CineConcerts met with composer Alex Belcher once again to discuss his score to the new show Citadel!

CineConcerts (CC): Citadel looks like a massive show with lots of action and it seems like you wrote a ton of music for it. How did you get involved in the project? Did you start with the script or did you start when they had rough cuts?

Alex Belcher (AB): I've been very, very lucky to work with the Russo brothers and AGBO, their company, on a lot of projects. And I think we were at the end of Extraction, I believe, maybe even before that. We wrapped up Extraction, which was co-written by Henry [Jackman] and I. And then COVID happened right when that was coming out. So, I'm maybe a little bit off the dates there, but Joe Russo called and was like, “Hey, we've got this project. I want to send you the script and let's start talking about music.” And so, I read the script and right away got excited about it because the sheer scope of it, like for a film, for a massive summer release blockbuster, it's gigantic. And then to top that, it's actually a series which is even more unheard of. So as soon as I read the script, Joe and I started talking about music and it was one of those things where it was like… It was almost unreal. I was like, I don't believe that anyone's actually going to make this. I just couldn't believe it and the direction that I was being given, it was like free rein to almost sort of come up with some tone so that they could use it to play to actors and play on set and stuff. So, it was like a dream scenario from the very beginning.

CC: And they could also use your music for cutting too, which is even better, right? Because then the editors can actually be inspired and respond to the themes that you've written, which makes it even easier versus them cutting to AC DC or something.

AB: For Anthony and Joe and for David and all the producers who are involved, Brian Kirk, everybody who's involved, there's not a lot of shows like this one that have ever been made. And so, a big thing for them early on was we needed music. We've got a bunch of people involved in this, from artists to set designers to actors. We all need to get together on time. We all need to be on the same page because there's nothing to really reference.

So, they wanted to use music to sort of do that from the outset, the sort of tone that we're going for, which for me was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. So, I just started writing suites. We sent them around to all the creative people involved and got feedback and go, yeah, this works, now that doesn't. And so, it was really a fun, creative process. And then once I'd done a little bit I stepped away from it. They went and shot it, got a cut together and came back and some of the stuff was in there, some of it wasn't. And then I was able to look and say, okay, now I see what we're missing. We need a theme for this character. We need a theme for this. This works. That thing that I wrote that was sort of amorphous, I had no idea what it was. It works perfectly for this character. And so, a lot of that early stuff ended up in the show. Some of it didn't. And then I added a lot as I went.

CC: I feel like it's really rare to have the music set the tone for the whole show. Seems like the Russo brothers really set the stage a little bit with this.

AB: Sure, let's go with that headline, because I love the way that that sounds. It really was. It was really more that they had the tone and they were looking for ways to help convey it. You know what I mean? Because we had worked together so much, going back all the way to like the Captain America Marvel days I had a shorthand with them so they could easily convey and be like, yeah. And you know, a lot of the older movie references we were very into because it's hard. I mean, imagine trying to describe this show to someone. It's an espionage thriller, sexy comedy, drama that takes place all over the world. It's so hard to really narrow in when you're an artist to focus on like, okay, that's literally like every genre all wrapped up into one. How do we do that?

CC: How do you come up with suite for that? What is your creative process? You’d read the script, but do you sit at the piano or do you sit at a computer and sketch out ideas for themes and things? Do you use pen and paper?

AB: It's not pen to paper very often. It's usually, and I learned this from Hans [Zimmer], when I was very young and working there. For me, the whole thing. It has to start with a big idea again. It doesn't matter what, it can be musical, it could be instrumentation or orchestration. You've got to have that big idea before you start, or at least I do. For this one, it's got to be orchestral and it's got to be lyrical. Those were just the two things. In talking with Joe, after I'd read the script, he's like, we’ve got to have an orchestra. It's got to match the scale and the scope of this story in this production. So, we need an orchestra. Great. Got that.

And then when I was thinking of tunes, it's got to be lyrical because we're steeped in a history with espionage stuff. I mean, you know, anytime you're writing on a spy thing, James Bond is just standing right behind you. You have to tip your hat in that direction. David and Joe and I, in discussing stuff early on, were Bernard Hermann, a lot of his scores. He was my personal hero. So that was a lot of fun. And thinking about all of that stuff, the one thing that all those shows and those films had was they were very lyrical, the melodies, they were singable. It was a transcribed tune that someone had sung. And so that was the big idea.

I just started at a piano messing around and going, okay, I know it's going to be orchestral and I know it's got to be lyrical. And then, once that big idea was had, then came the tunes. And then we started doing the production of going, which instruments are we going to use? How are we going to make this sound modern? Because as much as I would love to write a 1940’s noir thriller score for this, we can't do that. So, then it was like, how do we take that and make it modern through production and instrumentation, orchestration and all of that? So that was the process early on. And once we had locked all that stuff down, then it just became the storytelling aspect.

CC: Then they go out, they shoot it, and then you fill in the gaps based on what works and what doesn't. That seems like a really fun, creative process. And in terms of how much music you wrote, what was the scale of how much material you wrote for this this show? 6 hours?

AB: A lot of music.

CC: That's massive for a single composer, that scale of writing I think is different from a feature film.

AB: I think I'll do what my generation is doing more of and I'll go and break the fourth wall and say, I did have a team of people helping me, arrangers and orchestrators, additional composers who were working under me. That's the only way to get this size of a project done.

CC: And that's normal for most composers, right? Oh, yes, right. I mean.

