Pat Irwin 2024 Catch-Up Transcript
Pat Irwin:
I remember going into the office before I had the job of Pepper Ann and I went into the, this was Disney, so it's like, and big and scary, and there were demo tapes from Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, pitching songs and songs for The Lion King, and I was like, wow, they've got to do this? What's up with that? Now, I'm so used to it. I don't think I'm comfortable with it. As much as I understand when you're working on a film or television show in particular, you have to pitch ideas, you have to share them. I have to make it so that, what is it going to sound like?
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman. This week's episode is a Catch-Up episode with the renowned film and television composer and multi-instrumentalist Pat Irwin, and we are featuring lots of Pat's music for you today in different styles from many of his projects. In my previous episode with him from 2023, Season Three of this podcast, we talked about his days with the B52s and composing the score for Dexter: New Blood and we also talked about his band SUSS and his work mentoring graduate students and so much more. I encourage you to click on the link to that earlier episode if you missed it.
Today's conversation also jumps around Pat's varied and fascinating creative life. You'll hear more stories and music from some of his acclaimed cartoon music from Rocko's Modern Life and songs from Pepper Ann. We talk about, and you'll hear music from some of his projects, including rocking uut with the PI Power Trio with Sasha Dobson and Daria Grace and new albums coming out with Cynthia Slay with SUSS and with Julia Hayward.
I'm blown away by Pat's detailed memory and this episode is rich with interesting stories and also his down to earth advice. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the platforms and I've also linked the transcript to my website, leahroseman.com. Finally, before we jump into our conversation, I wanted to remind you that I sent out a weekly email newsletter where you can get access to Sneak Peeks of upcoming guests and be inspired by highlights from the archive. Did you know that I take care of all the many jobs of research production and publicity for the series, which is in Season Four? I really do need the help of my listeners to keep this project going. Please consider buying me a coffee through my support page, which is linked to PayPal. You can find all the links in the description of the episode. Now, to Pat Irwin.
Hey Pat, so great to see you again. Thanks for joining me here.
Pat Irwin:
Nice to see you too.
Leah Roseman:
I was reflecting on how you were only the second composer for media I had interviewed, back, I guess it was, was it two years ago? I should have checked the date, but it was a while back and I have a little more experience talking to people in the industry now, but I remember also at the end of that conversation you had reflected on getting back to performing and you have been doing quite a lot of playing. So we're going to talk about new projects in your life as both a performer and composer and some of the old stuff. I thought it might be cool to start with something we didn't really get into last time, was you had written the music for Pepper Ann, and after we talked you got permission to release some clips to use for the episode.
Pat Irwin:
That was a fantastic experience. It was all done in California. I was talking about performing, I was almost always on the road with the B52s, so I was doing it in motel rooms and backstage, a lot of backstage stuff, which was pretty challenging, but I had just the most phenomenal team around me with copyists and three Disney copyists, two music editors. We would show up for the sessions and there were movie screens with streamers, session musicians, some of them were kind of famous. The drummer was a guy who also played with Steve Reich and a classical drummer, but he played traps and he really loved the setup. I had pieces of sheet metal hanging. He pushed me in remarkable places because they really wanted to work for me. They gave me a safety net. At first, I always thought I was going to be fired because I was - so that the creator, we were these two New York kids in the room with these real professionals and then later we realized we were all in the same place. There was a music supervisor there from Disney named a woman named Bambi Moé, who really had my back all the time, and I got to use an orchestra, a 24 piece orchestra. Sometimes it would be a six piece band, 30 piece orchestra. If I needed a harmonica player, they would get the guy who played harmonica with the Beach Boys. Great - you know Ready Freddie Washington was on bass. He played with Michael Jackson.
It was such a thrill writing. It was intense. I had this big road case and I remember the B52s. We were on tour with the Pretenders and I think the Pretenders Road crew would take, my stuff would be packed on the semi last, so it would come off first and I would go into the dressing room and work on the cartoon. It was a real team effort and a wonderful experience and it's no small thing that I still, I got an email from this network of young people who sing songs together from the musical. It is fun. It was a great experience.
Leah Roseman:
When you say the musical, was there a musical based on Pepper Ann or you mean from the cartoon?
Pat Irwin:
I wrote a musical episode.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, Okay, okay.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So I'm trying to understand when it was being recorded, would they fly you out to LA or,
Pat Irwin:
Mm-hmm
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, it sounds wild right now, but we to would schedule it around my - Disney just gobbled it up. I mean they had a contractor, a guy that I'm still in touch with who would organize the sessions and they would be in real professional studios, like big league studios and so we would book the time and the copyists would get all the charts together. If we needed to make a change, the copyist would be right there and some of them were written by hand, like real old school. Phenomenal. And so I'm learning on the job. This is correct. It was awesome. And one of my favorite memories though was the very first session we did, I mean we are in the studio, I'm really nervous. There's executives, people, Disney people, and Pepper Ann was the first cartoon also I think by a woman that they had, and I, for what it's worth was last guy to have a live band for a Saturday morning cartoon, but it was live. But we did the session and I'm all, I go, great, when do we mix? And the engineer who also was a kind of a famous guy that I've been reading his name on the back of records, he had been with Wally Hyder and done other big movies. And so I go, great, when do we mix? And he goes, it's mixed baby.
What? You're kidding me. It was recorded live to two track with a backup on a multi-track for the Disney archives. But so it was no pulling it down for the dialogue kind of stuff. I had to learn how to write underneath it and it had to be recorded like that and then the Disney engineers would lower it. But the first couple times I didn't understand how that worked. It was good for what it's worth. It's not like I've done any other Disney cartoons after that, but it was wonderful experience. I love the characters.
