Graeme Revell
June 2005
Los Angeles

In that great Australian tradition of claiming Kiwi ownership, New Zealand born film score composer Graeme Revell is no exception. His latest work is found supporting one of three vignettes in Frank Miller’s Sin City, directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez. The story surrounding Marv (Mickey Rourke) and Goldie (Jamie King) is generously complimented by Revell’s ability to pluck typically noir fragments of sinister bass and frantic, erratic saxophone and stir them in to his signature industrial synth foundation.

Revell’s unique path to music takes root in the early seventies when he earned degrees in economics and politics from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Following a brief and unfulfilling stint as an environmental planner in the late ‘70s, Revell decided he wanted to be of use to people and began his work at a local mental hospital in Sydney, Australia, where he formed the seminal industrial group SPK before venturing off into the more rewarding career of film scoring. Thanks to Phillip Noyce and his request for Revell to create music for the film Dead Calm, he won an Australian Film Industry award for Best Film Score.

Now based in Los Angeles, his resume includes the very popular films The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, The Craft, The Insider, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. He’s just completed work (once again with Robert Rodriguez) for Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D, and Darwin Awards, starring Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes.

In a recent chat with the soft-spoken, polite Revell, he ponders a film scorer’s place in the industry and counts his blessings.

Can you tell me a bit about SPK?

SPK was a very loose association of people that started off with three patients who were in the asylum, it was more a punk band with industrial over tones originally. We never became a very well known band, but people tell me now we were very influential.

What does SPK stand for?

It stands for a lot of things. It originally stood for a group of Germans in Heidelberg called Socialist Patients Kollective. A psychiatrist at the university's clinic, believed that his patients' mental disorders stemmed from Capitalism, and the only cure was a Marxist society. When the university tried to fire Huber, his patients organized the SPK, held protests, occupied the hospital administration offices, and convinced the university to retain him. Most patients in mental asylums don’t know what they’re in there for except that they can’t function or survive on the outside.

I read that SPK’s performances would feature images of surgery and other kinds of slideshows to accompany the music. Can I assume this is where you made the leap into scoring music for films?

I’ve always been interested in it. I’ve always had a cinematic way of thinking about music, even though I never thought I’d get the opportunity until Phillip Noyce called up and asked me to score Dead Calm.

Can you elaborate on your frequent use of tribal drumming?

Yeah, just any kind of world music I have a real fascination with. I’m always trying to find a sideways approaching at achieving something emotional with intensity, or something exciting. Music for old science fiction films were all done exactly the same way. Ever since Bernard Hermann and Hitchcock movies where you hear variations of eerie string music like you do in Psycho, and I wanted to change that.

Another reason is that my father is tone deaf. He only ever had one record. When he bought a fancy stereo they gave him a record and it was of tribal drumming. Sunday dinners were tribal drumming followed by my mother’s opera records.

You’ve clearly drawn on particular film noir imagery for your work on Sin City. I actually picked up a little Henry Mancini.

Robert Rodriguez specifically requested what you hear in the film. When I first worked with him on From Dusk Till Dawn he said he wanted a “Mariachi soap opera,” and I said, “Yeah, yeah! That’ll be cool!” We see eye to eye, so there are no communication problems between us.

As far as the Mancini thing goes, we tried to take up on the theme from Peter Gunn without copying and it took about three to four tries before we got something we were happy with. He wrote the main theme for the film and we talked about how we would apportion the thing between the three of us, including John Debney. He asked me to use saxophone, which is not my favorite instrument; I think they’re kind of cheesy. I think of Kenny G and I think my hair’s going curly. He wanted to reserve the trumpet for John Debney, so I said okay. I thought I could make a baritone sax sound like a dying elephant.

John Debney, Robert Rodriguez, and Graeme Revell

A lot of it was done by correspondence, where he would email me Quicktime files and I’d record something and email it back to him just using electronic music. I’ve done whole scores like that. That’s sort of how the soundtrack to Lara Croft was done in eight days by satellite. It’s convenient because you never really need to be anywhere in particular.

I laughed when you said you didn’t like the saxophone. My brother’s been playing it all his life.

(Laughs) I’m sorry! It’s just that in the last twenty years whenever some remotely seductive scene would come on you’d hear the saxophone and it’s so cliché.

Absolutely. It was very prevalent in the 80s, especially in films like St. Elmo’s Fire, where Rob Lowe’s character plays the saxophone in a club and women think he’s hot shit.

(Laughs) Strange Freudian connection, isn’t there?

Going over your resume, I noticed the majority of films you’ve worked have the “thriller” tag attached to them. Presumably, the idiosyncrasies differ depending on the director you work with, but how do you keep the task of scoring films for thrillers and dramas interesting for yourself?

Not much anymore, but unfortunately we get typecast like actors do. With films like Human Nature or Blow or Open Water I’m always trying to do stuff which is essentially for no money in order to try and get that picture that will help be break through other genres like romantic comedy. Until that happens, I’m the dark thriller guy! It isn’t my personality, but I have a lot of fun doing the work. When I go to see a movie I opt for more quirky things instead of big, commercial, blockbuster action films. Having said that, I couldn’t have been much luckier to be able to do this.

Would you say the film scoring industry is still flourishing or has it been taken over by music supervisors?

To a certain extent it’s dying. There was a heyday, but I think it’s gone. Guys from Incubus, A Perfect Circle and Blink-182 are suddenly interested in contributing film scores, so that’s interesting. The grass is always greener for those guys. Most people entering the industry now tend to come from an electronic background or rock background. I was at a dinner the other night accepting an award and I realized the change happened when I looked out into the room. Jerry Goldsmith and Mancini are gone. The only one who’s still alive got the most interesting award of the night, which was for Best Ringtone (Mission Impossible), and it was Lalo Schifrin.

You worked with Rebekah Del Rio on this, who was previously featured more prominently in Mulholland Drive.

Yes. I knew what she was capable of, but I didn’t want to go in the operatic direction with her, and she understood that. She can do anything with that voice.

Who are your influences, if any?

As far as film scoring goes, I’m a big Ennio Morricone fan. Anyone who can turn whistling from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly into something really beautiful is okay by me. Other than that my tastes are pretty eclectic. I like Radiohead, some Coldplay, and I really like what Bjork does as well. I listen to a lot of electronic stuff, mostly the laidback, chill out, British and French acts. That’s merely for pleasure and everything else is for analyzing.

Revell is currently working on music for the film Harsh Times, which is written and directed by David Ayer (Training Day) and is slated for release next year.