ttvpodcast - Tumblr blog

ttvpodcast · 8 years ago

Photo

TTV Interviews Nathan Furst (BIONICLE Music Composer)

TTV recently had the great honor to sit down for a conversation with Nathan Furst, who composed the music for the BIONICLE film trilogy! We talk about his history with the BIONICLE Franchise, what it’s like in the industry, and some tips for people looking to pursue music as a career! Read on for audio link and transcript.

Check out the audio interview here! If you’d rather read a transcript, that can be found below:

Meso: Hello everybody, and welcome to TTV's latest interview, this time with the famed music composer of the BIONICLE film franchise, as well as plenty of other movies and series over the years, the one, the only Nathan Furst is joining us today! How are you doing today, sir?

Nathan: I'm doing great, thank you for the introduction.

Meso: Haha, no problem! For those of us unfamiliar with our interviews, this is basically going to be us talking with Mr. Furst about his work on the BIONICLE film franchise, all of his other films over the years, music in general, how he got into it, as well as music in general. We may even learn some new, interesting insights about the business and how things work if we're lucky.

Nathan: But no pressure!

Meso: Haha, yeah, let's go ahead and introduce ourselves. I'm Mesonak!

Jon: I'm Jon.

Ven: I'm Ven.

Meso: And once again... TTV Interviews: Nathan Furst. Let's do this thing.

Nathan: All right!

Meso: So, Mr. Furst... I guess a good place to begin our talk for the day would be at the beginning of your career and your interest in composing music. How did you get started, and how did you figure out that this was your passion?

Nathan: Oh gosh... well, I was really young, like seven years old, and I remember Back to the Future was in theaters... I still remember that feeling when I would Alan Silvestri's score that "I want to do that." I remember that specific feeling, but like, you were just seven years old, it's just a thought. Then again, when I was 10 years old, I saw Danny Elfman's Batman score. When I was in the theater and I heard that score, it was a huge click. "I have to do that." And from that day, I started tinkering on the piano, I taught myself how to play piano... well, we'll say "play" as a very liberal term. From the get-go I sat down and taught myself how to play piano with the sole purpose of writing music. Then, of course, you have the standard that every composer will say: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and pretty much anything John Williams has done... he's our God, as it were. He's an amazing composer, so of course that stuff sort of lit something in me as well. But for whatever reason, it was Back to the Future and Batman... something changed within me, on a chemical level, you know? It wasn't something like "That's interesting" but rather something inside of me physically changing.

Meso: That does make sense, you realized that this is what things had been leading to, this is what you wanted to do.

Ven: You're thinking "This is my destiny!" while walking out of Batman.

Nathan: Exactly right! Absolutely! It's that kind of a thing where I'm lucky that it's been working out, because there was really no other option. This is what was going to happen next. And this is what I've done, ever since I was 11 every other thing I've done besides writing music has been a side, peripheral experience. Like, I went to school because I had to, it was an obligation. And when I got done with that, that's when the real work begun.

Ven: Oh yeah, can relate.

Nathan: There you go, man. Are you guys musicians or composers or something?

Meso: Ven dabbles in it, yeah. Not so much me or Jon.

Ven: Yeah, I've played guitar for a couple of years and I also compose music for the channel. Not so much compose, but rather mix, like mix stuff down on the music making software, FL Studio, Mixcraft, etc.

Nathan: Well that's cool! That's a cousin, so it's all good. But yeah, that's it for me.

Meso: That's fantastic as far as origin stories go.

Ven: So you said your first instrument was the piano?

Nathan: Yeah, I wouldn't say that I have an instrument, the piano is just the thing that I can sort of claim that I can play, and if you put me on the spot, I would probably be able to fool you that I do play piano... but I'm really just faking it. But yeah, I write on a piano, and my recording studio is all piano based, so anything else I "play" is really just a necessity of what I'm working on at the time. So, for instance, I don't play guitar, but I've learned how to play enough guitar, you know what I mean? Chords, notes, just a technique, and often it's unconventional so, for instance, for Need for Speed I bought several guitars and just kept them tuned differently to what makes sense for me. So I do a lot of that, I don't follow traditional tuning, I just figure things out and use them how they work for me.

Meso: That makes sense, you need to have adaptability.

Nathan: Exactly, it's a necessity out of function. So if I've written a theme or something, if I've tuned a guitar a certain way, then I'll be able to play that specific theme more easily. Now could I do an entire set with the Grateful Dead? No. But for that one thing, it's great.

Meso: Alright, you guys want to go next?

