For Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, there are no rules to composing for film (2022 interview)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: The Power of the Dog, BBC Concert Orchestra, Johnny Greenwood, Kristen Stewart
2. 10:00 – 15:00: Phantom Thread
3. 15:00 – 20:00: Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood, Johnny Greenwood, Paul Thomas Anderson
4. 20:00 – 25:00: Spencer, Johnny Greenwood
5. 25:00 – 30:00: Johnny Greenwood, Spencer
6. 30:00 – 33:05: Johnny Greenwood, Licorice Pizza, Spencer, The Power of the Dog

Notable quotes from "For Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, there are no rules to composing for film (2022 interview)"

• This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. When my guest Johnny Greenwood was primarily known as the lead guitarist and keyboardist for the rock band Radio Head, screenwriter and director Paul Thomas Anderson asked Greenwood to write.

  about Johnny Greenwood · at 0:00

• His music in three very different new movies. Anderson's Licorice Pizza, which is set in the 70s, Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, and The Power of the Dog, which is set in Montana in 1925.

  about Spencer · at 1:04

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Johnny Greenwood — Person · 6 mentions · first at 0:03
• Paul Thomas Anderson — Person · 2 mentions · first at 0:09
  Known as the lead guitarist and keyboardist for the rock band Radio Head, screenwriter and director Paul Thomas Anderson asked Greenwood to write the score for his film There…
• Kristen Stewart — Person · 1 mention · first at 1:11
  Movies. Anderson's Licorice Pizza, which is set in the 70s, Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, and The Power of the Dog, which is set in Montana in 1925.
• Kristof Penderecki — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

• Phantom Thread — Book · 5 mentions · first at 0:29
  Greenwood wrote scores for Anderson's subsequent films, including Phantom Thread and The Master, which opened like this.
• Spencer — Book · 5 mentions · first at 1:09
• There Will Be Blood — Book · 3 mentions · first at 0:13
  Head, screenwriter and director Paul Thomas Anderson asked Greenwood to write the score for his film There Will Be Blood. It was an unexpected turn for Greenwood, but he was…
• The Power of the Dog — Book · 3 mentions · first at 1:14
  Is set in the 70s, Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, and The Power of the Dog, which is set in Montana in 1925.
• Licorice Pizza — Book · 2 mentions · first at 1:06
  BBC Concert Orchestra. Now, you can hear his music in three very different new movies. Anderson's Licorice Pizza, which is set in the 70s, Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as…

Companies & orgs

• BBC Concert Orchestra — Company · 1 mention · first at 1:01
  Young, played in a youth orchestra, and has been a composer in residence at the BBC Concert Orchestra. Now, you can hear his music in three very different new movies.…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. When my guest Johnny Greenwood was primarily known as the lead guitarist and keyboardist for the rock band Radio Head, screenwriter and director Paul Thomas Anderson asked Greenwood to write the score for his film There Will Be Blood. It was an unexpected turn for Greenwood, but he was immediately noticed. The score was described in Rolling Stone as a sonic explosion that reinvented what film music could be. Greenwood wrote scores for Anderson's subsequent films, including Phantom Thread and The Master, which opened like this.

0:45 That's a pretty great way to start a film. Greenwood also writes a lot of film music that's more avantgard, but some of the avantgard music is influenced by his love of Baroque. He studied classical music when he was young, played in a youth orchestra, and has been a composer in residence at the BBC Concert Orchestra. Now, you can hear his music in three very different new movies. Anderson's Licorice Pizza, which is set in the 70s, Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, and The Power of the Dog, which is set in Montana in 1925.

1:18 In the beginning of the power of the dog, two brothers who own a large cattle ranch are hurting the cattle to market. This is the music we hear. Janet Greenwood, welcome to Fresh Air. I love your music. It's a pleasure to have you on our show. So that music that we just heard from the power of the dog, it starts like it's going to be very westernish, but not quite. And then there's other potentially menacing music intruding on it. It's a buzzy, ominous sounding melody interfering with this westernish kind of sound. So, and it lets you know that this isn't going to be a conventional western, even though they're hurting cattle. And it also lets you know that bad things are going to be interfering. Um, what's happening musically? What are you doing musically?

