Cory Stillman
Evan Frankfort may be most familiar to fans as the composer for CW’s hit series The 100, but the sixth-generation Angeleno has seen almost every corner of the recording industry. Frankfort most recently nabbed a Daytime Emmy nomination for his music direction and scoring work on NBC’s Wild Kingdom: Protecting the Wild, but he has similarly worked as a producer and a recording artist across his storied career.
He first won a Daytime Emmy in 1996 for his work on the longtime CBS soap opera Guiding Light, but soon pivoted to a career as a touring musician alongside the punk band Maypole. Frankfort joined such bands as The Wallflowers and The Jayhawks on tour, but the studio continued to call his name.
“I came away from touring with the revelation that most people make records so they can get on stage and connect with an audience,” says Frankfort. “I really only got on stage so that I could make records.”
Today, as Head of Music at Hearst Media Production Group, Frankfort leverages his production and recording expertise to create revolutionary music for the company’s suite of educational/informational programming. Wild Kingdom‘s epic opening theme may be the latest testament to Frankfort’s musical knowledge, but there is plenty more innovation on the way.
In a career defined by creativity and collaboration, Frankfort is eager to share his newest venture The Spiritual Machines with fans very soon. The band’s debut album Lockhearted will kickstart a long-term conversation on the increasing presence of technology in human life. Frankfort even has plans for a podcast to supplement the band’s music.
“I typically create a band as a vehicle for a story,” says Frankfort.
It’s a fascinating albeit logical approach for a musician who has always lent his talents to the intersection between storytelling and sound.
“Scoring to picture is a unique relationship because you feel led by what’s happening onscreen. First you write music that works for the scene. Then you make it work dynamically to hit all the beats. All this while supporting the dialogue. There’s a lot of legwork that has nothing to do with music,” says Frankfort. “When writing a song, anything goes. It lives and dies by the decisions you make and the performances you create. I can work from a purely visceral place and just let music wash over me in a wave.”
Check out our full conversation with Frankfort below.
I would like to get us started by asking about your professional journey. How did you break into the music industry as both a musician and a composer?
I came up when most people had one discipline. They played an instrument or wrote songs, engineered, produced, mixed or mastered records. I loved it all equally and really just wanted to be part of the process. I would look for weak spots on everything and do whatever I could to shore it up. I was a rare breed at the time but now it’s common as a means to survival.
My first break came from Jonathan Firstenberg, the music supervisor on Guiding Light. I had a ton of songs he put in the show and I started earning some money. The music won an Emmy that year (1996) but I really just wanted to make records so I didn’t try to build that part of my career. Instead, I joined a punk band called Maypole (Sony Records) playing lap steel and made lots of noise touring. That instrument was fairly unique in that context and as a result I was invited to play with our touring mates, The Wallflowers and The Jayhawks.
I came away from touring with the revelation that most people make records so they can get on stage and connect with an audience. I really only got on stage so that I could make records. Even at the age of 13, I remember wondering how many more songs I had to play before I could go home and get back to writing/recording.
What albums or artists first drew you to pursuing a career in the world of music?
That’s tough because in the beginning I was closed-minded and not fun to work with. I loved guitars and thought keyboards were terrible. My first favorite band was The Who. I loved U2’s records “Boy” and “Under a Blood Red Sky”. I loved AC/DC, Tom Petty, and Van Halen but my tastes broadened with rock operas like The Who’s “Quadrophenia” and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. Then I found Tears for Fears’ “The Hurting” and The Cure’s “Disintegration” and nothing was ever off limits again. Good was good with no context necessary.
You recently scored NBC’s Emmy-contending documentary series Wild Kingdom: Protecting the Wild. Could you describe your creative process in putting the show’s unique score together?
Aaron Bauer and Bryan Curb had a strong sense that this show needed a very cinematic sound. I scored an episode of another show called Wildlife Nation from top to bottom and that was nominated for an Emmy in 2022. That score gave us a good jumping-off point. The process is interactive…I’ll write a piece and they’ll cut to it and we’ll discuss how to improve it. We’ll normally get through a few iterations before it’s nailed but in this case there were many. It’s always interesting because there’s an endless number of ways to make something great. We’re all the type to turn over every stone.