Jon: Sure, I wanted to comment on one thing you mentioned beforehand: the Batman score. It's crazy to me that you're talking about coming out of the theaters and hearing that firsthand, because my first experience with that was the Lego Batman game that they made. They had a demo, and they have that theme playing as the background music, and I played that a million times because I was a kid and it was a free demo. But that theme has become etched into my mind because it's so good, I mean Hans Zimmer did so much of the recent Batman stuff...

Meso: A good theme can make or break a piece of media.

Nathan: Yes, the theme just spoke to me... what the other composers have done for the Batman franchise is really awesome to, it's just a different thing. And who knows, maybe if I was 10 years old and I was seeing the Dark Knight in theaters, maybe it would affect me too, because it's an awesome score in its own right, but it's a different thing. That kind of stuff seems to be more textural based, and it has its own colors and stuff, but for me, to hear that theme loud and clear, nothing else is going on, just... the confidence of letting this thing play out that Elfman did is just amazing. And I was a huge fan of Elfman growing up, so when I saw Edward Scissorhands, that score is just insane. Just amazing work that you've heard ripped off so many times because it was so good, it's just great.

Ven: See, it's interesting that you bring up the score for Batman because I agree that it's really great. It gave those movies such a nice identity. You walk into the theater to watch the Batman movie and you know stuff's about to go down because you hear the theme, Batman's about to do the thing, and I felt like you accomplished that similar feeling with the BIONICLE score, because the one thing that comes to mind when I think of the BIONICLE movies is the music, specifically that one song. It's so calm...

Nathan: Thank you! It's so crazy that when you come up with these things in a room by myself, you don't really think that somebody's going to be listening to it! At the time, that was just a side, nice and friendly theme for the characters... I forget their names. Was it... Jaller?

Everyone: That's right!

Nathan: Okay, yeah, it was supposed to be just a friendship theme. And then of course, I get links from people, "Hey, here's some kid in Lithuania that's playing your theme at a party," and it's not winning them over, but the kid's enjoying himself, so...

Meso: it's because, with the BIONICLE franchise in particular, the music evolved over the years, there were many different kinds of genres that BIONICLE claims to have, but I would say that out of the bunch, the music in the film trilogy was... perhaps the most iconic? It set a higher standard for that particular thing.

Jon: I remember watching Legends of Metru Nui for the first time, and the part where Lhikan's theme transitions into the BIONICLE theme, that is one of my favorite arrangements.

Nathan: Thank you! When I'm writing I try to do that, when I'm setting out the script or watching the footage for the first time, I try to write themes that can end up being intertwined, so I write them that way initially. So we'll do this theme for Lhikan, which could be considered a second cousin of the main BIONICLE theme, so when we come to the end I can start stacking them into each other, so we have a sprinkling of the main theme and then Lhikan's comes in, so I think about that ahead of time.

Jon: I feel like a lot of the modern films, specifically because I'm a Marvel fan... this video went viral because there's no real "theme" to the Marvel universe on screen. I can sing the Star Wars theme, the Harry Potter theme, but I can't sing the Marvel theme because they're more texture-based. They don't have character themes that stack. For Civil War I was hoping for the Captain America Theme, and the Iron Man theme, but it didn't feel like they had a connection throughout all the movies. Do you see that trend? What do you think?

Nathan: I agree, I actually know the video, and I agree with it completely. I don't think it's for a lack of capability, but I think there's this new trend going on that film music should not be noticed, and I'm not quite sure how and when that became a thing, because I completely disagree. I think film music is bad when you're being removed from the store by noticing it, but this idea that film music should just be some well produced music library is not something I do in my work or that I subscribe to personally. I think it's important that a film has a musical identity and that doesn't mean it necessarily needs to be hummable, sometimes textural writing is the right choice. So like, could you hum a theme from The Shining? Probably not, but if you started to hear it, you could probably recognize that it's from The Shining, because it took a specific approach. But yes, I completely agree, and I'm proud to say that writing a hummable theme is pretty much embedded in how I work. So, I don't know if that helps me or hurts me in this business, but... it is what it is.

Jon: I feel that one of the strongest soundtracks I've heard from a newer franchise has been the Game of Thrones soundtrack. They've done really well with keeping these hummable themes for all the different characters, all the locations have their own themes, and they're sometimes layered where it will go from one theme to another when someone's being trained or when certain things happen in the plot, so...

Nathan: That's great, I love Game of Thrones! I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm addicted to it, but it's definitely a show that I watch, and I can hum the main titles. I haven't noticed the score as much, but there's definitely a signature to the sound of that show that I've noticed, which is fantastic. I wish that more shows, and especially film... that's kind of weird, actually, because there's been this switch where TV music used to be whatever, kinda cheesy, you just got through it, and film is where you got these amazing scores, and there's been a swap. Film music is generic and forgettable 80% of the time, but these TV shows have spent the time, the money, and the resources to create a sound for the show, and that's been a really interesting switch. Not sure how it's happened, but... just like you can't hum a theme from any Marvel movie really, you can hum the Game of Thrones title. And if I'm not mistaken, the composer for Game of Thrones did one of the Marvel movies right? It's Ramin Djawadi, he did Iron Man. And there's no real recognizable theme, but Game of Thrones has a theme! Iron Man is just cashmere, that's what it does.

