..so after all this talk of upcoming works I thought it was time to ask about some of the oddities on the composer's site:
www.christopher-young.com

Does anyone have any further info on NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2? What type of instruments were used,and why a student orchestra was employed?

What IS Robby? Its listed as Young's second score..

Exorcist 3?!!? Ive heard mention of this, was it completed and recorded? Why was this score tossed?

Young was going to score Squanto?!?!? What happened here??? I would have loved to see Mr. Young write a action/drama film?

Who knows what folks out there have some fun info and facts crawling around in their brain!
Besides, Dan Goldwasser posts here too,right?

Sean

[Message edited by OHMSS76 on 05-15-2001]

So honestly the easiest thing to do is to email him through the website. It goes to his assistant.

And to be honest, Peter, it's getting old. Move on.

I got the humor Pete! No love lost here

Thanks for the tip to email Mr. Young,Dan I never meant it to sound like you knew everything he did, I just thought it would be fun to talk about some of those off scores listed! No love lost,again of course

And Mr. Rocco....the man I was trying to flush out the whole time
Thanks for the info,I would LOVE to hear some of that Exorcist III score,Im sure it's fantastic.

I just got SPECIES(awesome,and Young's right,beautiful recording!),HAUNTED SUMMER(again,gorgeous and getting a lot of play....that final suite is beautiful,I don't seem to hear the atonality others have there?!??!)and INVADERS FROM MARS(I like this very much, but on first listen I'm inclined to say I enjoy MASSES better-of course I've been listening to that work for many years so....)

Thanks for the info guys, these sort of things are fun to discuss, and Young is a composer who needs to be in the spotlight a bit more if you ask me...I wonder if he cruises these boards?

Best wishes,
Sean

quote:

---

Originally posted by OHMSS76:
Thanks for the tip to email Mr. Young,Dan I never meant it to sound like you knew everything he did, I just thought it would be fun to talk about some of those off scores listed! No love lost,again of course

---

No problem! Thanks for understanding. I try my best to keep up to date with what Chris is doing, but I'm not necessarily informed of everything that goes on.

quote:

---

I wonder if he cruises these boards?

---

Dunno. But if he did, I'm sure he was scared off a long time ago.

Dan

Staying on top of Chris Young's activities? Attending scoring sessions? Hmmmm, I think I could handle that

Sean, I've just found a fun interview with Chris Young from about 6 years ago. It doesn't specifically answer any of your questions from above, but it may invite you to ponder even more....

Let's see if it formats correctly.

=================================================

This interview (including music track notes), is excerpted from SilverScore, The Soundtrack Show of the SilverScreen, (19 July 1995) and features composer Christopher Young. SilverScore airs every Wednesday in Los Angeles on KXLU radio 88.9fm from 10-11pm. The program is produced and hosted by Peter Kelly.

SilverScore intro w/music
Track 1 - HELLBOUND (GNP/Crescendo)

Peter Kelly: This evening I'd like for everyone to stay with me and welcome Christopher Young to the program. He is a relatively new composer to the film music business (that of course compared with regular 'bug guys' like Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams). He's paid his dues scoring many low budget features over the last fifteen years - only recently has he scored bigger films, and let me tell you, he's not just sneaking in on the big films either. Just this year he's written music for MURDER IN THE FIRST, TALES FROM THE HOOD, SPECIES, and the forthcoming VIRTUOSITY. Chris, welcome to SilverScore....

Christopher Young: Thanks....it's great to be here Peter. It's exciting...

PK: I'm glad you could take time out of your busy schedule and spend a few moments here to let everyone hear your music and some of your stories.

CY: It's perfect timing. I just finished working on the score for VIRTUOSITY this weekend and I am about to start on a film called COPYCAT, so it is perfect timing.

PK: Have you had much rest this year?

CY: Actually, none at all. You know, when a composer finally gets the calls, it would be stupid for him to turn down the offers. Indeed, last year was kind of slow, but this year has been just incredible. As you mentioned, the year opened with MURDER IN THE FIRST. That was recorded last year, released this year, but since the downbeat of this year I've worked on TALES FROM THE HOOD, went directly from that into SPECIES, then went directly from that into VIRTUOSITY....This show is perfect timing indeed, tomorrow I start on COPYCAT.

