John Debney is a major staple in modern film music about whom you may not know much. In the last four years alone, he’s contributed music to thirty some film and television projects. He works as often… if not more so… than many of today’s superstar composers, but his name rarely winds up on big, high profile projects where the orchestral score takes the center stage.

On his résumé you’ll find movies like Dick and Elf (where top-selling song compilations greatly overshadowed his contribution) big, noisy action flicks like The Scorpion King and End Of Days, both movies full of explosions and one-liners, and pictures like CutThroat Island, an expensive misfire which, although Debney’s music was prominent and memorable, only a small fraction of the general public ever knew about much less saw.

This spring, however, Debney has a project where he won’t have to worry about the above concerns. He’s just finished work on a film that many composers wanted and no one would have predicted he would get: director Mel Gibson’s monumentally controversial The Passion Of The Christ.

John Debney

The film, a dramatic enactment of Jesus of Nazareth’s last 12 hours on earth, culminating with his trial and graphic crucifixion, has been the subject of much debate and media attention pretty much since Gibson announced that he wanted to make it. Drawing from the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there have been questions abound of the film’s accuracy, and fears that its depiction of the Jewish elders of the time will foster a new wave of anti-Semitism throughout the world.

John Debney himself is about the as nice a guy as one could meet. He is surprisingly frank about his life and his music and tells stories in a broad, vivacious way. When he relates something that Mel Gibson said or did, his whole face subtly changes, recalling the actor-turn-director’s anxious mannerisms perfectly without slipping in caricature.

We met about one week before the The Passion Of The Christ hit theaters, to talk about the film; a breakthrough assignment that some say is long over-due.

JM: If you type “John Debney” into the search engine at Amazon.com, less than 20 CD titles come up and many of them are recordings of classic film music you’ve conducted for Varese Sarabande. What’s different about having such a high profile release on a big label like Sony?

JD: Well, the film itself is, of course, generating a lot of interest, and I’ve been doing a lot of interviews. I’ve never heard of that, but I’ll tell you why I think it is: Mel’s not doing interviews, a few of the actors are doing interviews but not a lot of them… I’m the only person associated with the film that they can grab and talk to! Which I’m delighted [to do], by the way, because it enables me to talk about the film and talk about film music to a lot of people, perhaps, who don’t know what film music is and what it does.

I saw an article in Billboard last week speculating whether the controversy surrounding the film would spur massive soundtrack sales or, contrastingly, keep them modest, as people might not want a reminder of a film that is so difficult to watch. Do you have much of an opinion on that?

You know, I think it could go either way. It’s either going to be incredible or there will, perhaps, be a big backlash. I will tell you, however, I got a phone call the other day that blew me away: The advance sales are… to put it in the words of the person from Sony… extraordinary. You know, my buddy Bob Townson used to tell me that most soundtracks are going to sell between five and ten thousand units. You’ve got the hardcore five thousand fans that will buy pretty much everything that he puts out. I thought that was kind of low, but he says that that’s the reality when you’re talking about score albums. Once in a blue moon you’ll get a Titanic, but that’s pretty rare. Anyway, from that perspective, I was blown away when they told me how high the “pre-sales” were. It’s shocking.

One of the big questions I need to ask is this: There were a lot of names being thrown around as the composer on The Passion Of The Christ. Initially, it was assumed that James Horner would get the job (having worked with Mel Gibson on his two previous outings as a director, Braveheart and The Man Without A Face), but then, after it was announced that he wouldn’t be doing it, a couple more names surfaced: Lisa Gerrard and Rachel Portman. Then in early January, it got out that you were scoring the film, and not only that, but you had already finished it! How did John Debney wind up scoring this film and how did you manage to keep it a secret?

That was completely by design! It’s one of those things that I really had a chuckle about. If you made a list of 30 composers who would be considered for this film, I probably wouldn’t be on the list. I wouldn’t be on the list, and I know that! So just know going in that this is a complete fluke, but I’ll tell you how it happened:

Back in October, a good friend of mine [producer Stephen McEveety] called me. He grew up down the street from me in Glendale. Both Catholics, both went to the same grammar school… Anyway, I hadn’t spoken with him in a few years, but I knew he was working at Icon Productions - Mel’s company. He called me in mid October, and the first thought that jumped to my mind was “Oh my god, is everybody okay in the family?” But he proceeded [to say], “You know, for the last year I’ve been working on this film and I’ve been thinking about you. I’m not going to tell you what it is yet, but we’re having some questions and problems on the music.” I said, “Okay, well, what’s going on?” He said, “We’ve hired someone who is a great guy; we all like him very much. He’s gone around the world; he’s made some wonderful recordings… world recordings… of different musicians, different performers. Mel likes what he does, but he’s not really a film composer. He’s done a lot of album / new agey stuff.”

