Over his twenty-plus-year film and TV scoring career, composer Dominic Lewis has worked in nearly every possible genre: comedy, action, drama, horror, animation, and children’s programming. With his most recent two projects, Dope Thief and Your Friends & Neighbors (both running concurrently on AppleTV), Lewis has been afforded the opportunity to pull out almost everything in his musical toolbox. While both Dope Thief and Your Friends & Neighbors have pulpy aspects, they couldn’t sound much more different. Dope Thief is a gritty low-level crime drama starring Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura as childhood friends and now adult thieves named Ray and Manny, who rob other drug dealers, but soon find themselves way in over their heads when they hit the wrong stash house, and end up on the run from the DEA and a terrifying cartel. Lewis’ avant-garde, pulsating score knows just when to pull back and then come forward to tighten your chest and frazzle your nerves.
Conversely, Your Friends & Neighbors sees Jon Hamm taking on the role of a recently fired hedge fund manager who is suddenly in dire financial straits due to the alimony he owes his ex-wife (Mel, played by the terrific Amanda Peet), child support for his two nearing college-age children, and unable to find a new job due to an onerous non-compete clause. Jon Hamm’s Coop comes up with the questionable idea of robbing his friends and neighbors by making a career change to an amateur cat burglar. The music required by Lewis is more in the classic noir vein of movies from the ‘40s, but with distinctive modern accents that bring forth elements of character through sound.
It’s remarkable work that requires musical flexibility and dexterity that I doubt many composers could pull off with such aplomb. In our conversation, Lewis and I discuss the management of tone and character that his scores illuminate in both series, and how his goal to serve the show is always at the forefront of his mind.
The Contending: As a composer, when you’re working on a project like Dope Thief, which has more of a propulsive nature, and then you move to Your Friends and Neighbors, which has more of a glide, how do you differentiate in your approach? You have this super stylish show, Your Friends and Neighbors, about the upper crust, and then you have this gritty show, Dope Thief, about those scrounging and getting their fingernails dirty. How do you go about servicing them both appropriately?
Dominic Lewis: I love hopping around in different genres and styles, and I’ve spent the better part of the last ten years doing that. It’s second nature to me now, which is great. For these two shows, Peter Craig, the showrunner and writer of Dope Thief, was very specific about what world he wanted the audience to be in. He wanted to be in an avant-garde, electronic, sound effects augmenting world in which we weren’t so focused on melody–idents and motifs as opposed to broad melodies. The first thing I did for that was the end sequence, and trying to get the palette right. The first sequence I did was where they go to the meth farm in Ottsville. Peter wanted to hear all the footsteps and the breathing and make it real. There’s no glitz, there’s no glamor. It’s all very gritty. It was so fun to do because I could mess with noises, and a lot of that score is noise, but organized noise, which, if we’re getting all heady about it, that’s what music is. It was cool to get down and dirty with it and have fun with plug-ins, taking contrabass clarinets and messing with them, and, as I always do, messing with vocals. My initial idea for Dope Thief was this kind of hybrid of avant-garde electronica with jazz and hip-hop. The jazz eventually went away and got replaced with soul. Even on the soundtrack, the last three tracks I included are the process one, two, and three, because I wanted to show people how I got to the destination. Process one was avant-garde and crazy, but it had this jazzy piano, almost like a Robert Glasper-esque style. And then I tried to push it forward, and it became more melodic, but the show couldn’t really take that. It was too much. It was forcing itself on the picture and the story and doing too much.
So, eventually, we got to the sound of the show, which is somewhat understated. It comes in and out, and it’s melodic and tonal when it needs to be, but most of the time it’s just bubbling away and making you feel really uncomfortable, I hope. Juxtaposed with Dope Thief’s style is Your Friends and Neighbors, which is glitzy and sleek. At the beginning of that, I was using a quartet. I wanted to go highbrow and then make it new and cool. I started there, and the piano motif was the first thing I came up with. That was where we began because (Show Creator) Jonathan Tropper was adamant that it needed to be a piano-based soundscape. All the examples he gave me were piano-based scores or songs from that kind of indie world that isn’t like classical piano, more like simple pop piano. I started from there, and then it was just “How do I make it different from every other piano score?” I was trying to set it off-center in terms of synths and slightly detune things because Coop’s (Jon Hamm) world is crashing down so quickly that it can’t always be pristine and clean. It has to have those quirks and weird things pushing against it. As I say, I love flip-flopping in different worlds and different soundscapes. Other than messing around with synths and drums and stuff, there wasn’t much in common between them.
