Whereas most film composers assemble orchestras, Cliff Martinez just needs a laptop and a keyboard (although he's playing a Cristal Baschet here, above). The former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer's stark, synth-heavy soundtracks for the likes of Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Knick and Drive have made him a go-to for directors with a dark side. Martinez, 62, has just completed the score for The Neon Demon. Out on July 8, it's his third film with Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn. Here Martinez talks to WIRED about composing, Kraftwerk, and the value of long-term creative collaboration.
WIRED: Your scores are very distinctive. How did you find your particular sound?
Cliff Martinez: My style has a lot to do with the fact I did at least half a dozen films for Steven Soderbergh before I worked with any other directors. His whole approach was "less is more" - and when there was music it should mean something. He liked the instrumentation sparse. Also, his films were very low budget, so working electronically rather than orchestrally was probably a function of that. Plus, of course, I'm a rock 'n' roller. I don't have orchestral training in my background.
How has your work with Nicholas Winding Refn developed?
My best material comes from repeat business. The only other person I have that relationship with is Steven Soderbergh [with whom Martinez has scored ten projects]. The relationship becomes deeper. Usually you get hired when the film is finished, as was the case on Drive. On The Neon Demon, we began talking about ideas and brainstorming very early on in the process, before it was even written.
SOLARIS (2002): Soderbergh said the music was as key as the imagery
DRIVE (2011): The dark, pulsing electro is its most memorable feature. Tap to view a trailer for Drive
The KNICK (2014): Martinez gives the period setting a Kubrickian edge. Tap to view a trailer for The Knick
How does The Neon Demon compare to your other work?
Well, the soundtrack isn't as dominated by songs the way Drive was. There's significantly more music than was in Only God Forgives. There's not so much of the ambient texture here as there was on Drive.
Once you know that you'll be scoring a film, what's the first thing you do?
I like to fast forward to a theme that seems to be representative of the whole film. If that's proving difficult, I'll go to a scene that inspires something musically, or shut the film off and start writing based on my general impression. I rarely go chronologically. In The Neon Demon there was a scene that Nicholas described as a turning point. I scored that first, but Nicholas didn't care for it. So sometimes starting with the most ambitious part of the movie is a mistake. The theory is that if you knock that out then you've got some universal theme or motif to lead you to the rest of the film. On the other hand, if you get it wrong then your whole foundations are off. So I went back to a smaller step and built to the crescendo.
What's your set-up while working?
Mac Pro 8-core, three Mac Cinema displays, Ableton Live, Native Instruments 61-key KOMPLETE KONTROL keyboard, MOTU 2408 audio interface, MOTU midi express 128 midi interface.
What do you consider your genre?
I get calls to do the dark, psychological stuff; films where people get stabbed and blown up and in car crashes. It's not a specific genre - but if it's dark, then I'm often on the shortlist.
What was the first film you saw where you noticed the score?
There were two. My parents took me to the drive-in when I was a little kid, to see A Fistful of Dollars, scored by Ennio Morricone. I was so excited by the music that my parents bought me the soundtrack album. Also, a show on NBC called Saturday Night at the Movies used to play The Day the Earth Stood Still several times a year; every time it came on I watched it. I realised later it was Bernard Herman's score with the theremin that was so great.
The Knick, Stephen Soderbergh's TV series which you score, is set in the early 1900s but has a very modern soundtrack. Why?
At first it didn't feel like a logical fit to me. I emailed [Soderbergh] and said, "Are you sure you want this harsh electronic score?" We tried to make it primitive, the dawn of electronic music, like the show is about the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. I was digging out synthesisers that sounded like the early days [the 60s and 70s]. That Kraftwerkian sound that I was striving for. At first it was like sticking a square peg in a round hole. Eventually, if you pound hard enough, it goes in.
You also composed for the video game Far Cry 4. How do you write a score for an open narrative?
I have no idea how Far Cry 4 turned out - I try to play it and about 30 seconds in I get my head shot off. I depend on the picture for structure - it creates the parameters you write within. With those gone, you're just creating isolated tracks that all fit with one another, so if you subtract one it still all works. It's like building a do-it-yourself kit, so the computer can put things together on the fly. I think in the future, video games will cause very interesting changes in the art of composing music. At the moment it just adds and subtracts. I think eventually games will compose their own melody and harmony, relative tension, empathy, dynamics.
What haven't you done yet?
A comedy - where nobody gets shot.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
