But, when it comes to all the other little instruments, of which there’s a lot in the stuff I’ve done the last couple of years, I do it all myself.

Without the music it was kind of hard to tell. People were very confused whether you’re allowed to laugh at the stuff that was happening.

For me, writing something in the spirit of Halloween is like Mother Teresa writing on charity and sacrifice. It’s just second nature to me.

I’ll just start laying out the melody exactly where I want it to fall. And then I’ll go back and fill it out. Whereas, in other pieces I’m really just going a couple bars at...

That little demo I wrote became the main title of the motion picture, and that started everything.

Oh see, first off you gotta realize – everything for me is a reconstruction or deconstruction. I would actually say deconstruction. Mission: Impossible would be the exception. That would be a reconstruction- deconstruction.

Doing Tim’s film is always going to be the most pleasure. Let me just put it that way. So, without drawing favorites one way or the other, getting back with him and doing Mars Attacks!...

You have to nail the right tone because sometimes when you just see his films cold, you’re not quite sure. It’s the same in – I’m trying to think of other directors with a similar...

He looks like Sammy Davis Jr. — but he’s a skeleton,

I’ll look back and I’d be better to answer that in about three months from now. Or when the movie comes out and I see it. I don’t even know what it is yet. I’ve...

I really didn’t intend to sing it, … It happened like it did with the songs from ‘Charlie’ and ‘Nightmare.’ I always cut the songs myself doing all the voices. In ‘Charlie,’ I didn’t count...

Or certainly I would need time – which I would love to have but there almost never is on a film – to just spend a week with a roomful of guys laying down these...

Having ten melodies was also a huge challenge, because I usually have three – sometimes just one or two, but often three that I’m using.

You have to write a good score that you feel good about. At least, you’re supposed to. But, if the director hates it, it ain’t going to be in the movie!

It was very schizophrenic,

I’m looking for a feel and I have to find what that feel is before I can move on from there. I’m not necessarily catching stuff in such a simple way – I don’t need...

It’s convenient in a way, because you don’t have to answer many questions: People say, ‘Man, how are you feeling?’ And I say, ‘How do I look?’ And they go, ‘Oh, okay.’ I’ve got the...

So I’ve learned in the past, if a company approaches me and they want something like this, or something like that that I’ve done and I turn them down, they’re going to do it anyhow.

I can’t get that live and I don’t have the time to take the tape, after I’ve finished recording it, into a little studio somewhere else where I can get a different kind of percussion...

You hear the beginning of a melody, you should kind of know it’s going to lead down this path. It should start feeling like a friend, like familiar.

The whole process we’re talking about is quite easy, … I just hope people realize this was done using real sets and real lights.

I’m trying to interpret the film through the director’s head, but it all comes out through me. So, a composer is kind of like a psychic medium.

At the end of the day, Tim said, ‘Look, can you just do this vocal?’ I did not write it for myself, but did in the end, do it because Tim wanted me to, …...

So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It’s still their ball game. It’s their show. I think any successful composer learns...

I don’t see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.

You’re allowed to rip-off another score so close that it’s ridiculous. In my opinion it’s ridiculous, how closely one can just rip-off a score that happened a year or two earlier.

Like ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas,’ writing songs for ‘Corpse Bride’ was a real treat. Tim’s visuals make the perfect complement for the kind of stuff I love doing most. These wonderfully fun, dark, offbeat tales...

In some types of music I’m working out all the chords one bar at a time – the whole structure, because it’s about that. And there are other pieces which are really about – okay,...

I try to keep myself as blank and as unprepared as possible until that moment, … I have to get my head into his head because it’s not strictly about my own tastes and instincts....

Sometimes I like them artificial and sometimes I like them real. And the reason is because sometimes I like a real close sound. And I like a very specific snare sound and I can’t get...

I had to do this very aggressive, big score in a very short time, and knowing that in the beginning, middle, and end would be this very, very famous theme, but I still had to...

[Like the recent Burton blockbuster] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, … Corpse Bride.

In Tim’s films the tone is the most important thing that the score can do. In any unusual film, finding the tone makes such a big difference.

It was a ragtag street ensemble, … Literally, we’d pass the hat. I learned how to breathe fire. I learned to play the trombone. I was a street musician for years.

Sometimes you get real close, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes they drive you crazy. I think every composer does that. That’s a big part of the job.

I like creating these rhythmic patterns. These interlocking rhythmic things are really fun.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

In Tim’s films, more than most, if you miss the tone, you don’t get the film.

I coached her through her singing debut, and she did great, … And, she sings with a spider and worm.

That still has to be there. And so, it’s kind of an interesting question you brought up. Because, on the one hand, yeah, it’d be lovely. I certainly don’t see that happening. In fact, I...

I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors, and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that I would never be doing that again. It’s just not me. I really am happy...

The first thing I do is lay out that melody and figure out how it has to hold here and then finish to land here, because you know in advance you’re going to want the...

It sounds really stupid, I hate making cosmic comments like this but, I just let it do what it wants to do.

It was a very sweet deal, … But not for us. For them.

The beauty of a main title is that you establish your main theme and maybe a bit of your secondary theme. You plant the seed that you’re going to go water later in the score....

I think that there’s a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don’t have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff....

My education in film music came from watching tons of films,

It’s hard to get a film, you know, you need a very special film to be able to get that experimental. But, I would love to see that happen. I would love the opportunity to...

Then on the other hand I don’t make it easy for those types to meet me, I’m sure. I live pretty privately, let’s say. So I’ve not yet met a film score groupie. If they’re...

There’s kind of a cool feel that happens every now and then. I guess that feel is the thing that makes the score its own score. But, I don’t know exactly what that is. So,...