The Contending: The one thing that occurred to me in Your Friends and Neighbors is that there’s room for a little bit of playfulness in the score, which suits the show in many ways. When you’re watching Your Friends and Neighbors, especially beyond the first two episodes, it gets continually darker as it goes along. Am I watching a comedy or a drama? I like the feeling of not being set in firm “genre” ground. The one thing that the two scores have in common, albeit in very different ways, is a touch of noir. More in a modern sense in Dope Thief, but it’s there in both. In Your Friends & Neighbors, there’s almost a classic forties film noir in the score.
Dominic Lewis: That’s inherent in me, the noir aspect, whether it’s noir or it’s like an audition to try and get a Bond movie at some point. That layer of music is always in there somewhere with whatever I do. So you are absolutely right in picking that up. But what you say about Friends and Neighbors is true: that the whimsy and the charm of Coop’s character were really important for Jonathan to keep, but not to go too dark in those sequences when he is stealing from his neighbors. Because you’ve got the voiceover going the whole time, we’re not supposed to be scared at any point. He’s just talking us through it. So that whimsical feel and the sense of being allowed to smile, to laugh during these sequences was really important.
The Contending: You mentioned Jonathan, who also created Banshee, one of my all-time favorite shows. I tell people if you want good pulp, good, wild, crazy ass pulp, this is the place to find it. There are Fanshees out there, and seeing Hoon Lee in both shows was a nice little connecting piece. But thinking about how the guy who made Banshee could make Your Friends and Neighbors just speaks, in parallel with your work, of the ability not to get boxed into something. You were talking about Coop’s character. We also have Brian Tyree Henry’s character. Depending on time constraints, sometimes composers need to deliver scores really early, and sometimes they provide them as they go; it just depends on the project. How much did your lead character in each series influence how you built your score?
Dominic Lewis: If not a hundred percent, pretty close to it. It’s so important to have that linchpin. With both shows, everything revolves around these two characters. And that’s a thing I’ve done in the last few years: I’ve really centered the theme around the main character. Previously, I’d have a theme for whatever show I’m doing, but it’s not necessarily attached to a character. The main theme has been the protagonist for my last few projects. It was essential to capture Ray’s essence and Coop’s essence with the main theme for both shows. Thinking of comparisons, that’s the piano, but they’re very different pianos. Ray’s piano is based in the soul world; it is granular, weird, and uncomfortable. Coop’s is a bit shinier, but the main melody is a tritone, which I did on purpose to create the uncomfortable nature of his world. But it’s wrapped up in this slick, polished style. There’s always little things you can find, and music is so wonderful like that, just little storytelling points that on the surface are “Oh, that’s catchy, but there’s meaning behind a lot of it.” That’s why I love what I do so much. It’s almost like little Easter eggs in everything you do because there’s meaning behind it.
The Contending: I talked to Amanda Peet recently about the show. In Your Friends and Neighbors, the hook is to say, here’s a guy who turns to cat-burgling from his neighbors when he loses his job. He’s living in an expensive neighborhood, and he knows the local security, how they operate, and when his friends are at events or on vacation. But the show is all about the facade of wealth, what’s behind that, and that it’s not pretty, and how people who have all these things in some ways don’t have much at all. On the contrary, when you’re looking at Dope Thief, these are people who dream of being anywhere near Coop’s world. Your Friends and Neighbors does become a crime show to a degree. Still, there’s also a lot of relationship drama going on, so there’s a lot of subtlety there that I think is necessary, especially between Mel (Amanda Peet) and Coop. When writing music around your main characters, are you also thinking about when other characters are introduced? Does it need to change? Because I think Manny (Wagner Moura) is a scene-changer in Dope Thief, too, for Ray, Brian’s lead character.