PK: That's nonstop. I'm glad you're able to take a breather here and join the show.... There are some questions I'd like to ask you about your history and your whole interest in film music, as you are now (no doubt) getting out of the low budget realm and hitting some of these big films...

CY: This is true. This is wonderful, wonderful. Indeed, the first film I worked on was an incredibly low budget film. It was basically a student whatever-they-call-them, "Project Three's" at UCLA, that started off as a short film, but the director managed to put together enough money to develop it into a feature thing. It is available on videocassette under the name THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD....That was an extremely low budget film, but boy I thank my lucky stars that I was able to do that picture because that started the ball rolling and you need that first film to get the ball rolling....

PK: Then over the next ten years, you established yourself as a genre composer for that sort of film: horror!

CY: It's interesting that worked out because indeed, when I was a kid, outside of my musical heroes, I had horror film heroes. I was always into Halloween, Dracula, Frankenstein; those Universal pictures I was a total fanatic of.... The Robert Wise picture THE HAUNTING....

PK: The Hammer horror films?

CY: The Hammer horror films.... actually I wasn't totally into them.... I got into them later, but as a kid I wasn't that much into them.

PK: You were an American kid…

CY: Yes! But, indeed it's strange how it all works out. No one knows what their first picture is going to be, but when opportunity knocks, you don't turn your back on it. I had no idea I was going to become a quasi-specialist in horror music. It just so happened that first film was a horror film and there was no way I was just going to say no! Of course, the type-casting thing started to set in immediately. Jeff Obrow, the director of DORM, went on and made a second film which was a supernatural thriller as well. So, immediately I became known as the guy who could pull off an orchestral score for a very small amount of money and lift the production value of the picture. Low and behold, over twelve years later, I've done oh, ten horror films.... I love horror films. I love what composers are able to do with horror films. There's no other genre of film that let you drop your pants and make a lot of noise, as you can tell from the HELLBOUND Main Title. You can't do that on a romantic picture!

...

PK: What was your take on MURDER IN THE FIRST?

CY: I thought this [project] was truly a gift from heaven. I love doing the horror thing, there's part of my mind that is fascinated by mutant sounds.... A lot of the horrors scores and thrillers that I do, there are those moments, and frequently those are the moments I most enjoy in the scores where I am able to completely detach myself from melody and harmony and go into the sound world - the musique concrete world. Half of my mind is always attracted to those moments. The other half is just dying to write that gorgeous melody. I think there are those composers who say they don't really care if someone on the street might be whistling to their melody, while others really want that to happen. I think we all really wish for that to happen. Although many of us will deny it, I've always dreamed of waking up one day, walking down the street to get a pack of cigarettes or something, and hearing someone whistling one of my themes. That would be blissful... Anyway, MURDER IN THE FIRST allowed the melodic side of me, the softer side of me, to come out of the closest. It was a great opportunity. I was thrilled to be a part of it right from the get-go.

PK: I think that's what I like about it the most. You have all these scores that are so overwhelming and powerful, yet here's this softer side which I really hadn't heard before. And here it is - it's very beautiful. We'll take a moment now and listen to the main theme from MURDER IN THE FIRST.....

Track One - MURDER IN THE FIRST (La Bande Son)

PK: In our next piece of music, we'll hear the main theme from THE VAGRANT, which is quite different from both the horror pieces and what we just heard from MURDER IN THE FIRST.... What was the approach for this film?

