In 1996 Pray for Rain composed a score for an Alex Cox film called "The Winner." The film was re-edited and the score removed by the producers against the director's wishes – and subsequently re-scored by another composer. Here is a 2008 email-interview with Dan Wool by author Hubai Gergely, about that experience, for an upcoming book about filmscore, Torn Music. As a follow-up Gergely inquired about Pray for Rain's re-scoring of the film "Trust Me", in 1989, a film originally scored by legendary composer Elmer Bernstein.
(The interview below was conducted as part of a book currently entitled Torn Music, which will explore the history of rejected film scores. This is an exceptionally rich field which hasn't been discussed in detail before. There are literally dozens of titles each year where a musical score is written and thrown out for one reason or another. The WinnerTrust Me are only two of the 300 tiles I've selected for discussion. The hardest part was really narrowing down the discussed movies because there are two or three times as many pictures that could be discussed, but what's worths talking about will be featured in my book. Among other titles you'll find famous examples like El Cid, Torn Curtian, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Exorcist, The Big Boss, Platoon, The Accidental Tourist, Tremors, Interview with the Vampire, Mission: Impossible, Air Force One, H20, The Bourne Identity, Troy, King Kong and many many more. Even if you're only a little bit of interested in cinema, Torn Music will offer a lot of surprises, including several titles discoved during my research, meaning this will be the first time you'll read about these. Watch this space for further information as I hope you'll be able to get a copy this time next year. — Hubai Gergely)
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HG: What were Alex's instructions on the score (for The Winner)? How did you communicate?
DW: Since Alex and I had worked together on several projects previously the lines of communication were open and clear. Alex's basic MO is to pick his department heads very carefully and then let them do their jobs. Ninety percent of his input on most films is given very early on, well before post production begins. In the case of The Winner, which was set in Las Vegas, the one thing Alex didn't want was a score that played obviously to the scenery. The production design was so heavily laden with old Vegas sleaze that to have the score continue along those lines with a 'lounge music' soundtrack would have been redundant. A joke on a joke. Also, Alex hates Jazz, always has, and was adamant that the score not go in that direction no matter how loudly the locations asked for it. To Alex the only relevant "Vegas music" was done by Elvis Presley – which composer Zander Schloss brought to The Winner soundtrack along with other compositions. The original score for The Winner was carefully and deliberately designed to play to the characters and to the comically metaphysical sub-plot. In doing so we organically created counter-point to the visual that framed the natural vulgarity of Las Vegas.
HG: I'm only familiar with "The Winner" version. In what ways was the movie different while it was still called "A Darker Purpose"?
DW: "A Darker Purpose" was the name of Wendy Riss's play that the screenplay was based on. It was changed to "The Winner" before I got involved.
HG: You've described the score as "experimental". What kind of unusual solutions did you use? Were there any "guest performers"?
DW: Much of the original score was heavily synthetic and atmospheric. Extremely processed and over baked sonically. Tangerine Dream with a hangover. Atypical for a noir-y, Vegas-y film. The rest of the music was guitar based with both Zander and I often abusing the instrument to generate the desired tone. The guitar based parts that did have melodic content we left as raw as possible. Nothing sounded remotely the way a Hollywood film, even an 'indie' would be scored. In no way did we attempt to cater to the norms of what the genre called for. While the score was hardly on the frontier of sonic innovation, it at least didn't sound like any film we were aware of. Also, while scouting locations for the film Alex went to several casinos and was struck by the deafening maniacal din created by the slot machines and wondered if these sounds could be incorporated into the score and/or the sound design. While they were shooting in Las Vegas I visited the location and went around with a field recorder and captured an hour or so of various casino ambiances. The recordings were later sampled, chopped, filtered, mangled and used as plastic musical elements in the score. Much of the original score was either based on these samples or had them playing underneath as a sound design element.
There were some guest performers (Josh Freese, Matt Tecu, James Woody), but the vast majority of the score was performed by either Zander or myself. Rebecca DeMornay's character had two on-screen performances that were written into the script that needed to be composed and recorded during pre-production for her to lip sync to during the shoot. Rebecca has an adequate singing voice so that process went smoothly as I recall.
HG: The movie was heavily re-edited. Did the music got replaced only because of the edits or did the producers deliberately want a different type of score?
DW: Actually the picture edits were relatively minimal so none of the decision to replace the score was based on that – I should say that, although the edits were small they changed the film drastically. Most of the cuts were designed to minimize Frank Whaley's darkly eccentric character, a character that Alex felt was pivotal to the film. Indeed, much of the timbre for the score was drawn from the chorus that Whaley's character provided. There were some differences early on between Alex and the producers (Mark Damon and Rebecca DeMornay) on several points regarding the the direction of the film in general, and the direction of the music in specific. All the notes that they gave regarding the score were attempts to impose a more cinematically conventional approach to the music. Clearly they didn't understand what we were trying to do. If they did they definitely didn't like it!
