Interview: Composer Jeff Russo Talks Music and Silence in ‘Fargo’

Earlier this month, we sat down with Emmy-winning composer Jeff Russo to talk about his work on the anthology Fargo. Russo’s music has been in everything from Star Trek: Discovery and Ripley to the upcoming movie Rob Peace. His Emmy nomination this time, his 6th, is for Outstanding Music Composition For A Limited Or Anthology Series, Movie Or Special (Original Dramatic Score) for his work on the Fargo episode Blanket.

The episode deals with some heavy themes, so we were excited to chat about how that was reflected musically. Russo shared his perspective on writing music for Fargo, including that Fargo was a feeling. He talked about covering Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and how that fit in perfectly with the story that was reflected on screen. Read on or listen below for the full conversation.

Ayla Ruby: So first, congratulations on the nomination again. It’s very well deserved and a brilliant thing, so congrats.

Jeff Russo: Thank you so much. Sorry, I just had to turn something off. Thank you, I appreciate it. I really do.

Ayla Ruby: What does it mean to you? How does it feel to be back with Fargo?

Jeff Russo: It’s exciting that even in Season 5 people are still really interested in what we’re doing and interested in the work that we’ve been doing for the last 10 years on it. It’s really near and dear to my heart.

Yeah, I just had dinner last night with Noah and with Regis, who’s our editor, and Dana Gonzalez, who’s our cinematographer and has also directed a few episodes. And we were just reminiscing about working on this incredible property for so long and how it’s really great that people are still paying attention, especially in a time when attention spans are short. They’re not terribly long. People want new stuff and we keep telling these new stories and Noah has this incredible ability to tell these very nuanced and yet really apt stories for the time. And I think that’s what makes it so engaging and that we get to collaborate on it, it’s just incredible. It’s really, really incredible.

Ayla Ruby: You mentioned that it’s been 10 years, it’s been a very long time, has your approach changed at all since when you first started with the series? I know it’s an anthology, things changed, obviously different time periods, all of that. But for you making the music for the series?

Jeff Russo: I think that my process is the same. My approach in how I look at how I’m going to help tell the story with music hasn’t really changed. The music changes and I have to write new themes for different characters, but I’m trying to keep us all in this same universe. Fargo, the way we tell this story, it’s a feeling. The story itself is what it is. And then that told with the backdrop of Fargo in that way, that’s the thing that ties it all together.

So I wouldn’t say that I have a different approach or a different way that I go about doing it. I have gone about it in the same way for every one of these seasons, which is I read these scripts early on that Noah writes, and then I start sketching ideas of what I think thematic material might be for these wonderfully rich characters that he creates. And that’s how I have always gone about it.

Ayla Ruby: Awesome. So I want to talk about Blanket specifically because that’s the nomination, and it’s the 8th episode and it stands out a lot. And I’d love to know why you think it stands out, why it’s so special?

Jeff Russo: I think that it really does strike an emotional chord. It certainly did with me. After Episode 7, which was this fever dream that Dot had, and then where she ends up actually being captured by the evil Jon Hamm, it really did strike an emotional chord. And I think that’s why it has a very deep sense of story and I really wanted to dig deep in how I was telling the story, but not to be on the nose.

We decided things like that when Jon Hamm’s character gets out of the car after being embarrassed and you knew what was going to happen and you knew where he was going and you knew what that was going to end up being. We could have very easily scored that scene with heavy music but what we really wanted to do was we wanted to use this song, so I created a version of Toxic for that part of the episode.

Now, the deliberation there was we don’t want to be on the nose, we don’t need to be really dark, but we do want to show the darkness that’s in his heart. And that was where the lyrics came in and that’s where, how did we merge what that song was saying with our own feeling of music, and how could I create a version of that song and have it be meaningful in the context of the story, but still have that slightly offbeat sense?

And that was the pinnacle for the score in the episode. The score in the episode really also dug very deep in the tension that was being created and in that emotional connection with Dot. She is a very, very strong character. She’s a very strong individual and I had to really underscore that, and to me, that’s what resonated with me.

Ayla Ruby: So when he steps out of the car, you start to hear Toxic, as you mentioned, and it’s like goosebump inducing and it’s incredible. Was it always going to be a cover of Toxic? Did you ever have another song that you were playing with?

Jeff Russo: No, we always knew it was going to be that song. We talked about it early on before they even shot the scene and what that was. And we always knew it wasn’t going to be me scoring it with heavy dark music.

