Interview: Composer Gustavo Santaolalla Returns to Talk Ronroco, and the Gift of ‘The Last of Us’

If season one of HBO’s The Last of Us was a love song, season two is a requiem, where the music, like the story, takes a major thematic shift. In our last conversation, the composer of both the game’s music and the score for the series, Gustavo Santaolalla, told me that show creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin said his music is “part of the DNA of The Last of Us…like another character. It’s like Ellie or Joel.”

The Argentina-born composer, producer, and rocker has had a busy year, wrapping a score for Rodrigo Prieto’s adaptation of landmark Mexican surrealist novel Pedro Páramo, and taking on the ambitious project of rescoring the 1931 Spanish-language version of Dracula with the Los Angela Opera orchestra. But still, like the rest of us, he makes time to obsess over Pedro Pascal’s performance on the porch in episode six.

“I mean, how good Pedro is. How incredible he is. He has this thing as the tough man, you know, American, male actor. That rough, hard guy like Clint Eastwood or those guys.”

But the kicker, he explains, “is that he has this capacity to really break down and to show that fragile side of him.”

In this scene, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) confirms a hard truth Joel (Pedro Pascal) kept from her, solidifying an impossible rift between them. As tension mounts, the score creeps in. Compared to season one, it’s deeper, more electronic, but still sparse, still emotionally-rich—distinct features of Santaolalla’s work.

Adopting the score across mediums, sequels, and seasons was no simple feat, but in partnership with David Fleming, Santaolalla keeps the music focused on the story rather than the platform.  

“I was never really composing music for a game. I always felt that I was writing music for a story, for a great story. And a great story, you can do it in any medium,” he maintains, adding light-heartedly, “you could do it as a puppet theater piece.”

To meet the needs of the story in season two, Santaolalla widened its range of sound. For example, regarding the addition of banjo to the tonal picture of the second game, he remarks, “I’m not a banjo player, but I use the banjo as a brush.”

The metaphor of a soundscape, where individual instruments represent characters and themes is part of what makes the score of The Last of Us so effective. In the original game, the sound of the ronroco (a larger cousin of the Andean stringed instrument the charango), came to represent Ellie’s voice, and a Fender six-string bass represented Joel. This duality was not part of Santaolalla’s original intention, but instead arose naturally, and has since evolved.

“The ronroco is not just Ellie, but all the fragile moments also when Joel breaks…and then the more masculine things in the first game were the six-string bass,” Santaolalla explains. “In the second game, I replaced that with classical guitar, but with these strings that are only manufactured in Argentina…that connects more with the earth and the masculine side of it. And in the middle of this, the banjo, and the guitar. The guitar is the universal thing that goes in the world of the ronroco and goes in the world of the six-string.”

The guitar is ubiquitous in the world of The Last of Us as a playable part of the games, and as a conduit between Joel and Ellie’s stories. Instruments are more than background noise or décor. They serve a narrative purpose; they push character and story. Santaolalla’s story too, has been shaped by instruments, the ronroco in particular, which he has in turn transformed, in the public eye, from obscure to inspired.

In 1998, he released the album Ronroco, a culmination of 13 years of personal music-making, and a pivotal moment that turned his career towards film scoring.

“It was a totally unknown instrument,” he states. “I’ve never got anybody that will come to me and say, hey man, that instrument from the Andes Mountains that you use in The Last of Us is great.”

That career-shaping album may never have been released if not for the late Jaime Torres, dubbed the “Ravi Shankar” of the charango.

“I was called to produce a compilation of Jaime Torres…That was the guy that I used to see on TV when I was a kid, playing La Misa Criolla. So, I wanted to show him my stuff, but I was scared because I don’t play with their technique.”

After summoning the courage, Santaolalla sent Torres his recordings, but disguised his ronroco playing as that of a friend’s.

“He calls me three days later and he said, you’re playing here. You don’t fool me. You’re playing here and you should put this out.”

After recording a piece with the master himself, Santaolalla released the album.

“And that really opened the doors for me for the movies. Because that’s when Michael Mann called [for The Insider]. And then I did Amores Perros.”

The ronroco has continued to be part of Santaolalla’s signature sound.

“I think I found a place for the ronroco that it becomes like an instrument in the orchestra, like guitar or bass. It just found that place. It has that register and characteristic that allows you to play lots of different things. And it’s definitely one of my trademarks. If you ask me what instruments are my instruments, I say guitar and ronroco.”

In The Last of Us, Santaolalla’s trademark voice shows up not just in the score, but also literally on screen in a loving cameo akin to the appearance he makes in the second game. In the premiere episode of season two, during the New Year’s Eve party, a bearded man flashes on screen. Literally, blink and you’ll miss it. While he plays banjo in his in-game cameo, in the show, “I’m playing the ronroco and the guitar,” Santaolalla explains.

“I’m playing with this band Crooked Still. They’re great.” He adds, “They have an amazing banjo player, by the way, a guy that really plays the banjo.”

Santaolalla’s multidisciplinary projects related to the ronroco, including The Last of Us, have catapulted it from obscurity to unprecedented popularity. In collaboration with Spitfire Audio, he helped create a digital ronroco library for musicians, painstakingly recording each note and sound. Inspired by the anniversary of his Ronroco album, the composer ventured into the world of fragrance design as well, sealing the titular instrument in a vacuum bag to extract the scent of the wood alongside components like incense and myrrh. He’s even worked with Fender to combine his two favored instruments to create the custom electric Guitarocko.

And on a more traditional note, Santaolalla is touring the Ronroco album in Europe this year and has new scores underway for exciting projects like the upcoming Deliver me from Nowhere, a Bruce Springsteen biopic focused on the creation of the album Nebraska. But amid so much excitement, Santaolalla returns to the influence of The Last of Us, and his love of the story.

“This project has been a gift for me, a gift that life gave me…this connected me with a totally new audience, kids that didn’t know anything about the movies, my productions, my records, nothing. It was like a clean slate. It’s amazing. Lots of them now play guitar or ronroco because of this. It’s something beautiful that wasn’t expected.”