Danny Elfman – HuffPost 5.23.11

Mike Ragogna: What is your advice for new artists, composers or musicians coming onto the scene right now?

Danny Elfman: I do give talks to composing classes every year. I will be giving a talk to a class in Chicago in a few weeks. I never really know what to tell them and I don’t mind answering questions. The best advice isn’t necessarily the best advice because I tell them what worked for me may very well not work for you. The thing that worked best for me when I started composing was not giving a s**t what anybody thought, I didn’t care whether I had a career or not. I composed for ten years, and I was in a band and had a day job that allowed me to never think about will that score get me more work, how will it be perceived by others, will studios or producers like it. I really didn’t care. I only cared if the directors were into it, and if the director was into it, I never thought about whether or not it would advance my career. So, I never did anything to try and advance my career, only my skills. That’s what worked for me, but it may be the worst piece of advice ever for an up-and-coming composer. I can say this is what I did but I will always say you can’t necessarily try this at home kids. That also could have let me end up with no film music career and, at that point, that was fine.

MR: What is your creative process?

DE: They send me something to look at and for weeks and weeks, bang around fretfully on a piano and other sounds. On other things as well, like strings for example but mostly piano, I might get a feel that this is a brassy or a string score, and I have a lot of sounds at my disposal now. But it’s still experimenting and trying, it’s always the same thing in the end. You are always trying and I use this metaphor a million times–it’s the same with writers. I was with Aaron Sorkin just last week and we were both saying this exact metaphor. Lowering a bucket into the well, you just don’t know when you are going to hear a splash. You go through moments when you think you won’t hear a splash. Every time, I go through the same thing, I never know if I am going to find it or not. It’s the really exciting and terrible thing about this job no matter how many times you do it. I still feel like I am starting from scratch each time, and I still go through a moment when I could completely fail on this project. Nothing’s telling me I am going to succeed.