Leah Roseman:
We've included lots of music in this episode and these first clips are from the cartoon Pepper Ann. The first song is called Enough. And you can find images of the score on my website linked in the show notes. (music)
Let me just understand what something you said. So did you have a script Pat? Like you had to write under the dialogue?
Pat Irwin:
I had scripts, but I would write to rough cuts. Then the rough cuts would get more final. By the time we did it in the studio, I had a final cut. So we were all looking at a final cut.
Leah Roseman:
And did you play on any of those tracks as well?
Pat Irwin:
Well, that's interesting. They wouldn't let me play, which was sort of a bummer. I mean they got these awesome guitar players and keyboard players just read anything type of guys. And again, kind of famous one was with the Brothers Johnson and other was with Paul McCartney. Just great readers, players. But I always wanted them to sound kind of like me, but none of them would sound like me. They sort of sounded slick and not, so I struggled with that a little bit, but I understood because as we did it, it was so old school, we would be in the studio and it would be like, we need to fix that. We need to, how is it? What is that? It was real old school, so they didn't want me playing. Right. I mean I, they're downstairs, but you should see the charts, the orchestral charts. The ones that are written by hand are, I mean, Disney, they've done this before. They're really good at it. It was really an honor.
Leah Roseman:
So actually Pat, what we can do, I sometimes put a gallery of images, so it would be on my website associated with your episode. So we could include a photo of a score or other images from your life we're going to talk about. So I can -
Pat Irwin:
Oh, that would be fun.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Here's one more song from the cartoon. Pepper Ann. This is called Photosynthesis. (music)
Pat Irwin:
I still have my, in one of 'em. I was going through it. I shared it with some students and one was going through and I still had my Disney parking pass because I have to go into LA. It was real show business. It was fun.
Leah Roseman:
I get the feeling you're a bit of a collector. You collect instruments and memorabilia. How do you cope with that?
Pat Irwin:
I never thought of myself as that way. And then that's kind of coming up at this age. I do and I don't like, for instance, I had these old Farfisa keyboards that I just love, Italian combo organs. Kate used one in the B52s. I think it's in the Metropolitan Museum of Art now. And maybe we shared, maybe we went back and forth on 'em. I don't remember. But I had them through the years, but I also sold them. I would get broke and it would break my heart and I'd need the room. I didn't have the space. And then yesterday somebody got in touch with me and they had found one and they repaired it. So I do and I don't, but I am finding myself saving things from time to time. Let's not say it collecting like Fred from the B52s. He is a record collector. I mean, you can't, couldn't keep up with him. I had to, you wake up in the morning and you see everybody in the hotel. I'd kind of have to maybe avoid Fred because he was going to go record shopping and I couldn't keep up with him. And he's just got walls and walls of records. It's so much fun.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So speaking of your early career, you're going through Old Ray Beats archives?
Pat Irwin:
Yes, I am.
Leah Roseman:
Have you found any cool stuff that you kind of forgot about?
Pat Irwin:
Yes. How funny. You mentioned that there's a guy named Weasel Walter who has an archive site that you can find and he has everything. And he sent me some stuff that I didn't even know about that existed. But I found that tragically one of the original members of that band, the Ray Beats died. He was also an 8 Eyed Spy, the band I had with Lydia. But what's been really fun is finding some material with him on it. And that's just great. He was a dynamo. George Scott was his name. And there was one recording that we did. We actually went in and we were being produced by Philip Glass and Philip's sound man at the time, Kurt Munkacsi. And they did all their recording at a studio called Green Street. And we had done four tracks with this original bass player with George, but nobody knew where the tape was. And a friend found it in England. So that's pretty cool, right? Yeah. And so it's a good, it's not like a live club recording, it's a real audio recording with George on it. So I'm really excited about what we're going to come up with.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Still going back in your earlier history, you're getting a band back together, Rocko's Modern Life, right?
Pat Irwin:
Yes! Yeah, I sure am. That. Again, I'll send you some photographs of some of those scores. Well, what's interesting about that is I'm in touch with all the musicians and the first thing we realized were none of us are the same that we were 30 years ago. How is this going to happen? I mean, Kevin, the drummer, he plays like a teenager and he's with energy and imagination and virtuosity all rolled into one that's just spontaneous and inspiring. And I'm in touch with Kevin. I'm in touch with everybody. He's such a remarkable musician. So giving, it was very different than Pepper Ann, whereas if I didn't write it down in Pepper Ann, it wasn't going to be played. It wasn't going to happen. I mean, they kind of got out of that bag with me a little bit, starting with Mike, the drummer. When Pepper Ann would have a crisis, I would have a solo cello with these pieces of metal banging around and everybody was like, whoa, what is this?
But it kind of worked for the cartoon. Kevin would just do that out of the blue in Rocko. It would go into a March and out of nowhere, Kevin would reach into his bag and he'd pull out a whistle or a toy rattles, I don't know. And everybody on Rocko, all those musicians did that. They took it to another level. Yeah, we're going to play, we're going to do a live concert. We got everybody back and even there was a musical episode of Rocko and we're going to do those songs and hopefully the theme, we will perform the theme live as well. It's fun.
Leah Roseman:
Will this be in New York?
Pat Irwin:
Yeah. Hopefully it'll be cool enough that we'll kind of be able to maybe get the show on the road a little bit. Yeah, I mean, because this stuff has a lot of fans. I mean, I don't want to make too much of it, but I'm really fortunate to have done stuff with a pretty long reach. And these cartoons have a life. They're in the air. It's wild. It's cool.
