Mac Quayle
Supreme Emmy-winning composer, Mac Quayle returns to discuss the sonic climax of Sam Esmail’s psychological thriller masterwork, Mr. Robot, as well as his latest creations for the ever-expanding empire of Ryan Murphy. An allusive craftsman of musical spectacles, Mac has scored a phenomenal array of television serials including American Horror Story, Pose, American Crime Story, Feud: Bette and Joan, The Politician, and 9-1-1. Without posturing, Mac’s musical lexicon has time and place for electronic surrealism, apocalyptic rapture, and distorted serenity. In our discussion, Mac reveals how his personal outlook has transformed since the debut of American Horror Story: Freak Show and his intentions for Netflix’s upcoming One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest inspired series, Ratched.
Source: Cat Deakins
The final season of Mr. Robot picks up right where season three left off, examining the aftermath of Evil Corp boss, Phillip Price revealing he is Angela’s father and the moments leading up to her demise. As the episodes progress, we witness Elliot Alderson and Mr. Robot working together to defeat the deadly Whiterose. Last season, there was disharmony between the two identities, but now, there is emotional reconciliation and a sense of unity between them. How was this change of circumstance conveyed musically?
Wow! I guess that would assume that I was really getting that deep into my plans for it. To be honest, there was no big master plan. It is really about scoring the moment. Telling something with the music and trying to help the viewer understand what’s happening rather than a concept as to how the score’s going to communicate that. I could try and make up something more elaborate and fancy, but that’s the truth.
I mean, the first time Robot talks to us, the viewer, the music has a shift that underscores the gravity of this big change. I mean, Elliot’s been talking to us for three seasons and now he’s not. So, it’s not just that Robot’s talking to us, but it’s also that Elliot’s not talking to us. He’s shut us out. The music has just helped to underscore the importance of that shift.
After season one, your musical identity has strategically incorporated organic instrumentation like live strings. Sometimes, it’s hard to discern what is genuinely music and what is sound design. This method masterfully mirrors the themes of isolation and internal conflict. Can you tell us about the evolution of your score for Mr. Robot and what you felt should be musically prioritized in this final chapter?
I mean, again, there hasn’t been a big master plan for this. The core sound is still electronic and that’s really the foundation that’s been there from the beginning. Over the arc of the life of this show, we have expanded more into organic instruments and that continues. I actually just recorded a violinist on a piece for episode four. A lot of it is about the moment. What does this scene need? What can we do here? Do we want to just rely on the sound that previously worked so well, or do we want to push it to another place? And so, I feel like we treat every episode a little differently. To me, at least in hindsight, it feels like we’ve pushed the score into some nice new territory over these four seasons.
Please tell us about your scoring approach for Whiterose, the leader of the Dark Army. What sonic elements felt most appropriate to support this character arc?
Well, depending on the choice of pronoun, he/she/they are pretty evil. Most of the music that has supported Whiterose has been fairly dark, and there hasn’t been one instrument or even one theme that has been specifically tied to Whiterose. Up until now, we’ve pretty much stayed away from incorporating any sort of Chinese flavor. I can’t really give away the plot or the moment it happened in, but I did get an opportunity to use a pretty classic Chinese instrument in a scene — the erhu. I think you could crudely call it a “Chinese violin”. It’s a great moment in the Whiterose story, and the erhu worked really, really well.
What has your contribution to the cultural impact of Mr. Robot meant to you personally and professionally? Do you have plans to reunite with Sam Esmail in the near future creatively?
I feel incredibly privileged to have been a part of this show. I feel it's one of the strongest creations for television there has ever been. I mean, I feel so strongly about it and to be a part of it has meant a huge amount to me. And of course, Sam [Esmail] is a genius. I hope that we have the opportunity to work together again. There's nothing on the books yet, but I know he has lots of projects coming up and hopefully, we'll be doing it again.
The Politician is a dark comedy series revolving around Payton Hobart, an ambitious high school student and adopted son of an affluent family with lofty dreams of becoming President of the United States. The show illustrates the twisted relationship dynamics surrounding his student body president campaign and the price people will pay for power. We note that there are some Latin and Spanish influences within the musical vocabulary of The Politician. What were your references that informed these cues, and what was the thought process behind their inclusion?
