Switched on Pop - Scoring Stranger Things with Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

We recently deconstructed how Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” has found itself at the center of culture due to a placement in the Netflix, eighties, horror, sci-fi show, Stranger Things. For that episode we excerpted an interview with the composers of the show who shared great insights on how they created the iconic theme song and spooky soundscape for the most streamed show of 2022. But we want to share the full conversation with you because they have equally cheeky as well as valuable musical offerings to share. Surprisingly, this show steeped in 80s nostalgia, has a more contemporary soundtrack than you you might think.  Songs Discussed Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein - Stranger Things, Photos in the Woods, He’s Here, Soldiers, Agents, Starcourt Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer Theme Song John Carpenter - Night Vangelis - Main Titles (Blade Runner) S U R V I V E - A.H.B. S U R V I V E - High Rise  Merzbow - Woodpecker No.1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It matches you with top-rated local pros with photos, reviews, and credentials, all in one convenient place. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the Right Proe today. Welcome to a bonus episode of Switched On Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. On our last episode, we shared how Kate Bush's 1985 song Running Up That Hill

has found itself at the center of culture due to a placement in the Netflix 80s horror, sci-fi TV show, Stranger Things. For that piece, I spoke with the composers of the show, who shared great insights on how they created a now iconic theme song and spooky soundscape to the biggest streaming show of the year. I want to share with you all that whole conversation because they had some very cheeky and valuable musical offerings to share. I'll allow the guys to introduce themselves.

Hi, I'm Kyle Dixon. Hi, I'm Michael Stein. We're members of the band Survive. And together we score Stranger Things. To kick things off, how did the Stranger Things gig come about for you all? We just, we found the Duffer Brothers Instagram accounts, and then we just sent this. them very, very long DMs persistently for, I don't know, probably a good 18 months. And then they finally listened to the SoundCloud link that we sent them.

And the rest is history. So your advice is to harass directors as much as possible. And eventually that's just how it works. Is anyone involved with the show? Really, like it doesn't matter if they have anything to do with what you're looking to do. If you're trying to do makeup, then, you know, I'm just kidding. Michael, you want to try again? It was kind of the other way around without the harassment.

Kind of. It was the exact opposite of that, yeah. Yeah, so they found our email on Band Camp for our band, which I guess they'd heard some songs in the movie The Guest, which we had two songs that were on the soundtrack. That was the seed of them reaching out. Okay, so you didn't slide into their DMs, but they did email you.

I want to get into the music itself. Let's start with the theme. It's very simple, and yet it's become completely iconic. Could you describe to me why you feel the theme of the show is so effective? I think there's two reasons, and I think they're pretty simple. I think at the time, theme songs were kind of not really happening so much. It was more about having kind of a pop song as the intro music versus a song. specific theme for the, I mean, I'm probably wrong in that, but that's just the way I feel about it.

I feel like a lot of the things that I was seeing around that time, that's what was kind of in fashion. And then I think the show just got very popular. How about musically? What musically makes the theme work? Musically? Oh, it's because there's like all these hidden notes that we snuck in there, you know, like it's really, really complicated, advanced musical theory, microtonal stuff, you know, all kinds of fancy tricks.

There's all, if it was just the arpeggio that people know it for, I don't think it would be as popularized, whereas the original has like 80 layers of tracks and things happening. And a lot of motion to it. Like it keeps moving without sounding like it's looping or getting repetitive. Like something's always happening next. It's also in a major scale, but I don't know what key it really is. It's a minor. It's a minor. I'm pretty sure.

A minor. Or C major. whichever you want to change. I don't exactly know why. I don't know why. I mean, it's because we're good. We made a good thing. We used cool sounds.

We didn't do anything cheesy. And it fits the show well. I mean, I wish I could take the beginning part of that off. But oh, well, I'll live with it. I know your joke is being sarcastic and at some degree. No, I just think it didn't do any. We didn't do anything like overly kitsy with it. think that maybe other people might have been more inclined to just like really be like over the top

with the 80s thing and we tried to keep it classy you know like to make it sound nice something that we would want to listen to you know yeah i think musically it represents a lot of elements of the show where it's it's kind of dark it's kind of ominous yet it's still neutral and still gets you excited enough without really leaning to any real direction still it's kind of sci-fi it's mysterious It's got a lot of these elements in it without being like too far one thing. Could you speak about how you went about scoring a contemporary take on an 80s horror show? What influences do you look to? How did you prepare?