2:47 I think westerns have a traditional sound which is big sweeping strings and sort of Copeland style harmonies which are not only beyond me but wouldn't have really suited the darkness of the film I think. So the approach to this was originally to try and write music for banjo and string quartet because I'm a big believer that the banjo can be a great dark sinister instrument. I mean, I grew up listening to things like um the violent fee and they managed to do that sort of country death song style, you know, banjo as as you know, the opposite of the Steve Martin, you know, routine about how bananas just make you smile, which is true and, you know, and all that stuff is is wonderful music, but there's also a dark side, I think, to to that kind of music. Anyway, I persuaded her to let me try and write something for banjo and string quartet and it was awful as you might imagine and just sounded wrong in every way. So,

3:47 on the rebound from that, I just started trying to play my cello like it was a banjo. So, doing the rolling finger picking thing um on a cello instead. So with the strings that kind of interfere with that plucked cello sound, making the sound even more unconventional, what did you do to get that kind of menacing sound from violins or violins and violas?

4:14 So I had them play with no VAT and you know that's a really beautiful effect in a way. I think the danger with writing music not on paper and and relying on computers and demos is that you start to get used to how sample string sounds and then just look to replicate that. Whereas the variety of color that you know one player can make with a string instrument is is already kind is quite mind-blowing. and just the combination of a whole ensemble and all the directions it can go. It's really it's really exciting and daunting and it's like it's a it's easily my favorite day of the year is when the string players turn up for an afternoon.

5:01 Do you want the strings to be perfectly tuned or do you want them to be just slightly off?

5:07 Okay. Um yes. Uh, I wrote one cue for the Lin Ramsey film, You Never Already Really Here, where asking them to have half the players tuned a quarter tone flat. So, just a little bit out of tune, but all as out of tune as as one another, if you see what I mean. But because they're playing with their ears, it's very hard to do. So, they're still making their fingers go to where their ear wants to hear the right note. So even though it was difficult to do and it was sort of weren't doing it properly, it was one of those things where you just end up being even more impressed by what they can do and how they're playing and thinking and and and making these sounds. So yeah, I'm I get all, you know, all very um excited and fanboy about string players.

5:54 I mean, whenever I see somebody, you know, walking into Abby Road and they're carrying their cello and going to do a a string session, I just know how many hours and days of their life they've spent rehearsing, you know, every day for 4 hours, three, four, five hours and then you get to hear the results of that and it's very daunting and I I admire the musicians who give their life to that. One of your influences who uh you've also worked with is Kristoff Pendereki an avanguard an avanguard composer who once said that we have to use instruments which were built 300 years ago or 200 and the newest instrument in the orchestra is the saxophone but that's at least 100 years old and he said in the century of landing on the moon he said this during the 20th century we still have to write for very old instruments museum instruments I think this is the problem. It became the problem in the second half of the 20th

6:50 century that there's not much progress because of the lack of instruments of new instruments. And I I thought of you when I read that and he um this is quoted on an album that you collaborated with him and on. I thought of you because it seems to me you want to make old instruments sound new by messing them up a little bit by doing unusual things with them or having them do unusual things with each other whether it's their tunings uh or their dissonances the number of instruments you use. So do you do you relate to that quote about using old instruments for new music?

7:29 I do because I've always found acoustic instruments, uh, certainly orchestral instruments to be capable of much more variety and strangeness and complexity than, you know, nearly all of the software I've used in the past. And I think that's maybe why to me music by people like Penderki and Legetti and it just still sound very strange and contemporary and they still sound like the music of the future to me. Whereas lots of the electronic stuff that was done in the ' 60s and '7s, you hear it now and it's just it's sort of its time.