Jon: And you know, even that doesn't carry from one movie to the next! Each film has a different theme.

Ven: I feel that the cashmere theme gave it its own sense of identity, its own identifiable soundtrack.

Jon: I feel that it's a tone that helps the movie, the whole industrial feel.

Nathan: Exactly, I feel that tone is important. It's a valid conversation for any composer. John Williams, our Messiah, he'll have a conversation about that. It's not all the notes on the page, but it's who's playing those notes. Howveer, personally speaking, tone is half of the conversation, it's not the whole conversation. Maybe it's a thing with studio executives, maybe it's a thing with some directors, but when they start to hear a theme that they can recognize, the artistry of that kinda pulls them out for a second and they get upset that people may be pulled out from the story.

Meso: I'm sure that's part of the process, I just don't agree with it.

Nathan: I don't either, and thankfully the people I work with also do not agree with that, so... that's the point of being an artist and working in Hollywood, you sort of meet up with different people and when you're sort of like-minded or close to being on the same page, it usually creates a good working relationship, like John Williams and Steven Spielberg, Alan Silvestri and Robert Zemeckis, Danny Elfman and Tim Burton, you know. So you can accomplish that. I think he was compelled, for whatever reason, to use Ramin Djawadi for the first one, and then he pulled in John Debney for the second, and then I think someone else started directing the third one.

Ven: Shane Black.

Nathan: Shane Black... so who composed the third one, Brian Tyler? That's unusual for Jon Favreau, usually he would probably want a similar sound, but that seems to be a special case, so that's the reason why it sounds different. But every movie now has a different composer, which means the Iron Man franchise has no musical continuity, and that's just how it is, and I think that because it didn't start out with a strong theme, there would be no compelling reason for the next composer to tip his hat to the first composer.

Meso: Since there isn't an established identity already there's no drive to create one, basically.

Nathan: Exactly. With movies, people underestimate how the composer, often... the orchestra is his fundamental tool for film music on the scale we're talking about. So people tend to underestimate how unique you can make an orchestra sound, it doesn't mean it all has to sound alike. So when you have Ramin Djawadi for the first Iron Man with the guitars and the drums, and then John Debney who tends to use the orchestra widely, and the way the style and the manuevers people use to manipulate the orchestra the way they want... even when you nod to the theme, it doesn't have the majesty of, say, a John Williams score. By the way, vice-versa: maybe a John Williams score won't quite have the elegant drive of an Alexandre Desplat score, who I think finished the series for Deathly Hallows. So, you know, every composer is different, everyone has a different sound, so when you start bringing in a different guy AND there's no theme to revisit, that's how you start getting the Marvel musical soup.

Jon: Yeah, I was looking this up as well: Danny Elfman actually composed Age of Ultron alongside Brian Tyler, so it's not for lack of trying.

Nathan: That's interesting... I'm not really familiar with the Marvel stuff, but there's no way they worked together. Somebody started it and somebody else finished it. I don't know which order, but that's going to be a case where there might have been a schedule issue, or they didn't like some of the sound so they brought somebody in to finish the last act of the movie, which does happen, so if the big fight at the end just isn't working for everybody, it could be a number of things. Either they consider going back to the first composer but he's gone on to another movie and he's no longer available...

Meso: Yes, I just checked; Danny Elfman is credited with "Additional Music" to supplement Tyler's primary score.

Nathan: Okay, yeah. There's actually a possibility that Danny Elfman didn't write any music for it, and they simply cut in some of his music from "Hulk." Sometimes that happens, and you have to listen carefully to catch that, but it does happen.

Jon: Okay, I have something I kinda want to ask... what you were saying before about making themes hummable, how would you... to you, what makes a piece of composition like that? What goes into it which makes something stick?

Nathan: Oh God... I'll let you know when I find out, man. I think what it is is that I just try to get into the headspace of the characters and also my director. When I'm writing down ideas, I think simultaneously "What is our character going through, what is their journey, and what is the point of their journey?" while also thinking "What is my Director trying to say about this journey, or what is his perspective?" Because my job is not to tell the story of the movie the way I want, but rather help my director tell the story he wants to tell. That will guide me sometimes to make my songs cuter, sweeter, happier, darker, sadder, or whatever... I would argue that the better composer is always thinking about what his director wants, because nobody... I can't imagine a situation where the director is not the MOST emotionally invested person in a movie. Whether you necessarily see the Director's vision off the bat or not, but most likeyl, the Director is the most personally invested human being telling this story, so... they're probably right. You know what's a great example? Harry Potter. You listen to what John Williams did for the first movie and then the third movie where it was Alfonso Cuaron, in Prisoner of Azkaban... it very much fits him and the tone of story he tries to tell. I certainly try to do that. Sorry I'm giving you long-winded answers!

