An Interview with Tyler Bates

Composer of Devil's Rejects musical score

by Gnarly Charlie
July 2005

Killer Music

Though noted mostly these days for being a composer, Tyler Bates has enjoyed facets of the music business that go far beyond the routine of just writing music for the movies. Prior to this incarnation as a composer of movie music scores, Bates was a road tested guitarist and songwriter in the band Pet, which toured and performed with Limp Bizkit, Blink 182, Helmet and Luscious Jackson. Pet, who he had formed with singer Lisa Papineau, also had a single on the platinum selling soundtrack for The Crow: City of Angels. Bates had produced for other bands and played guitar parts on records for artists like Vas and the Beastie Boys.

Since 1997, Bates has worked mainly at scoring movies, putting together an impressive resume of works in the comedy, action, psychological drama and horror film genres. It was the music that he scored in the movie Dawn of the Dead, which caught the attention of rocker/filmmaker Rob Zombie, who soon would ask Bates to score his new creation, Devil's Rejects, a continuation of House of 1000 Corpses, the cult classic. Devil's Rejects is a story of madness, murder and revenge and the orchestration that Tyler Bates employs in this film accentuates Zombie's terrifying story.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Hi Tyler.

Tyler Bates:Hey Charlie.

GNARLY CHARLIE: I imagine you're really busy these days.

Tyler Bates: Yeah, it's been pretty slammed lately. So, I'm always thankful of that.

GNARLY CHARLIE: The soundtrack for Devil's Rejects is in the stores today. When will the movie score be released?

Tyler Bates: The actual score doesn't come out until July 19^th, three days before the movie comes out. There's a song soundtrack that comes out today, and that also includes the Banjo & Sullivan record that Rob produced.

GNARLY CHARLIE: (laughs) Talk about wacky and eclectic! Coming from Rob, that's not a stretch. I mean, with Otis Rush, Buck Owens & The Buckaroos, Elvin Bishop -- there's some good music on there.

Tyler Bates: There really is. I hope that some people who aren't that familiar with that stuff pick it up and take the opportunity to get turned on to it, because it is really cool.

GNARLY CHARLIE: I know. It even has some James Gang. It just seems fitting that it's a Rob Zombie movie and I haven't seen anything except the trailer.

Tyler Bates: Well, I'll tell you this right up front --the trailer doesn't even begin to give you the essence of what the film is ...I don't know if it's a trailer Rob would have made. How the studio wanted to roll it out to people, hopefully it's enough to get people to be interested in the film. But the film is awesome and the way the music works in the film -these songs especially, is really fantastic, so I think people will dig it.

GNARLY CHARLIE: I read that Rob Zombie allowed you all the space that you wanted to put the musical score together on this project.

Tyler Bates: Yeah, you can say he allowed me or he expected me. Basically what
Rob was asking of me was to create something that he's never heard in a movie before, and obviously something that's uniquely symbiotic with his picture. Before I came on board they had a very difficult time finding anything that Rob felt would even coexist with the picture and help support the drama without overtly manipulating the audience. He challenged me to come up with something that would do its job on a dramatic level and still exist on its own as a unique volume of music.

GNARLY CHARLIE: So do you think that it was mainly what you did scoring the music for Dawn of the Dead that influenced Rob to give you a call in the first place?

Tyler Bates: We had a mutual friend who went with Rob to the ?Dawn? premiere and he called me the following day saying ?Hey, I was with Rob Zombie last night and he really loved Dawn of the Dead and he really loved the score. I knew Rob was filming the second picture, the Devil's Rejects. So, I sent the copy of the Dawn score over to Rob and sent a note saying that if he needed help this time around I'd be happy to get involved with you on this one. When he was done filming he gave me a buzz and we got together and looked at an early cut of the film and that was that.

GNARLY CHARLIE: You and Rob come from a similar background as guitarists and touring musicians. I read that you're putting your focus into scoring for films now. Do you ever think you'll get back into a band and do the road thing?

Tyler Bates: I truly enjoy working with the art of film. The timeframes are great, you work with very passionate people for a relatively short amount of time, and when it goes really well you do it again. (laughs) You know what I mean? You're on to the next thing, hopefully, when you're done with a project. And in a band you have to deal with a lot of the dynamics of the personalities within the band, the constraints of what the band is, the music, and the dealings with the record company. There are certain restrictions put upon you by that, by the whole situation. So, after doing that I seem to get more enjoyment out of this and the anonymity of scoring movies, as opposed to being front of people, or lying to a record company, telling them I'm 29.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Tell me about Roseland. Is that what you're currently doing as far as recording?