8:09 Oh, that's so true. That is really true. And I think that all instruments are just technology, however old or new they are. And the ideal situation is is where you can just regard them as being all on the same level of importance and interest. And whether it's a, you know, a piano or a laptop or an electric guitar or a tuber, that they're all hugely exciting things, you know, and and you know, I remember as a 10-year-old, whatever, whenever my mom was driving us around, if we went past a music shop, my daydream as we drove past would was never imagine being able to go in and buy a guitar or or whatever. It would be imagine being able to go and buy a flute or a trumpet. I was just fascinated with all these different colors and ways of of of making music and making sounds and in a really tragic middle-aged man kind of way. That's sort of what I've turned my life into as I'm sitting talking to you

9:07 surrounded by lots of, you know, those kind of instruments. But I'm wondering, getting back to that Penderky quote, um I'm I'm wondering if you try to make old instruments sound just a little bit unrecognizable and use them like in a way that that sounds new even though the instrument is old. You know, that sounds like a new sound that you're getting from it. So I was very lucky when I was in elementary school age 9 10 that we were sitting with our teacher and he had everyone bring in their instruments whether it was recorders or violins and he said okay everyone try and make a new sound with your instrument try and get a different noise out of it and that really stuck with me. that was just something that fascinated me then and is is probably you know still in my is still in my how I work today. So yeah just very grateful to have you know great great music teacher um at an early stage in my life.

10:08 Do you remember what you did to get a different sound? I think I put the bow under the strings and played the bottom string and top string at the same time. Uh, as I remember, but just just realizing that there were really no rules and if it makes a sound, then it's musical and and you can just look at an instrument and and think about it in any any way you want to.

10:33 I want to talk with you about the music for Phantom Thread. There's three versions of what's basically like the theme of the movie and I want to play two of those versions. And we're going to start with version two. And I should say at this point the the movie is um about this very kind of classical fashion designer who is both obsessive and very set in his ways and very temperamental. and he deals, you know, he does like gowns and other evening dresses for, you know, high society wealthy women. And so in when we hear this music, his muse-girlfriend is about to start poisoning him with mushrooms because when he isn't feeling well, when he's vulnerable, he becomes more accessible and more affectionate and needy. And that puts her in a better position, she thinks. So this is a duet with you at the piano and Daniel Puro on violin.

12:19 Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. I think that is really just a beautiful theme. Um, and uh, just everything is like just a little bit off. I'm wondering if the piano that you're playing there is prepared in any way cuz the notes sound imperfectly tuned and a little bit muffled maybe. So, what what have you done with the piano?

13:08 There's um, a roll of felt laid between the hammers and the strings, which is why it sounds like that. And it's a little bit out of tune just because I'm a bit lazy with my booking the piano tuner, I'm afraid. But um but that's the uh Yeah, that one.

13:25 It's not because you like the sound, it's because you're lazy. It's Well, uh it's because I like the sound. Yes. And I'm lazy.

13:38 So you have felt under the lid like on on the strings as opposed to like on the keys. They're on the the felt on the strings. Yes.

13:45 And the violin, it's almost like you asked him, I want to hear the friction of the bow on the strings.

13:53 Well, that's Daniel is a very um physical player indeed and is interested in every possible color and texture. And I also love a recording where you can hear the physicality of what's happening, whether it's the breathing of the player or the just, you know, the the effort involved in making the music, you know, and I know it drives some people crazy, but things like um Glen Gould singing along and all of that reminder that there's all this muscle and and physical effort behind the making of the music, I just makes it, you know, more exciting to me. I think that stuff is quite often clinically stripped out in most people's consumption of of music and especially classical music.

14:40 So, let's hear another version of the theme that we heard from Phantom Thread. And this happens um as the fashion designer is really feeling the effects of the poison and she's cooked more of those poison mushrooms. And so he's been uh talking to his sister and he's been complaining about his muse and he doesn't realize he's being poisoned by her, but he says there's an air of quiet death in this house and I do not like the way it smells. And he's really referring to the woman who's poisoning him when he says that, although he doesn't know that she's poisoning him. Um, so here we go.