Once the aesthetic is established and I’ve given them enough music to get started, my team gets to work. Everyone has an individual style and sound and that widens the scope of character that the music can have. The amount of talent on my team is an embarrassment of riches. The producers and editors have done an incredible job helping put this score together every week.
Readers may be most familiar with your work on the hit CW series The 100. How does your work on Wild Kingdom compare with your score for The 100?
The 100 was a completely different process. They would give me 2-4 days to write 42 minutes of epic music…many cues had 500 tracks. Working alone, it was nearly impossible. I’d work 18 hours, fall asleep with my face on the keyboard and do it all over again.
Wild Kingdom is a true collaboration. Bryan Curb and I have an unspoken mutual understanding 99.9% of the time. He knows everyone’s job as well as they do and that just makes the work better. One of the benefits of this process is that we can deliver music we’ve spent lots of time on at any point in the series. This means the show is always improving. I’m happy to go to work on a scene that needs extra attention but I also make sure the editors are armed with granular elements. These guys are all so musical that my role can be more supportive once we hit our stride.
Your work spans across various genres and disciplines, from television scoring to indie rock with The Spiritual Machines and Les Friction. How do you approach creating music for different mediums, and how does your creative process differ between them?
We’re always looking for inspiration and it can come from anywhere. Scoring to picture is a unique relationship because you feel led by what’s happening onscreen. First you write music that works for the scene. Then you make it work dynamically to hit all the beats. All this while supporting the dialogue. There’s a lot of legwork that has nothing to do with music.
When writing a song, anything goes. It lives and dies by the decisions you make and the performances you create. I can work from a purely visceral place and just let music wash over me in a wave. You generate ideas with an opposite skill set used to produce them. You can’t judge while in creation mode or you’ll stop the creative trains. I had to learn not to analyze because it takes you out of the experience. Some stupid fixation you have with the reverb decay is making you miss the fact that the lyric is bad. That’s the biggest trick…zooming in and out at the right moments.
As Head of Music at Hearst Media Production Group, you oversee music for a wide array of shows. How do you balance the creative demands of different projects while maintaining a cohesive musical vision across them?
That’s the challenge and the fun! Back to zooming in and zooming out. Each show has its own signature and HMPG needs to be represented as an overall brand. Everything has to reconcile while respecting the individual cloth. Some shows are more playful, some lean more tech and some are teemed in high stakes, life or death moments. Personally, I feel inspired by all the shows and I see that as the prevailing emotion that I try to build into all of the musical framework.
Collaboration seems to be a significant part of your career, having worked with legendary artists like The Bangles and Liz Phair. How do you approach collaboration, and what do you believe makes for a successful creative partnership?
I see collaboration as the musical equivalent to sports. We’re better as a team. If you’re great at something, I want you to do it. The first thing to establish is what your collaborator is great at. The next is to let them do it. Sometimes they need a spark before they can create an inferno but you only step in when progress stops. We’re all ushers to the ideas in the ether. We serve creativity and each other.
The Spiritual Machines blend traditional rock with orchestral elements and even instruments you’ve invented. Can you tell us more about your creative vision for the band and how you bring together such diverse musical influences?
I typically create a band as a vehicle for a story. In this case, it’s more of a conversation about what will happen to humanity as technology increasingly fuses with our lives. We all have a machine in our life that is more than the sum of its parts. It makes us feel stronger, improves our work and in some ways it completes us. For some, it’s a musical instrument, for some it’s a car. For my artist friend, Chris George, it’s a mechanical pencil.
At some point, we will become one with machines and physical suffering will no longer exist. But we will suffer still. Because we are human.
I’m starting a podcast with my band. We will interview guests and discuss our motivations and fears as well as what machines are spiritual to them and why.
Comments
Loading…