a very complicated guy and his presence in any scene always tips the scene to something unexpected and you can play him a lot of different ways so I really enjoy playing HRG. You too Wendy? WM: I totally agree!
SK: You’re music has a knack for blending electronic and acoustic elements well. What’s your approach for bringing them together? Do you think acoustically and add electronic elements or is it vice versa? [[[Wendy & Lisa's AUDIO RESPONSE!]]]

 SK: I normally like soundtrack CDs to be as close a representation to the film or television experience as possible – for example, as complete as possible and in narrative order – it’s just a personal preference of mine. What you have done with the new HEROES CD I think is new and really quite remarkable. You have created individual suites devoted to each principle character which are really the hearts of the show itself. How did that idea for the soundtrack presentation come about? [[[Wendy & Lisa's AUDIO RESPONSE!]]]
SK: I’ve got an archivist mentality but when I heard the CD for HEROES I thought it made perfect sense. This is the way this soundtrack has to be. It’s a very unique presentation. WM: I appreciate you saying that but I also appreciate your ear being geared towards the actual smaller cues and smaller moments like being able to see in your own mind the moments and paces of the actual narrative. We just thought that if we went outside-the-box on this we could get slightly more listeners to hear it as well. LC: Not to mention that the network was probably asking us how we could make the most out of it. WM: I remember there was a score of ours available on iTunes and a lot of feedback came back like “Where’s the song?” There would be a twenty-second sting or something and they’d be like “The one I got is only twenty seconds long!” LC: Most people don’t know. They don’t understand scores. They don’t.
SK: Well I know this CD just came out so I don’t want to jump the gun too much but is there talk of issuing another CD in the near future? WM: No, there’s no talk of it yet. I think NBC is already scared to death that this is out so we are keeping our fingers crossed that this is going to reach a bit more people than two. Keep your fingers crossed.
SK: I was at the “HEROES for Autism” event last month in Los Angeles where you two preformed music from the show and from your newest album, “White Flags of Winter Chimneys.” Can you tell me a little bit about the organization. Is fighting Autism a particular cause that you’re both interested in? Was the concert successful in that area? WM: Sure…It is unfortunately and fortunately a very close issue to a lot of people that work on the show. That’s how that came about. A lot of the people who work on the show shared similar experiences with their kids and one of the guys, Greg Cohen, I think came up with the idea to do some kind of benefit. Initially it just started out as making a book. They were just going to make a book of the cast’s artwork or photographs from the cast and crew that they had done behind the scenes. More and more people started volunteering and hearing about it and it expanded into this night. They had a silent auction and sold some of the artwork. They sold the book and then those of us who could play music volunteered to play music and it was kind of thrown together a little bit last minute and of course entirely by volunteers so it was a little loose but it was really for a good cause. It ended up being very successful monetarily for the organization which is great.
SK: Let’s go back a little bit farther…Long before I discovered my passion for film music, I have and remain to this day been a loyal and ardent Prince fan. You guys were members of The Revolution and I’ve got to be honest, I’m geeking out about that right now. I know these questions have to be annoying as hell since after twenty years you’re still getting them on probably every interview. But I’ve got to go there at least just a little bit. WM: That’s all good. (laughing) WM & LC: (simultaneously)? That’s OK.
SK: You both have firmly established yourselves as successful composers and have done a lot of work for film and television. You are successful recording and performance artists. Are there lingering feelings that your careers are still shadowed by your relationship with Prince or is that all comfortably rooted in the past? [[[Wendy & Lisa's AUDIO RESPONSE!]]]
SK: I read in an interview that you two gave recently with OUT magazine that Prince will often read your interviews and call you about things you said that pissed him off. I was just wondering if you took any calls after that interview was published? WM: I keep getting a lot of hang ups on my machine. No, actually I haven’t heard from him since. LC: Now that he’s expected to call he will do the total opposite of what you would expect. So he’s not going to call.
SK: You just had to call him on it… LC: Exactly! WM: I should have thought of it sooner.
SK: Do you know if Prince has seen HEROES or has been exposed to your work on the series? Ever heard any comments directly regarding your music for show? [[[Wendy & Lisa's AUDIO RESPONSE!]]]
SK: At the “HEROES for Autism” event, there were rumors floating around the floor that he was actually backstage. Was he? WM: No. LC: I didn’t hear that rumor.
SK: Not sure how it started. I just heard it. LC: Nope, he wasn’t there.
SK: I’m curious as to where you would like to see your careers in the next five to ten years. More scoring? More recording and touring? If your careers got too busy and far too hectic to manage all of that what would you sacrifice in order to devote more time to the other? WM: I ultimately would love to be able to have a really successful tour for about six months and then the other six months do like three really great movies. That’s what I would like to have happen in the next five years. LC: That sounds cool. I think we have a really good schedule because we work on TV for six months and then we have a few months off. We just started hiatus a week ago and so we are going to try to play some gigs to support “White Flags of Winter Chimneys,” so I don’t know, I really like the pace of things right now. We are trying to develop this third thing into the mix that I’m really excited about which is radio. We just scored a radio play for WNYC in New York which was a remake of THE FALL OF THE CITY. It was a 1937 radio drama and it just aired a couple of nights ago. Also, Wendy has been a long time frustrated DJ and has dabbled a bit in that and we have done a few local shows here in LA and we are hoping to just expand on that. WM: We are going to do our own Radio Lab. I don’t know if you are familiar with those podcasts. LC: It’d be like Radio Lab meets Metropolis. WM: Exactly! Radio Lab meets KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic” kind of thing. So we are trying to do Girl Brother’s Radio next. LC: There’s Girl Brother’s Radio and a little more scoring and make more records. We’ve been remiss and haven’t made enough records.