15:27 This is a more orchestral version and a more durge-like version of the theme that we heard. This is from the Phantom Thread music composed by my guest Johnny Greenwood. Heat. Heat. I just love that. And uh I I'm not sure exactly what to ask you, but can you talk a little bit about shaping it into to that version of the theme?

16:48 Sure. I mean, I'm a big fan of these historically very inaccurate recordings of Barack music that were done in the '7s, ' 60s, '7s, ' 80s, even before the uh, you know, the um, authenticity police stepped in and made everyone play with the right size of orchestra and the right kind of violins. because it's sort of glorious hearing this Barack music done with big romantic orchestras for all that it you know would never have sounded like that. So that was a reference I sent to Paul and he was also talking about um that Kubrick film um Barry Lindon that has some big Barack orchestral things in it and it was just you know I mean on one level another excuse to to get in a room with a with an orchestra and and and just revel in that beautiful big sound they make. You started writing film scores because Paul Thomas Anderson asked you to write music for There Will Be Blood. What was your first reaction

17:52 when he asked you to do something you'd never done before? Had you ever thought about doing film scores?

17:58 No, I hadn't. I My reaction when Paul asked me was just excitement that I was going to get access to musicians and be able to write music for someone. and the fact that it was for a film. I didn't really up until that time pay that much attention to film music really. And I just thought this is going to be a bit like being in a band with somebody except I'm in a band with Paul and the people who are making this film and going to be contributing music to it and as a way to disassociate from it I suppose and feel like it's not really to do with me. And when I started thinking like that, I just found it really enjoyable and and and fun to throw lots of music in his direction.

18:44 Do you find it helpful to know that I have to write music that fits this mood or that fits this scene and there's a purpose that defines what the music has to be? Is that helpful in digging out, you know, music from your brain to know what it's for? It is. But I mean, there's a few cues in Phantom Thread that were written specifically for the the scene they're in, but they're the minority really. It's it was it's usually more a case of writing music about the characters or the scenery or the story itself. Like in There Will Be Blood, I remember being really taken with the story of HW and this sort of abandoned boy being taken. And I enjoyed writing quite a lot of, I suppose, quite sentimental music for that. And, you know, I enjoyed that easily as much as as writing the more aonal and stranger, you know, relatively stranger um orchestrations and things. And I try and avoid things like click tracks. So quite

19:52 often the players are just being asked to play two or three minutes of music and the poor editor or director have to just you know put up with something that might not fit to picture or even move the picture around so it so it fits the music. Um but it but this is partly from just uh trying to avoid computers as as being the um the arbiter in in how music is played and and how you know how tempos are conducted. And we'll just ask the players to play something, you know, in three or four different tempos and then do the work um in the edit into into making things work with with the film itself. When you write for a movie, are you seeing the footage of the scene you're writing for before you compose it, or are you composing it before it's even shot?

20:41 Usually, a lot of it gets written when I see the first test footage or just see early footage of like with Jane Campion's film. It was seeing all of the footage of of New Zealand that was standing in from Montana and just seeing the colors of the film and understanding the script and the characters and that's I mean that's already lots of really um you know fertile ground to to start writing music and I'd rather write twice as much music as needed and just keep going rather than panic about you know dropping the level of the music at the right place so a line of dialogue can can fitted in exactly in the right second and so I'm very indulged in that way in that I'm allowed to start at work very early while films are being you know shot or even before

21:31 you started studying classical music when you were a child how did you go in that direction was it through school were you assigned an instrument did your parents listen to classical music

21:42 no we there was never really music playing in the house other than by from my older sister Susan but In terms of classical stuff, I think it was just because I was given a plastic recorder when I was six as a surprise present and then I had five years where I was at a primary school where I was told that no one was allowed to play the recorder until they were 11. And this just became this this instrument of of total, you know, fascination and frustration. It's like why can't I I just couldn't wait to start. So I think it was just that old story of you know of denial making something seem just you know all the more delicious and and once I started playing recorder I you know I kept at it seriously till I was 18 you know I still play it now.

