Danny Elfman Musician Quotations

There's kind of a cool feel that happens every now and then. I guess that feel is the thing that makes the score its own score. But, I don't know exactly what that is. So, it's hard for me to answer that question.

So I've learned in the past, if a company approaches me and they want something like this, or something like that that I've done and I turn them down, they're going to do it anyhow.

I'm looking for a feel and I have to find what that feel is before I can move on from there. I'm not necessarily catching stuff in such a simple way - I don't need to. So, I'm going for something else.

I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors, and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that I would never be doing that again. It's just not me. I really am happy as a part-time film composer, not a full-time film composer.

I can't get that live and I don't have the time to take the tape, after I've finished recording it, into a little studio somewhere else where I can get a different kind of percussion sound.

I'll look back and I'd be better to answer that in about three months from now. Or when the movie comes out and I see it. I don't even know what it is yet. I've still been in the middle of it.

Sometimes I like them artificial and sometimes I like them real. And the reason is because sometimes I like a real close sound. And I like a very specific snare sound and I can't get that in the big room.

But, when it comes to all the other little instruments, of which there's a lot in the stuff I've done the last couple of years, I do it all myself.

In Tim's films the tone is the most important thing that the score can do. In any unusual film, finding the tone makes such a big difference.

That still has to be there. And so, it's kind of an interesting question you brought up. Because, on the one hand, yeah, it'd be lovely. I certainly don't see that happening. In fact, I see the opposite happening.

You're allowed to rip-off another score so close that it's ridiculous. In my opinion it's ridiculous, how closely one can just rip-off a score that happened a year or two earlier.

I like creating these rhythmic patterns. These interlocking rhythmic things are really fun.

I'll just start laying out the melody exactly where I want it to fall. And then I'll go back and fill it out. Whereas, in other pieces I'm really just going a couple bars at a time.

Sometimes you get real close, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they drive you crazy. I think every composer does that. That's a big part of the job.

What Brian laid out was something that felt really uneasy and bordering on feeling like I was on a boat or something. So I went with that feeling.

But, really it was finding a kind of a vibe and letting that vibe carry the movie. And did I bring anything new to the mix? I don't know.

Having ten melodies was also a huge challenge, because I usually have three - sometimes just one or two, but often three that I'm using.

You have to nail the right tone because sometimes when you just see his films cold, you're not quite sure. It's the same in - I'm trying to think of other directors with a similar sense - David Lynch's films, Tim's films, some of Cronenberg's stuff.

It's just hard. I wish the studios felt there was more value in these themes and these pieces of material - that they're worth protecting more. Because then it just wouldn't happen. If the studios cared, the stuff would be stopped in a second.

It was a ragtag street ensemble, ... Literally, we'd pass the hat. I learned how to breathe fire. I learned to play the trombone. I was a street musician for years.

Without the music it was kind of hard to tell. People were very confused whether you're allowed to laugh at the stuff that was happening.

The beauty of a main title is that you establish your main theme and maybe a bit of your secondary theme. You plant the seed that you're going to go water later in the score. And so, having that removed just made it so much more difficult.