The Civil War film “Gods and Generals” (2003) put John Frizzell on the path to wide recognition among film-music fans. However, before 2003, Frizzell was not an unknown and, in the late 1990s, his Hollywood career was certainly in ascension. James Newton Howard took Frizzell under his wing, and together they worked on “The Rich Man’s Wife” (1996) and “Dante’s Peak” (1997). These scores led to “Alien Resurrection” (1997), for which Frizzell wrote an ethereal score. Frizzell’s music is always heartfelt, regardless of the genre in which he’s working: Among his notable scores are the introspective “Crime of the Century’ (1996), a film about the Lindbergh kidnapping; the ominous “The Empty Mirror”, a film about Adolph Hitler; and the wild “Beavis and Butt-head Do America” (1996), a popular MTV comedy. How did you get into the movie-music business? It’s an interesting thing. I’ve never been in anything else. My father was on the road to becoming a concert pianist before he became an architect. There was so much music around the house – even though he was an architect he was constantly exposing us to tons of music. I started singing as a small child, and I sand at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Then I took some gigs doing chorus work with the Metropolitan Opera Company and the Paris Opera Company. They would do their summer tours on the East Coast, and I spent a couple summers doing that until my voice changed. I just found that the world of music was something I greatly enjoyed. I studied a lot of music in high school and ended up going to music school at USC; then I went to Manhattan School of Music. What are your musical influences? You know, my musical influences are… I like such a diverse range of music that I don’t think I can say it’s one thing that has really driven me toward music in terms of a style. Although it’s probably a strange answer, my musical influence is probably the human condition. When I say “the human condition”, I mean that I’m fascinated with how music affects the human mind. I think that’s what ultimately draws me to music. Are you inspired by the music of other film composer? Absolutely. I try to keep up a healthy amount of listening to my peers and to the great composers who have shaped the art of film music. I draw from what they have done to outline the language we use, and I take art in watching the language we use in film music evolve. What film or films reveal your voice or how you perceive yourself? I would pick two: “James Dean” and “Gods and Generals”. I love to write very intense music. What genre interests you most in a composition? That’s an interesting question. The genre that interests me the most is moving people – having them feel human is something that interests me very much. Although, I think if I just did that, I would really long to just entertain and get people very excited. It’s nice to sit down and write melodies and to write thematic material that becomes embedded, hopefully, in the psyche of the viewers and maybe, if you really go a step forward, in the psyche of our culture. You came onto “Dante’s Peak” after James Newton Howard began with the themes. How did all this take place? James Newton Howard has always been supportive and an enormous help to me in my early career. There was a serious time-crunch on that film, and they needed to get someone in there right away. James said that he would write a theme, and he backed me in being the composer of the score. It was my opportunity to do my first massive action film. James ended up doing five or six cues, something like that, and I think he had two themes that are played in there. How difficult was it blending your style with James Newton Howard’s themes? Pretty easy. James is a great composer and has been a very big influence on me. Also, so many composers in history have taken themes of other composers and expanded on them. Clearly that was something that was commonly done. I think I did it well. “Thirteen Ghosts”, with its experimental sounds of the locomotive along with heavy synth textures, is an unusual score for you. Where did you develop these sounds? A lot of late nights trying very bizarre experiments in the studio. For some of the sounds I used, I got old car parts and hung them up in my living room and basically just beat on them and then processed those sounds to get some strange, striking, metallic sounds. I purchased an erhu, which is a Chinses bowed-string instrument that’s similar to a violin. I had no idea how to play it, and I sat around for a few hours until I was able to get some very horrific sounds coming out of it due to my lack of ability. It’s a lot of trial and error, and half the time you come up with a terrible idea that doesn’t work. But, during “Thirteen Ghosts”, I found a bunch of things that did work. I hope they were innovative. I think one of the most fascinating things with music today is the technology, where we’re able to have sounds evolve an enormous amount – they’re like a kaleidoscope in the way they’re never