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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I was born in Los
Angeles, California.

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And I lived in an area
called Baldwin Hills.

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And it's a kind of an odd
little area of the city.

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But it's an area I really love,
because it was around the block

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from a movie theater called the
Baldwin Hills Movie Theater.

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And that was my church.

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That's where I grew up.

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I was there every weekend of my
childhood as I could remember.

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And the beautiful thing
of being in the '60s

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is that there were
never any parents.

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It was very much like "The
Village of the Damned"

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if anybody remembers that movie
of these kind of children that

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were all born at the
same time because they

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were implanted from aliens.

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And there was some
kind of evil force.

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And this was our world.

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This was our playground.

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This was our celebration.

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This is what we did every week.

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We wanted aliens.

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We wanted monsters.

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We wanted mutations.

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We wanted vampires.

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This is what we yearned
for, or giant robots

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or things of this nature.

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So I grew up on movies
in Baldwin Hills

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in Los Angeles, California.

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You have to
understand me getting

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into music is a freak accident.

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I didn't have music
in my life as a child.

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But I became kind of
a film nerd early on.

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And then I think by the
time I hit 16, 15, 16,

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I was really into science
in my middle school years.

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I was a movie fan but
science is what I was clearly

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going to be in my life.

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I wanted to be a
radiation biologist.

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And I used to do
experiments in my room.

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And I took also radiation
biology in summer classes

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in Los Angeles at the
science museum actually.

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I ended up going to a new
school in a new neighborhood.

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And the friends I met were arty.

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And they were into music.

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They were into jazz.

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One of my friends was
actually a trumpet player

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who was writing contemporary
compositions even at 16.

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He turned me on to "The Rite
of Spring" by Stravinsky

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and then more Stravinsky.

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And it changed my life.

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I dumped my record collection.

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And now I'm obsessed
with Russian composers

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because Stravinsky
led to Prokofiev.

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When I heard Prokofiev,
it was an even deeper hit

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than Stravinsky.

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Prokofiev got
right into my soul.

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That was like this feels like
I've heard it all somewhere.

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I've never heard it
but it feels like it's

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in my blood, which
is half Russian.

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I felt like it was my music.

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Now I'm 18.

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Still have never
played an instrument.

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And I'm planning a
trip around the world.

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I wanted to take an
instrument with me.

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I was going to spend a year
going through Africa and then

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over to Asia through
India, Nepal,

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and work my way
back to Los Angeles.

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And my friend Leon
Schneiderman, who was later

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the saxophonist in Oingo
Boingo who was already

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playing saxophone as
a kid, but he and I

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were making this trip together.

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We plotted it out.

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But I wanted to
bring an instrument

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and secretly learn something.

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So I picked the violin.

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And the reason I
picked violin was

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due to a jazz violinist
named Stephane Grappelli.

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And I said that's something
I would love to try to do.

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So Leon made this
incredible perfect case--

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strong canvas case with a strap.

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So when I head out
to Africa, not only

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do I have a super overloaded
backpack that was ridiculous

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but over the right shoulder
would go the violin.

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And I set out for this journey.

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First stop was Paris, France.

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My brother was living there.

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And he was the
conga drummer with

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a crazy French musical
theatrical troupe

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called Le Grand Magic Circus.

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And from there, Leon and I met.

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We go and live for
a month in Lanzarote

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in the Canary Islands.

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Now he's playing saxophone.

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I'm playing violin.

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You know, we're
jamming every day.

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And then, finally, we
head off to Africa.

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And now I'm really
starting to interact,

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because the music in
Mali is incredible.

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I started jamming with people.

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I would meet musicians.

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And they would play the balafon.

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And I was learning how to
play the balafon, which

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was like a marimba,
which you could see

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became kind of a lifelong thing.

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And I was playing
with musicians.

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And it's the first time
they heard violins.

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And they weren't like
judging me like, oh yeah,

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we've had much better violinists
through here than you.

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And my travels
through Africa, it

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wasn't like I was becoming
a much better musician.

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It's more about
opening up my ears

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and my perception of music
that was really starting

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to make the change in me.

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And that's where I was starting
to absorb music and listen

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to it in a different way.

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When I finished
this trip, I think

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I was a different person
than when I started,

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and both because of the
music I was hearing,

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the interfacing that was
happening to me on this trip,

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but also because I was
transforming as a human being.

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Leon and I split
up along the way.

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So half of the trip
I was by myself.

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And that meant I was going weeks
and weeks without speaking.

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And I think it
had just something

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to do with my red hair
and very white skin.

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And I looked a bit like
a ghost or a demon.

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And nobody would look at me.

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Nobody made eye contact with me.

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And I started feeling like I was
invisible, like I was a ghost.

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This is heavy for a
middle class American kid

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who's never experienced
anything outside of suburbia.

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So it was starting to penetrate.

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I started getting letters
in different cities

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from my brother who was now
moving back to Los Angeles

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to start his own musical troupe
inspired by Le Grand Magic

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Circus.

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And I remember getting a letter
saying we have it together.

