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Continued from page 57 Then I realized he was a rock star. I thought, wow, that was a really cool thing for me to see. Were their dads film and TV music guys, or rock stars? The guy who I’m talking about is a guy named David Gates, and he was kind of a pop star. He had a band called Bread. Kind of a pop star? Anything else you want to undersell while you’re here? [laughter] Yeah, when he would go on vacation, I used to shovel horse manure, feed the horses and do

you need a theme song for your movie?” And you were still in junior high? A little later. It was like high school or college. In high school I was playing and I was writing. I do remember the first thing I got paid to write was for zit medicine. I mean, hey, humble beginnings. Which zit medicine was it? Acne Statin. Oh, cool. I remember Acne Statin! I never used it, but I’m well aware of it. So, OK, that was your big entry into the business. When we met, you said you had years of struggle where you were dirt poor— just another musician. At any point did you ever think about giving it up and becoming a cowboy or something? Well, I was a cowboy first, so… I think that the answer is definitely never. I was willing to die trying. It’s just what I do. So for a long time I had to do other jobs. What were some of your other jobs? “Popcorn, peanuts, cotton candy, caramel apples, horns and balloons!” Selling that at parades and stuff—a children’s entertainer. It’s like, “Oh no, the bird—I forgot to clip its wings,” and you make the bird come in and start flying. I did magic, I did extra work in acting. I was a film editor for 10 years. I worked on CSI, The Gilmore Girls, Crossing Jordan. So at some point, you did have a real job. I did a lot of stuff for a while. Is that considered real? More so than being a birthday party clown, yeah. Editing CSI was a little more substantial. No, the clown thing paid pretty good, man. [laughter] If I’d known, I’d had you bring some balloons to make balloon animals. Afterward, I’ll show you how to do that. [laughter] All right. Anybody have a balloon on them? [laughter] I wanted to ask for something else, but again, there might be kids in the room. [laughter] So how did you learn specifically the craft of composing for TV? You mentioned that at some point you went, “Yeah, this is what I want to do—I want to compose for TV.” Did you buy a book? Did you take a class? Did you study by watching TV? How did you figure it out? Well, there are different answers for each of those questions. Yes, I took classes. I studied

music composition and film scoring at University of California at Santa Barbara—UCSB, which really stands for University of California Surfing Branch. [laughter] That’s where I went. We didn’t go to class much at first, but I played in the band, and that helped more than the classes, really. I learned how to do it by doing it. When you started to learn by doing? Did you literally just take a show and turn the sound down and just sit there and play your guitar along with it? Or did you start multitracking it? I started by reading scripts. I would get scripts from guys, and I thought if I get in early, maybe I’d have a chance. People loved it because then they had a song for their movie, you know. They would actually sometimes play them at their pitch meetings and stuff. Then I started getting things with picture. And that’s really weird, because in the old days you had a tape recorder and you’d have to stripe one channel with SMPTE, and then you wait for it to catch up, and then it gets going. Now it’s just push the button and it’s precise as a laser surgery device or something. It’s pretty cool. Yeah, I remember locking to SMPTE. You’re always looking to wait and see if you get the lock light, you know. And then you blow the count off because you’re looking at the lock light… It’s kind of like Top Gun. It’s like, “We have missile lock!” Good analogy. So learning that discipline, had you already started writing songs at the time, and were they two completely different disciplines? No, it’s all making music. I was writing songs. I’m a songwriter now, and I was a songwriter when I first started. I remember my mom going, “Adam, come play for the ladies.” I was like, “Oh shoot, it’s bridge night.” So I’d wheel my amp

“I was willing to die trying [to make it in music]. It’s just what I do. So for a long time I had to do other jobs.” —Adam Zelkind
stuff for him, and then he’d take me in the studio and teach me how to write songs. Looking back, I think I got a better deal than he did, you know? Well, you won’t be the first guy to shovel shit to break into the industry. Look at the bright side— at least you didn’t have to eat it. [laughter] OK, a little Road Rally profanity. I hope there aren’t any kids in the room. So what did you imagine you would do when you grew up? Did you think you wanted to be David Gates in Bread? Did you want to be a rock star? I wanted to make music. I loved playing. I remember I got my first guitar and it cost $46. It didn’t stay in tune very well, but my parents thought, “Well, he’ll do this for about three months…” Then my brother got this really cool bass—they liked him better I guess—and he said, “I’m gonna make a band and you can’t be in it.” I guess you showed him, didn’t you? [laughter] So I still have his amp to this day. Yeah. So how old were you when you got your $46 guitar? I think I was in middle school, so however old you are in junior high. I took an elective guitar class from one of the teachers. Every song I’d play it was only one strum—down, down-up, down, down-up—and then I’d just switch the chords. So I played it for a friend of mine, you know, “Check this out.” And I started playing and he goes, “Dude, they all sound the same.” [laughter] And I said, “Well, I only know one strum.” So I thought maybe I should expand my palette, and I started doing that. I thought writing songs for TV would be cool. So I’d meet people who were writing scripts and say, “Hey,
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“Instead of having just peanut butter-and-jelly, you can have tofuand-honey. So I do that with music. If you don’t have much to go on, you create something to go on.” —Adam Zelkind
out there and get my guitar and play, and every once in a while I’d go, “All right, ladies,” and I’d step on my Big Muff distortion box and sock it to ’em. [laughter] Let’s talk about the politics of working with the producers and network TV weasels. He said it, not me. Continued on page 61

Recording - June 2012

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