HG: Alex Cox described Daniel Licht's replacement work as "porno music". What's your opinion on it?
DW: Alex's quote on the subject: "(the Pray for Rain score) was completely stripped out and replaced with fake jazz, of the kind producers buy by the yard for pornos."
I didn't think it was so bad. I probably would have never heard it except the director's cut with the original score was accepted to a film festival. Through some mix up the festival ended up with tapes of both versions. Alex was out of the country and asked me to have a listen to make absolutely certain the right version went to the festival. I thought it was a fine score. Daniel Licht is a very capable composer. Much more so than me. However the music was exactly the opposite of what the director had envisioned – a faux noir Jazz-score that played to the location. Watching both versions of the film is a fairly good study on just how much influence a soundtrack has on the film viewing experience. I think even the layman film goer might agree the footprint the Licht score has on the film fundamentally changes the film and the statement that the director was trying to make. I'm sure Licht was underpaid, overworked and doing as his employer asked, but his score is utterly void of creativity. It is a very "proper" film score that flows nicely with the film and draws no attention to itself whatsoever. Also, Jazz scores were trendy at the time so even that choice (made by the producer no doubt) lacked original thought. The Pray for Rain score was composed deliberately, not only as counter-point to the story and locations as I've described, but also to prevent the film from being a redundant adjunct to the independent films that were the rage of that period in the 1990's.
HG: Some copies of the movie (in Japan) still retain your score. How did that come about.
DW: Although they're notoriously commercial as a society the Japanese retain a great deal of respect for the artist. Specifically the director. As I recall, since Alex was so vocal about his disapproval of the version that the producers were releasing the Japanese distributor asked if they could show the cut with the original edit and score as the director intended. Since Alex's cut was fully delivered and in the can it was easy to create prints.
HG: Does the original sheet music you used for recording survive?
DW: Since the score was mostly guitar and synth there were very few charts.
HG: Regarding the re-scoring of the film "Trust Me", originally scored by Elmer Bernstein: How were you contacted to do the movie?
DW: Victor Ratto, Pray for Rain's manager at the time (Pray for Rain was primarily a band until the early 90s) was friends with the music supervisor, Peter Afterman. Since we only had two scores under our belt Victor was calling in a favor by asking Peter to give us a shot. We ended up doing demos of a scene or two that impressed the director (Bobby Houston) enough to give us the job.
HG: What kind of instructions did you receive?
DW: This is the only time in my career that I can recall where the type of score was was left entirely up to the composer. I think the demo was mostly a test of our instincts so we were given no instructions. They just wanted to see what we came up with. I think we thought it'd be fun to try something completely outside the pop genre that we were used to as a band so we chose to try a modern Jazz score. The main character of the film was sort of a slick pretentious modern art dealer so the choice to use a slick (pretentious) modern jazz score seemed to make sense.
HG: Have you heard Elmer's score? If yes, what did it sound like?
DW: No. I'm not even sure they told us initially that we were replacing a score. When the tapes showed up they still had Elmer Bernstein's credit on it! I thought it was just a joke – a place-holder with Elmer Bernstein's name being used as a generic composer-credit-goes-here slug. Trust Me was a very small film. It didn't occur to me that Elmer Bernstein would actually have been involved. At some point while we were scoring we learned that the director didn't care for Bernstein's score and that was why it was being re-scored. It wasn't until several years later that I happen to run into an engineer that worked on the original score. He told me that Bernstein had composed the original score using a Theremin – an esoteric electronic instrument – as the main instrument and in fact he (the engineer) got the impression the only reason Bernstein agreed to score the film was so that he could experiment with the Theremin.
HG: Why was the change necessary? Do you know of any drastic edits?
DW: I don't think there were any big changes to the picture. As I recall the the director had very little input on the original score. It was like "do you want Elmer Bernstein to score your film?" "Um, yes". Who wouldn't? But what happened, I suspect, was that they sent Elmer the tapes and he sent back the Theremin experiment.
HG: How would you describe your own score?
DW: There were a couple of guitar based, "pop-ballad" cues (it was the 80s after all), but mostly it was a "Jazz" score. The irony of course is that my own experimental score for Alex Cox's The Winner was replaced with a Jazz score by another composer a few years later. It's a fairly traumatic thing to happen to a composer really. When The Winner score got tossed I took comfort in the fact that even the great Elmer Bernstein had had scores rejected. Even Elmer must have felt a little hurt that his music had been swapped out. It's just a part of the business. And not that surprising really. The last major creative element to be added to a film is always the music. It's the last chance for anyone to have input.
HG: There are reports of Bernstein's score retained in some prints of the movie. Do you know anything about that?
DW: I never heard that before. I hope so. Since Elmer Bernstein's fame far outshines Pray for Rain's, any of the actors' in the film and the director's combined I would think that score would be a very good selling point of any DVD rerelease. Even if it's only for the soundtrack-philes.
(Editor's note: Dan Wool can always be found at www.prayforrain.com , in case you were looking for him…)