Meso: Oh trust me, that's exactly what we're looking for.

Nathan: Yeah, why make your jobs harder, right? You ask me one question and then you can go get a sandwich!

*laughter*

Nathan: But anyway, yes, when I'm writing a theme, I think of those things, how will I accomplish being the character in a musical way, approaching the character and the story from the same angle that the Director is trying to do it from, and the last component is... are those things "clicking" in a way that I think will affect the audience in a positive way? It's one of those things where I couldn't give you a list of what I do, I only know when I've done it. It can be really frustrating but also really exciting, it's like you're picking a lock. You'll only know you did it when it's done. When the puzzle locks in, it's the best feeling in the world... and until then it's massively frustrating. For the BIONICLE theme I spent the better part of two, maybe three weeks on Mask of Light where I wasn't even in the studio, I was just sitting in front of the piano trying to write ideas. It's one of those things where you wake up in the morning and you know you're going to do it and you're the best composer that has ever lived... and then you realize you're terrible and you should give up now. Then one day you realize that this path you were working on is almost right, and maybe if I move the chord like this while I move the note over here... then it locks in, and when it locks in and I know it's right, writing the score becomes easy to me, because the hardest part, for me, is over... which is "what is the right thing to be doing? What am I trying to say?" And when I know that, the rest is no big deal. For Mask of Light I spent at least... maybe three weeks or something like that, I remember it well. I had written some music for them as an idea and they loved it, hired me... and I didn't have a grand piano. So I ran out and bought a grand piano that sounded good to me, and I had it sent to the house. Literally the first thing I ever did on that piano was write the Mask of Light... themes, and I sat in front of that piano for three weeks. That is still the piano I use today, and I bought it specifically... because for me there is a massive difference. When I'm writing the substance of a score, what the meaning is... I need to be sitting a piano where I hit something and sound waves resonate against wood and hit me back in the face. I can't be in a digital environment and feel like I'm doing my job, so every score I've written since has been on that same piano.

Meso: That... is quite awesome. While we're talking about BIONICLE, I suppose the question has to be asked... how were you approached for that project? Are there any interesting stories? I understand if you don't remember, it's been like thirteen years.

Nathan: Well, obviously that was a very special project. I had gotten a job sort of "ghost-writing" for a couple different composers. If you guys don't know what that is, it's basically where a composer... often for no other reason than there is just too much work for one person, will hire other composers to write, and obviously their name won't go on it. I had done some stuff for a guy with a wonderful problem... he had ten shows at a given time that he had to do. I was writing one, and it was a cartoon, more modernized, very much like... The Matrix had come out a few years earlier so people were still digging on that big beat kind of thing. I then just sort of auditioned for BIONICLE because I had just finished that show, and I didn't have anything else going on at the moment. I was 22, and I swear, my childhood dentist was cleaning my teeth, and his brother knew the producer for the BIONICLE movies. He was cleaning my teeth and he was asking me how things were going, and I was like "Things are going well, I finished that series I was working on, and now I'm just looking for the next thing."

Meso: Wow.

Nathan: He said "Hey, you should reach out to my brother! His name's Tim, and he run's a post-production house, and he's looking for a composer for this movie named BIONICLE." I was like... sure, why not. Again, my CHILDHOOD DENTIST gives me his brother's number, and I go out to lunch with him. He's a nice guy, and he says "Hey, I know these people named Creative Capers, they're looking for a composer. Just give me a demo, some music you've done and I'll forward it to them." He said they were looking for something big and epic, so I just wrote some stuff. At the time I didn't have any big, epic stuff under my belt, there was no big orchestral stuff that I had done, so I just wrote an idea that ended up becoming the theme of BIONICLE, but it wouldn't be recognizable now. I sent it to them maybe a month later, and they wrote back that they liked it and wanted to talk to me. They started showing me drawings they had, storyboards, before anything was rendered, you'll create a storbyoard which marks what the framing of the camera would be, in a general way... what you're looking at. Like *holds up Mask of Light while camera pans left* and it'll go to the next comic frame. So they showed me some of that, and I can hear the actors, so they sort of cut the dialogue to this sort of comic strip thing, and they asked "What do you think? We'd love to hear what your ideas would be." So they just started telling me about the universe... they didn't give me a script or anything! They just started talking to me about what BIONICLE was, what its mythology is, and the world that IS BIONICLE, that entire universe. I remember that in the first meeting there was very little discussion about the actual movie, the real characters, and what was going to happen. The discussion was broader.