Well, there’s always a little bit of an experimentation phase. When we were initially trying to discover what the sound of the show would be, we tried various things and nothing was really exciting us. And then, we thought, rather than let the characters inform the style of the music, we would use the location. Santa Barbara obviously has a rich Spanish history, so we thought, “Let’s see if we can somehow sprinkle some of that into the music and see what it does.” The first time we tried it, we knew we found the sound. We knew it was going to be the flavor that served as a thread and could connect a lot of different pieces of music. There are maybe a couple of pieces that are very Spanish, but the rest just have a little sprinkling.
Could you musically describe what that “sprinkling” entails?
I just mean that the piece of music itself doesn’t really adhere to harmonic or melodic conventions that would be considered Spanish, but then there’d be like one little thing like a melody or a rhythm to give it that feel. You wouldn’t call it a piece of Spanish music.
One of the main instruments in the show is a nylon string guitar, and that is definitely used a lot in certain types of Spanish music. That gave it a little flavor. We also use a trumpet, so with the right melody, that brought a different flavor in, too. We used both the nylon string guitar and the trumpet on the first piece that sort of unlocked it for us, and we had our sound. I mean, you can start with any idea and think, “Oh, this is what it's going to be.” Sometimes, that idea works and you have it right way, but other times, you’re like, “Well, that doesn’t really work. Let's try to find something else.” [The Politician] was just one of those cases where we weren’t totally clear. We didn’t have a concrete idea, so we had to find it.
That’s cool. The creative process can be very nebulous. If you had thought of Latin and Spanish flavors from the get-go, that would have saved time, but maybe it wouldn’t have been as exciting to discover or have led to the same result.
It's true, it’s true. As a different example, for this current season of American Horror Story: 1984, we had an idea right from the beginning that it was going to be a homage to synth scores of horror movies from the ‘80s. Going for something John Carpenter-esque was the idea, and that’s what we did. That was it. No experimenting. I mean, we had to come up with the sounds we wanted and we had to write themes, but the first idea from the start was what worked, so that’s what we’ve done.
American Horror Story: 1984 centers around a group of five friends who leave Los Angeles ahead of the Summer Olympics to work as counselors at the re-opened Camp Redwood, which has a disturbing, deadly past. This season has unloaded many gory surprises from Brooke’s “canceled” wedding, to the antics of the Satanic serial killer, Night Stalker, to the revelation of who Margaret Booth truly is. What are your favorite scores in the ’80s slasher genre that informed your work on this season?
Well, Halloween came just ahead of the ‘80s, but I still think of it as a pretty seminal horror score. There are other ‘80s scores that aren’t necessarily “horror” but are also very influential like Giorgio Moroder’s Scarface, Cat People, and American Gigolo. I think there was some pretty great synth stuff going on in movies during that period in general.
Are you mainly using soft synths, hardware synths, or a combination of both?
I'm using software. The hardware obviously sounds great, but it takes longer, and the schedules for American Horror Story don’t really allow for that. And so, the software has a done a great job. Arturia has some good stuff. Zebra by u-he is one of my faves. I actually like a bunch of theirs like Diva and Repro. OmniSphere actually has some pretty great vintage analog sounds too.
What are your hard and fast rules for creating a score that feels authentic to the ’80s in modern times?
Hard and fast rules… Well, in this type of score that we've been doing for American Horror Story, I guess the first rule is to use lots and lots of synthesizers and drum machine sounds. I think guitar is also an accepted ingredient because we definitely use a lot of it in these scores. That tends to be the palette, and then there’s a certain type of synth sound you need. I really haven’t come up with a way to define it, but I kind of know when I hear it. It’s actually easier for me to recognize than when I hear something that sounds too modern. One of the main techniques I’ve used to make the sound of this season feel authentic is to identify when a modern sound crept in and to either remove it or change it. It happens because I work on all kinds of scores — modern electronic ones and different things. So, of course, that’s bound to happen. It’s like, “Oops. Wow. It sounds great, but it sounds a little too “now”. Let’s replace it with something different that will bring us back to the time period.”
Considering each season of American Horror Story has a unique concept and musical likeness to match, what has been your most significant discovery about yourself as a composer, from Freak Show until now?