Dominic Lewis: With Mel’s character, I wanted it to relate to Coop. Let’s take the piano, for example. Coop lives around the middle, and Mel lives around the right-hand and higher. Also, her theme is more of a question–it never really resolves because that’s where she is in the show. It appears on the surface that she knows what she’s doing. She’s with her new boyfriend Nick, but she doesn’t know who she is deep down. So it’s with the piano, but it’s with a slightly different piano, and it’s doubled with a synth because we love her, she’s cool, and her sound has different elements from Coop’s, but they are related. Episode four was a lovely opportunity for me to tease that and have the two sound elements playing together when they’re on the trampoline. It’s a beautiful scene, and their chemistry is so wonderful. So thankfully, I don’t have to do that much. I just have to support it. There’s a scene later in the show with the two of them in the kitchen–I think it’s the final episode. Wonderful acting by Amanda and Jon. Again, I didn’t have to do that much, but that sound comes back in a more developed way.
As I am trying to keep character themes related, with Manny’s theme in Dope Thief, he doesn’t really know where he is. He has no idea what’s going on. He is just trying to survive, and this kind of nylon guitar sound is revolving. It’s just a rolling finger picking thing that wafts in and out because that’s him. In the show, he’s wafting in and out and doesn’t know what’s going on. The detective theme in Your Friends and Neighbors also progresses, and that’s kind of simple. It’s cops, it’s simple, but then in its intervallic relationships, it’s in the world of Your Friends and Neighbors. I’m always trying to return to that main title theme, which is mainly attached to Coop. And then with Dope Thief, it’s these chords. They are very much attached to Manny, these piano chords, but it’s almost like when you hear those chords, the story’s moving forward. That’s what I wanted because it’s such a percussive, gritty, and atonal palette that when you hear those chords, it almost requests the audience to lean in because “I’ve got to listen, things are happening, and the story’s moving forward.”
The Contending: In Dope Thief, it seems like the intention, because of the pacing of the show, is always to have this underlying feeling of anxiety, and sometimes it gets ratcheted up, particularly with the percussive effects. Sometimes you get this one drum beat that just gets a little louder to unnerve you slowly. And then in Your Friends and Neighbors, I think it’s like a false sense of security, and then every now and then that gets broken down. So you’re doing two very different things, but the anxiety connection is in there. It’s just more subtle in one than in the other.
Dominic Lewis: You’re absolutely right. Musical storytelling is not always effective. I would hope that I can do it well. There are certain tricks you do to musically tell a story, whether it’s a beat getting louder and more intense to induce anxiety, or high tension sounds fluttering in and out. You ratchet up depending on how intense the show needs to be. On Your Friends and Neighbors, it’s a little more subtle, whereas on Dope Thief, you really ramp it up in those moments towards the end of the season where it’s getting intense.
The Contending: Speaking of Dope Thief, what surprised me a little bit about the score, and I think it works really effectively, is that within the first four episodes you have the raid on the rural meth farm and then later you have the shootout on the bluff which is one of the wildest things I’ve seen on TV in quite some time. I felt you very thoughtfully pulled back in both scenes and let natural sound take its course, and then you were buttressing that with the score.
Dominic Lewis: Totally. You are on the money. That’s exactly what we were trying to do. And with Peter’s fantastic guidance, he wanted to keep everything as real as possible. When music was in, it was featured. I would be on the dub sometimes, and music would come in. Because the soundscape is different from what we normally hear, within reason, obviously—I’m not saying I’ve recreated the wheel or anything, it’s an atonal soundscape, so when it comes in loud, he’s doing that on purpose in the dub. Then, with those action scenes, it was about the sound effects. It was about being in and living it and not having music pull you out of the moment. That’s particularly important in that last episode where we didn’t score some of those scenes to make it feel as real as possible. He wanted it to feel so uncomfortable in that scenario at the end that I was only in when I had to be.