And what kind of soundscape were you looking to make? The goal was to put the music that we already been making into a TV show. And as far as the influences, I mean, they were really into Tandrian Dream. John Carpenter Evangelist classic stuff and so they had some of that stuff temped in there

and that's easy and fun for us to do those types of things like maybe not the evangelist stuff so much because it's pretty great not that Not that Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter aren't also great but it's a little bit easier to how would I say what's the way to say to pay homage to

yeah exactly I mean I would say that the records we were making, the band and survived which we'd presented, our music. That was our outlet. We definitely had influences that come from a lot of the same places, like Tandrine Dream, like John Carpenter, YMO, pretty wide gamut of influences. But a lot of those influences are actually from the 70s or even modern, like, stuff that we listened to a lot in high school till now, which would be like Warp Records, like Apex Twin.

Just a lot more contemporary stuff makes its way. Because our band was never meant to be a retro revivalist type thing. It was just kind of a culmination of our influences. And the whole retro synth wave, this thing that's developed now didn't really exist. We were just kind of doing what we liked. The Duffers wanted us to kind of do that. And I would say there was some amount of adapting to create the sound of Stranger Things. But we've always had a little more of a take your influences and have a more contemporary approach to just not having these like boundaries to be some kind of retro revival concepts.

So we're not going into it with that. We're just like, let's make some music. We want it to sound fresh. We don't want to make something that's already been made. So it's not that difficult to end up with a not going to call it a product or content, whatever with music that somehow sounds individualistic. There are the boundaries, of course, that the show is. is a set in a certain time. And so the tools that you're using

seem to be influenced by that moment in history. A lot of it's a lot less silly, though, than the 80s tone of synth music. Like, biao. Like... Sure, we use a lot of the same instruments that were being used in the late 70s, 80s, right? But to Michael's point,

we're scoring a period piece, right? But we're scoring it now. So there's 30 years of cinema, 40 years of cinema, that happened. And you can't just go back and forget about all that. If you're trying to scare people, you're not going to be able to do it in the same way as you were in like 1978. The 90s happened.

Like everything got so much louder. Grunge metal. Like things got a lot more aggressive. Hair metal sounds silly now and it used to be like this like crazy thing, you know. But once the 90s happened, that it all kind of felt a little silly because everything got pushed further and further. So I guess I think the same thing happened in cinema as what I'm saying, or film, TV, whatever you want to call it. So I think that absolutely affected the way that we have to record music to help tell these stories.

Could you give some examples or a film that you think about that from its era in the 80s, maybe today sounds cheesy? Like any of the Gialo stuff, like Suspheria, I love the music, but it's like spooky disco. It's not cheesy. It's just if you did it. But now it would feel cheesy. I think it's cheesy. You know, funky bass lines and, like, really resonant chord stabs and sounds like,

Beow, woo. Like, we're just, that's way too forward. And that wouldn't sound scary now. How about an example from one of your cues where maybe it's a jump scare or something particularly intense from Stranger Things that listeners might hear as sounding vintage or 80s, but it's actually very contemporary, given the language of film scoring that, has influenced you in those 40 years? I think that we use a lot of sound design

that where the electronics might sound human, might sound like voices. Filtering and combining those with, like, waterphones and various acoustic instruments that are used in horror to create layers, so you don't really recognize what the sound is, but sometimes if it has in real ambient space, it can sound a little scarier,

and also, like, we'll use some more or less like sound design and industrial. ethereal-esque rhythms and sound design that is kind of harsh and unnerving. There is plenty of 80s-s-sounding stuff in the show, though. We definitely do some very on-purpose 80-sounding cues. I mean, almost any time anyone's getting killed, like, it's pretty wild stuff. Like, especially the third season. We got, like, in some of those fights, like, there's a cabin fight scene.

There's just, like, some pretty wild tonal stuff and, like, blown out, like, 909 drums, which is typically like a techno thing. Yeah, it might be closer to like Mersbao or Marsona than it is like some other genre. It's like noise music sometimes. Which I personally find is an achievement. I'm very happy that we've been able to bring noise music to the mainstream. Whether or not anyone knows that that's happening, it makes me feel good. Yeah, a lot of it's dynamic and shape and how you play the scene, you know.

So if you just like pull back to the string and engage the listener and then wham, hit them with some really abrasive sound. Yeah. Yeah, anything that sounds like a drum machine or a kick and snare. A kick and snare, which we don't really get to do that much. Not that we're like eager to do it. It just doesn't make sense. There's only a few times when you really can like do a kick and a snare.

But we'll use like lindrum and that kind of stuff, you know. But does it make it sound like survive? So it still is a vintage drum machine, you know. The show takes place over a number of years. It goes from 1983 to 1986. I'm curious, are there ways that you've thought about evolving your sounds to fit in the place of the show so that now we're in season four in 1986?