Leah Roseman:
And they're on YouTube people.
Pat Irwin:
Exactly. You to can find them. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Now on the first episode with you, we did include some clips from Rocko's, but it'd be fun if people didn't hear that yet. We could include maybe a different clip so you can hear some of that music. People can go out and buy and stream the soundtrack.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
You're about to hear a clip from the Rocko's Modern Life soundtrack. This track is called Junk Junkies. (music)
Pat Irwin:
Yeah. I mean there were miles. There's miles of that stuff.
Leah Roseman:
This next Rocko's track is called Bookshop. (music)
Pat Irwin:
I am a pretty big music fan. And so take somebody on a super high level like Bob Dylan, let's say, and I would read an interview with Bob Dylan, it would be, and somebody would say, well, how come you don't do the songs you did? How come you don't play like Nashville Skyline or another side the way you did? How come you don't just do Blowing in the Wind? And he would say, I don't even know who that person is anymore. And I never really understood that. How can you not know, my God? But now in a different way, I sort of do with Rocko's Modern Life and I'm going to have to practice that stuff and none of us are going to be the way we were 30 years ago. I mean, it's not like it's a classical piece, like a Bach in convention that you read. This has real energy, but it's going to be we're getting the band back together.
Leah Roseman:
So you had the scores stashed away somewhere,
Pat Irwin:
Sadly that I threw out boxes and boxes of that stuff. I looked at it, I goes, who cares? And I just threw it all out. So now I've got, some of my students are transcribing it for me. I'm not as good as they are, so they're doing an amazing job of transcribing and then I'll proofread it. I've got some notes here and there, but I wrote a lot of that out by hand, so I just threw it away.
Leah Roseman:
Transcription, that's a real skill
Pat Irwin:
Goes right over my head. But some of these students are just masterful. They're blowing my mind.
Leah Roseman:
So you teach at both NYU and Brooklyn College graduate students.
Pat Irwin:
Yep.
Leah Roseman:
I was wondering about a couple things. Something came up, I think it was with Adam Blau. He was saying, if something's, you're working on a project and something's rejected, you can repurpose that material. No one's ever heard it. Do you ever find that that's worked for you?
Pat Irwin:
Yes. The first person that I ever heard say that was Philip Glass and he said, never throw anything out. Never. And that happens fairly often on a film where it'll be. But yeah, I did a film demo. I remember the movie, I'm not going to mention it, but essentially I didn't get the job, let's say, and it was with a music supervisor who I really look up to and admire and I auditioned. I sent in demos. I didn't get the job, but the music ended up being Wetlands by SUSS. And that ended up being used a couple tracks by SUSS on a television show. I did a bunch of material that didn't work and some of that's going to be on the next SUSS record. So yeah, I do repurpose things but not reuse them if they work. Bob from SUSS has really blown my mind with that he'll, he'll kind of say, Hey, he'll push me and he'll make me look around so often. That's my answer to that. Yeah, I'll find something and it'll make its way into another project. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Now I'll point the listeners back. So anyone who missed my first episode with you is going to be directly connected to this one, and we did talk about SUSS quite a bit and some of that music was played, but you guys have a new album coming out?
Pat Irwin:
We do. I am really jazzed. It's called Birds and Beasts on Northern Spy. I love making music with these guys and we all bring different things to it and you can't really like everything you do. Some stuff maybe doesn't hold up, but I was listening to it last night actually because we're going to do some mixes in Atmos, which is brand new for me, Dolby Atmos. And so I was listening to some of the tracks and there's a spontaneity and a freshness to it, and I've never done anything quite like it. So it is fun. It's a little darker, it's a little bit more ambient, but it's also got its own internal structure. I think I push for that a lot actually.
And then maybe Bob will push me out of it a little bit. He'll find something else to do. One track that I'm very excited about, it's called Migration. Everything's got kind of a birds and beasts theme in it. It was an improvisation that Bob and I did. We just sat down and he really liked a track that I did with Walter, J. Walter Hawkes, which was sort of an ostinato figure on the guitar, and I just started to do something like that and he joined in and we played just off the cuff for 10 minutes. And that track has Gary or did an overdub, the late Gary Leib did an overdub on it and added some of his quirky synthesizer stuff. And then Jonathan, I had to chart it out and transcribe it for Jonathan. Then he did his thing, but nobody felt comfortable releasing it. And then I went back and gave it another go, gave it another listen, and I presented it to Jonathan and Bob and it's going to be on this record, so I'm really happy about that.
Leah Roseman:
Do you have a release date for the new album?
Pat Irwin:
I don't have a specific date, but I'll look into it. But I know that it's going to be June. The supply lines for vinyl manufacturing are still a little challenged, so I don't think we have an exact date yet, but I'll look into it.
Leah Roseman:
Does SUSS sell quite a bit of vinyl?
Pat Irwin:
I wouldn't exaggerate it.
Leah Roseman:
So there's people out there though,
Pat Irwin:
But there are people like me. Yeah,
It's very modest, but that's what Northern Spy is so great and there's a handful of these really independent labels that really, and it makes a big difference, the sound of vinyl. Oh golly, it is just really different than streaming. And I just love sitting down, putting the record on, holding the cover. We've got a great artist who we work with named Daryl Norson and the Northern Spy. The label really pushed us in that direction for cover art, which was a little challenging at first because Gary Leib was a visual artist, but we went with it and now it just is. I can't wait for you to see the artwork on this.
Leah Roseman:
They're really beautiful album covers all your albums.
Pat Irwin:
Oh, thanks. I'll let Daryl know. Yeah, we should. He's amazing.