the same from moment to moment. The brass cues in “Thirteen Ghosts” seem influenced by Bernard Herrmann. I think that you can say that they’re influenced by him – absolutely. He’s one of my great heroes. And I think if you look back into the classical literature, you’ll find his influences embedded in there. I believe you can find the real source of the inspiration for most film music back in the classical repertoire. “Gods and Generals” is the most incredible epic score I have heard in a long while. How did this project come about for you? Well, it was an interesting situation. Randy Edelman, who did “Gettysburg”, was going to do “Gods and Generals”, but there was a schedule conflict because of the film “XXX”. They needed to get the score done, so Randy called me, knowing I would want to score the film and use a couple things he had sketched out in there at my discretion. I met with the director, and we got along very well. It seemed like a good idea, so I sat down and started writing. I was glad to have a canvas as massive as “Gods and Generals” and to be able to get a chance to write this way. Randy and I have been friends for a while. He is just a great guy and someone whom I am generally in awe of. I was really honored to have him think of me in this situation. Randy Edelman did a fantastic job with “Gettysburg”, and I would have been curious to see the direction he took with this next Civil War film, which is of a much different nature. However, you ran with this project and excelled in every way. Well, thank you. I am really very proud of it. I contemplated war and I tried to create something that I hope, upon listening to, will make people not want to have wars. I hope to get more opportunities to do that. I think that I’ve known about this side of my writing for a long time, and I’m glad people are getting to hear it. Your music represents more of the soldiers’ heart on the field than it did of the battles as a whole. What were you focusing on during the creative process? The pain and the horror of that conflict, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and practically destroyed our country. It was really about Ron Maxwell sitting me down and pointing at one guy, who – running through Fredricksburg – gets blown to bits, and Ron saying to me, “Now, John, write about what he’s feeling. Don’t write about what history thinks about him.” I didn’t take sides in the conflict; I took the human side. I took the side of anguish, not whether a mother was on the Confederate side or the Union side but that she lost her son. I’m not judging anything. I am just talking about human pain. I really believe this score will open so many doors for you in the future. The question is, can this score be topped? I’m really grateful for what I get to do. I’m from the school where I work really hard and am really tough on myself. I figure, if I just keep working my ass off, I’ll get more opportunities where I can create something that moves people. I love to make people laugh. I loved doing “Beavis and Butt-head”, the movie. I’m very proud of that film because it made people laugh. I think that’s a great thing to get to do. I’ve been getting positive feedback on “Gods and Generals”, and it will be nice to get other opportunities like it. And I want to leave a body of work here on Earth that I can say and that my kids can say, “Hey, that’s cool.” Do you take being second in line on a project offensively or as a compliment that you’ve been referred by another colleague of yours? Film music is an extremely competitive world, and I love competition. The minute I’m done with a movie, I try to find people to play chess with, so I can destroy them. I have very close friends who are film composers who I’ll call up when I know we’re going after the same film and say, “Dude, I’m going to beat you.” And if they beat me I get pissed off, but I really enjoy the competition of it. I think you have to have a healthy attitude toward competition to be in a business that is so competitive. I don’t look at my competitors as foes. I look at them as competitors and it’s a game. What is your opinion of fans and reviewers? Do you take their comments personally? You can’t. On the Internet, I have seen some of the stuff that people are saying about my score to “Gods and Generals”. It’s very ego inflating. But I can’t embrace that. I didn’t write it for you guys. So it’s not about the reviews. You just have to write from your heart and believe in what you are doing. I’ve had scores that were massively criticized that are some of my favorite works. Are you searching, then, for others’ opinions or is this something directed to you without your control? At times I’ve sought it out, and at times, it’s kind of self-destructive. You might sort of snoop around the Internet and say, “Oh, my God, how could that person say that about me?” But then you realize that half the information is completely out of context. I think that’s what’s particularly frustrating about reviews is that quite often they’re about how