Are there things that you all prepare differently to fit that time period? I don't think we've directly mirrored it and looked for avenues to take, but the narrative of the episodes themselves have informed the decisions we make a lot. Like, season three is like the Hollywood summer blockbuster. It's very fun. It's very colorful.

You know, so we might have pushed more towards some songs that feel more mid-80s and just a little more excited. But then this season is like quite a bit colder and darker and it has these a lot more horror elements. And the fact it's a little more stark, we did use a few more. like wave table and digital-based scents, wave stations and things process that did really good bells and colder, like, chime tones and things that felt, not specifically because they were later 80s era, but just because they fit the aesthetic, I think, the color of the season. I think pretty much all of the elements have been there from the beginning. It's just certain seasons, certain things kind of take the forefront a little bit.

more. Like, we've always used a lot of choirs or vocal synth sounds. They're very prominent in this season because there's this kind of like spooky gothic kind of feel. So there's more choir in that respect. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's a new business software you'll ever need. It's a all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3

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Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. I felt like this season, especially, the, conversation between the scoring cues and the soundtrack seemed to be very present. I think particularly with the running up the hill, which we hear a dozen times, it seems, throughout the show. The scoring just sort of weaves seamlessly throughout it. I'm curious about how you approach scoring in conversation with the Kate Bush, given the importance of diagetic music in this season. I think we always try to be cautious of what music is coming,

or the score is going into or coming out of, but you can't really be 100% certain what's going to be in the show until the very end. So while we kind of know the dynamic or the feel of that the piece of music, the sync that they're going to license is going to have, you can't always match the key. Sometimes it's very for certain,

the Cape Bush ones for sure. If we wanted to make a really smooth transition, we would sometimes write a little extra so that the music editors had more to kind of interweave. That one must have been known. It was literally in the script. That one was not going anywhere.

Yeah. Yeah, there was no chance that that was going to be anything else. Is there anything about that song with running up the hill, given its success and connection to the show, do you hear any sort of simpatico between how you score

and what Kate Bush was doing? We've definitely, in some of our band's work, have directly referenced I feel like very obviously Kate Bush. Yeah, I would say so too. Do you have an example? It's the end of H-A-A-H-B, right?

There's sometimes like little melodies that will play. There's like these little melodies that we use, and it's like we always refer to him. It's like, that's the, you know, and then the Kate Bush part comes in, you know? Yeah. It just reminds us a little bit of Kate Bush. I think Black Molly's had some of that in there.

Little, like, playful melodies that will be on top of this kind of a dark. song and we'll be like, ah, the ends with the little Kate Bush type thing. Also, the, like, pitchy brass, the like, wha-w-w-w-w-ha-w-ha-w-ha-w-a-w-w-. Always trying to remaking that sound. If we can sneak that in anything, we will. It's a great sound. Good melody. That's a good, that's a really good song. And I'm glad it's number one. Yeah. Can you think of any interesting or funny ways that the song running up that hill ties in with the Stranger Things theme. The funniest thing about the theme to me is

every time we've tried to put that as like a thematic element into the show, we're like, I don't know about this. It's kind of shown up in a few instances, but for the most part, we never really just have that arpeggia rock in or something under a scene. It says too much in the show if it comes out of nowhere.

It's not the theme. It's in there, Sometimes, there's like a hint towards it here and there for sure. But I mean, you can find that in any score. You remember that silly waltz thing? I made like a really silly version of it once. Because there was a lot of comedy in the last, not this season, but the one before. So it was always like, how are we going to write this comedy music?

So I remember trying to make a comedy version of the theme. I do not remember that, but that sounds pretty funny. It was fun. It was like, it was like probably the prophet six, but like with using the swing. amounts like some kind of swing so I was doing some kind of like Waltz-d-d-ding. It was really funny.

Ah! Yeah. I don't know. I'm here at a Stranger Things remix here. I feel like you got a billboard number one hit. You just got to get Kate Bush's vocal on it. More possible now than ever, maybe?

Yeah, more possible now. I need to get Kate Bush's phone number. All right, gentlemen. I'll look forward to it. Until then, thanks for joining me. It's been a lot of fun. All right. Awesome.

Yeah, nice to meet you. If you missed the full episode of Kate Bush's running up that hill, you can find it anywhere you get podcasts, and our website switched on pop.com. Check out more of Kyle and Michael's work and their band Survive. Also look out for The Stranger Things Season 4 original soundtrack, which will be available everywhere very soon. See you next Tuesday.

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