I've been very fortunate as a composer to be involved with projects that have really propelled my scores forward. I'm very proud of it.
As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.
I've held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on.
I like to come up with lots of different sounds. So the final version of a song might have been 10 completely different songs before we finally got it right.
I think a lot of composers get into trouble just making up a plot and expecting an audience to follow that.
As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine.
The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.
I think a composer is always interested in his last work.
'End of Summer' expands the way I want to express myself as a composer. It's a piece of visual music that has this narrative and conceptual dimension to it.
When I start writing, I'll have a vague concept or I'll just have a title, and the song just goes on its own direction. Usually it goes in many directions within each song. They get really convoluted sometimes.
I've been good at creating new textures and new fabrics, like vocal hocketing, or interlocking guitars, or suggesting new ideas for style... that's what the band has really excelled at.
Anything that broadens your musicality always moves the way you write drum or guitar parts.
The entire making of 'Within and Without' was a series of experiments and trial by error. When I started writing, I didn't have a strong idea of what the record was going to end up like.
I wrote 'Threnody,' then I wrote several works where I changed my music completely.