SK: Are there any thoughts at all about scoring independent of each other? WM: Not yet. LC: Not really. I mean yes, but no. WM: I like doing it together. If something came up and they were like “You know that other one of yours? That Lisa character? Don’t want her on this.” I might have to pass it up. It actually depends on the money, if the money were good I might consider… LC: Hey wait a minute!
SK: So do either of you have any desire to go back in front of the camera? I thought you were excellent in PURPLE RAIN (1984). LC: Oh my God, I’m terrible! Wendy’s a good actress so she could do it. But that’s not my thing. Plus you’ve got to get up way too early. WM: You’ve got to get up way too early and you’ve got to look way too good and I’m into looking way too ugly right now. LC: That’s why radio is good. You can sit in the dark and do that.
SK: What are you working on now? You mentioned a new series on Showtime? WM: It’s a new show on Showtime that’s going to be premiering June 8th called NURSE JACKIE starring Edie Falco who was the star of THE SOPRANOS. It’s phenomenal! I can’t even say enough about it. I think it’s going to be huge. LC: It’s completely different from HEROES. It’s very earthbound and human. It’s extremely intelligent, funny, and quite good. WM: We also scored another science fiction show called VIRTUALITY (2009) with the creator of BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA and CARNIVÁLE (2003-2005), Ron Moore, who we have worked with and David Eick. We are waiting to see at the end of May whether that gets picked up. My guess is it might not but if it does, then we will have three shows starting in the fall. LC: I have to put a plug in for VIRTUALITY too. If it does get picked up it’d be fantastic! It’s an extremely… WM: It’s so out of the box that I can’t even… LC: It’s fantastic! It’s 2001. It’s the best science fiction I’ve seen in ages. It’s unbelievable. It’s beautiful.
SK: When you said Ron Moore, it definitely perked my ears up. WM: The guy is a genius. LC: Isn’t that guy great? It’s amazing!
SK: Wendy, you said when you were growing up you listened to film scores, any particular favorites? WM: You know, I loved almost everything Jerry Goldsmith did when I was young…scores like POLTERGEIST (1982). I was floored by him. I was also incredibly moved by Nino Rota and I was also really influenced by my brother’s love of composers as well…not necessarily film composers. He used to sit me down with scores and say “…follow the cello” or “follow the piccolo” or “follow the second violin on this line…” and so we would listen to things like THE RITE OF SPRING (by Igor Stravinsky) together in front of the speakers with a score LC: What about…Did you like Tangerine Dream? WM: Tangerine Dream? I liked the score they did to that movie with Roy Scheider…what was that?…SORCERER (1977). I loved that score! That was fantastic. Did I like the score for RISKY BUSINESS (1983)? It was OK. It was memorable, yeah definitely. I loved Vangelis’ score for BLADE RUNNER (1983) even though I hated the saxophone…I loved the score to it, it’s great. You know the list goes on and on…
SK: Yeah, Goldsmith is obviously an amazing composer. Even though I talk about him, write about him, and listen to his work seemingly all the time, something like TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983) gets released for the first time on CD and I dive in and I’m still blown away by his genius. It never ends. You never can quite comprehend it. WM: Do you know what I just got my hands on which is amazing? The score to the THE THING (1982). Wow! LC: John Carpenter’s? WM: Yeah, the Morricone score.
SK: I did a soundtrack giveaway recently where I asked all the entrants to cite their all time scariest score. I had a fare number of Morricone’s THE THING pop up. You can’t argue with that. WM: No, that was a scary score! I also have to say maybe it was just because I was a kid and I was really impressionable but the score to THE OMEN (1976) and the score to THE EXORCIST (1973) scared the hell out of me too.
SK: Yeah, if I had to pick a scariest score it would definitely be THE OMEN followed by THE CHANGLING (1980)… WM: THE CHANGLING…Oh my God that was so scary! LC: I love that movie. WM: I’m with you there. LC: That’s right! I forgot about THE CHANGLING…You have good taste.
SK: Wendy & Lisa…I really appreciate the time. This has been a real treat for me. I’d love to do this again in the future. I’ll be keeping tabs on what you are up to and the next big project that comes along I’d love to speak with you again. LC: Absolutely. Let us know! WM: Thanks so much.

For more information about Wendy & Lisa including music, tour dates, and other sundries, visit their official web site at http://www.wendyandlisa.com. If you would like to hear audio samples of their score for HEROES or order the soundtrack CD which was recently released by La-La Land Records, you can do so by clicking HERE. Here is a track listing of the album:

1. HEROES Title (0:14)* 2. Peter (6:12)* 3. Claire (6:43) 4. Hiro (7:30) 5. HRG (6:24)* 6. Mohinder (7:59) 7. Sylar (5:30)* 8. Jessica / Niki / Gina (5:55) 9. Kirby Plaza (5:41)* 10. Fire And Regeneration (2:21)* Total Time: 54:49 * Featuring the voice of SHENKAR

On behalf of Ain’t It Cool News, I’d like to thank Wendy & Lisa for taking the time out of their schedules to talk with me. I have a feeling we’ll continue to hear a lot more from this dynamic duo in the near future. I’d also like to thank Beth Krakower of Cinemedia Promotions for her help with this interview and to Mike McCutchen for his assistance. Keep your eyes open for the HEROES soundtrack giveaway. I’ve got five copies I’ll be finding new homes for fairly soon. I’ll be posting the information to enter the giveaway very soon.

ScoreKeeper!!!