Ven: Interesting...

Nathan: Yeah, it was more about how Lego has these toys, BIONICLE, and this is the sort of mythology for that wing of lego.

Meso: That's very interesting to me because that's how BIONICLE fans view it as well, the mythology is the more interesting thing.

Nathan: Definitely! By the time I left that meeting I had more knowledge of... Mata Nui? Is that right? Sorry guys, I'm working off memory.

Meso: You're doing great so far!

Nathan: Yeah, I knew more about the place than Jaller or Takua. Oh my God, am I right?

Jon: You've been pretty spot on with these answers so far!

Nathan: I knew very little about them, it was more about Mata Nui and the Toa and those guys, it was far more about that. Could I write a theme about the universe, and the idea that there are these... I think at the time, I don't know if it's been developed since, but at the time there was really no origin story that I was aware of. They're robots, but they're not... there was no exact conversation about how they came to be.

Meso: WELL... since then, that all got developed.

Nathan: Oh, has it?

Meso: Yeah.... since you've worked on BIONICLE, it's been canceled, revived, and canceled again... it's been through the ringer.

Nathan: But at the time it was just a thing that WAS, it was its own world and we just accepted that. We just knew that it's not Earth, but it's an Earth-like planet or universe. So what would my ideas be for a universe that is like that with these sort-of keepers of this world that the Toa are. So I went home and came up with a theme, I sent it to them, and again, probably a month later... I got a phone call that they wanted me to compose the music for Mask of Light. And that was that! Then I watched pieces of the movie, because it was weird how it was made. I never saw the whole movie from beginning to end until it was almost done. I knew what was going to happen, but I was writing the music while animation was coming in. I think, in Mask of Light, there are moments where I created turns in the music based off where I THOUGHT something was going to happen, and I was right 90% of the time (or I was very close). So I just sat for three weeks and wrote those themes, what I like to call the "arcing BIONICLE theme."

*song humming*

Nathan: Yeah, but that secondary thing:

*more humming*

Ven: Oh, the nostalgia!

Nathan: I think that was the first thing I did, the sort of:

*even more humming*

Nathan: Yeah, but after that you get into:

*yet more humming*

Nathan: I think I had another theme... that I can't quite remember. But anyway, it was all in that. I'm walking to my piano right now if that's alright with you guys, I don't even know how it would feel.

*Nathan Furst plays the BIONICLE music on piano*

Nathan: It's the same piano, so there it is!

Meso: WELL, I think the moral of this story is... when your dentist tries to talk to you, DON'T IGNORE HIM! Make conversation! It could change lives.

Nathan: I think that's a true story for anybody in the entertainment industry, you should talk to people! You never know when some random person could be like "Oh, you should talk to this guy!" or whatever it is.

Meso: Opportunity can arise in unexpected places.

Jon: Man...

Nathan: That sort of... general concept of being open to the world and the universe to give you signs of what you should be doing at any given time, you know. DON'T RESIST! Don't resist what's being presented to you. Go with the flow. It's an important thing, and you know, trust your intuition and your gut, so... how did that start? What was the question?

Jon: How you got approached to work on BIONICLE? I'm glad it took that turn though, getting to hear the theme live was spectacular.

Meso: Alright, you guys have any other questions?

Ven: Man, not really, but now I feel like calling up my dentist!

Jon: I had a question. I know that after BIONICLE you went on to do a ton of other movies like Need for Speed and stuff. How big is the difference between composing for animation and live action?

Nathan: Oh absolutely! For Animation, composing is actually more freeing in a way because you have this allowance to pull out all the stops, because for some reason, whatever your story, there's one extra step that disconnects you from it being real, so I think that allows you a sort of... permission slip to go for full color with the orchestra. You don't have to think about holding back, whereas when you're doing live action, you're always having that conversation of "Is this too much?" Generally speaking, when you're doing live action you have to be careful because less is more. If two people are speaking, you just need to be coming in very softly. However you're going to touch that scene needs to be with a very elegant brush, you have to be very careful because, for whatever reason, it's very easy to ruin a scene. With the exception of something like a Marvel movie, where you could almost go for broke. You have to be very delicate in your approach, whereas with animation, you can basically just go for broke. If there's a touching moment or exciting moment, you can just lean into it. You don't have to worry as much if you're going over the top, so animation can be a ton of fun for a composer, because if you want to do something... just do it. Make it happen. There's less concern that you're overdoing it or you're getting in the way, as long as you're good at what you do... you don't have to worry as much about the sensitivity. So that's what I would say is the biggest difference between animation and live action.

