First off, any upcoming projects you can/want to discuss?
My wife just recently wrote a book about me called Journey to the Inner Light about my career – from writing music for Star Trek to my jazz career and work producing records. Inner Light is probably the most famous Star Trek episode – that is the best known piece of music I wrote for the franchise.
I live in Martha’s Vineyard now six months of the year. We live on a sailboat the other half of the year in Mexico. I’m an avid sailor – I used to live in Malibu. We decided to sell our house and sail and just kept going! It sounds romantic, but I like to call it “Fixing things in exotic places!”
Were you always an avid sailor?
I studied and grew up in Pittsburgh and we had a boat and sailed all the rivers. We’d go to the Point – it’s such a beautiful city. I was always fascinated at how ethnic the city was but everyone got along. And the food was really good!
How/why did you get started in composing music for films/shows?
I started writing music when I was in junior high school. I played in the band and our band director one day took us to see Henry Mancini as he conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony at the Civic Arena. A light bulb went off in my head after that. I knew that’s what I wanted to do and I pandered my education around that afterwards. Henry Mancini was from the area too – I was excited that I got to meet him. He told me there must be something in the water in Pittsburgh since there were so many good musicians from Pittsburgh then.
What did you do from there?
I joined the Navy Band in DC – I was a jazz guy and wrote jazz arrangements for them. Some of those guys – like Maynard Ferguson – they went on to bigger things. I wrote music for Maynard later on and was recommended by others to write for people – one of those people was Randy Purcell who was influential in the Pittsburgh music scene.
I ended up going to New York – I wanted to be a jazz guy. I was asked by CBS Records to be a producer – my first album I produced was for Maynard. The album included the theme song for Rocky – that helped both of our careers.
I ended up producing 30-to-40 albums for a lot of jazz musicians, the Talking Heads, Carly Simon… It was a crazy thing. I realized though that I was helping everyone else’s career and wanted to work on my own as well.
Gato Barbieri – who did the score for The Last Tango in Paris – he called me and asked me to help write the score for a Sophia Loren movie. It was an action film and he wanted some help with it. That was my first film I did – we recorded it with the London Philharmonic Orchestra – it didn’t do terrifically but it had an all-star cast. Hey, it was Sophia Loren!
Is that how the film career kicked in?
After that I went back to New York. There were a couple of guys then who were doing an independent film called Maniac about the Son of Sam. It was a very violent film – they filmed by going around New York shooting late at night. I liked the energy they had – they asked me to write the music for it and it became a cult classic.
The film business – the way it works – when an editor who worked with you moved on to another project they’d recommend the people they worked with. That led to bigger and better projects. I went from horror to action movies like Chuck Norris movies.
The same editor then recommended me for a Stephen King movie- Silver Bullet. That was produced by De Laurentiis – that was a big deal. At that time I also was doing documentaries including one on Jacques Cousteau that included some crazy whale sounds I used in the music.
My agent called me after that and said that there was an opening for Star Trek. The producers liked that I was a bit far-out with the whale sounds and asked me to do an episode.
What does that entail?
It’s really an audition. They give you and others a show two weeks in advance and ask you to write music around it and they pick the one they like. They don’t give you any instruction – they leave it up to you. I used the whale sounds in the music and they liked it.
After that they asked me to be a regular composer for the show – that means you do every other show. At first I turned it down – I didn’t want to be locked in. But they told me I had to take it – I couldn’t turn something like this down. They talked me into it.
I didn’t know at the time about the other spinoffs they had in the pipeline! I ended up doing the music for The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine… I wrote music for the franchise for 19 years! And that’s where I met my wife – she was a producer for Deep Space Nine.
We actually toured, conducting music from the shows. We did 220 shows around the world showing images of the shows in sync with the music. I didn’t do all the shows but I did do many of them.
Most of your work seems to focus more on the dramatic shows/movies – what’s the attraction there for you?
I think there were just fewer comedies then, though I did do the music for Cheech and Chong’s movie “Far Out Man”. That was a silly movie.
I just think you get pigeon-holed. You do one action or space or horror movie and then you get another. I was really never a Star Trek fan growing up though I did build spaceships as a kid! I never got to do music for a movie about sailing unfortunately. I wanted to do the music for Master & Commander but didn’t get it.
It’s never too late!
I’m kind of retired now and enjoy my life the way it is. You don’t have a life when you work in this business. You have to write so much music in such a short time. It doesn’t lead to a great family life.
What did winning an Emmy for your work on the final episode of Star Trek: Voyager mean to you?
I was nominated seven times before that and never won so I didn’t want to go to the Emmys that year. My friend was also nominated and I figured we’d get votes split between us – I figured I had no chance to win.
My wife saw I won when it was posted on the internet – they did it live as people won. When you don’t go to the Emmys you have to go pick up your Emmy at the Academy of Arts & Sciences building – a big building in L.A. I showed up late and the night watchman let me in – he was an older African American man who told me he was an artist and wished he could have won an Emmy but was from the South and wasn’t allowed to go to school when he was younger.
My Emmy was in a plastic bag in the corner. He and I decided we’d go outside and present each other with Emmy’s on front of the big Emmy statue in front of the building. We wrote down our awards on notecards and took turns taking pictures of each other. That was so much cooler to me than going to the Emmys and eating rubber chicken!
What impact did having grown up near the Pittsburgh area have on you and your start/career?
Pittsburgh at that time had so many great jazz musicians. I went to town a lot to hear them play – maybe some of it rubbed off! I heard so many great musicians. The multi-cultural makeup of the city influenced me to to do a lot of world music.
I used to take the trolley from New Castle to a music store on Liberty Avenue called Volkweins. They had records and sheet music and I’d go there and browse through all of the music. They were very kind to me – they would give me free sheet music sometimes. I was a music nerd – I’d sneak into jazz clubs since I wasn’t old enough for some of them.
People don’t realize it too – but Mr. Rogers had some of the best jazz players on that show, like Joe Negri. I studied at Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon before I went to West Virginia University. I loved the city then – it was still industrial then – people would complain the snow was black in the Winter but I know they cleaned things up since then.
Have any ties still to the city? Sports/local fan still?
When I was at West Virginia University I wrote music for Harold Betters – he had a band that played at the Steelers games. It was an all brass band – I got to go to games and hang out with them in the ’60s and early ’70s.
I live close to Boston now. I thought Pittsburgh was the ultimate sports city with the Terrible Towel and fans – but Boston is giving them a run for their money now. I was in Pittsburgh when the Pirates won the World Series and when the Penguins and Steelers were so good. I went to a few hockey games – and my first sports event I went to was seeing the Pirates at Forbes Field.
Any other fun experiences with the sports teams?
The Pirates used to have a band that played at games – the Benny Benack Band. They played fight music like “The Bucs are Going All the Way” at the games, but Roberto Clemente didn’t like the music so they had to play outside the stadium. Well, I learned that tune and one day I brought my trumpet to a game and played it during the game! I got some cheers and boos. It wasn’t a musical masterpiece!
I also wrote a concert piece called “Three Rivers” which is about the city. It has an industrial sound like being inside a steel mill to represent the city, with clanging like you’d hear in a mill, parts with an Italian Citizen Band and some parts jazz.
What was the most exciting/rewarding project you’ve worked on and what made it so?
Conducting the Inner Light in London at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Having 85 musicians playing my best-known piece then applauding me at the end was amazing.