Leah Roseman:
I was thinking maybe we could have a clip from a previous release, maybe Heat Haze or something.
Pat Irwin:
Oh sure. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Do you want to speak to that track?
Pat Irwin:
Gary Leib, the late Gary Leib, he had just such a unique abstract sense of music and he brought in some sounds. He talked about the image that he had when he would look out his window and he could just literally, he was very visual about it and he saw this haze coming and he brought in these sounds that ended up in the track and it was just like, Hey, let's make something. And I just built the track up from what Gary brought in. But that one came from Gary.
Leah Roseman:
This is the band SUSS with Heat Haze.(music)
Well, thanks for sharing that. Now, you had written to before recording today about a really fun movie, But I'm a Cheerleader, so I went and watched it. It's on YouTube now, you had said this was on the curriculum of both of the universities where you teach as a cult film and somebody's going to release an album of the music that you wrote.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, although I've got to find the master tracks.
I used a vocalist on there. It was some, oh golly. The first time a student talked to me about it was at Brooklyn College and they had just come out of their class. They didn't know that I had written the music. I didn't know anybody who had seen this. It was a long time ago. And now it's on the Criterion Channel. It's in Gay and Lesbian Studies, film Studies, L-G-B-T-Q studies and Jamie Babbitt is the director. Just a wonderful sense of humor and so insightful and timely. And she liked the cartoon music had she knew a couple of cartoons that I had done and liked the B52s as well. And so that's kind of why, I mean, I had to audition and there were other composers that were, but I was fortunate enough to get the job and I hope I get the opportunity to go back in and give it, make something special about the release because it was very done very quickly and very low budget and I was very, I think it was the second movie I did, or I wasn't the most experienced guy on the planet and I didn't really, I did use - I would just like to replace a couple of the instruments with some real instruments and make it more alive. But it's amazing to me that that movie has a life. I am so flattered.
Leah Roseman:
I was just thinking about something, you mentioned pitching a couple of times so far, and this came up when I was talking to Kat Raio Rende. So she composes for a lot of kids TV and jingles, a lot of Sesame Street. And she was saying, no matter how well known you are, you still have to pitch, often. And we were talking about how you have to invest time and maybe even money to produce a polished pitch. What do you think about that? Is that a change you would make in the industry?
Pat Irwin:
I remember going into the office before I had the job of Pepper and I went into, this was Disney, so it's like, and big and scary. I was in the office in the music department, it was a floor and there were demo tapes from Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, pitching song songs for The Lion King. And I was like, wow, they've got to do this? What's up with that? And now I'm so used to it, I don't think I'm comfortable with it. As much as I understand when you're working on a film or television show in particular, you have to pitch ideas. You have to share them. When you're doing a piece of music theater, like at NYU, when I'm working with the students, they can pitch a song by sitting down at the piano and playing it.
I have to make it so that, what is it going to sound like? And that's really challenging and slightly unfair because technology is changing so fast and you can buy these buy sample libraries and sounds and it can get expensive. But I understand now I'm on a long curve. When I started Bored to Death, the HBO show, I was determined that every track that I sent in for a pitch, there would be no questions. They would go, oh wow, then be, then the challenge was Well just wait. This is going to get, I want to make this better. I love that feeling of wanting to really be a part of it and make it better. Pitching for ads and whatnot. I don't do a whole lot of that and jingles. I did one or two. And I thought, oh great, I'm in the club. I did it. This is great. And then that one came up for a big commercial thing. I pitched it. I didn't get it. Another one, I didn't get it, another one I didn't get. I was sort of like, okay, this is not my thing. I'm just, if somebody gets in touch with me, I'll do it. And nobody's gotten in touch with me, so I don't do too many. I did the one or two in the very while back and that was it. But I understand making the best sounding demo as possible. It comes with a deal. You want to make people comfortable, you want to work with them, you want to make it right. I don't really mind it.
Leah Roseman:
I was just thinking about people starting out
Pat Irwin:
And I talk to my students about this a lot and I make it part of the deal. The very first assignment I give out is making a reel,
Pull your stuff together and tell me who you are. And it takes practice. And I still have heart failure when I have to do it. I just put together a reel for something that God knows how many people are up for it. But I didn't write anything or record anything new. I just pulled what I had. I'm getting more used to that, but sometimes I get a call to do, well just send us some things, whatever. And I'm like, what do you mean? Whatever. Give me a break and I want to work. I want the job. But for the younger people, it is challenging. It's heartbreaking. I just had a student and I asked her about her software that she's using. She wanted to know about getting other software and I said, don't do it. Don't spend any money. Let's not do that, please. Because I know it would be on a credit card. And I know it is just heartbreaking between paying for the samples and tuition, let's say, and rent and internet and computer upgrades. It's like, God! But the fact of the matter is that if you're going to work in film and television, you've got to be able to make a demo. That sounds like what you're going to do. It's just the way it is. It's part of the deal.
Leah Roseman:
This next clip is from Pat's score to Nurse Jackie. Although we didn't talk about this particular project in this conversation, we wanted to include some music from it. And Pat is able to share a couple of clips of music from this award-winning dark comedy, starring Edie Falco that aired on Showtime for seven seasons. And Pat Irwin composed the score for seasons five through seven.(music)
So I am curious the parameters of these reels, how long would the total reel normally be and how short would each clip be? Are there sort of guidelines you give students?
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, I'd say, which I never follow my own guidelines, but if try to listen to a bunch of stuff, it's challenging. Make it like five pieces of music, 30 seconds to a minute long.
