Interview – WAMG Talks To HOUDINI Composer John Debney

On September 1 & 2, the two-night scripted miniseries HOUDINI follows the epic tales of Harry Houdini as he emerges as America’s first bonafide world-renowned superstar.

Starring Academy Award winner Adrien Brody as The Great Harry Houdini, Kristen Connolly and Evan Jones, the scripted four-hour event chronicles Houdini’s extraordinary life as he finds fame while defying death with his incredible stunts and illusions.

His ability to escape from handcuffs, strait-jackets and water tanks is legendary – breaking the shackles of his past proved more challenging. HISTORY’s Houdini follows the world-renowned master of escape’s transformation from immigrant into the world’s first superstar.  Driven, disciplined and actively chasing the American Dream, Houdini constantly pushed his physical limits to accomplish feats of strength that amazed audiences in an age of spectacle. And though they saw what he wanted them to see, his reality was more elusive than his escapes.

Houdini is based on the book Houdini: A Mind in Chains: A Psychoanalytic Portrait by Bernard C. Meyer, M.D., and written by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Nicholas Meyer (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Best Adapted Screenplay, 1976) and directed by Uli Edel, who directed the Academy Award-nominated film The Baader Meinhof Complex (Best Foreign Language Film, 2008).

Oscar nominee John Debney (Passion of the Christ, Iron Man 2), scored the History Channel’s upcoming mini-series.

In HOUDINI, Debney has created a contemporary soundscape and during our recent phone conversation, he talked about the score for the mini-series, what led him to be a composer, as well as his scores for the upcoming SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS movie and Jon Favreau’s reimagining of JUNGLE BOOK.

WAMG: How would you describe the ‘Houdini’ score?

John Debney: I would best describe it as a contemporary take on magic and everything that is magic. There’s an electric quality to it. We used an electronic score to give the idea that this is the turn of the century, electric age. The aggressive music has some gypsy like qualities, hence the solo violin, so I’d say it’s an electronic gypsy-style score.

WAMG: What other types of instruments did you incorporate into this electronic score?

JD: We used a lot of string instruments like zithers and dulcimers. We used accordions. We used a lot of instruments that might give you the flavor of the period while encasing it in a very uber-contemporary sound.

WAMG: When were you brought onto the project and did you visit the set to get a feel for the movie?

JD: I was brought on late into the process by a producer who I worked with before. I saw a rough cut of the film and I discussed with the director (Uli Edel) what type of score should this thing be.

I really didn’t want to do a period piece score – I wanted to do something outside the box. Something you might not expect when you think of Houdini. The idea of a techno, electronic, metal-infused score was interesting to everybody. Lo and behold, when you start experimenting you never know what kind of sound is going to work for a movie. Weirdly enough, the more aggressive some of this music got, the cooler attitude we gave Houdini. 

It gestated through experimentation and the score developed from there. We knew we wanted to integrate the gypsy sounds also in the background and it formed that way.

WAMG: It’s very edgy and when most people think Houdini, the first thought is of Tony Curtis in the 1953 movie, along with period piece music. This film is anything but.

JD: That’s exactly what I wanted to create and something that would raise a few eyebrows. It might surprise people in the sense that this type of score would usually be seen in a modern movie setting. It’s from a very elegant age and it was fun to conceive of a score that you wouldn’t normally think would go with something like this.

WAMG: When did you first know you wanted to compose film scores?

JD: I’ve been a musician my whole life. I started playing guitar when I was five or six. I did the whole band thing out here in Southern California when I was a teenager. I would bet somewhere in the high school years, I started to think about how cool music was with visuals. It grew out of that and when I went to college, I studied music. The rest sort of came after that.

I gravitated toward the visual medium because of my background. My dad worked at Walt Disney Studio for forty years, so it was certainly in my blood. I was a musician first and then fell in love with the idea of music against film.

WAMG: Speaking of Disney, it was just announced that you’ll be writing the score for Jon Favreau’s adaptation of JUNGLE BOOK.

JD: It’s very cool and I’m very thankful that Jon asked me back to the party. We’ve done three movies together (ELF, ZATHURA, IRON MAN 2), so this was a wonderful reunion. I was actually a kid when the first Jungle Book was shot and I knew the kid of the animator who did the voice of Mowgli. This new film is very close to home and touches my heartstrings to be a part of something so iconic. Now they’re going to reimagine it and I’m thrilled.

WAMG: Did you find yourself wanting to revisit the original animated film? When you hear any of the classic songs, you know its JUNGLE BOOK.

JD: You do know! I did go back and listen. I’m in the early stages of working on the score, using the similar instruments. Bass flutes and alto flutes and exotic sounds. It’s going to be very interesting and will certainly be a different score than the first one. Without spoiling anything, there might be a tip of the hat to a couple of those wonderful songs from that film.

WAMG: In 2014 you’ve done DRAFT DAY and have STONEHEARST ASYLUM as well as the new SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS movie coming out. With all the other past films that you’ve written music for, do you like to go between the various themes – does it become any easier the more you write?

JD: That’s a great question. I actually do. Some artists like to stay on familiar ground and I don’t. I love to switch it up. As a musician, I always feel that I can do something better the second time… or the third time as it were. I love it. It gets my juices flowing to go from a big football movie like DRAFT DAY with an electronic orchestra to what is a very traditional thriller score in STONEHEARST ASYLUM with a love story in there.  After recording that in London with a lot of great musicians, I came back here to work on SPONGEBOB with Hawaiian guitars and orchestras with bassoons. It’s a lot of fun and I love wearing the different hats.  It helps me to keep it fresh.

WAMG: For fans of Spongebob, will they hear some of the TV themes when the movie is released next year?

JD: Oh yes, they’ll be very happy. We’re blatantly bringing everyone back to it. There will be some very familiar sounds and then there will be some very big and different sounds. I don’t want to spoil it. It will be a lot of fun and a tip of the hat to some 80’s synthesized  music – we’re having a ball with it.

WAMG: Your HOUDINI score has so much music that it needed two volumes.

JD: There’s a ton of music. You can imagine two hours each night, there’s wall to wall music. It’s a tremendous amount, so the record company did a very cool thing (Lakeshore Records) to conceive of having a Volume One and a Volume Two. Even the artwork is interesting – it works in conjunction with itself.

The HOUDINI album is available now for download and the CD will be available on September 30.

DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM: http://bit.ly/HoudiniOSTV2
WATCH HOUDINI starring Adrien Brody – premieres 9/1 on HISTORY: http://www.history.com/houdini