I loved this idea of always being a foreigner. There’s this thing where people bring cultures, bring the music together. I love it when the music, when the cultures collide and something sort of new comes out of it.
Inspired music arises from an inspired movie which arises from an inspired script.
I’ve never had a real job in my life. I didn’t learn anything, I was terrible at school. It was just this thing. Music was all I wanted to do.
Having the great opportunity on a daily basis to sit in front of a blank page is terrifying, and at the same time really exciting. I can’t actually get better at my job, because every time you finish something you start with a blank page, with nothing.
You can only make a good noise on the guitar if you’re committed. Little careful noise doesn’t work. You have to be bold.
All music is based in one way or the other, or influenced through the ages, on technology.
I’ve spent my life trying to make things simpler...
The main thing the composer needs to do is it needs to remember that the director is there to cheer you on. The director wants you to succeed because if you succeed, you’ll be helping the film. And they are truly your conscience. And they’re truly your guide.
The challenge in scoring a sequel is, how do you not get bored? The only way around that one is to go, “Okay, let’s throw everything out that we had before and let’s just see it as an autonomous movie, and let’s just start again.”
The honest truth is that it was just traumatizing with the piano, with the authority of the piano teacher, getting rapped across the knuckles, and so whenever you put a piece of music in front of me, there’s a Pavlovian reaction where it starts off.
I’m a geek and I’m a nerd, and I can listen into any piece of music. I think, I can usually tell you what orchestra it was, I can usually tell you what hall it was in. I can tell you, obviously who the conductor was, and who the composer was.
America is a magical place, and I think my job, or the job of a lot of us European filmmakers is to just hold up America to Americans and present it to you in a new way. All I wanted to do is in a funny way say, “Look at your country. It’s magnificent.”
The first thing I think about is music, and the last thing I think about is music. I’m like some Monk. I don’t see a lot of daylight. I hang out with musicians, I hang out with directors and I just try to spend as much of my life as possible playing music.
I’m homeless, in a funny way. My culture I think is completely rooted in German 19th century music I suppose.
The lack of education means, the lack of having something I can pull out of a drawer, means I have to find something in any movie I work on that is intensely personal.
As opposed to being on the Internet, there’s something really nice about reading a book or talking to authors.
I have to give credit to Giorgio Moroder ; among the first to make us realize the importance of music in film.
When I was 13, when I was 14, when I was in England, yeah all I wanted to do was go and see The Who, go and see The Stones.
Hollywood allows you to go and express yourself.
Trust me, if you’re working on a $70 million movie and you’re the last guy, you feel all that weight on your shoulders.