And if it has to, if you put a song on there and it's a two minute song or three minute song or whatever, but don't make it so it's like 10 pieces of music that you've got wade through. It's in a cafeteria line with a bunch of mashed potatoes or something. Just make it quick, hit it and quit it. And that takes practice. It's not an easy assignment actually for new students. Who are you as a composer? Maybe you don't even know, or maybe you're not even sure you're a composer. But the woman who was my student earlier today, she sent me three or four really beautiful pieces of piano pieces. She took her a long time. She was late getting it to me, but I was glad she did. They were really interesting syncopated piano pieces and I was so happy to hear this stuff and that gave me a clue about who she is as a composer. And then we talked about jazz and syncopation and she talked about candor and ebbs and Chicago and cabaret, and I'm learning from her a little bit. I think if you've got a good relationship with a director, it doesn't have to be the slickest demo, but that can be really uneven. And I don't think you can ever rely on the person that you're sending the real into. You've got to do the best you can and make it who you are. It it's work, it's hard work.
Leah Roseman:
So these students, are they collaborating with film students to create projects together all the time?
Pat Irwin:
That's a good question too. Finally, we're getting to the point right now where we're really getting there and doing that, encouraging it. You don't want to mandate make somebody collaborate with somebody. But although at NYU, they do that, they mandate collaborations with lyricists and composers, and that's a pretty tall order. It's a really cool program. The Graduate School of Music Theater writing at Brooklyn College at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, we just called it a pitch fest where Pratt Institute of Art, just up the block street aways, it's New York. So these animation students came in with their projects and pitched them and the composers, my students had their reels to pitch to the animators and all of a sudden it was like speed dating or something, but I had to kind of put on the brakes a little bit, particularly with a visual artist.
It's like you're listening to, you put on your Spotify or streaming services and you can hear all this stuff. These composers are making this stuff from scratch and it's not going to sound like a finished record. Establish some communication and talk about likes and dislikes, particularly with music. You've got people with strong tastes often and maybe you're passionate about your tastes, so you want your score and let's just say you really like Spirited Away or some anime or something. It's more than likely a composer is not going to be able to give you something that sounds exactly like that. But if you can talk about the way the score is working and establish some commonality, trout, a few ideas, that collaboration can be really precious. So I'm very excited about that. Why you're there. You want to start making music for film and TV and in this case animation.
And what's cool for me, exciting for me is I'm seeing filmmakers, these young filmmakers pitch their work and I'm seeing things that as a professional that I didn't really see before. The vulnerability of the filmmaker. I'm used to how vulnerable I feel. Even with you even playing somebody something for the first time, are they going to like it or am I good enough or whatever. Well, these filmmakers, it's the same deal and the animation is thrilling, but it's coming at the very beginning, there will be an animatic and there'll be just a line drawings that are animated and then a few colors will be filled in and it'll be the, well, these two characters are skunks and they run a bakery and I'm like, wow, this is, how cool is this? Or this one student, my animation is about the first lighthouse that was ever built.
What I love, stuff like this and another, so you get the idea. But what I was seeing in the filmmakers was a vulnerability. And so it wasn't necessarily something I wanted to highlight as much as making sure the composers respected that too. It can be really precious. For instance, let's go back to, But I'm a Cheerleader. This is a story that the filmmaker had been living with maybe her whole life. This is a story she wanted to tell, and she was giving me the opportunity to bring music to it. I made some mistakes and misjudged a little bit about that. And as you say, pitching ideas, I didn't really understand. She was hearing things and I needed to make these demos really clear. I couldn't just say it's going to have a voice and a cello. I had to really do it. And that did cost some money, but I would get a friend to come in, my friend Wayne knew a singer, a woman who could do what we wanted, one of those sort of vocalise type things. But this is part of collaboration that I really love.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, it's interesting because media composers are never working in a vacuum, but if you're writing either in the rock world for a band or a concert composer in the classical world, you're often looking for inspiration elsewhere. Otherwise it has to come from somewhere.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Back to Heat Haze from SUSS. Those are the moments that I live for. Gary came in, not in a million years, I done anything like that, let alone have a visual image as well as some sonic, as far as I'm concerned, just possibilities. He just brought them in. Now he looked to me for kind of editing them and turning it into something, but that was fun and that inspiration and collaboration is when it's firing in all cylinders. It's great. But nobody also tells you how hard that kind of collaboration can be too. There's ups and downs to be sure.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Hi. Just a short break from the episode, which I hope you're enjoying so far. If you want to check out over a hundred episodes you may have missed in addition to your podcast player or YouTube, I have an extensive website, leah roseman.com with show notes, transcripts, the complete catalog of episodes, and you can sign up there for my weekly newsletter to get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Please do share your favorite episodes with your friends, follow me on social media and share my posts. And if you can spare a few dollars to help support the series, that would be amazing. And you can find that link in the show notes. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Now back to the episode.
Here's one more clip from Pat 's score to Nurse Jackie.(music)
And in terms of media composers, other people have talked to me about how you just have to check your ego at the door because if the team doesn't like what you've written at all and you think it's the best thing you've ever written,
Pat Irwin:
And that's what I mean about with, But I'm a Cheerleader. I don't think I understood that quite so well. And for however long ago, it was, let's say 25 years, I carried around this sort of enormous regret. Like, oh man, I wish that I had understood her direction better. I wished I was a better listener. I wished I wasn't such a, but when she wanted me to make some changes, she wanted it. And she added some things at the last minute, this whole scene. So I just, oh my God, I just wish I was a better at it, but oh, whatever. And so then we did these special features for a Criterion channel, reissue Mindscape DVDs where you have to talk to the director. It wasn't like that at all. It was like she remembered making me do things at the last minute. And we had learned so much as we had gone along, but there were no bad feelings, which I was grateful for. And you want to be the person people want to talk to. You don't want to be like, oh, that's, oh, that's Pat again on the phone. Oh God, what a drag. You just want to be. And when you've been in bands for a long time, you also know that there are ups and downs and you sort of roll with certain things. You have to, sometimes you can't, but that's the way it goes. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Now in terms of collaborating with old friends, Cynthia Sley, you have a new collab going? What's that about?