CY: This was directed by Chris Walas (whom I had worked with on THE FLY II) and produced by Mel Brooks. It's a black comedy.... When they were in pre-production, they thought it was going to be a pure horror film. At least that's the impression I got from him when I spoke with him before they started shooting. By the time they had finished shooting, they had come up with this film that was really quirky. The principle character [played by Marshall Bell] turned out to be a quacky Dr. Irwin Corey. He's a monster, but there's this insane quirkiness about him. He's not like Freddy Krueger; he's not Jason. They tried temping the film with pure, traditional synth music and that didn't work. Then they went the pure orchestral route and that didn't work. It seemed to reduce the film into a normalcy they were trying to avoid because the film was so quirky. So, Chris basically said "I don't know what's going to work in this movie, but I'm encouraging you to try something different." I remember I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what can I bring to this film that is going to make it off-beat.... Let me tell you that I got into film music because of my intense love for the music of Bernard Herrmann. One of the great things we have all learned from Bernard Herrmann is that he was a master at orchestration, meaning he was always searching for the unusual combination of instruments. He was one of the first Hollywood films composers who realized that "Oh, wait a second here - we're not writing for the concert stage.... We can write basically anything we want because we don't have to worry about a second performance and the practicality of having a second performance of the music." Listen, this is Los Angeles - if I want to write for eighteen cellists and twenty-two sarousophones, I can get them cause they are here somewhere!

PK: So you basically took that fascination....

CY: ....and knocked it up and made something.... Can I list some of the instruments before we play it?

PK: Yes, sure...

CY: It's this combination of electronics with acoustic instruments. Most of the electronic instruments are actually sampled acoustic instruments. You don't really know it's electronic, but indeed in this particular track (which is the main title), all of the percussion instruments are sequenced, sampled instruments. There's a string quartet you'll hear, with the addition of a solo bass; there are four female alto voices; a solo melodica; an accordion; kalimbas; let's see here, pianos; toy pianos; marimbas; vibes; vocal breathings; finger snaps [snaps]; typewriters - you'll actually hear typewriters in this; there's this low smashing sound you hear part way through it - those are actually garbage cans that are sampled; you'll hear some pots and pans... oh yeah, I'm getting a fond memory! In the middle of this piece, there's this portion of it that sounds like....it has a flamenco flavor. You'll hear some floor stampings. That's actually the synth gentleman that I work with - we went over to his house and actually sampled ourselves bashing our feet on his kitchen floor....

Track One - THE VAGRANT (Intrada)

CY: I want to conclude this by saying, now that we're passing off THE VAGRANT, in a strange way it's my favorite score. It's very quirky - you either buy into it or you don't. I think the thing that plagues so many of us young guys that are working today is that we come into film scoring with this body of film music literature already existing.... I'm sure with a lot of your guests before you have talked about the problem of temp music....

PK: Yes,

CY: Invariably, directors nowadays temp their films with pre-existing film music. I think in the old days, they didn't temp, but if they did temp, they temped with things like Tchaikovsky and Strauss and stuff like that. What I like about this score is I truly cannot sense these influences that have haunted me - Herrmann, Goldsmith, and all of the biggie film composers of the past. I listen to this stuff and I go, "You know, Chris, that's you..."

PK: This was scored without one of those temp tracks and without a director saying "write me something that sounds like a temp track."

CY: I think it kind of shows....

PK: Pure originality.... The opportunity to do that doesn't come around much!!

CY: Hardly ever!

PK: Now that you've done big budget films and smaller budget films, how is the creativity lessened or strengthened, if any?

CY: I would have to say the major difference between bigger and smaller budgeted films is that.....in smaller budgeted films, usually I'm hired within a package, which means I have to figure out a way to try to accomplish that which I think is the right way to go with the picture, but having a restricted amount of money to do it. Because of my obsession with always wanting to do the job right, I plummet into these projects oblivious to the inherent restrictions a budget should normally provide to somebody who's concerned about how much money they get in the end. I've just gotten to this big budget thing and one thing's for sure (at least for these summer films), the summer film release scene is insane because [the studios] have release dates they are going to stick to come hell or high water. One thing is for sure, this year I've had to crank out more music in a shorter period of time than I have ever had to in the past. I look back on THE VAGRANT as the good old days where I might have had ten weeks to score. The great thing about big budget films is I'm able to do them here in town and have the greatest musicians in the world performing this stuff. A lot of my scores have been either performed in Europe or Utah, granted those musicians are excellent...

PK: But there's nothing like doing it here....