22:30 Okay. A recorder is a wind instrument but you had a plastic one. Now, I had a plastic one in sixth grade because we all had to play ensemble plastic recorders which were known as flutafones and you know the ones we had, I don't know about yours, but the ones we had, it was as if a wooden recorder mated with a kazoo and came up with this kind of annoying sound that was only heightened when there were 30 of them playing ensemble. So, um, was yours a flutafhone or or or a recorder? Like, how how did it sound?

23:10 I mean, I'm sure it sounded gruesome, but I was impressed with myself enough to sit in my room playing it all day, but yeah, it was just, you know, a Barack style recorder made of creamy yellow plastic by the Honer Corporation in 1979 or whatever it was.

23:27 So, I know you love Baroque music. You've loved it since childhood. Is there an example from one of your scores in which you feel you especially drew on your love for Baroque?

23:39 I mean I keep doing it. It's the brutal truth. Like even in Spencer school there's lots of things that are very you know influenced and I'm using influence in the same way that you know a bank can be influenced by robbers I think. So it's very um so yes you know um but that's only because all of that stuff all of all of you know Bark and Handle and Hiden it's all chord sequences and that are still being used today and it's that thing where you know music changed after that but it didn't necessarily do anything too different.

24:22 Why don't we hear that section of the score? And this is Johnny Greenwood's music from the film Spencer about Princess Diana. Heat. Heat. That's music from Johnny Greenwood's soundtrack for the new film Spencer about Princess Diana. So before you were with Radio Head, my understanding is you were in a band with Tom York's younger brother. Tom York is the lead singer songwriter from Radio Head. So your older brother was in a band with Tom York. You were in a band with Tom York's younger brother. Do I have that right?

25:55 You do. That's right. So how did you end up playing with Tom York and forming Radio Head? Well, they had a keyboard player who, this is Tom's band, uh, had a keyboard player, which I think they didn't get on with because he played his keyboard so loud. And so when I got the chance to play with them, the first thing I did was make sure my keyboard was turned off when I was playing. And I must have done months of rehearsals with them with this keyboard that was just they didn't know that I'd already turned it off and was just they made quite a racket, quite a noise. It was all guitars and distortion. And so I would pretend to play for weeks on end.

26:34 And Tom would say, "Um, I can't quite hit what you're doing, but I think you're adding a really interesting texture that cuz I can tell when you're not playing." And I'm thinking, "No, you can't because I'm I'm really not playing." And I'd go home in the evening and work out how to actually play chords. And cautiously over the next few months, I would start turning this keyboard up. And that's that's how I started um you know started in with with Radio Head.

26:59 Wait a minute. I want to make sure I understand this correctly. So the first period that you were playing with Radio Head, you turned off the keyboard. Yeah.

27:05 And so you were you were fingering the keys but no sound was being emitted because this is an electric keyboard. So

27:13 Exactly. Nothing was coming out and nobody noticed. Yeah. I mean, you know, we're kind of noisy garage band, I suppose, in in a in a small rehearsal room. And I remember the first few songs when I did start playing melodies and and Tom liked it and it was very exciting. So since you've had a foot in classical music and in rock for so long and have been important in both worlds, I think the division has melted away for a lot of classical performers, but not so much for other people cuz so many people don't listen to classical music at all anymore. It's just not I think it's become more and more of a niche with the exception of film scores.

28:00 That's that's one of the great things about film scores is that it brings a different kind of music often into you know into people who otherwise wouldn't hear it.

28:10 I think streaming has been quite bad for classical music because if you are keen to find out more about classical music you might have heard that the bass violin concesso is a great piece of music. So, you go on to Spotify or whatever and when you search for it, you're presented with 500 recordings and it's just I think it's just a bit of a sort of daunting and off-putting thing. There's very little curation and very little um and plus you're made to feel like it's just, you know, that it's it's somehow beyond you and and it's which is which is which is really sad. I think um I do sort of mourn the days when you used to listen to a record hundreds of times and get everything you could out of it. And I'm the same. I'll, you know, I'll listen to a to a Miles Davis record on on on Spotify and then rather than play it again, I'll move on to the next one.