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There's seven of us.

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It's called the Mystic
Knights of the Oingo Boingo.

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And you're going to be
our musical director.

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They all played to a couple
of instruments-- drums,

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lots of drums, and a clarinet
player, and an accordion

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player.

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And they passed the
hat in the streets.

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So this was what I was
becoming musical director of.

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And so from the day I
arrived home from Africa,

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I was musical director
of the Mystic Knights

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of the Oingo Boingo,
which was as ragtag

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a group as could possibly be.

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But then began the
next part of my life.

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How did I get into films?

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It's all part of
a crazy journey.

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[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

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(SINGING) Well,
son, let me tell you,

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I'm so pleased to meet you.

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The boys and I've been
expecting to greet you.

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[END PLAYBACK]

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In my mind, I
lived in 1933 Harlem.

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That's where I lived.

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That's where I belonged.

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OK.

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My bad luck.

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I was just born out of time.

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I happened to be in
1975 Los Angeles.

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But that didn't mean shit to me.

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I was 1933 Harlem.

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And I didn't even want to hear
anything written after 1936.

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And I started to
feel more confident.

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And then I started writing
arrangements of things as well.

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I wrote a piece towards the
end there when we were starting

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to get pretty good called the
Oingo Boingo "Piano Concerto

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Number 1 and 1/2."

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There's 12 of us.

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One was just an actor you
know acting out the scene.

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Everybody else was playing.

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And the pianist actually
had quite a difficult part

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as they all were.

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But it was a real arrangement.

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And I feel like I'm
finally starting

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to get comfortable with this.

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And then the next inevitable
collision in my life happens.

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I get up.

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I happened to turn on the radio.

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And I hear this music.

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And I'm going, oh fuck.

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And it was ska
music from England.

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Now I love the African
music I heard over there.

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It was called high life.

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And the high life was
kind of inspired by reggae

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with a little bit
of salsa mixed in.

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But it was all like three piece
horn sections and five piece

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rhythm section.

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And now I'm hearing
the ska music,

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which was like the high life but
with a big shot of adrenaline

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in it.

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And always being somewhat of
a hyperactive person, I said,

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I like this.

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I want to be in a ska band.

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And within a year,
Mystic Knights were gone.

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They were dissolved.

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So all of a sudden,
my world musically got

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turned around again.

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And the irony is that now
for the next five years,

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I never have to write anything
down again, because with a rock

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band, you don't fucking
write music down.

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You know, it's like you
play it on the guitar.

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And everybody picks it up.

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And then you're off and running.

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And I thought to
myself, what a waste.

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The last seven years of my life
have been a complete waste.

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All that ear training,
all that work writing down

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Oingo Boingo "Piano
Concerto Number 1 and 1/2"

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is all just useless time for me.

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Oh.

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Was it?

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It's 1985.

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And I get a call from my
manager for Oingo Boingo.

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And he says there's a young
animator filmmaker named

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Tim Burton who's doing a--

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you know who Pee-wee Herman is?

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I said, oh yeah, I used to--

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we used to go see Paul Reubens
perform the Pee-wee Herman

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character and The
Groundlings in Los Angeles

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much earlier than Pee-wee
became Pee-wee and was just one

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of several characters he did.

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And I knew he was amazing.

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When he came out as
Pee-wee in The Groundlings,

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the audience went nuts.

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So I said, yeah.

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I actually know who Pee-wee
Herman and Paul Reubens is.

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And I met with Tim.

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Didn't know who
he was, of course.

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You know, he was
a Disney animator

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that was making his first film.

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And I thought they
wanted me to do a song,

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because I was
starting to do songs

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with Oingo Boingo for films.

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And I've done several.

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And he said, I'd like
you to do a score.

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And I go, a score?

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I don't know anything
about film scoring.

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He says, I think you
could do a score.

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And I go-- and this is
pretty much verbatim.

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It's like-- I'm thinking.

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And I said, I think, why me?

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He goes, I don't know.

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I've heard Oingo Boingo.

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I see the band.

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And I just think you can do it.

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And he shows me
some of the film.

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And as I'm looking at the
first scene of Pee-wee riding,

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I'm actually starting to
hear a tune in my head.

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And I say that's never happened.

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I've never responded
to visual stimuli.

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00:11:48,615 --> 00:11:49,995
But I heard
something in my head.

255
00:11:49,990 --> 00:11:52,450
And I drove home and went
right down to my studio

256
00:11:52,450 --> 00:11:54,700
with my little four
track tape player.

257
00:11:54,700 --> 00:11:56,770
And I made a demo
of this piece that I

258
00:11:56,770 --> 00:11:58,990
started hearing while
I was watching it

259
00:11:58,990 --> 00:12:01,180
and heard all the
way home in the car.

260
00:12:01,180 --> 00:12:06,280
And I recorded a minute
and a half of music.

261
00:12:06,280 --> 00:12:07,600
I put it on a cassette.

262
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:11,450
And I sent it to Tim Burton and
didn't think about it again.

