Fun Fun Fun Fest Interview: The 411 on Graham Reynolds

Image from Golden Arm Trio’s MySpace

I like the setting to always be changing -- it brings out different things in the players and music.

Can you list all the instruments you have mastered over the course of your life?

I can fake a fair number of instruments but can only really play two to any real degree of proficiency: piano and drums. I play the other instruments for recording purposes much more than live shows. For that I’ve done everything from cello and violin to guitar and bass to kalimba and vibes.

When did you start scoring movies live at Alamo Drafthouse?

Don’t remember the year, but the first was Battleship Potemkin, suggested by Tim League who approached me about doing a silent film one night at Emo’s.

Has making music for movies always been something you wanted to pursue?
I’ve always had an interest in film music but it really pursued me more than I pursued it. Once I did a couple of independent and student shorts, the ball kept rolling and filmmakers kept asking me to score their stuff.

How did you get involved with A Scanner Darkly?

It’s kind of as simple as Richard Linklater asked me if I was interested one night at a gig and I said yes. I had done a short for him earlier called Live From Shiva’s Dance Floor.

We have come to expect a bulletin about a new Graham Reynolds project regularly in our email inbox -- what can we get excited about going forward?

Lots coming up. Short term there’s a Golden Arm Trio show at Club de Ville with Moth Fight on November 22nd and a Christmas show with the Invincible Czars on December 19th. Next year, two shows that I’ve scored look like they’re going to be Off-Broadway: Rude Mechs’ Method Gun and Salvage Vanguard Theater’s The Intergalactic Nemesis. Also, Golden Hornet Project will be presenting my 6th symphony, as well as Peter Stopschinski’s, in the spring. We’re doing a Tosca String Quartet show at The Alamo Ritz in February. And I’ve been recording an album of Duke Ellington material, which is probably my favorite project at the moment.

Tell us more about recent Big Band Frenzy II and also the shows where you interpreted Duke Ellington's catalog. What was the inspiration behind those projects?

Big Band Frenzy came out of an expansion of what I do normally. I compose music and I improvise. Classical players don’t improvise, rock players don’t read. Jazz musicians do both. So, for Peter Stopschinski and myself, it is in some ways the ideal large-ensemble.

The Duke Ellington idea came out of all this listening I’ve been doing to early jazz, from the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. It’s my favorite jazz period and he is my favorite composer and bandleader from it. The Duke format allows me to relax and play rather than compose and organize. It really frees the band and me up.

What can we expect at the Golden Arm Trio set at Fun Fun Fun Fest?

GAT will be playing a material from Unbeaten, the play I just scored, as well as tunes from The Tick-Tock Club, and finally, a few Duke Ellington pieces. I’m excited about the Unbeaten pieces, they we’re all inspired by music people hear when they watch football, which is territory I haven’t minded before. I also have a new Reggaeton piece, inspired by a trip to Belize.

[Golden Arm Trio MySpace]
[Fun Fun Fun Fest MySpace]