Pat Irwin:
Well, it's not new. Okay. We started quite a while ago called Command V and Cynthia's in a band called the Bush Tetras, which are peers of mine that go all the way back to my very first days in New York City. Bush Tetras were formed at about the same time as the Ray Beats and 8 Eyed Spy. I think even we probably played in one another's bands, and we were all kids together. And Cynthia and I just started, she started to make some music on her own and asked me if I would help finish it probably 10 or 15 years ago. And we made one record, and I think you could find it some places, but we didn't have the time to really promote it. But we just kept making music together and we made never came out. And I have a feeling that she was already looking over her shoulder going, Hey Pat, when are you going to get it together? Or whatever. And so I finished it and we mastered it, and that's going to come out eventually really soon. Hopefully Bandcamp, something like that. I'll keep you posted. We did. I think we've got 10 tracks that are ready to go. And she's just, I love her voice. I love working with her. We've recorded some of the tracks right here. She's got great ideas, I think. Yeah, even over here, there's a piece of metal that I use. She goes, how about hitting that on the one and (sings) and things like that. It's a good collaboration.
Leah Roseman:
Here's Command V with Cynthia Sley from a track called Lost On Me from the upcoming album. (music)
Yeah, I looked up the Bush Tetras and yeah, there was this video that came up Too Many Creeps, which I think it's really great. And it got a lot of hits. And then I was thinking about the Much Music era, which was big at the time, and how that's all changed. The last time we spoke, we had talked about how the music industry has changed in terms of print media and different kinds of promotion. But I mean, that's been such a change in terms of the way people consume music, right?
Pat Irwin:
Yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking about that a little bit. And I don't want it to be like, oh, the old days were better, but I'm concerned about the infrastructure. And it goes hand in hand also with what we are just saying about pitching and the expense and recording. You can now make records in your bedroom. Look at what we're doing now. I used to have to go into a studio. We're doing it too. But there would be an like with Bush Teras and Ray Beats and a 8 Eyed Spy, there was a club downtown just down the block from where I lived called Tier 3. I'm still in touch with a woman who booked that club and you could play, and then you could get it is just the sight of the ad in the Village Voice or the New York Times or whatever, the local Chicago Reader or whatever the alternative Village Voice.
You'd see their name there and you could put up posters. There was just kind of infrastructure for a support system. And I don't think that it's gone or necessarily what I even say eroding, but the way we're consuming media now and the way it's being streamed, it is challenges. There's just challenges that to me are getting to be a little bit overwhelming. But then we're talking about Bandcamp and we can upload our songs to Bandcamp and it can be available. So I don't want to take it too far, but yeah, I mean, the way we're consuming media on the internet now, it is a lot goes on the artist's shoulders. I'm not great at it. I do. I'm really lucky that I've done things that somebody else, like if it's a Pepper Ann, somebody will promote that. Or the B52s. Somebody will promote that. But Cynthia and I, we're going to have to promote it, and that can be challenging.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I was just thinking about podcasts do play in a little bit podcasts like myself and much bigger music podcasts. And there's an Ambient Country. Is it Bob with the Ambient Country podcast? It's Bob Holmes. Right. I listened to a little bit of that. That's really cool.
Pat Irwin:
It is. I mean, good for him. I mean, he's another one. I mean, he gets out there, he's really listening to a lot of stuff, and he's passionate about it, which at the end of the day, that's like the bottom line. And he gets out and he finds people making stuff and good for him. He's taking it upon himself to share it and get it out there. Yeah, it's cool. He's really great at that.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Now, the last time we spoke we're coming out of the Pandemic and performances. Were just kind of getting going. And I remember I was asking you to reflect on that, the shutdown time. And you were saying, I just want to play. I want to get better. I'm not quoting you exactly, but you have been playing quite a bit. And the PI Power Trios one of your bands, and you guys put out a record before the Pandemic,
Pat Irwin:
Right? We did, I think a little EP, like four songs. I grew up loving, instrumental rock and roll. I remember hearing, if you're from a certain part of the country, you'll know what I mean. I remember hearing the first band, I really heard live. They were playing down by the lake, and it was a party and the sound of the reverb, it just grabbed me. It hit me. And they were playing a Ventures, they were playing Wipe Out, and then they played a Ventures song. And I'm crazy about instrumental Rock 'n Roll Link Wray, Rumble, Jack the Ripper and the Raybeats were kind of based on that shared love of instrumental rock and roll pre-Beatles kind of, if you will. If you go on YouTube and you Google, I think you can look Google, Pat Irwin Ventures or Raybeats and Ventures. And we did a TV show with them in Japan, I think where we, and there's other people playing with the Ventures, I think Peter Frampton, I can't remember, but I just love that music. And so I met through Walter, through J. Walter Hawkes. I met Sasha Dobson and Daria Grace and Sasha plays in a band called Puss N Boots with Nora Jones. And they would do Christmas shows at a club in Brooklyn. And there was a whole circle generation younger than me of musicians that I didn't know. And of course, Nora has gone on to great success, but for some reason, Puss N Boots couldn't do it that year. And so Nora, Sasha asked me if I wanted to do anything, and I said, well, sure, but why don't we do something together? And it was like, what do you mean? Well, let's just figure something out. And we went, we were in Walter's building and we went down in the basement and I taught them a Link Wray song that the Raybeats used to do (that Philip Glass played on a version) and it was like, wow. They had never played anything. They were just this sort of singer songwriter folk kind of thing. And this was rocking, but I loved playing with them. And Sasha, she's got this unpredictable rock and roll energy that I just love. I mean, it's not slick, but it's got passion and heart. And Daria is just the same. She's just a wonderful musician, really dependable, great to play with. But I also love the way they sing. And so I wanted to somehow work vocals into it on these, I can't remember what the records were, but somewhere back there. I remember these abstract women vocals like on Les Baxter or Martin Jenny records maybe where there's vocals coming in, and I hope we can do more recording because we've got more songs and it's just a fun band.