Meso: Makes sense to me!

Nathan: Yeah, what I thought was just an amazing score, John Powell's How to Train Your Dragon... that score is incredible! But you can't... no matter how fantastical the movie, you can tell that score wouldn't be the live action score. You can hear that it's an animation score, because even if you were doing something on that scope but it's live action, you'd be approaching it differently. Even if the dragons were CG you'd be approaching it slightly differently, because instead of succumbing to a fantasy world, you're trying to create a world that MIGHT be real. Because of that, you don't have to pretend, you can just say "Yep, we're watching epic fantasy." Any of these movies, Marvel, Harry Potter, to a lesser extent, Star Wars, you're still trying to convey that it could be real.

Jon: I didn't think of what you were saying until... I've heard a lot of soundtracks from Bond Films, for instance, but compare that to the soundtrack of the Incredibles and it's so much more big and... yeah.

Nathan: Exactly! That's a great example because with Michael Giacchino and the Incredibles, if it were an actual Bond Film from that time period, because he's not doing an homage to a modern film but rather the older stuff, that level of energy would probably be saved. You might hear close to that energy in the very beginning but not for a while into the rest of the movie. With something like the Incredibles, thoguh, you can just hit it with that energy all day long. One of the characters starts doing something and you can just go all into the scene. It can be everything times 10. From a composing standpoint, that's quite fun! Imagine if somebody said... okay, here's a china shop. Go ahead and run up and down the aisles with your arms held out. If somebody just gave you permission to do that, it's incredibly fun! So when you actually get to be that as a composer it can be rather freeing. So I would say THAT is the primary difference, at least for me.

Meso: I think one thing we should definitely ask bfeore we begin the process of wrapping up is, are you currently involved in anything that you can publically talk about and would you like to promote anything you're currently doing?

Nathan: Well, I just finished a great movie called 6 Below starring Josh Hartnett and Mira Sorvino and it's a really cool story about this guy who was in the olympics for Ice Hockey, I think, and he ended up being a meth addict and this is a true story! He went snowboarding on a mountain and he's high on drugs, and he actually gets lost in a blizzard! He survives for seven days and he lost both of his legs... anyway it's a crazy story and I was blessed that I got to write a beautiful score for it that was a little bit of a departure for me. It's a really sweeping, dramatic score, and we recorded some strings here in LA for it. It was a beautiful thing and I'm excited about that. So that's what I have coming up that I can talk about at the moment!

Meso: Well, fantastic stuff! I'll ask this: what advice would you give to anyone who is looking to enter into the field of music composition?

Nathan: Be adaptable. Don't go into it thinking that it has to be one thing and you can only do that one thing, you can only go this one way, you can only write this one style... be adaptable, be flexible, and be very good.

Meso: I think that's good advice for anyone doing anything!

Nathan: I agree; with a couple exceptions, mediocrity doesn't fly. There's a lot of people who want to do what we do and most of them can be very good. You have to be adaptable and be willing to do it.

Meso: Get good or get out! Blunt, but very good.

Nathan: Blunt is the only way I work, it seems.

Ven: So what if I told you...

*laughter*

Nathan: What a great start to a question! What, are you trying to sell me a car or something?

Ven: Well, not today! What if I told you that the entirety of the BIONICLE story took place not just on an island, but inside of a giant robot which contains many different islands on its insides?

Nathan: Uh... I would tell you that it sounds awesome and I would totally believe that.

Meso: Well, that's what happened!

Nathan: So what, does that mean that Mata Nui was like an organ?

Meso: Not that island specifically, Mata Nui was actually its face. The giant robot had fallen into the ocean and had been overgrown with vegetation and stuff.

Jon: Right, it was on top of the face.

Meso: There was this whole big thing where they woke up the robot and it woke up from the ocean, causing the Island of Mata Nui to collapse.

Ven: There was this animation where we saw the island looking all peaceful or whatever and then a giant robot face just comes out from underneath it.

Nathan: You're kidding! So the stuff that I did... is the robot awake then or not?

Jon: It was asleep.

Nathan: So what, he woke up and killed everyone?

Jon: No, everybody went inside of him. It's very convoluted. We're also not mentioning that when he comes back, the villain, Makuta, he is able to possess the robot. He puts himself in the mind of the robot before they turn it on, so they turn it on and realize they gave him gigantic amounts of power.

Meso: The eyes turn red.

Jon: Then he starts flying to another planet to destroy it.

Nathan: That sounds very convoluted. Is that the end?

Ven: There's a big robot battle, they find another one on the other planet and they fight.

Meso: It's important to remember that Mata Nui wasn't just the island, it was the spirit that controls the giant robot body.

Nathan: That's right!