29:10 And there's just none of that sort of obsession. And I think classical music especially suffers with that because if you can, you know, live with the same piece of classical music for a few weeks, you know, it it'll reveal itself to you. But it's about having the the patience to do that.

29:29 I know you like performing in churches and listening to music in churches because often the period of music that's being played is from the period that the church was built in. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Um but can you talk a little bit about that about the experience of being like in an old church or cathedral and playing or hearing music there?

29:53 Yeah. So I've spending a lot of time in Italy at the moment and the churches there have just some glorious and strange organs that I've been really lucky enough to to play and write a few things for. That's opened up a whole side of of classical music I didn't know about like all these or early organs that have two sets of black keys so that you can play the notes in between the notes a bit like Pender I suppose and it have uh keys that reproduce the sound of birds singing and and if you look inside the organ it's it's these little boxes with water in that blow air through them and the these instruments are you know 4 500 years old and it just occurred to me that when you when you're sitting here hearing one being played, you are hearing an actual authentic performance from that would be identical to to someone sitting in the same chair 500 years earlier because the walls are the same and the pipes are the same and the

30:50 organ is the same and this is what it sounded like. And that's there's a sort of exciting time travelery sort of enjoyment to be had um with that kind of music. I think

31:02 you've kind of made these these organs sound like uh synthesizers, you know, with, you know, microonal possibilities, bird sounds. Yeah,

31:11 sure. Well, you know how I don't know what you know about music notation. Um, don't want to patronize you at all, but you know that like F sharp is a higher note than G flat, even though on a keyboard it's it's the same black key, but in when you play in a different key, that note really should be slightly higher. And when you're in the previous key, it should be slightly lower. So when you're playing in like E major and you have your D sharp, that's a higher note than an E flat in C minor. So that fluidity is something that these early organs tried to tried to get past by having these by doubling up the keys. So you use one of the black keys when you want to play an E flat and the other black key when you're when you're calling it a D sharp, for example. what what you said was definitely not patronizing because I had no idea that there'd be a difference between uh a D sharp and an E flat there on the

32:04 piano it's the same black key so I always think of it as being the same sure but string players are always taught that you know you push the second finger higher for your F sharp and F sharp is very nearly a G when you're playing in D major but you know but if you're playing a minor minor scale or a minor key then then you then you put your finger in a slightly different place. Yeah, it's it's str it is bizarre, isn't it? It is very strange, but but for whatever reason that it, you know, it it totally works when you hear it. Johnny Greenwood, thank you so much.

32:34 It's been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for your music, and I'm expecting uh one or more of your scores to be nominated for Oscars. So, you know, I don't know if you care very much about awards, but I wish you good luck in awards season.

32:49 Thank you. Thank you, Terry. Johnny Greenwood wrote the scores for three new movies, Licorice Pizza, The Power of the Dog, and Spencer, and his radio heads lead guitarist. This is fresh air.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "For Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, there are no rules to composing for film (2022 interview)"?

In order: 0:00 The Power of the Dog, BBC Concert Orchestra, Johnny Greenwood, Kristen Stewart; 10:00 Phantom Thread; 15:00 Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood, Johnny Greenwood, Paul Thomas Anderson; 20:00 Spencer, Johnny Greenwood; 25:00 Johnny Greenwood, Spencer; 30:00 Johnny Greenwood, Licorice Pizza, Spencer, The Power of the Dog.

What is mentioned in this Fresh Air episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Johnny Greenwood, Phantom Thread, Spencer, There Will Be Blood, The Power of the Dog, Paul Thomas Anderson. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "For Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, there are no rules to composing for film (2022 interview)"?

The episode runs 33 min; the transcript is about 5,067 words in 52 timestamped sections.

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