CY: There is nothing like it. SPECIES was really my first score (from the first cue to the last cue) that had been done here in town and that first day when I walked in and heard that very first cue performed by the L.A. musicians... I was totally flipped out. I was hugging everybody in the booth. Finally I was having the opportunity to hear my stuff performed the way I'd really imagined it! You know, in the low budget situation, orchestra perform your stuff and it doesn't turn out the way you think it's going to. The first thing that goes through your mind "Is it me? Is it the cue? Is it the room? Is it the musicians? It's not what I'd imagined!"

PK: In our next selection of music, we turn to your music from JENNIFER 8, which had a relatively bigger budget...

CY: That's right. This was the first studio film I had worked on - I actually got it by default, meaning that they have initially hired another composer on this. The director, Bruce Robinson, had wanted me to do the score from the beginning, but because I wasn't a name guy, the studio decided I wasn't the right person for the job. The score did not turn out to their liking the first go round, so I was called in to replace it. There was a lot of nervousness about "Is this kid gonna pull it off?" Bruce was very articulate about what he was looking for and it swung. [The film] allowed me to base the score on a central theme which is very romantic in nature.

"I Remember Red" - JENNIFER 8 (Milan)

PK: Do you write your own music away of film scoring? This piece "I Remember Red" has a feel that it was written based on themes from JENNIFER 8 and in no way matches any specific pace of the film...

CY: ..The end title is sort of like in a song form. It's verse, verse, chorus, verse. Or introduction, verse, verse, chorus, verse, coda. Frequently a lot of my end titles and main titles (if I get the time) are structured in that way. As a consequence, that form is something we are all familiar with. Most Americans as you know listen to rock 'n roll. Okay, so rock 'n roll is verse, verse, chorus, verse, maybe a bridge and back into the verse.... Indeed I realize that is a form which is very palatable and readily digestible. Anyway, indeed I do I have many avenues I wish to explore that I have explored that are not film music related. In those moments I get in between gigs, I am exploring and have done some non-film music stuff, which fortunately some of which has been released on cd.

PK: For example, the INVADERS FROM MARS cue...

CY: That's right. There's a cd out of the INVADERS FROM MARS score, which actually is a continuous 33 minute piece. What that is is actually the re-working of material from the film, with some additional new material in which I try to evolve the thing into a piece that could exist as a 33 minute ditty....

PK: We move on now, actually, we move back to some music you wrote in 1984, very near the beginning of your career as a composer of film music. What we'll hear next is from a film called DEF-CON 4.

CY: Right. This was, as were my first few gigs, a low budget horror film. It was really on the basis of my second film I did (which vanished fairly quickly but is available on videocassette called THE POWER) that my music came to the attention of a gentleman named Tony Randel, who ultimately directed the HELLBOUND film, the sequel to HELLRAISER. At that time, he was head of post production at the new New World Pictures (headed by the three men who bought the company from Roger Corman in the 80s). One of his jobs was to handle all of the pictures they picked up (meaning the they were not in-house films - they were films no one else wanted that were basically going to go direct to video). I did about three of these 'scrap films.' DEF-CON 4 was the second. My first trial by fire with New World Pictures was a great little film called HIGHPOINT... it was a science-fiction post apocalyptic film and I remember the track you are going to play is from an internal scene within the film, however it is based on the same material found in the main title. When I think of the main title, I remember mentioning to the gentleman who conducted the score (I don't do my own conducting unfortunately) - his name is Paul Witt - as we were going into the session, I said "You know, either they're going to buy this entirely or I'm gonna get my ass kicked out of this studio in five seconds flat." It's odd - I remember they had in the temp [track] some Tangerine Dream music. It was one of these ostinato-ey things....d, d, d, d, d, d, d, d, d, d, sort of low bass repeating note. That was the springboard for me to do this main title, which again is the same material utilized in this piece we'll hear. It's pretty crazy. For me it was real exciting in that it was my first chance to move into this domain - this domain which I so longed to test against films. Fortunately, Tony Randel was totally sympathetic to this and just thought it was the coolest thing....

"The New Dark Age" - DEF-CON 4 (Intrada)

PK: How about your schooling?