Tyler Bates: I just finished that. It's an album project I did with Azam Ali. She's a World recording artist. Roseland was her foray in the English language. She normally sings in Farsi, which is Persian. She's an amazing talent, so it was a great challenge and an excellent creative adventure.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Dawn of the Dead was great. Your music coupled with the visuals made it a shocker.

Tyler Bates: Well, thanks. It was a great deal of fun to work on that film. Everyone involved was just amazing. The energy was really good -- a really positive, oriented group of people, who had a lot of fun. There was a lot of passion and definitely a great deal of humility about the whole project. I think that kind of energy was apparent in the film and I think the audience had a chance to feel that. The film, I don't think, had an oversaturated sense of importance about itself and that's what kept it kind of in the "cool zone", so to speak.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Back Devil's Rejects: did you spend any time on location with Rob during the filming?

Tyler Bates: No, not at all. I heard a little bit about the development of the film in the early stages through mutual friends, who were tuned in to the production of the film at the time, but I really didn't know much about this particular movie and I was surprised, in a really pleasant way when Rob showed the movie to me. I thought his first movie was cool, but it definitely had a great deal more kitsch value. This particular film, I think, shows a great deal of maturity in Rob as a film maker. I think that people who are really into film, itself, are going to appreciate the film and dig it. I know the film packs a punch. There's no way you can see this film and walk out of the theater not, knocked on your ass. No way.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Good. Comparing Devil's Rejects to House of 1000 Corpses ... you've pretty much told me that this one is going to be something to see.

Tyler Bates: Consider it not even a sequel. I mean, a couple of the characters are carried forward from the first, but it's such a different film. It's so much more evolved from the first film that I think the audience is going to be knocked out. They're not getting just Part Two of a movie they've seen and I think that Rob is going to gain a whole new legion of fans that didn't necessarily know him through his music.

GNARLY CHARLIE: He certainly has quite a few fans just on his music alone. He's doing Ozzfest this summer.

Tyler Bates: I think he definitely reaches out to his fans and I'm sure he wants to make sure that as many people as possible know that Devil's Rejects is coming out. (laughs)

GNARLY CHARLIE: I went into the theater a couple months ago and there was this big, stylish, oil-painted looking portrait on an easel, with Devil's Rejects, and it said "Go to hell, July 22nd"--right away that caught my eye.

Tyler Bates: Yeah, I'm sure that Rob has anxiety about how well the film is going to perform, as any director does, but I think one great thing about this movie is that it's almost impossible to see any of the promotional material on this film and not get the sense that it's different than anything else that's come out in a long, long time. So, I think it stands on its own, and hopefully people will come out and see it and it'll get a buzz about it once it is out. It's really a great film, and even if you're not into horror movies, but more into Clint Eastwood style films, it delivers on that level as well.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Among other things, I want to see how the soundtrack and the score meld with the visuals.

Tyler Bates: The music ... as far as the songs Rob picked -- they actually make the film even more compelling, and that's what's so disturbing about this film, regardless of whatever heinous acts take place in the film, it has this sense about it that makes you want to continue to watch and have a sense of humor. Aside from that, there's the nostalgia in the music that kind of gives you a deeper emotional feeling about the whole thing as your watching it. That's what twists you up a little bit. You have emotions associated with what's going on onscreen that you shouldn't, you know. At least if you're a well adjusted person. (laughs)

GNARLY CHARLIE: Yeah, one would hope. Hearing "Fooled Around and Fell in Love", that always hits me hard. I love that old stuff.

Tyler Bates: Oh, yeah. It's great. I think that the way that Rob chose the music and the way he plays it in the film ...the thing that's awesome about it is that he's not being cute with anything. Sometimes the song selection is so on the nose as to what's going on in the picture, or it's like "Oh, that would be funny and clever", and I don't think that that's his thinking. The selection of the music is perfect for the picture, but it's coming from a guy who is a fan of music. Rob doesn't just put these characters on paper he creates an entire life history for his characters and so this is the music they're listening to. This is what would be on the radio at this point in time, and that's what went into his selection of the music.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Is Rob as funny as I think he is? Is he hilarious? The two of you together have got to be something else...

Tyler Bates: Well, Rob's pretty funny, because he's dry as can be, there's no doubt. You would expect him to be that, you know? He's not a physical comedian, but he is very witty and he's really sharp, so he's always coming up with one-liner that is funny. The kind of thing about his humor is that you might chuckle at first, but you laugh about 30 seconds later when you start thinking about what he just said or an observation he made. (laughs) He's really intelligent that way. Again, I think that some of that feeds into what this film is about and how people are going to receive it. I think it's going to stay with 'em. That's the one thing about this movie, I gotta say, as opposed top a lot of movies of the genre lately -this movie stays with you.