263
00:12:11,450 --> 00:12:15,040
And I really figured it
would just get thrown away.

264
00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:18,210
A week later, I get a
call from my manager.

265
00:12:18,210 --> 00:12:20,000
He says you got the job.

266
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:24,200
And I say to my manager, I
say, tell him I can't do it.

267
00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:25,160
He goes, why?

268
00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:27,020
Because I will
fuck up their film.

269
00:12:27,020 --> 00:12:28,220
And he's a really nice guy.

270
00:12:28,220 --> 00:12:29,760
And I don't want to
fuck up his film.

271
00:12:29,762 --> 00:12:31,102
But I'll fuck up his film.

272
00:12:31,100 --> 00:12:32,600
He goes, you call him.

273
00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:35,280
He says, I've spent all week
putting this deal together.

274
00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:35,780
Here.

275
00:12:35,780 --> 00:12:37,450
You want to call him,
here's the number.

276
00:12:37,447 --> 00:12:41,327
And I sat for a day kind
of looking at the phone,

277
00:12:41,330 --> 00:12:43,040
thinking of picking
up the phone.

278
00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:47,330
And then finally, I
was like, fuck it.

279
00:12:47,330 --> 00:12:48,320
Why not?

280
00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:52,190
It's like if I fuck up
his film, it's on him.

281
00:12:52,187 --> 00:12:53,267
I mean he made the choice.

282
00:12:53,270 --> 00:12:56,360
They'll find another composer
that'll do a better score.

283
00:12:56,360 --> 00:12:58,430
So I didn't make that call.

284
00:12:58,430 --> 00:13:01,640
That little demo became the
opening to "Pee-wee's Big

285
00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:03,160
Adventure" pretty much verbatim.

286
00:13:03,155 --> 00:13:03,825
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

287
00:13:03,822 --> 00:13:17,382
[MUSIC - "PARK RIDE"]

288
00:13:17,377 --> 00:13:17,957
[END PLAYBACK]

289
00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:20,270
Comedy writing and film
scoring in the mid '80s,

290
00:13:20,270 --> 00:13:22,160
it was in a weird place.

291
00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:23,480
Nobody quite knew what to do.

292
00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:26,240
The old stuff was disappearing.

293
00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:28,190
New styles were starting.

294
00:13:28,190 --> 00:13:30,590
Hollywood was not
quite understanding

295
00:13:30,590 --> 00:13:31,940
one way or another.

296
00:13:31,940 --> 00:13:35,270
Orchestral film composition
was kind of dying.

297
00:13:35,270 --> 00:13:37,070
Comedies were
mostly being scored

298
00:13:37,070 --> 00:13:40,010
with kind of a jazz ensemble,
or a small ensemble,

299
00:13:40,010 --> 00:13:41,570
or synthesizers.

300
00:13:41,570 --> 00:13:43,640
And nobody-- there
wasn't like a sound.

301
00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:46,100
It was just a blank area.

302
00:13:46,100 --> 00:13:49,010
And especially for a
quirky or comic films,

303
00:13:49,010 --> 00:13:50,930
they just didn't know
what to do with it.

304
00:13:50,930 --> 00:13:54,440
And little did I know that
doing "Pee-wee's Big Adventure"

305
00:13:54,440 --> 00:13:58,010
was exactly the right thing
at exactly the right time.

306
00:13:58,010 --> 00:14:01,760
Now you have to realize
I expected the score

307
00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:03,500
to get thrown out.

308
00:14:03,500 --> 00:14:04,490
I finished it.

309
00:14:04,490 --> 00:14:05,970
Tim was great to work with.

310
00:14:05,970 --> 00:14:08,300
I was able to write
the whole thing down.

311
00:14:08,300 --> 00:14:10,520
And the experience
of recording it--

312
00:14:10,520 --> 00:14:11,610
oh my God.

313
00:14:11,612 --> 00:14:13,322
And I didn't know what
to do with myself.

314
00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:14,660
I was in a band.

315
00:14:14,660 --> 00:14:16,970
And so I had a
number of years where

316
00:14:16,970 --> 00:14:19,610
I was struggling to figure out
how do I work in another film

317
00:14:19,610 --> 00:14:23,690
score in between my recording,
producing, and touring schedule

318
00:14:23,690 --> 00:14:25,070
with Oingo Boingo.

319
00:14:25,070 --> 00:14:27,260
But I was committed
to doing that.

320
00:14:27,260 --> 00:14:30,890
The first time I was in front
of an orchestra in my life

321
00:14:30,890 --> 00:14:32,450
was hearing my own
music played back.

322
00:14:32,450 --> 00:14:34,730
I had never stood
next to an orchestra.

323
00:14:34,730 --> 00:14:40,040
And hearing that sound,
it sounded so much better.

324
00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,460
And it even sounded better
than I imagined in my head.

325
00:14:43,460 --> 00:14:47,880
And it's like I want to do this.

326
00:14:47,883 --> 00:14:48,553
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

327
00:14:48,550 --> 00:14:51,600
[MUSIC - "BREAKFAST MACHINE"]