AB: Oh yes. There would have been no way to do it in the time that we had, all by myself. But it was different because it was really like a range. What was fun about it, was a lot of arrangement sort of things like, this theme we can do here and map this out, blah, blah, blah. And then, having a team to really help you through that. It does make the process easier. Adds a lot of work that you might not expect, having to produce and do all that. But I'm really proud of the team that we had on this one, and I'm really proud of the end result because it was just a lot of fun to write.

CC: I can't wait to listen to your music through the series. But there was something that was mentioned, called “Col Legno” and I'm really curious to know what that is and how you used it.

AB: Col legno is a string articulation that is very common in classical music. Baroque music, romantic era music and film music, it’s a very common thing, and it's where the string players use the wooden side of their bow to hit the string. So, it's a percussive sound, but it does have a tone to it.

I can't remember what scene it was. I was working on one early on and had done a lot of the writing, the tune and the harmony and I needed some percussion, some pace to push through this. And I couldn't really find anything.

In any other film, I would do a guitar, like a little palm muted thing just to push it through. And I was like, well, I can't do that. What could do something like that? And through some experimentation I thought col legno could be cool.

So, episode four is pretty much col legno from the very first cue all the way through that whole episode. It's basically one cue to tie the whole episode together. And it came from that.

We were joking when we were recording it and it was like the most expensive percussion session in the history of filmmaking. I had all of the string players basically doing this one thing and a lot of them have these incredible instruments and then these incredible bows that are worth more than my house. So by the second cue, they were reaching and grabbing like deodorant and pencils and using that instead. So, it became like a cool experiment. And then we come back to the cue be like, wait, wait, no, no, no. You had the deodorant last time. You had, like, some I don't know what that plastic was. That sound worked better. And so, it was a lot of fun. The musicians were great to humor me because col legno, again, it's a very common thing, using it as much as I used it in some of the episodes, that's sort of the thing where it was like, okay, well, how do we take an orchestra with this lyrical stuff and this genre that's got a very rich history and make it more modern? And that was one of the ways that I tried to do that.

CC: Did you experiment with a bunch of different percussion elements before you decided on that?

AB: Yeah, I tried guitar, we did get some guitar in the show, some that we found. I found that nylon worked really well. I played with some nylon. And you wouldn't think it because when you think of guitar and a spy show, you think it's an electric.

Nylon worked really well. It's a very intimate instrument. And yeah, it worked. It worked extremely well in episode five.

CC: Did you find it difficult to not go down that familiar route of other spy thrillers like 007 and use those musical tropes? Is that getting more difficult these days?

AB: I think it depends on how close you're wanting to get initially. If you're just doing a complete pastiche or homage, then it's easy. Do all the tropes. With this, we weren't, we knew, like I said, any time you do anything that's espionage related, people are going to already associate it with that. And audiences are going to expect a little bit of that. And so that's where you have to go, I know we're going to be expecting it and I know we can't get too close to it. So how do we do it? How do we reinvent that? How do we take the ideas and then do something new and modern that no one's ever heard of before? And, you know, it's a difficult thing. And I wish I had the quick answer to how you do it. And for me, it was trial and error, it was to place stuff and try stuff and spend a day doing something and going, nope, not it. Or maybe send it to David, send it to Joe. And they go, and it doesn't work. It’s really a collaborative sort of trial-and-error thing, especially with Citadel, because we were trying to do something that, like I said, there's not a lot of frame of reference for.

CC: Do you listen to other scores as a part of your research?

AB: I don't, to be honest with you. I listen to a lot of old scores and I've got a lot of really good friends who do this.

For this show, it was a little bit different because I feel like there's been a trend in the past 15 to 20 years for big shows, the big idea is like a weird sound. It's like, let's do something big and let's take this instrument, do something that we haven't done with it before. A lot of it is dictated by budgets and whatnot, but I've done plenty of those ‘cause I love doing that, you know? That's been most of what my career is. But for this one, when we knew from the outset that it's going to be a traditional sort of lineup already, that felt new. Take it out of the spiral for a second and we're in 2023 and you're writing a big budget thing and it's going to be orchestral and lyrical, and that's already a fresh take. So, I feel by simply doing that, we got a little bit ahead of the curve. Then it was just, we can't go get too close to these genre specific tropes and how do we make it modern? So, we were already starting from a place where it felt fresh to me, oddly enough, considering it's an orchestra.

CC: What’s on your playlist these days?

AB: I love storytelling. So, like James McMurtry, I don't know if you listen to him, he's a fantastic singer songwriter and the storytelling he does in some of his work as well as being a folk activist as well, which really resonates with me. The Woody Guthrie sort of style of songwriting where you're telling these stories and also putting forth a message, I love that kind of thing. I do listen to a lot of Bernard Herrmann. Mahler. Shostakovich drove my wife crazy playing Shostakovich over and over and over again. And then, like anybody else, I'll listen to what's popular at the time.

CC: The show is coming out April 28th. Is the soundtrack coming out the same day?

AB: I think we are releasing the single that same day and then I think the following week we are releasing the full album. The main titles will be the single.

CC: What’s next for you?

AB: So, the next one after Citadel will be Extraction 2, which comes out June 16th. Another Russo project that we're just wrapping up now.

I'm going to need to take a little bit of a breather this summer. But, you know, I guess I'll get some rest whenever I can.

Alex Belcher's 'Citadel'