And I said, “Yeah, well that’s the difference between someone who’s a song writer and someone who’s a film score composer!” As film composers we need to make these little shifts all the time and highlight the action in certain ways. You know, it’s a technique and a skill, and it’s not one that is easily learned in a day. So I said, “Well, it’s obvious that while this gentleman may come up with some great ideas, he might not perhaps know how to mold them to a film.” I asked him what the film was, and he said… “Oh well, it’s this film called The Passion Of The Christ!” And I fell out of my chair!

[He laughs.]

He didn’t know my own journey. You know, we grew up together and we were both Catholic. He knew that I was a successful film composer, but he didn’t know that I had kind of lost my faith a few years back. I had a spiritual reawakening when my mom passed away a few years ago, however, and through that was in the throws of regaining my faith. So he didn’t know any of that stuff, but once I [got up from the floor], I said, “Steve, look… let me see the movie and I’ll give you some thoughts. And if you let me, why don’t I write a couple of pieces for you… you know, to the picture?” He said, “Wow, you’d do that?” and I said, “Of course!” It’d be an honor. I mean, it’s my personal faith, so why not?

So, he sent over the movie, and I watched it with my wife and we were completely blown away. He [also] sent me the trailer and said, “Well, if you’re going to do anything, why not the trailer, cause that’s the first piece of music we’re going to need.” I spent the weekend… wrote some music, wrote the trailer. Monday morning comes and Steve was kind enough to bring Mel over! And I was like, “Oh man, Mel Gibson is coming here!” So anyway, Mel comes over. Very nice guy. He sits down…doesn’t know what to expect… and I play him the trailer first. And there’s silence. And he’s like, “Yeah, I kinda like that. Let’s hear it again.” So I play it again, and he said he really liked the voice and a lot of things… I proceeded to play him a couple more cues. A few hours later Steve calls and says, “Mel really wants to thank you for your time…” And I’m thinking he’s going to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” which didn’t matter to me because I was able to present something to Mel for something so important, you know? But Steve goes on and says, “I asked Mel, ‘What do you want to do with the music?’ and he said, ‘Why don’t we just do it with John?’” The trailer music that we’re all been hearing… it’s been on TV seemingly constantly… that’s the very first thing Mel heard. And he liked it!

From then on it was a complete ride. It was ups and downs. There were complete moments of utter despair from both Mel and I. A lot of things I was getting for Mel, but there were some key moments from the film that I was not getting. Doubt crept in. Lisa Gerrard’s name had been brought up initially… even before I got a phone call… and somewhere in this period, she was invited back to the party. I love her voice too, and the idea was, yeah, lets have Lisa sing on some of my music and we can make it a big inclusive collaborative effort, which is what I wanted to from day one. But certain parties didn’t want to be collaborative with me, and that was a shame because I was really interested in that. But anyway, so I kept writing and she kept writing, and that was kind of a running joke on this movie that everyone was writing music for it!

I didn’t publicize this at all because… I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to. If I was going to sink or swim I was going to do it on my terms, and I even laughed with my agent Richard [Kraft] about it. I said, “I know that these message boards have got to be nuts. There’s raging debate…” And he said, “Oh yeah! And you don’t want to know about it!” I said, of course I don’t want to know about it because I’m the least likely person that anyone would have chosen! I knew about the raging debate. James Horner? Couldn’t do it for whatever reason. Didn’t want to do it? I don’t know. I figured that if I was going to make it to the finish line, it was going to be due to God and no one else. That’s the way I kind of looked at it and that’s how I got through it.

Now, it got a lot better from when it very hard for me because certain things happened that I consider personal miracles in my life. I know that they were miracles and I don’t feel I need to defend them, but suffice to say that there was a moment in time where I was looking for Mary’s music, and I couldn’t get it. Couldn’t get it. And all this stuff was going on. [It felt like] all these dark forces were conspiring against me and against the film, and it was really weird… not to get heavily into that. So I started to pray, as a crazy Catholic. You know, you pray to saints, you pray to God, to pray to Jesus… Well, I never thought about praying to Mary! How dumb is that? I’m trying to get her theme and I’m praying to everyone else except her! So again, as a crazy Catholic, I started to pray to her, and a few days after I started that process… and this is the truth; this is one of the miracles that happened to me personally… I woke up with a theme in my head and with lyrics in my head, in English [later translated into Aramaic]. I wrote those lyrics down on a napkin or something, and I ran into work and started playing around with this little theme, and that became Mary’s theme.

