Recording - July 2012 - 52

Continued from page 51 that record, then you have that. You know you did it, and you can put it on in your truck when you’re driving on the 405 sitting in traffic and you’ll be like, “Yeah, this is good!” [applause] I know you to be a guy of tremendous integrity. I’m absolutely certain of that. Do you ever feel like you’ve sold your soul to make those guys happy? Or do you bite your lip, drive your truck, and do just what you described? I have two avenues that I drive down. One is my songs that I won’t change for anyone, and I just write them because I want to write them, and if they want to license it for their show or their movie, or whatever, here you go. It is what it is. But if they offer to pay me money and I go in with the understanding that it’s my job to do what they want, I’ll do what I mentioned before, and I’ll try and save them from themselves if they start going toward the edge. I have walked from some shows. Even I have a point, you know. This is what they said to me: “We want Midwestern housewife watered-

ent. What I’ve learned is that, when you’ve got a great idea or any idea, put it out there, and when the other writer has something that’s great, be humble enough to step out of the way and let them pedal that bicycle, and you jump on the back. Then you’ll come back again the next time and you’ll bring something. But, yeah, be confident and be humble, and just know that you guys are both there to do something great together—to create greatness. It’s like going into therapy sometimes, you know. You come out of there and you’re diggin’ deep—good songwriters and co-writers are brave. It’s great because you’re sharing stuff that you’d be paying $275 for a 45-minute session with a shrink, and you’re just sharing it with someone you know, or maybe you don’t know. You’re not paid right away, but you’re paid in other ways immediately, and then maybe you’ll make money. Do you ever come up with signature motif for shows, where the show gets its own motif, and then within that motif, you create like submotifs for each character? Absolutely. Every show that I’ve done, within three seconds you can kinda tell. It will be like boom. Like Flavor Flav just had a vibe. He’s an interesting guy. What’s he like to hang out with? I got the longest hug that I’ve ever gotten from any other human from Flavor Flav. [demonstrates] He’s a funny guy. He’s got better hats then me. His hats have horns on them. But he has a sound for that show. And Bret Michaels, he’s a big rock star, and he has a “thing.” But I said, “We’re gonna create a sound for him, so when you mix rock & roll with cartoon music, it’s like wow. It’s a thing and it’s huge—the motif thing—and then the characters, even the sub-characters, when they have a sound, I’m totally into doing that. It really helps your show so much. One of the network execs came up to me at a shindig and said, “Adam, I just want to say that your

vor Flav, and one of the other ones. I sat there with a huge smile on my face because I was amazed at the quality of the work you’ve done. Your music actually elevates those shows a lot. That guy was right. And you’re so dexterous— not missing anything. That was the other thing I quickly noticed inside of five minutes. It was like, “Wow, I can’t believe he thought to add those extra two notes.” As a character walked around a corner, as they took a step, you actually had two notes that went da-da. You punctuated the visual so well—musical punctuation. So how do you learn that stuff? Just lucky, I guess. Well that helps them [the audience] out a lot. Thanks for stopping by! [laughter] I don’t know the exact scene, or whatever, but sometimes maybe it was luck, like the editor happened to use my music. Since I was a video editor for 10 years, I write on levels. So if there’s a good editor and he’s using that music, he’s digging down to maybe level four or five. And if it’s someone who might be still ramping up, they might just think it’s a song, and it’s a fast song, and they might have level one. So I write on different levels and try to put in “cuts” for them. Sometimes, if I write a cue, I can cut the scene for them before it’s been cut, because they can do the picture cuts to that. It’s not always just scoring the music. Sometimes I’ll write the music, then they’ll actually cut picture to it with those kinds of shows. That’s probably great fun! You’re mentally doing the editing, so you’re already a couple of steps ahead. I did get a really good response from the editors from that. They said, “You cut my show for me.” And I’m like, “Really? I don’t remember walkin’ out my door.” But it’s a good thing having that experience, you know? It’s all about rhythm and vibe, whether you’re an editor, or if you’re a composer, or a songwriter. And how many different instruments do you play? Will I play? Or do I play? I’ll play anything! Anything with strings, I would imagine. Yes, I play many kinds of guitars, and we have drum sets and basses. My daughter [Zoe] plays cello. Child labor laws, you know, so I haven’t done the cello too much. But I used a Sparkletts water bottle on a show once. It was a perfect D. You hit it and it goes booooommm. It was like, wow, this is good, Continued on page 65

“I do work hard. There’s no other way that I know of other than doing it!” —Adam Zelkind
down wallpaper.” After that, I said, “You got the wrong guy. You should go to a music library.” And they did, and they thanked me very much. I guess they went to a music library, and I was very glad, because then the world isn’t hearing that music and seeing my name and they’re like, “God, this guy writes stuff for Midwestern housewives, and it’s kind of watered down and like wallpaper.” I don’t want that, you know? [laughter] So you do have artistic integrity? Not just personal integrity. Yeah, that being mixed with the fact if I accept a job, I’ll try to do my best to do what they want. But, yeah, there are occasionally times when they’ll just wreck stuff. When you write songs with co-writers, how is it for you to collaborate? Do you ever have to go through the lip-biting exercise? Or do you look at that as a completely different animal and it’s more give-and-take? Well, first of all, what I’m sayin’ to myself most of the time is, “I can’t believe they let me in the door of this building with these people.” Because all the people I write with, I mean, I’m just amazed at other people’s tal52

“Learn the rules and study them, and then shatter them.” —Adam Zelkind
music is one of the characters of the shows that you work on, and we really appreciate that.” And I was like, “Thanks, can I have a raise?” [laughter] The night you and I met, I went up to my hotel room later and Googled you. I wanted to hear some of your work. I watched an episode of Fla-

Recording - July 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - July 2012