Meso: So Mata Nui fought Makuta in a giant rock'em'sock'em robot battle and ended up crashing his head into a moon, killing him.

Nathan: Wow. So Makuta is dead, then, right? But then again... so is everybody else. Or they're inside of him... somehow.

Jon: Right, when the robot body falls onto the planet after it has its head bashed in, they all escape through a giant hole. There's like a hatch in the foot and they all come out onto the new planet like "Hey!"

Nathan: Are you serious right now?

Jon: Yeah, and everyone who had died before is alive again because their spirits got sent up to another robot repair place.

Meso: Yeah, that's right, when people die they get transmitted to a star.

Nathan: That is... bizarre.

Ven: Imagine composing music for all that!

Nathan: I think I'd just start mashing my hands on the keyboard and be like "Hey, that's what it is."

Meso: It went off the rails a little at the end there.

Nathan: Sounds like there might have been a gas leak in the writers room, everybody got a little woozy.

Meso: Not everyone was a fan of it, to put it mildly.

Nathan: No, that really sounds... it's actually a pretty weird, very unique thing. Let's call it unique.

Meso: It's because BIONICLE veered over the years from its tribal roots into super sci-fi, with time travel and alternate universes introduced.

Nathan: I can believe that, because early on when I was working on the trilogy there was a conversation within Lego where some people wanted it to be what it was, the sort-of "epic" somewhat organic thing, and there was a strong side that wanted that sort of techno-score and, luckily, my side won that conversation for those three movies, but there was not a clear concept of that vision at that time.

Meso: It's one of the reasons BIONICLE is loved by so many people, it's a great amalgamation of many different styles. After the movie trilogy, they went heavily into Rock music. They had the All-American Rejects do stuff.

Nathan: Ha!

Meso: Yeah, it didn't really help with trying to give it a consistent musical identity, though.

Nathan: Hey, if it works... my problem with taking an epic story and combining it to try to... I know there were some games at the time, there was something that was breeding the conversation of whether it should be hip-hop, techno, what they used to call EDM... anyone who's over the age of 25, for any of your audience, those are all now just called EDM. Yeah, so... the problem is for an epic story, in my opinion, that level of music... when you start doing that kind of stuff it kind of lays flat and becomes... because there's so much stuff like that, there's no way you can make it as grandiose as the story you're trying to tell. So it's just sort of noise that gets lost in the aether. I don't know if that's fair, but it seems to be my consensus. But good story on how they developed BIONICLE!

Meso: I always like when people hear what happened. And then it got canceled. And brought back. And got canceled for a second time.

Nathan: Yeah, there was that time period like 5, 6 years ago where I started getting questions if I was doing the next BIONICLE movie's music! And I was like... what are you talking about?

Meso: Yeah, in 2009 they had a fourth BIONICLE movie before it got canceled the first time, and then it had a Netflix show when it returned.

Nathan: Oh, you're kidding! How did the next wave go after the trilogy ended?

Meso: Well that was when they started veering off...

Jon: Yeah, it was the 2006 wave and it was... they focused on a tie-in with the All-American Rejects, there was a lot of stuff regarding rock, punk rock...

Meso: After you left, things became very dark, gritty, and edgy. They were trying to age up the theme, I think, with the audience. Whether that worked or not... some people disagree on. The last movie you worked on, though, when everything became overrun by spider creatures and it became super dark... that was the beginning of that shift.

Jon: I don't know if they ever told you this but the giant city where the spiders started taking over... the island is above the city.

Nathan: I did not know that!

Jon: The sky is just a giant dome, and on top of the dome... is the island. They just go down this giant stairwell to get to a city underneath. Metru Nui was the brain of the robot.

Nathan: Yeah, I'm getting those confused. I did not know that was underground.

Jon: So, one thing I do want to ask... did you ever hear any talk of there being... many fans never knew why there were 3 movies and then it stopped. Was there ever talk of doing a fourth movie right after that?

Nathan: It was always meant to be a trilogy. There WAS a conversation for a hot minute about doing another trilogy and it sort of fell apart, it never ended up happening. I assumed that Lego had decided they were going to put BIONICLE out to pasture, because afterwards I heard they were cancelling the toys.

Jon: Yeah, it went on for four years after the last movie you did, and then it was canceled.

Nathan: I was gonna say, that doesn't sound like a good omen. If I recall I think Web of Shadows WAS doing well, and was getting good feedback, though I think everyone was saying they liked LoMN more. It was a similar conversation to how "Empire Strikes Back" is the best. Legends was the best received. So that seemed to be the consensus. But yeah... WoS came out and there was a very... casual conversation about starting the next block of trilogy and, if I recall, they were thinking of making it a prequel.