The first time I played it for Mel Gibson; that was when a real door opened up. I play the piece of music, and I turn around, and here’s Mel Gibson with tears streaming down his face. So, I knew in that moment that things had changed. And then from then on, it became an amazing process where he was part of the process. He was collaborative, he would come over… We’d have a flute player or a singer in and we would try things, you know? I would have a piece written and we’d try a solo, and he’d be like “Well, it’s a little…” and then he’d run in and talk to the musician! He’d just talk about the scene! It was amazing. He would impart his vision to them and then when they would play, it would be a completely different performance.

Wow, I’ve never heard of anything like that.

I’ve never experienced that, and I was so glad that I could invite him to do that. At first he was very shy. He was like, “Really? Should I tell him?” And I said, “Yeah, tell him!” And then literally at the end of it, we were in London [in early January], and we’d have the war drums going and he’d go out and air drum with the drummers! There was a wonderful singer, Tanya, who did the opening of the movie, and he’d go out and talk to her about what Christ is feeling when he’s sitting in the garden. I think he had a lot of fun. He told me he had a great time doing it. So it went from really, really hard and crazy to amazingly uplifting and fun. It was really weird.

You said the orchestra was recorded in London [with the LSO], but were a lot of the solo recordings done at your studio in Burbank?

Yes, and we would do it very quietly. Some things worked, some didn’t. We’d have musicians over… We’d give it a try… “Thank you very much!” We’d pay them… There was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of experimentation. With a score like this… and I’m sure any composer would agree… it’s not what you write as much as how the musician performs the idea.

Through this process, I’ve gotten to know and love many incredible musicians that no one knows about. They’re, like world musicians who will go out on tours and then come back… A couple of them… jeez, we had to search for their numbers for, like, weeks.

One of my friends said, “Oh you’ve got to get this one guy! He’s, like, the Steve Vye of oud! An oud is… kind of like a gourd with many, many strings. And it’s true! We found this guy, he’d play on a track and he’d just start jamming. Eastern musicians are very adept at this.

Who are some of the more prominent musicians who perform on the score?

Well, L. Shankar and Ginger are very featured in the score. They play this thing called the double violin that’s very cool. They also vocalize; they’re doing a lot of vocalization and ad-libbing on the score. And they’re world-renowned! They’ve done things with Peter Gabriel, and, in fact, I think Shankar played on The Last Temptation Of Christ.

[There is also] Pedro Eustache, who’s an amazing world woodwind player. A gentleman named Chris Bleth… some great musicians that no one knows about. They don’t play on soundtracks that often because they’re always doing concerts and making records.

There are a few sounds in this score of mine that I don’t think you’ve heard before! There’s this thing called a macroona. I call it a “Philistine horn.” It’s a little double reed thing with two animal horns coming out the side. One night when we were working with Pedro, and I said, “What is the most piercing, God-awful, screaming sound you have?” And he thinks about it for a few minutes ’cause he’s got hundreds of instruments in his studio… and opens up all these boxes and he digs around and he found this thing! And you hear it a couple times in the score, but the most prominent time you hear it…

Is at the beginning of “Simon Is Dismissed” [track 9 on the Sony album].

Exactly right. It’s the shot where Simon and Jesus are coming up the last bit of the hill to Golgotha [where Jesus will be crucified]. The way Mel did it was interesting: He shows Jesus and Simon coming up the hill, and then he cuts to the crowd inching their way up the hill as well. I said to Mel, “Wow, it’s sort of a ritual, isn’t it? Like a weird Pagan ritual?” And he said, “Yeah! Exactly!” I thought these people almost looked not human. They’re almost like insects as they’re coming up the hill to sacrifice this member of their hive, as it were. Those were the kinds of discussions that Mel and I had. I said I thought there would be big drums kind of calling them to this event… which he loves, he loves big drums… and then Pedro added the macroona. I’ll never forget it; Pedro found the instrument… which is not very big… and he blew on it and it just about took my ears off. It’s so piercing and so loud. And I said, “That’s it! That’s the Philistine horn!” And he said that it’s not really called that, and I said, “I don’t care: It’s the Philistine horn!”

I read somewhere that Mel actually chants along with the choir at one point as well. Is that true?