CY: My schooling took me across the country. I spent a little time at North Texas State University which is in Denton, Texas. The school had a great great program that has a classical department, a legit department, and a jazz department. Ultimately however, in that I knew I always wanted to get into film music, UCLA was the place. David Raksin, who wrote the score to LAURA, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, was on the faculty there. He was the guy I wanted desperately to study with. So, I moved out here fourteen years ago and was accepted into UCLA into the composition program. I spent a lot of time over at Melnitz [the film department on campus] working on student short films. I would have to say outside of my classroom experience with David Raksin, which was invaluable, unquestionably the most valuable experience I got was working on a bunch of student films and making the contacts with a bunch of very talented people who would go off and recommend me to others. In a nutshell, it was UCLA that I really owe everything that I've done in films to. It was the perfect halfway house into the L.A. community because indeed when I moved out here, I didn't know a single person.

PK: It's amazing how quickly you got out here, into a program, scored student films.... how fast it rolled....

CY: It's truly a miracle. It's truly a miracle and I thank my lucky stars. I've often said to those who have asked me "How did it happen, how does it really happen?" My response to that is definitely you have to love film music in a way that is indescribable. It has to be a passion so deep, that you're willing to lose your life in essence of. I was so committed that there was a five or six year period I don't think I ever left the room I would write in except to try to get the next job. I was and still am truly committed.

PK: It has taken you far. From DEF-CON 4, WHEELS OF FIRE and the early days to now, where just this summer you've got three scores on three big films. In fact, we've got a piece of organ music from TALES FROM THE HOOD cued up....

CY: That's right. This is a great little film in the style of TALES FROM THE CRYPT. It was great to work on this film. 90% of the cast was all black - it was a thrill for me to do this.... this organ thing is an unusual piece. Outside of the main title, it's a source music cue. We see Clarence Williams III on screen playing an organ. He's a kooky undertaker who is the central character of this story, much like the Crypt-keeper in the TALES FROM THE CRYPT series.

"Organ Music" - TALES FROM THE HOOD (unreleased as of 7/19/95)

PK: Chris, thanks for coming up on SilverScore this evening...

CY: Thank you very much for having me here. Thanks everyone for taking an interest in my stuff. I am truly touched by it. I also want to thank my wife Annie, my daughter Molly and my son Gil for putting up with me all these years, and especially this year for being absent for virtually six months!

PK: I don't think they would mind. I am sure children of movie composers think their dad's are cool.

CY: That's kind of you....thanks everybody!

PK: We'll close now with music from MURDER IN THE FIRST. The film opened this year - I hope the score contends for a nomination for an Academy Award...

CY: Whowee, whowee.... I like the sound of that!

___________________________________________________________________

Interview copyright 1995 Peter Kelly/Christopher Young/SilverScore. This interview is posted for your interest only. Should you decide to re-post or print a copy of this in any newsgroup, magazine, or newspaper, you are legally bound to obtain permission before doing so. Thank you. Should you wish to obtain permission, contact Peter Kelly at 310.417.5360 or via email: PKELLY@LMUMAIL.LMU.EDU

Thanks very much Pete

Now I'm going up to read the interview

That's so friggin' weird! I used to read these interviews!

I find it really fascinating that HIGHPOINT was temped with Tangerine Dream(probably THIEF or FLASHPOINT), and Young ended up writing a driving orchestral ostinato reminiscent of NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

I just watched PRANKS(DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD)again last week, being on a Young kick you know, and it's a pretty cool score for a first effort. Strings,percussion, minor keyboards IIRC.
It is a bit funky,but still better than MANY low-budget horror scores by nobody's(trust me,I've seen and heard most of them)and certainly better than ANYTHING people do for no-budget horror in the last ten years.

And a big one in the Biography section:
http://www.christopher-young.com/biography/interview1.html

Christopher Young will be scoring the next,sure to be rotten, HALLOWEEN film subtitled THE HOMECOMING!!!

Woo Ha!
Maybe his score will make the movie a bit better(at least more tolerable than H20...I defy anyone to defend that film! C'mon I dare ya!).

NP:The Flim Flam Man(Goldsmith)