Meso: Are we talking about another set of prequels because the other two movies you did took place before Mask of Light?

Nathan: Oh yeah, I'm getting confused. The next set of movies after WoS were going to take place AFTER Mask of Light.

Jon: Yeah, I was wondering if they were planning to do ANOTHER prequel series taking place 1,000 years back?

Nathan: Actually... there was a conversation about that. They were talking about maybe a Makuta origin film or something.

Jon: That would've been something I would've liked to see!

Ven: Instead, we got Web of Shadows!

Nathan: I think there was going to be something like that where they bounced back from present day to Makuta's past. The fifth movie would be before everything, and then... I don't know.

Jon: Is there anything else you can remember from that time?

Nathan: I'm trying to remember, but no, I can't think of anything except the Makuta origin conversation. Then they were going to pick up... because the Mask of Light guy, Takanuva, was going to be the leader of all the Toa in the following movie. So there was that conversation, but again, it was all loose stuff. It's not like I know the whole story or something! So yeah, that's all I can remember for now. And then... Lego shut it down.

Meso: Unceremonious end, but that's how things go.

Nathan: At least from my angle it was... we might do this, we've got all these ideas, and then... it's no more. Whatever went on internally, who knows? It was some of the best experiences of my life writing those scores, I had so much fun.

Meso: At least there is that!

Jon: Some of our fondest memories too come from the initial run of that line and how it affected us, getting us involved in what we currently do with videos and all that! Most of the people that I know now who have heard of BIONICLE, they know it from the toys and the movies. So your work has affected people a huge part. It's always through the movies. I had a bunch of BIONICLE parts when I moved into my new college, and the people who were helping me said "Oh, are these BIONICLEs? I haven't seen those movies in ages!"

Nathan: That's fantastic. Some of my favorite music comes from that trilogy. A lot of my ideas on how... who I am as a composer, what my... because sometimes a composer has a signature, where their hands tend to go when they're writing, a lot of that stuff I developed and figured out from the BIONICLE movies. Some of the best experiences of my life came from those, and it goes from the beginning.

Meso: Very, very nice! I think it's about time we wrap up.

Nathan: Yeah, I just saw the time, and man! I must've knocked you guys out.

Jon: Nah, we love this kind of stuff. Actually being able to interview someone who has stuff to say, and information to share... someone who really wants to tell us. We always feel bad if it's somebody who we have to prod or ask too many questions with.

Meso: When the information and the discussion flows naturally then you know the person is passionate about what they're doing.

Nathan: Yeah man, I feel the same way! There's been so many interviews that I've heard from people where I'm like "I can't wait to hear this!" It's disappointing when it's clear they either don't want to be there or they're just the type of person where to get anything out of them it's like squeezing juice out of a rock. Like, "How was it composing BIONICLE?" "It's good man." That's the answer! That's not me, not me at all.

Jon: My dentist was great, he did a great job!

Meso: Well, I'd like to thank you for coming on the show today. We learned a lot about the business and had a great time, so thank you very much!

Nathan: It was my pleasure, I'm thrilled you guys enjoyed the music from those movies so much and that it had a lasting effect, so it feels good to know that I did something right on those.

Jon: I remember at some point you were talking about releasing the soundtracks from those movies? Is that a conversation?

Nathan: I still want to do that, but it took a couple turns where it ended up being more of a hassle than it was worth and it's been put on the backburner. I still love the idea because I'm so emotionally invested in a lot of that music, it means a lot to me... so I would like to record it and release it, and I feel like I could do more with it than budget or time permitted at that moment. What I may end up doing, alternatively is... initially I was concerned about legal things, and some of the music I actually lost because I had a huge crash some years ago that hurt both the present hard drives and also my backups. So I lost most of the score to Legends of Metru Nui, I don't even have it anymore. It taught me a valuable lesson about backing up properly.

Meso: We're no stranger to massive data loss!

Nathan: At the time I had this massive crash you had to be really diligent and organized and I'm neither of those things! Anyway, at this point, I've started to put the music that exists out there. I know I have all the original Mask of Light score. I may just upload it all at some point!

Jon: Here's hoping! As someone who really enjoyed that score, it would be nice. We'll see what happens.

Nathan: If I do anything like that, you guys will be one of the first to know.

Meso: Thank you sir for coming on today, thank you all for listening to this interview with Nathan Furst, composer of the BIONICLE film trilogy! If you would like to follow him on social media, what's your name?

Nathan: I think it's just Nathan Furst. If you search it up you'll find me there. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, iTunes. Thanks guys!

Meso: Thank you all for listening, I'm Meso!

Jon: I'm Jon!

Ven: I'm Ven!

Meso: And farewell everyone.

#lego #bionicle #interview #music #TTV

15 notes · View notes