Leah Roseman:
I was looking like, Sasha, I mean, she's a singer, but she's a multi-instrumentalist. Right? She plays drums in your trio, but she's also a guitar player and stuff.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, I mean, she's a jazz singer. Yeah. She grew up singing jazz, and she's very accomplished. And she's doing, I think she's playing at Lincoln Center and she's going on the road with Nora this summer. They're going to do dates and Sasha's going to be in her band. And then Daria has a band with Walter,
Leah Roseman:
The Pre-War Ponies, right?
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leah Roseman:
And I was thinking, could we have a clip of The Walk on your album that you did with them?
Pat Irwin:
I have an audio clip, but I don't know that I've got a video.
Leah Roseman:
No, that's fine.
Pat Irwin:
I think on the recording, we do a B52s song. We do 52 girls kind of hellacious version of that. We do four songs. pH Factor, I think was written by a guy named Peter Holsapple
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I listened to the EP on Bandcamp.
Pat Irwin:
Okay, cool. So you've heard it. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
This is The Walk from the PI Power Trio. (music)
Pat Irwin:
I mean, the beginning of the Raybeats, George Scott had the most intense instrumental rock and roll collection, speaking of collectors floor to ceiling. And he would organize his records by serial number, so like Link Wray or Red Bird Records or whatever the label would, Dot, whatever the label would be. But George was working in a record store called The Musical Maze, and it just popped into my mind because Peter Holsapple from the dBs who also went on to play with Hootie and the Blowfish, he and George were next neighbors. The Raybeats toured England, I think, with the dBs. But anyway, they were working in a music store called Musical Maze. And George noticed that these guys, they started to get these 12 inch records of hip hop music, but on the B side would be an instrumental. And one of the very first ones had a sample of Apache, done, which is an instrumental hit by Jørgen Ingemann. And The Shadows did a great version of Apache. So the PI Power Trio, we did Apache, but it was sampled by Grandmaster Flash. I think their version was done by the Amazing Bongo Band. So George said, Hey man, let's form an instrumental band. These hip hop guys are coming in with 12 inch dance records. We can do that. I mean, that's how odd and crazy it was like, and naive in a way, because we didn't have anything to do with hip hop. But George thought these 12 inch instrumentals are being played in clubs. And that was another part of that infrastructure with DJs playing Too Many Creeps by the Bush Tetras was sort of a dance hit in clubs, and it played in videos up in Canada and all around. And the United States, regrettably, I wasn't in that video. I couldn't make it that afternoon, but all my friends are in it if you look carefully.
But that kind of energy that George brought to the Raybeats, and then Don and Jody, also, the other two guys who were in the Contortions kind of grew up loving the same instrumentals that I did. And it wasn't just Surf Rock, it would be like Link Wray or Booker T and the Mgs, the Meters with Sissy Strut, and nobody was doing that, or so we thought, so we'll do that. And PI Power Trio, Raybeats don't play anymore. Fine. Not a big whatever. We're still in touch and we're friends, but the PI Power Trio gives me that opportunity. But it was new. I had never played a solo guitar in a band like that before. And scary because nobody helps you. I can't hide behind somebody else. I have to really either do it or I either hit it or quit it. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Before we wrap this up, I'm just going to check to see if there was something we wanted to get to. Oh yeah. You have a new short film score , When Last Seen? Yeah.
Pat Irwin:
I do. Yeah. Did I send you any of that?
Leah Roseman:
You didn't. So, When Last Seen, is it based on a book? I was looking it up.
Pat Irwin:
It's based on the Persephone Myth. The director really like SUSS. And that song that I mentioned before, Wetlands has a bazouki, and she loved that. And it is a contemporary update of the Persephone, and it's a really, really good movie. I hope it sees the light of day, and I'll send you some of them to score.
Leah Roseman:
This next clip is from Pat's score to the film When Last Seen (music)
Pat Irwin:
And I really liked the score. I mean, she liked the music I did for Dexter, so she wanted a little of that deal in there, and she wanted that kind of, what did she say? There was a reference that she made. Oh, run Lola Run. She made a reference to a movie and that kind of collaboration. The reason she made that reference was that I wasn't getting it. I didn't really get what she wanted to be doing. And she said, this is the Run Lola run moment. And that was the kind of direction that I just Oh, I got you. I see what you mean. There's another project I'd like to mention to you called T Venus, which was a band started by a visual artist named Julia Hayward. And that music never really saw the light of day, although we toured The Kitchen, which is an alternative space in New York City, put on a tour with Reese Chatham, Eric Bagosian, kind of performance art choreography. And Julia was a video artist. Probably the most famous thing she did was the video for the Talking Heads song Burning Down the House.
