Colin Stetson on redrawing the sound of contemporary horror
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Colin Stetson reveals how he defies cinematic conventions with found sounds and experimental electronica…
Words by Jim Ottewill
“I’ve never been told by a director that they want me to make music in a certain way,” says composer, saxophonist and music-maker Colin Stetson. “With ‘Hereditary’, [director] Ari Aster just said, “I want it to be evil”. And I didn’t want to be influenced in any way by horror tropes.”
Colin is talking from his studio in a brief pause between live dates and studio sessions. Following a busy UK tour of his solo material, I’m feeling lucky to get the chance to quiz him about his film work. After binge-watching his recent Netflix hit, ‘Something Very Bad is About to Happen’, I immediately googled who was behind its striking score - a sinister soundtrack akin to Angelo Badalamenti and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor battling it out in the studio.
Subverting pre-conceptions and stretching genres is a skill Colin has perfected from recording with Bon Iver, working on his own solo material or creating musical worlds for Hereditary, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or this latest hit. Created by the Duffer Brothers and Haley Z. Boston, Something Very Bad is About to Happen drops Rachel Harkin into the seven days before her wedding and holds her there, in a world where something is always just about to break. It doesn’t flinch (unlike me when watching) in its portrayal of their doomed union - to compose its score, Colin immersed himself in the script, then came up with signposts to map out his soundtrack.
“Once I’ve read the script multiple times, I figure out the aesthetics by creating three tent poles or sonic concepts,” he says. “They are usually an instrument, instrumentation or a method of recording and will give me a set of parameters I can adhere to.” “The idea is to challenge myself to innovate rather than relying on what you might expect to hear.”
As a kid, Colin grew up listening to heavy metal, then worked his way back to more avant-garde worlds. A fan of Jimi Hendrix, then Metallica, the surreal rock of Mr Bungle acted as a portal to uncover new flashes of influences and inspiration.
“I started playing the saxophone when I was nine and just became infatuated with the instrument,” he says. “I was 13/14 when Mr Bungle put out their first record, then discovered Zorn via Bungle, then dived deeply into the music of Sonny Rollins and Cannonball Adderley.
Thomas Chapin is a hugely underappreciated player from New York who I love, who passed away obscenely early from illness.”
Stetson has always been visually focused alongside his musical obsessions. From a young age, he was into fantasy films and saw movies as a potential avenue of work.
“Just before I became serious about music, I would have said I was going to work in movies on special effects,” he explains. “But then music took me into classical study and avant-garde improv, I’ve since always tried to apply a genreless approach to anything and everything.”
"The idea is to challenge myself to innovate rather than relying on what you might expect to hear."
It was director Alexandre Moores inviting Colin to compose for his film, ‘Blue Caprice’, that opened up the world of cinema and television. Previously, Alexandre had fallen for the charms of his second solo record, ‘Judges’. “It was around the time Jóhann Jóhannsson’s soundtrack for the 2013 film ‘Prisoners’ came out,” says Colin on getting the request. “It was hugely influential for me, and I leapt at the opportunity to make some music for the film.”
“Over the course of the next few years, I started doing one or two film projects a year,” he continues. “I was still touring, and people would be finding me via my solo music. That was how Arie After ended up approaching me about ‘Hereditary’ in 2017. This and the Hulu series, ‘The First’, helped me change direction into film.”
‘Something Very Bad is About to Happen’ is his most recent Netflix work, a series stuffed with shocking twists and turns. Again, Colin was brought into the project early and was able to write hours of music from the script. Often, composers have tight deadlines and work once visuals are finalised, but this long lead-up time is something he prefers.
“A lot of composers don’t want to write anything until they are given a locked cut,” he says. “But I’d prefer to write in advance, it takes more time, and you can’t cram in as many projects - but ultimately, it serves the film better, and it works better for me to populate a film in its first edit with music that I’ve written rather than letting directors use temp music.”
“Editors and directors get used to temp, they will rely on it, and certain things will be cut to it - then as a composer, you have to contend with breaking that up.”
Much of Something Very Bad is About to Happen’s story plays out in a wintery setting, a cabin in the middle of snow-covered woods, and Colin used the clarinet to define the landscape’s soundtrack.
"Editors and directors get used to temp, they will rely on it, and certain things will be cut to it — then as a composer, you have to contend with breaking that up."
“The clarinet played a big part in this and in various forms of ensemble,” he explains. “I wanted to start in a very musically familiar place in terms of people’s relationship with my sound, knowing I was going to do some sudden left turns and switch-ups. I started with the low wind, groaning, reminiscent of ‘Hereditary’s’ foundational elements.”
The curse aspect of the story is a key plot moment, which Colin feels is more lo-fi. For this, he used a Mellotron to create quirkier left turns and electronic cues. “Some of the things that I think are the most fun but are very odd, disturbing and bizarre are made on that instrument,” he explains. “There are some percussive elements taken from my woodwind instruments, but most of the percussion that we hear on the score is made from the creaking sounds of trees to emphasise the nearby woods. I took these creaking sounds, then processed them to make them very rhythmic in these fun contexts.”
“We knew in advance that the penultimate episode was going to be very different and would need its own flavour. So this is very synth driven but still with these other elements woven through, the tree creaking as drum effects as well as the mellotron and clarinets.”
Colin is beaming for much of our conversation about his film work - he’s clearly in love with the medium and his involvement, from Hereditary to Reborne, The Menu and Color Out of Space with Nicholas Cage.
“I love doing it, I get to do really great shows and movies, I always have a really great time making the music,” he says. ‘Something Very Bad is About to Happen’ was a blast, particularly the whole of episode seven. There are some things coming out this year, like Whisper Man, that I had lots of fun with; they will be out later on in the summer.”
His collaborations with artists, including Bon Iver and TV on the Radio, have also influenced how he works. At the start of any project, he asks questions about what a film or piece of music is missing and how it can be enhanced. “Is it something rhythmic that will help give it momentum or buoyancy? Is there something melodic it could use?” he says. “Are there harmonies or textures that are missing? If there are, then what is the most economical way to provide that without weighing it down?”
“There are a lot of through lines between this and film, as I think we should be asking ourselves that too, about each film and all of the individual scenes - is this serving the narrative and picture? Or is it attracting too much attention? Ultimately, it all goes back to the question of whether it works or not. You can throw anything at anything, but whether or not it serves a purpose is the question.”
Find out more about Colin Stetson here.