The Contending: Ridley Scott directed the first episode of Dope Thief, and I will tell you I’m a big fan. The Dope Thief pilot is my favorite thing he’s directed in years. Was there any sense for you of, oh, man, I’m doing a show with Sir Ridley Scott?
Dominic Lewis: It was really daunting. But in those moments, you just have to bring what you bring, and if that’s not what Ridley wants, then you’ll hear about it. (Laughs). Fortunately, he was very complimentary about everything I was doing. With TV, the directors are not necessarily that involved in post. Not with every show, but the directors generally change from episode to episode. But he was pretty involved. I didn’t have any one-on-one time with him, but I would get feedback on what he was liking musically and what he wasn’t. Fortunately for me, the stuff he wasn’t liking was the temp score, and the music he did like was me. (Laughs). I had two sequences early on that were cut, but we wanted to get the sound of the show with the two sequences, which was the meth farm and the house raid at the beginning with the kids. So those were the two things I tackled first, and nothing but positivity came back from Ridley’s camp. So that was great. My nerves were put to rest pretty early on, which was good.
The Contending: I will tell you that my favorite musical moment in Dope Thief was when Ray and Manny were at the bridge, and they were having that nostalgic moment when they looked back through flashback at another time when they were at that location, and right towards the end of that sequence, you raised the music up. This is my interpretation, but basically, what it said to me was that those lovely days are gone. This sweet moment is not going to last. We’re up here now, living high on the edge.
Dominic Lewis: That’s exactly right. Doing a major chord and dialing the intensity slowly is so effective in moments like that because it does exactly what you’re saying. It gives you nostalgia for what they used to do, but they’re also in the moment. However, when it gets louder and louder, it makes you feel a bit distressed. And then suddenly, it cuts out and goes to the Little Simz main title track. And that was exactly the idea. It’s not the first time I’ve played with that technique: major chords getting louder and more intense, rather than trying to do something too involved and trying to match all the emotions and all the storylines. A simple major chord that gets louder and louder to where it’s a little bit uncomfortable is so effective. That’s one of my favorite bits, too.
The Contending: I’ve talked to artists who are and aren’t on screen who say they don’t enjoy watching their work back because they think they should have done something different or better on rewatch. Do you go back and watch your own work? If so, do you get enjoyment out of it? I’m sure it doesn’t hurt when the shows are as good as Dope Thief and Your Friends and Neighbors. Can you watch the whole production back for your enjoyment, and not pick your work apart?
Dominic Lewis: I am, and luckily, my wife is really into TV, so I like to experience it with her, mostly to see her reaction and to get her feedback. It’s quite nice. We usually watch TV in bed, so I’m always lying there going, “Oh, I wish this was a bit louder so you could hear the music better.” So I can’t switch that off, but I can enjoy it, especially with these two shows, because they’re so good. I’m very proud of what I did. I’m not saying there aren’t moments when I think I should have done that differently. That happens a lot in the post process, where if there is anything like that, it normally goes down at the dub stage. I’ll be like “Oh, wait a minute, can we edit that?” And that actually happens. Whether it’s piano notes over dialogue that shouldn’t be there, or I just finished a movie that I’ve got lots of vocals in, and the vocals were getting annoying. I’ll ask if we can take those vocals out and just start them here? So then, when we are sitting there watching AppleTV, I can just enjoy it, and when I know a moment’s coming, I can look over and gauge my wife’s reaction. It’s nice having my sister calling me up and saying, ” I can’t believe we have to wait another week,” and giving me all these scenarios of what she thinks is going to happen. I love all music that’s good, and that’s obviously subjective, but I like to play in lots of different sandboxes. I think if you just do the same thing over and over again, it gets so boring. I’ll jump from Dope Thief to Your Friends and Neighbors to an animated project. I just finished the new Karate Kid movie.
The Contending: You are everywhere right now, aren’t you?
Dominic Lewis: Yeah, but it’s good, mate. I love the work.
