Composer Matthew Head on Tom Swift, P-Valley, and the gumbo of music
By Sabrina Reed
When we tune into our favorite television shows, we’re hooked into the drama, the comedy, the romance, sometimes even the action depending on the series. Much of the time these scenes are backed by snappy dialogue or resonating monologues that’ll be played by fans over and over again. Bar that, it’s music setting the moment, be it a needle drop or the score.
Viewers with fine tuned ears, the ones whose minds wander toward the piano keys creating the atmosphere around their beloved characters, they’re the ones that composers love. See, music tells a story all its own in a show, whether it be a character cue introducing a new player in the midst of our regular cast. Or a theme denoting the relationship between two people on-screen.
Sure, we all love a good earworm, a familiar tune that’ll have us nodding along as a singer or rapper’s cadence sets the mood for the scene. We have the music editors to thank for those moments. But, it’s the composers that must grab us without a lyric or a rhyme and tell us the story that plays out beside the main narrative of the show.
When it comes to Tom Swift and P-Valley, two polar opposite series, composer Matthew Head is the musical talent behind rounding out their sound to create a fuller picture of the season. Hidden Remote had the opportunity to talk with Head about his work on both shows ahead of their premieres to discuss what went into their scores and the sounds that set them apart on television.
Matthew Head and the ingredients that make up Tom Swift and P-Valley’s scores
Head hails from Atlanta, the Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, and a city rooted so deeply in the musical tapestry that makes up American culture that it’s unique not only in its artists but also in the ways they’ve transformed the genres they’ve touched.
In Head’s case, he takes household favorites like the jazz, country, and blues his mother would play on Saturdays and blends it with the hip-hop and R&B he discovered on his own.
He refers to it as a kind of gumbo. When we spoke about his musical influences, Head said, “I grew up listening to all of the R&B to Michael Jackson to Babyface to Smokey Robinson and Motown. Then I listened to gospel. I grew up in a Baptist church where Mahalia Jackson and all those old-school Negro spirituals were put in my spirit as far as my parents going to church and my mom being in the choir.”
He named Outkast and T.I. as musical influences as well, so when the time came to sit down and compose for the new CW series, Tom Swift, he wasn’t entirely out of his wheelhouse even though it’s his first sci-fi project.
Head is a collaborative composer, his process starts simply. He sits down with the showrunners, whom he credits for adding new textures and ingredients to the sound he’s been developing for decades, and talks through what they want.
With Tom Swift, Head, Cameron Johnson, and Melinda Hsu Taylor created a specific vibe. Johnson had Head listening to Drake and Kanye, two of the most braggadocious rappers in a genre that’s full of swagger, arrogance, pride, and cool that can’t be emulated only admired. But, that was only part of the template they were building for the show’s sound.
“It was cool,” Head said when we spoke. “The thing about it, we wanted to have a gumbo of sound. We definitely wanted to have a cinematic feel because he’s solving missions, and he’s got a lot going on. Tom is a huge and bigger than life character so the strings and the cinematic sound give [the show] a bigger feel. But, at the same time, he’s retro, he’s cool, he’s laid back, he’s African-American, so we wanted to give it a hip-hop flavor, something that I listen to, that my kids listen to.”
The minute Tom Swift comes on you can hear what Head is talking about. The score for the show blends the old world of classical music with the sounds of today i.e. heavy beats and rhythms that you’d hear pumping out of headphones or on dance floors. But, we’d advise you not to sleep on the space odyssey Head has added into the mix. Remember, as much as Tom is a black billionaire tech genius, he’s also the man behind his father’s mission to Saturn.
When speaking on this bit of storytelling in the score, Head said, “I used a lot of different synth keyboards and found some unique tabs and sounds to give it that space adventure feel.”
The composer is also a student of the craft, taking in the music he’s heard in Bond movies, Star Trek, and space films to help shape the “futuristic, sci-fi, hip-hop, noir” vibe of Tom Swift. It’s Head’s belief that research, patience, and hard work are the keys to success for a composer.
At the beginning of his journey in composition, Head started out as a copycat, that’s how he figured out how to create the sounds that he gravitated toward. He said, “I would listen to what the Hans Zimmers would do, I’d listen to the Danny Elfmans. I would literally try to duplicate their scores, not necessarily their melodies but more so their sounds. What did Hans do with his strings? What did Hands do with his synth sounds? What did Danny Elfman do with the piano and the bells?”
Head said that if you do that enough, if you mimic what you hear, you’ll eventually get to a point where you start adding in your own preferences. Think of it as adding your own flare and flavor to the ingredients that life and music you’ve listened to have already added to the pot that’ll eventually be your own brand and calling card.
For Head that flavor is the music of the South. The rich and somber tones of blues. The elegance and disorder of jazz. The hip and smooth grooves of R&B. The bombast of hip-hop and trap. All of it is a part of his work. It’s a sound he’s worked to perfect, and it’s how he encourages other composers. You know when it’s a Matthew Head track. And, as he puts it, “That’s the goal of a composer. You get calls, you get the next opportunity because they want your sound. They want you to add to their project.”
Head puts his talent and his heart into every project, it’s why he can’t choose a favorite. Everything he’s worked on is the best one he’s had the honor of being a part of. Right now, that’s Tom Swift and P-Valley, two scores he worked on simultaneously and that are nothing alike.
“P-Valley is a completely different beast,” Head said. “I call it my night and day. My night is P-Valley and my day is Tom Swift. With P-Valley we went for a dark, mysterious, horror-y kind of vibe just because of the way the story is moving with the characters in that series.”
Head described his work on P-Valley as “creative heaven” because it brings him back to his roots, there’s a nostalgia factor for him.
“I’m a music producer,” Head said. “I used to make a whole bunch of music for local hip-hop writers here in Atlanta and songwriters and singers. So, [P-Valley] takes me back to that. I get to go back to my producer stage where I can sit and make a really cool beat and see where I go with that in a P-Valley theme.”
The vibe of this Starz series is glam mixed with grit. Those who work at the Pynk are beautiful, but not necessarily untouchable and they do what they have to do to survive. Though the show is set in Mississippi and not Georgia, Southern style and attitude is regional even if the swing of it changes from state to state. Hence the horns used in Head’s score for season 2.
The Pynk is loud, in your face, and unapologetic. But, P-Valley is also a show with layers that are peeled back episode by episode. It necessitates a score that can embrace the drama unfolding on the screen and that’s what Head gives it. Honestly, there’s a reason why he’s considered to be a jack-of-all-trades in the industry. Head knows how to shape the music to fit the story.
That’s why he selected the cello as Frederick Douglass’ main storytelling element in his work for Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches. It’s how he was able to trace 400 years of gospel music for The Black Church which starts in 1619 and moves toward the present as the documentary progresses. Head extends the same mentality to his work for the stage as well.
As he said, “The gumbo of music is what keeps me creative, keeps me adding things with different flavors and to see what happens.”
For Tom Swift that was blending his sound with sci-fi elements and hopefully opening the door for other Black composers to follow behind him in this genre of music production. P-Valley was a window back in time that allowed him to experiment and grow in an area that he’d started his career in.
Head is always taking the direction he gets from showrunners, like P-Valley‘s Katori Hall, to keep pushing the limit of what can be done in his scores. It’s a challenge he rises to at every occasion and its led to a varied career, memorable scores, and the opportunity to leave his stamp on iconic and integral pieces of television history.