Jeff Russo: I was going to create a version of that song for the episode and it starts with score and then leads into the song. And it was meant to really manipulate. It was meant to make you feel like, I don’t know what to feel here, which is a scary thought and that was always meant to be that way.

Ayla Ruby: How did Lisa Hannigan come on board? I know she was there for Danny Boy a couple of years ago, I think.

Jeff Russo: Season 2 she sang Danny Boy and then we also collaborated on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds for Noah’s movie Lucy. And she’s been in the Fargo universe, she has such an evocative sounding voice and her artistic ability is so evocative of what we were trying to do that when Noah was like, we were talking about Toxic, and I was like, “Well, how about Lisa Hannigan?” And he was like, “Well, yeah, of course.” So I called Lisa and she was like, “Oh my god, I’m totally in.”

So it was very fun, very cool, very interesting. I created the track, I sent it to her. She sent me back some vocals. I sent her back my ideas and we went back and forth with how she was going to sing it. But in the end, it’s definitely very much her. Her sound has really been integrated into the sound of Fargo when we do like that.

Ayla Ruby: As far as the rest of the episode, even the rest of the season, was there anything that was just challenging or really exciting for you to do?

Jeff Russo: For me the challenge now is how to continually make it fresh.

Ayla Ruby: Yeah.

Jeff Russo: I don’t want to just sit back and rest on what I’ve done for the last seasons before, it was like I really wanted to create something new and interesting and yet still be in our world. It’s actually quite a tall order when you’re talking about music that plays such an important role in a show because we really do utilize music and silence in a way that is very meaningful for the storytelling.

Noah is really wrapped up in music. He’s a musician himself and he utilizes music to really help tell the story. So trying to find ways to utilize music and create music that is going to be really meaningful for that every year is a tall order and that’s the order of the day.

Ayla Ruby: You’re obviously very close with him. You’ve worked with him on a ton of projects, you’ve got more projects in the future. How does that collaboration work? Do you guys see inside each other’s brains at this point?

Jeff Russo: I think that there is a little bit of that. There really is a little bit of that. He’ll call me up and say, “Remember that one thing you did that one time in that one episode?” And I’ll be like, “Yeah.” I know exactly what he means. So we do have a vernacular that is a shortcut. We do understand each other and I think that because of that, I don’t really have to do much in the way of translation anymore. I can just hear what he says and I think I understand it and occasionally I’m not exactly on target, but every time I’m doing something he finds use for it.

Jeff Russo: And I think that that trust that he has in me is so important to my ability to create. It’s a really great collaboration for me. I win I think in that collaboration because I get to take chances in ways that I don’t typically get to take chances.

Ayla Ruby: I would totally argue that the audience wins too, because we get to hear and see these wonderful things.

Jeff Russo: I appreciate that. That’s the hope, right?

Jeff Russo: The hope is that people see what we’re doing and dig it and are engaged and that’s the hope.

Ayla Ruby: We’re getting pretty close on time. Is there anything you want people to know about the episode, or the Season 5, or just anything you’re working on in the future? I know you talked a little bit about Alien last time we talked.

Jeff Russo: We’re working on Alien right now. We were talking about it last night. It’s, again, another tall order. Blanket for me was like, it really is where everything comes together and is the beginning of the end of the show. The beginning of the end of this season.

Jeff Russo: And I think that was what made me so proud of what we were doing in that episode. It was like all the things that led up to that, or actually led up to Episode 7, 7 being that sort of standalone episode that we typically do every season.

Jeff Russo: There’s always one episode that’s an outlier and that was the one this season. And then it’s after that it’s like, okay, now we’re in fifth gear and we’re going all the way to the end. And as that begins, it gives me the opportunity to have a lot more momentum.

Ayla Ruby: Yeah.

Jeff Russo: And that’s what felt really good about it. It really was like, okay, now we know what these characters are doing. Now we know what these characters are feeling. How are we going to get to the end? Let’s get to the end.

Ayla Ruby: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for talking. I really appreciate it. I was just listening to the soundtrack for Season 4 before we talked.

Jeff Russo: Some of my favorite pieces of music that I’ve written for Fargo are in Season 4, as well.

Ayla Ruby: Perfect. I love it. Thank you so much.

Jeff Russo: Thank you very much. I’ll talk to you soon.