Well, in a very general sense, that I am a valuable contributor to these storytellers and I can help them tell their stories with my music. Before I got the gig on American Horror Story, most of my work that you had heard of was as an additional composer. After getting that first season of Horror Story and then getting [Mr.] Robot, I realized, “Wow, I can do this. I can really write music in collaboration with these storytellers.” It was quite a wonderful thing to gain that confidence. That’s the general thing that I’ve learned with time, but it has parts. It has more detail to it, which is that, within this ability to write music and help these storytellers to tell their story, I can work in musical styles that I’ve never worked in before. I can work under intense pressure, meet deadlines, and deliver the music when it’s needed. I can collaborate with these producers and editors, communicating with them and understanding what it is that they want to get from the music or how they want me to change the music to better serve that story. Here, five years later, I realize I can do all of these things.
That must be gratifying. American Horror Story’s anthology format leads you to very different places musically. It’s nothing like a sitcom where the characters essentially stay the same.
That’s right. It changes, but from what I can see, there's a couple of threads that are there through each season, even though the characters, the stories, and the time periods are all changing. It’s always a horror story, so it’s there to scare people, but it’s not just a regular horror film. There’s always something pretty bizarre about it. Every season starts off in one place and then who knows where it’s going go? There’s never a predictable story arc that just trudges to the finish line. There are a lot of unexpected twists and turns. To me, each season has all those ingredients, but it’s done in a totally different way. You just never know what’s going to happen next.
In a hypothetical world, if the theme for the next season of American Horror Story was “Composer,” what would the plot consist of?
This answer is probably going to show you why I should just write music and not create shows, but let’s say there’s a composer and the music that they write does something to you when you listen to it. Like maybe it takes over your mind and now, you become possessed, or maybe sometimes, you die. And of course, if it’s American Horror Story, that would be just one of the many storylines because there’s going to be a bunch of other ones, you know?
Let’s say the composer that can do this is working in television. And so, when he puts this certain thing into the music and people watch the show, the music takes over their minds. And then, there would be probably be a showrunner involved, and he’s got some motive to take over the world by using this music. See, this is why I should stick to writing music. [laughs]
No, this is pretty crazy concept, and the score would be very important because it would be able to possess people. What do you think that would sound like?
Well, perhaps, a lot of the music would sound fairly normal. It would have to be very unassuming, but then there would be this special sound and melody to do the damage or begin the mind control, or whatever it is. Maybe there are different things that the music could do. Certain sounds could take over someone’s mind. Other things could kill them, or maybe send them back through time. Each type of sound would be different and have an affect on someone.
I suppose there are some similarities to that movie, The Ring, where you watch that videotape and then all these things start happening. It’s a little like that, but different. In a pitch meeting though, you’d want to be like, “Yes, it’s like The Ring but instead of watching a video tape and some ghost comes out, you listen to music and it controls your mind.” That would be the pitch and the executives would be able to understand because they would have the reference point of The Ring. Maybe this is really what I need to do. I need to move into creating shows!
You never know! You’ve been exposed to so much, having scored so many episodes of complex shows. You know good writing. It’s probably engrained in your psyche at this point.
Well, I hope so. And if you really look at it, this fairly weak storyline I've just come up with isn't that far from just the truth. I actually made this video for the Emmys a few years ago, which was basically a parody of Mr. Robot. I was Elliot but I was a composer and the voiceover was talking about hacking into the viewer’s subconscious to manipulate their emotions. I mean, that is what we do with our music. We create things, and when you hear them, especially under some scene or specific imagery, it makes you feel something. We’re pretty much taking over your mind in a certain way, just not as much in this show that I’m going to create.
Is there anything you can share with us about the musical direction you’ll be taking for Ratched?
It’s the back story of Nurse Ratched, the character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That story takes place in 1947, so I believe this one takes place approximately twenty years before that time period. So, what we’ve been doing for Ratched has been a period score. In a way, it’s kind of cousins with what I created for Feud. It’s like a period orchestral score inspired by Bernard Herrmann. Feud had a little darkness, a lot of melancholy, and some upbeat, fun jazz. This doesn’t have anything too upbeat. It’s quite dark and there’s a bit of horror. It’s been a fun but challenging project to work on. They have not announced an official release date, but I believe it’ll be out in 2020.
Interviewer | Paul Goldowitz
Research, Copy, Layout | Ruby Gartenberg
Editing | Ruby Gartenberg, Alex Sicular
Extending gratitude to Mac Quayle and Rhapsody Public Relations.