Oh yes! One day, we had Shankar over. Shankar’s a wonderful musician… he plays double violin… he and his partner Ginger are featured on the score. Anyway, they were chanting and Mel, behind me on the couch, was chanting with them and it sounded pretty good. I said, “Mel, why don’t you go out there and do it with them?” He said, “Ah! No!” and I said, “Look, I’ll make you a deal: I’ll never let you make a fool of yourself. If it’s bad, I’ll tell you and if it’s good, I’ll tell you. So what do you got to lose?” So he goes out there and starts doing this chat… and I discovered that he has an amazing ear; he can listen to anything and mimic it. He’s just got a naturally gifted ear, and I know that because if I changed a note on something he’d heard two weeks before, he’d know it. That really bite me on the you-know-what a couple times because I’d play him something, and he’d be like, “I don’t know… it’s different.” And I’d say, “No, Mel. It’s not.” And then I’d go back and listen and it was! So this guy… there’s a lot going on. He did some chanting, he did some breathing…

One thing that surprised me about the music is how… for lack of a better word… “modern” some of the percussion sounds. The score, to my ear, seems to have three major facets: 1) the percussion, 2) all the ethnic stuff and then a very big and traditional orchestra and choir.

Yes, you’ll hear a lot of stuff that’s kind of free form and drone-y, but then you’ll hear a lot of instruments that are very traditional. I think you’ll actually be shocked when you hear the whole score because there are a couple scenes where we actually get into, like, some Beatles stuff!

Really?

Yes! We did some vocal stuff with Shankar and Ginger that’s kind of like “Sgt. Pepper!” Like the sound of it, I mean. We EQed it and we put some distortion on it, and it’s almost like [John Lennon's vocals on] “I Am The Walrus.” You know how they processed the vocal… We did that! Now, there’s a reason why we did that. The first reel is in the garden. The garden is its own world. It’s at night, and Mel consciously wanted a very different style of music [for those scenes].

Mel’s very eclectic, he’s very surprising. At the beginning of the process I think he felt he wanted all the score to be non-traditional. He wanted to kind of cool and modern and bizarre. He kept saying, “John, I don’t want any ‘God music.’ And he was right, but then I would happen upon something that it would kind of get big, and I’d say, “What do you think, Mel? Is it getting too traditional and reverential?” And to his credit, he said, “No, because I think we’ve earned it by now.”

I was talking about this last night with my agent and I said, “You know if this score had been ‘one thing,’ it probably wouldn’t have been right. It’s not one thing. It’s many things. When you hear the cue, “Jesus Arrested” it’s an interesting piece of music because it goes from choral with drums and then into an interesting loop… a cool loop groove I found, almost a techno-y thing… and then we bring in the vocals and it’s kind of a Beatles thing!

About half way through “Nailed To The Cross” (”Crucifixion” on the OST) there’s this big, big string statement that’s really traditional and powerful.

You know, people who see the film, they focus on [the music in] two places. One of them is the cue titled “Mary Goes To Jesus”, which is that story I told you. The second one is the one you just mentioned. That’s during the hardest part of the film to watch. I mean, literally, the nails are going in. One of the things that Mel said early on is that the during the hardest part of the movie to watch, that’s when the music should be the most beautiful; that’s when the music should be the most sublime. Which is right! Because what it does is that it helps you get through what you’re seeing because it’s so hard to watch. I asked Mel why he thought that, and he said that music should take you to that place of beauty where you realize that it could be anybody: It could be a soldier on a battlefield jumping on a grenade for his mates. He said that it’s the ultimate sacrifice… self-sacrifice… and if we can help the audience understand the beauty of that moment… that the incredible, violent, horrible moment. In that moment, where Jesus is transformed, we are transformed.

That was one of the hardest pieces to write… seven minutes of him being tied… and we go back and forth to flashbacks, etc. I couldn’t get that piece of music. I kept writing it, and it was dramatic, but it wasn’t beautiful. And Mel liked it a lot, but there was this one area that I wasn’t getting, and that’s the area you’re talking about. We had another piece of music that we were working on for that area that was much more world and esoteric. Mel liked it, but I kept beating myself up over it. Two days before we went to London [to record the orchestra], I sat down, at 6 am. I said, “I’m going to forget everything else I’ve done on this long journey for the last two or three months, and I’m just going to write the prettiest thing I can write,” and that’s what came out. I did it pretty quickly, probably in a couple hours. One of the great moments for me was when we were recording in London, and that piece came up. Now, Mel hadn’t heard it. He’d heard the first five minutes of that cue and he liked it, but then that part came up and the musicians just played it perfectly the first time. So the cue ends, and he turns to me and says, “Have I heard that before?” And my first thought was, “Oh shit!” Cause he’s a guy who really likes to hear everything, like, 50 times. He says, “It’s incredibly beautiful… It’s perfect! Let me hear it again!” And what happened was he went with it! And those are moments where… you know, you can’t plan that. Everyone who’s seen the movie talks about that. In fact, Mel called me again a few weeks ago to thank me, and he said, “You know that one piece… that was worth the price of admission.” And it’s hard to verbalize why or how, but that’s how it happened. And it was an afterthought! It was a maybe.