a score appears on the CD, with no mention of how it relates to the film. Film music is exactly that – it’s film music and it’s a part of the whole thing. I tried to create a “Gods and Generals” CD that was a really good listen. But it’s still a film score. I was as guilty as everybody else. If you look at my shelves, I have hundreds of movie scores. At one point in time, prior to working on this book, I was sucked up in the fan-based world of film scores on CDs, making fruitless comments. You’re criticizing the CD. What a thing to do! The CD isn’t what the composer sat down to do. I believe that promoting this notion of getting film-score fans to acknowledge and to think about film scores and not film CDs would really benefit the art of film music. For example, get people talking about why they chose to put this here or there and so on. Maybe that cue got moved at the last minute on the dub stage, or there may be any number of other reasons why it is where it is. All very true. On the other hand, as enthusiasts or listeners, we tend to become aware of, or become fans of, certain composers because of their music itself – disassociated from films. I listen to James Newton Howard on CD, for example, just as I listen to Arvo Part or Antonion Vivaldi. Film music has become so popular outside of films. Perhaps it’s the modern opera. Nevertheless, now that I have seen the process behind closed doors and discussed with composers their careers, my outlook has changed, as has my focus in this book. I want to make film-music fans aware of all its elements before they start critiquing it. Well, that’s good, because CDs really are an important legacy. But they’re just CDs. Listening to just the CDs is perfectly analogous to going backstage in an opera, looking at the costumes, and then saying, “None of them is any good – they just don’t fit together.” But you’re not looking at the whole thing. You have to consider what our primary function is when you look at the really great film composers. Let’s talk for a minute about Elmer Bernstein’s score for “To Kill a Mockingbird”. It’s probably one of the top five scores of all time. It’s also a great CD. Just look at the finesse and the beauty of every note and picture how it relates to every character and how he opens up that main title and what mood it projects against that little box being opened up and how moving it is as part of a whole. That’s the art of film music. What goals do you have for the future, and what can we expect from you? A baby first. I’m getting married in three weeks. Musically, I really hope “God and Generals” will bring me to some more films that can take that type of emotional depth. Although I love the fun, exciting things I get to do, I don’t want to do just that. I just finished “Cradle 2 the Grave” with Joel Silver. Joel throws at me enormous challenges that are exciting, awesome, and terrifying. He’ll have me try to innovate a whole hip-hop thing into a score and keep pushing me to find new sounds. Getting back to “Thirteen Ghosts” for a second: Joel really pushed me to get those sounds to come to life that way. “Don’t ever bring me the same old stuff. I’ve heard that one… I’ve heard that one…” I like getting pushed creatively to bring in something new, and then hear him say, “I haven’t heard that. That sounds pretty cool.” I start to feed on that. I adore working with Joel Silver because I love to change gears and start something new. I just love the whole process. I’m really drifting from your question. What do I hope to do? I hope to keep creating, and I hope to keep a diversity of projects. I hope to keep getting pushed creatively, and I hope I can stay in touch with the reason I started doing this. You touch on something that is pretty interesting that I’ve found in many composers’ careers: a relationship with one particular director who pushes for that extra something that he or she knows the composer is able to do. Joel really pushes me. He really gets me to find new things in myself and get out of bad habits and keep that forward motion in my work. It’s really important to have a collaborative environment like that going on in your career. I’m sure I’m going to do many projects with him. You’ll see my work evolve and know that I’m pushing myself, but I’m also getting creative input from someone I’m working with. Another person I love working with is Mark Rydell. He really drives me creatively. I’ve only done two projects with him, but I’m very proud of the work that I’ve done in “James Dean” as well as the HBO movie we did, “Crime of the Century”. Mark really teaches me a lot about the idea of acting with music – such as, “What does it say or what does it convey?” – never letting me be passive in my composition. Did you meet Mark Rydell through James Newton Howard? I think James said to Mark, “Why don’t you listen to Frizzell’s work.” Mark gave it a listen and loved it. And away I went. Mentorship is a great thing. When I hear someone young who I think is really good, I love to pass that along now.