2000-07 Film Score Monthly
Stuck in the Middle: Behind-The-Scenes Writing Music For TV & Film
By Tim Curran, Film Score Monthly, July 2000
Say someone comes up to you on the street and asks, "If you had to pick someone to write the music for a TV comedy series about four reprobate young boys, an embarrassingly buffoonish father and the overworked, loud-mouthed but loving mother who (barely) holds them together, who would it be?"
You would of course answer, "They Might Be Giants."
As the band They Might Be Giants, John Flansburgh and John Linnell have been writing quirky, clever pop/rock songs together since the early '80s, and have of late evolved from the underground college-band circuit and alternative scene to a more mainstream status, thanks to high-profile work on Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me and their recent gig scoring the hit Fox TV comedy series Malcolm in the Middle. "A couple of years ago, we started branching out into film and television stuff basically as a way to figure out how to not tour so much," says Flansburgh. "We didn't know what the possibilities were, but from the second we were open to the idea of doing outside work, it started happening. We have had really good luck finding creative people who sought us out."
A Sitcom Like No Other
One such person is Linwood Boomer, creator and executive producer for Malcolm in the Middle (and for trivia buffs, Adam Kendall on Little House on the Prairie). "A couple of summers ago," says Flansburgh, "I got a call that Linwood wanted us to do a song for free for his pilot. So it was like, 'Well, that just sounds like a terrible idea.' Then they sent us the script for the famous 'dad getting shaved' episode." As it turned out, Flansburgh says, "we were very lucky in getting this show, not just because it's a hit, but also because it's very unusual to have this level of care go into making a show. The fact that it's shot on film, it doesn't have a laugh track. Every show gets revised. They actually re-shoot things. It's really a class act."
As anyone who's seen it knows, Malcolm is anything but your typical sitcom. It's a twisted take on the contemporary family--a sort of live-action South Park meets The Simpsons. So the music must have the same hopped-up, slightly skewed approach. "The way they use music is very unusual; it's not really like a [TV] score. And it's not like a movie score," says Flansburgh. "It's also not like your standard sitcom fare at all. They use the music in part to make sure that people realize it's a black comedy and not a drama. Because a lot of the scenes without the music would come off as really twisted drama."
To say that Flansburgh and Linnell have a lot of music to write for Malcolm every episode is an understatement. Flansburgh says, "We'll have 20 or more cues [per show]. It's pretty much wall-to-wall music. As songwriters," he adds, "we've put out an album of a half-hour or 40 minutes of music every two years." What's more, any musical style is fair game from rock, ska, disco and even old-school rap scratching to orchestral and jazz arrangements. "Linwood has very unusual tastes," says Flansburgh. "There were temp cues from a David Byrne dance piece that he did with a trombone quartet. When I heard that I was like, 'Wow, all bets are off. This gig is really wide open.' We can do every kind of music that we've ever imagined or experienced. Having recorded 150 songs as They Might Be Giants commercially, we've covered a lot of musical territory."
The breadth of styles and sheer amount of music mean that neither Flansburgh nor Linnell gets much sleep during production. "The schedule is absolutely insane," says Flansburgh. "I had no idea... It's still very difficult to keep up with the pace of it. I just got a schedule today for the next 20 episodes that has me working till next February. I've enjoyed a Peter Pan existence for the last 20 years. Now I have to be extremely grown up. But it's also really exciting."
"Just because you're in a rock band doesn't mean you're a crack addict." -John Flansburgh, They Might Be Giants
While the band's sound from its earlier albums is distinctly synthesized and sequenced, nearly all of the music written for Malcolm is played live. "We do a lot of things the old-fashioned way. We have weekly sessions that take an entire day of tracking. A fair amount is scored and worked out in advance with MIDI templates. We'll have a half-dozen players and we'll just work through the shows. Sometimes we sync to picture, sometimes not. I work out the timings before [the session]."
While doing everything with live musicians may cut into their profit margins a bit, it's worth it. "It just makes the work exponentially better. And to be able to work this steadily in the studio and with this level of players is pretty much a constant thrill."
They Might Be Tired
Flansburgh and Linnell wanted a break from the constant grind of touring; they got that, and more. In addition to Malcolm, they've composed music for The Daily Show and ABC's Brave New World science specials, and they wrote the opening theme for the upcoming animated series The Oblongs. "We figured nothing could be as hard as touring. You know what? This is definitely harder than touring. The number of all-nighters I've done... But it's fun, it's very exciting to be involved. We been on a pretty wild, lucky streak for a couple of years. Everything we've been involved with has been a hit."