GNARLY CHARLIE: On the last track of the score, "We'll Come Back for You" that's haunting. Who sang on that?

Tyler Bates: Nan Vernon. She's a great singer. She sang on the beginning of the film as well. She's somebody who's had a number of record deals. She happens to be my assistant's girlfriend. She's fantastic.

GNARLY CHARLIE: The titles on the score are pretty funny.

Tyler Bates: A couple of them changed, like the "Shit, Fuck" title is now "Ten Cars Twenty Five Pigs". Rob changed that. I did about 80 minutes of music for the film, but pared it down to about an hour. Yeah, there are some pretty interesting titles. When you look at the titles of the entire soundtrack you kind of get an idea of the journey that we go through on this movie. (laughs) It's pretty ridiculous.

GNARLY CHARLIE: You said that Rob described this movie as a "sick western."

Tyler Bates: Yeah, and when I watched it I saw the film embody the character of movies like The Gauntlet, Badlands, Easy Rider, The Last House on the Left. It didn't feel to me like a horror movie or even like some sort of beatnik film. To me it's a great psychotic thriller/action film. There's character development in this movie that's pretty complex. A lot of horror films, especially nowadays, I don't think that they're long on character development. Often times we have very little compassion for any of the characters in those films. The thing Rob manages to do in this movie is...even his killers have coolness. (laughs) It's not that you want to be them, but there's a certain thing about some of the characters. Like Otis -- some of the things he does and says -- some of us wish we had the balls to be that way. (laughs) Not as far as carrying out some of the heinous acts that he does in the film, but there are certain things he that he says and I think that Rob's sense of humor and wit will come forth in this movie. Not unlike his last movie, but certainly more so than his last movie. I think that people are really going to get an insight to him as a bona fide writer/director.

GNARLY CHARLIE: And you want to write screenplays, right?

Tyler Bates: It's not on my agenda at the moment. I wouldn't mind taking a stab at it at some point, but right not there is too much for me to learn and accomplish in scoring movies. I have my hands full. It would be cool to do it eventually, especially in the horror genre.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Which genre of films do you like to score the best?

Tyler Bates: Honestly, as a film composer, there might be twenty people who can pick and choose. The rest of us are just trying to get jobs and hopefully we're aligning ourselves with directors that we hit it off with and have great relationships with. That's how we end up working all the time. When you're first starting out you're just trying to get any job you can, and hopefully your career grows from there. I've had the opportunity to work in almost all genres. Personally, I would love to do more drama and straight thrillers. I don't want to be doing movies of people getting dismembered and killed and all that.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Yeah, leave that legacy!

Tyler Bates: I've had a solid year and a half of this sort of thing and I'm definitely looking forward to moving on with it. Fortunately it appears that I've had really good experience with my directors and they seem to be aspiring to other genres of films, Rob included. I'm excited about that.

GNARLY CHARLIE: What do you have on the cooker now?

Tyler Bates: I'm currently just at the completion stages of a film called Goodnight. It's going to change its title sometime in the next few weeks, but it's another Lion's Gate release with Gregory Dark directing. I'll be getting work, probably at the end of this week with James Gunn, with his upcoming movie Slither. James wrote Dawn of the Dead and a bunch of other movies.

GNARLY CHARLIE: On your off time what do you do?

Tyler Bates: Off time? That's funny! (laughs) I have a family. I play with my kids and my wife, we go to movies, shoot pool, travel ...try to keep myself from falling apart.

GNARLY CHARLIE: I think the experiences you've had as a touring musician and a writer, songwriter, you probably draw so much just from that.

Tyler Bates: Yeah, you know, both the positive and negative side of the coin of that experience...I've lugged Marshall amps up the stairs many, many times in the freezing cold to play for four people in some shithole club and then I've had the good fortune of playing to thousands of people and have had potentially great situations be abominable and the opposite of that. So, being in a rock band and having some success has had a lot to do with the kind of film composer I am and how I approach movies. There's definitely that visceral quality about being a live player that goes into it. I don't think I have to exercise this part of me that wishes that I was a rock star through film scoring. I know what it feels like to play to great audiences and to be on MTV and all that crap. Quite honestly, this is where I'd rather be. I feel very fortunate every day I get to come into my studio and turn on my gear and start working on music as opposed to doing other things I've had to do to pay the rent.

GNARLY CHARLIE: Tyler, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I'm looking forward to the movie opening.

Tyler Bates: Cool, Charlie. I hope you enjoy it. It's definitely intense. (laughs)

www.tylerbates.com

www.thedevilsrejects.com

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