This film was done entirely in other languages [Latin, Aramaic], and at one time, Mel Gibson was saying that there would not be subtitles. Does the fact that the film isn’t in English change the way you approach what you’re doing?

No, it doesn’t consciously change the way I write, but let me tell you something about the subtitles: My opinion is that you don’t need them, but I’m glad that they’re there. Once they’re done dubbing, they have what’s called a “playback” where the people who are working on the film watch it and we give our notes. Well, the first six reels of seven of this film were brand new prints. They were pristine, they were gorgeous. You know how it is; if you’re used to seeing something digital for a couple months… Anyway, they hadn’t had time to put the subtitles in so we watched the first six reels without any subtitles! And you know what? People who were fresh… who had never seen it… they all the said the same thing: “Mel, you don’t need the subtitles.” because the music and the effects and the visuals and the inflection of the voice say so much for this movie. I think the music plays a little different role in this movie than anything that I’ve done. I would liken it to a silent movie a little in a way because when you think about it, there isn’t a lot of dialogue in the film, in truth, when you see it. There are long stretches where it’s just effects and music and incredible performances of these actors.

So this is a really big question, but when its all said and done, why make this movie? What does this movie say and why was it important to tell it so vividly?

I think it’s going to mean different things to different people. I hope that whatever your religion, or your creed, or if you’re agnostic… hopefully it will generate dialogue. And maybe that’s the biggest thing about the movie. I don’t think it’s “anti” anything. I think it’s really “pro-humanity.” Because, I think, when you see the inhumanity in the movie, and what we do to each other… and then how Christ accepts that, and is transported above that. I would liken it to Mahatma Gandhi, really. Many people, I’m sure, wanted him to be a warrior and to rise up and destroy the British, but he was a pacifist to the ultimate degree… like Jesus… and through his being a pacifist, he transformed people. The same thing is going on here. When Jesus is being lifted up on the cross, he’s saying “Father, forgive them.” I believe… and we believe, as Catholics… that it’s not directed toward any particular group; it’s directed toward humanity. “Father forgive them; they know not what they do.” The idea is that if God… or Jesus… can forgive… if we can be forgiven, then we should realize, by example, that we shouldn’t be doing the things we’re doing to each other.

I was with Mel enough to know that this is his belief, his hope. It’s the story of Christianity and of our belief system, but it’s also so much more than that. That’s why I think the controversy and criticism hurt him so much. It may sound amazing, but he didn’t see that. He really didn’t see that part of it. I think even that Diane Sawyer interview highlighted that it may have been a little naive of him to think that people wouldn’t react in certain ways to certain [aspects] of the movie, but that’s just not who he is. He’s not “anti” anything, as far as I can see.

The first day I got the call saying that I was going to be doing the music, I remember Steve saying, “You know, you may never work again!” And he was kidding, but he wasn’t kidding! [But] I was like, “You know, I don’t care.” Everyone involved with the movie felt that way. We were doing it for everything other than, you know, the reasons that one does a movie.

Mel funded the whole thing himself, correct?

He did! And I still can’t wrap my brain around that. I don’t understand that. First of all, I can’t conceive of that much money… but then, to just write a check… whew! It constantly reminded me that this is Mel’s baby… this is his life. So as hard as it was for me during those hard times, it’s his child and he has a right to put me through the wringer over it!

It takes a really gutsy guy to just gamble it all like that. I can honestly say that I doubt I would do that. But you know what? I think he’s going to win! I always knew the movie was a powerful movie, a controversial movie… but now we’re starting to get a little hint that this might be a big movie. Knowing Mel the way I do, however, he wouldn’t even care if it’s big. If someone walked up to him and said, “Mel, I regained my faith or I found faith because of your movie,” that would be the payoff. He even said that to me many times. If one person finds their faith… and not even Christian faith. If one person starts to think about it or think about his or her belief system, then the movie is successful.

The reactions to [the score] are everything you’d imagine they’d be from dead cold silence to people freaking out over the music. This is the first score I’ve ever done where I really have no clue about how good it is. When we were mixing the last cue on the last day, I turned to the music editor who was running the rig and said, “Is this any good?” And she said, “Are you insane? This is the best you’ve ever done!” And I’m only saying this because I really don’t know. I don’t know what it’s all about. We’ll see in ten years what people think, but I know I did my best, and that’s all we can do.

Thanks to Costa Communications. Special Thanks to John Debney.