And she and I had a band called T Venus, which was actually started with Don and Jody from the Raybeats. And then later Jim Sclavunos from 8 Eyed Spy joined when Don moved on. And anyway, Julia is finding all sorts of things that we made and that's going to come out as well. And don't know, I'll ask Julia if she wouldn't mind if we shared some, and then the label that's coming out, I think it's called Sundays. I'll make sure that it's, but I'll get permission. Maybe you'd like to hear some of that.
Leah Roseman:
Sure. Great.
Pat Irwin:
She's a real character. I mean, she performed, the first time I saw her perform was something called the Nova Convention, and she and Laurie Anderson would do performances together, and it's on a recording. I think that was Nova Convention was a series of concerts featuring William Burrows and the writer John Giorno from the Dial-a-poem poets released it on his label, and you can hear the performance of it was the first recorded, some of the first recorded performances of both Julia and Lori, and they would perform together and all through their voices, Lori was famously known for making her voice a harmonizer and making it into a male voice. She's phenomenal.
Leah Roseman:
Here's an excerpt from a track with T Venus featuring Julia Hayward called Smile,Don't Touch That Dial from the upcoming album. (music)
Just to wrap this up, Pat, I was thinking about a couple things. I mean, for one thing, listening to you talk, you have a phenomenal memory and you just have this web of connections that I think has really helped you, right? It's always somebody's know somebody. That's often the way it is with careers, would you say?
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Again, my students, they want to know about that a little bit. And I'll say to them, the biggest asset you have is each other. You're are going to know each other for a long time if you do it right. And it is the same with what you said about Cynthia and the Bush Tetras. This was like my college or my high school, and I'm not in touch with everybody and not everybody got along. That's fair enough or whatever for whatever reasons. But these are my friends. I mean, these are the people. I mean, if Butch Tetras put out a record, I want to support it. I want to know. I'm so proud of them. For Pat in the Bush Tetras, she's one of the most awesome guitar players ever. And I sometimes think about networking and somebody said, well, if you're not networking, you're not working or something. And I've never really been to go out to networking events or promote myself, but in another way, I'd network with all my friends in these clubs that we played at. And those are the connections I made. And I still have them. You're right.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And the last thing I was thinking about is that you've carved out this career as both a performer and composer based in New York. You never felt that you should move to LA. In fact, you were really a New York musician. What do you tell your students? I mean, they're in New York. Is there a pressure to go west?
Pat Irwin:
Well, when I was doing Pepper Ann, I got an apartment in LA through a friend, the first guy I met at college. And so it was like in a little basement. There's no question that the business is based in LA, but I never felt comfortable there. I actually like LA. I don't love driving like that, but I like it. I love the, and I love the passion that the filmmakers have. And I thought, oh God, I'll get an apartment there and maybe I can do this stuff. I want to do it. It never really worked out. I didn't really, I never felt comfortable there.
But there's no question about it that that's where movies are being made for the most part. I mean, there's a very vibrant independent filmmaking community in New York and television. More and more is being made there. There's no question that things are being made there. But I know that my opportunities have been severely limited by being based there. I'm fortunate enough to have an agent, I've had the same agent since. I can't add that fast 30 years probably. And he'll put me up for a job if it's a New York based job. But there's no question that more movies are made in LA. But by the same token, I also know that, I mean, I can tell you a Pepper Ann story if you want to hear it, but
That with a real revelation whenever, I don't remember the year, but whatever they were making in these studios, they were making a big old movie, Disney movie in the big studio next door with big orchestras and real conductors and a whole bit. And I don't remember the movie. I'm going to make it up. I'm going to say Little Mermaid. It was on that level, huge. And the session broke. That was done. Union. All union by the clock, everybody splits and they're looking over their stuff and they go, oh my goodness, we forgot this one piece of music is the character comes up in a horse. It's got to be like chivalry, chivalrous and dismounting night and shining armor kind of thing. And I said, I cando that and I'll do that. I'll have it for you tomorrow. I could do that. And the room went silent that I was in.
It just was like the air went out of it, it got sucked out of the room. And Reggie, the contractor, it was sort of like that scene in the back of On the Waterfront, like I could have been a contender. Today's just not your day. He goes, Pat, and he's shaking his head at the same time. And I was like, I'll do it. He is saying, sometimes you want a fastball right down the middle and with you we're just not going to get a fastball. And I was like, I can do it. I can give you that right down the middle. And at the time, I was crushed. My feelings were really hurt.
And then at many years later, I really realized, yeah, he's right. I mean, they needed to feel really comfortable with a composer. There's a really correct sound. There's a correct way of voicing and voice leading. The company needed to feel comfortable with whoever they hired the director. And this had to be done overnight. And there's plenty of people in LA who could do that and wasn't one of 'em. And that's sort of an illustration for, there's a real correct sound for some film scoring, and I'm not the most correct guy on the planet. It just isn't going to come out that way. I don't have any regrets at this point. But some of those big film scores, like those guys are good and women too. Unfortunately, there aren't not on enough of 'em, but there's a really correct sound for Hollywood film scoring, and I'm not in that bag for better or for worse, just I can only really be myself. I think I've talked about that last time with you. It's just I can't change it. It's who I am. Things have been just fine.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, so thanks so much for this today. It was really great to catch up and hear all your stories.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah, I got to tell you, if you don't mind, I've done a few, not really podcasts like this, but I've done a few over the, and you're really good at this. You really make me feel comfortable. You're so well prepared. It's just a pleasure. So I can't thank you enough.
Leah Roseman:
Well, thanks so much for your kind words. Appreciate it.
Pat Irwin:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Pleased to share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. The link is in the description. Have a wonderful week.
