An Interview with Tristan Clopet

1:44 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? I'm Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More, and I am joined with Tristan Clopet. Welcome to the show, man.

1:52 Tristan Clopet very well pronounced thank you boy

1:53 Luke F. Walton Thank you. Thank you. I was agonizing over it. You saw the moment of pause.

1:58 Tristan Clopet as soon as you said tristan i was like oh shit here we go how's it gonna come out I've heard it all, man.

2:06 Luke F. Walton I would imagine. I would imagine. That's why I keep my name simple, Scoobert Doobert. So I want to talk to you about your musical journey and then kind of what it actually looks like right now to be producing for film. We were just talking about a documentary that you are mixing right now. What does it actually look like? What is the interplay, like right now, 2025 of how does the work come in?

2:29 Luke F. Walton How do you decide what? What kind of direction you're taking it? How do you make that happen? Walk me through that journey.

2:36 Tristan Clopet Yeah, it's, it's, it's the most common question you get from aspiring composers, film composers is like, how'd you get in? And it's an apt question because that's a lot of times the hardest part of the job, you know, is getting the gig, at least, you know, in the beginning, it's very difficult. So I guess kind of what I tell everyone is that it's such a mix of craft and art.

3:01 Tristan Clopet And I feel like Art is something that you can start honing early. It's really hard to hone your craft before you're kind of like under a deadline or, you know, you're expected to solve somebody else's problem.

3:17 Tristan Clopet And so that's, I feel like the best entry point to get in this is to start working with someone else as their assistant or, you know, whatever, if

3:27 Luke F. Walton And

3:27 Tristan Clopet you're

3:27 Luke F. Walton talk

3:27 Tristan Clopet starting

3:27 Luke F. Walton about

3:27 Tristan Clopet below.

3:27 Luke F. Walton deadlines. I feel like out of every kind of side of the industry, producing music for any sort of visual medium seems to be the most like we needed by this weekend where, you know, constantly pressing versus like record production, there's a little bit more of. Or like, can

3:44 Tristan Clopet you

3:44 Luke F. Walton we be

3:44 Tristan Clopet know

3:44 Luke F. Walton Zen

3:44 Tristan Clopet and

3:44 Luke F. Walton about it? Can we discover ourselves?

3:46 Tristan Clopet that's that's like the push and pull too is like you know you hear all these stories about like great songwriters recording artists who want to you know dip their toe in that world and sometimes it goes great and you get really interesting stuff and then sometimes they are the artists are just like this is you know nobody tells me what to do like you're lucky to have my you know and and it's just it's not that world doesn't work like that

4:11 Tristan Clopet It's a very very collaborative you work at the pleasure of the president, you know

4:16 Luke F. Walton Yes.

4:16 Tristan Clopet And so but that's what I love about it I love about it because I think the reason why I started as in songwriting and touring and that's that's how I know Luke and Russ or I know Luke from college, but I was in the band with them great good fun, okay, and

4:31 Tristan Clopet I had my own thing too and it was too much freedom it was like too much choice too much possibility you know and I couldn't really I was just too scatterbrained all the time and once I started working in to picture it was like oh my god there's a function for this music And for me, and I know it's not for everybody, but for me, that was like a huge key to unlock the door, getting a brief,

4:56 Tristan Clopet you know, and someone saying, hey, man, this music needs to do this.

5:01 Luke F. Walton What's an example of like what a brief would look like or what like some of the adjectives they might use?

5:06 Tristan Clopet It's a great question. It's different every time. I did a little bit of commercial work before film.

5:13 Tristan Clopet And those briefs are as you would expect them, you know, like we want something hot and poppy and, you know, of the time and like it's got to have a groove, you know, it's like the briefs in the film world are interesting because every director, showrunner, you know, these are the people that you write for, they all kind of have different ways of conveying their goals for the score. A common kind of.

5:41 Tristan Clopet lineage between the person who speaks music and the person who doesn't speak music is temp score. Are you familiar with that concept?

5:49 Luke F. Walton Yes.

5:49 Tristan Clopet Yeah. So, you know, a lot of composers kind of hate hearing temp score. You know, you get the job, which is, as we said, the hardest thing. And then it's all easy from there. You somehow figure out what it is that they want for their project. And the best way for them to communicate that is to, a lot of them, I should say, is to kind of give them an example of what is working.

6:12 Tristan Clopet And then you have to parse through what about that temp, what about it that it is that they like. And it can be a number of things. It can be as simple as like the pace of it, or it could be a solo instrument in that recording that hits them.

6:29 Tristan Clopet you know and and you hope that if that's the case that it's a discernible instrument and not some like hybrid synth thing that like you know and you're just like what is that i want that and you're like i don't know what that is you know can i have a can i have a couple days to figure out what that is you know temp is like the film composer's brief sort of in a lot of instances when it's not you tend to get more rewarding rewarding

6:54 Tristan Clopet Film scores, I think

6:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

6:55 Tristan Clopet it's

6:56 Luke F. Walton does the temp just feel

6:56 Tristan Clopet it

6:56 Luke F. Walton like it like centers you too much or like you're like, okay

6:59 Tristan Clopet can

6:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah,

7:00 Tristan Clopet Yeah,

7:00 Luke F. Walton because if you watch it without the temp I feel like you have that opportunity to determine your own pace a little bit to determine like not just tempo but like subdivision and like how am I flowing from there a to b

7:13 Tristan Clopet it's really interesting that you used rhythm as one of the ways that the composer might feel more free because In my opinion, and I'm not saying I'm right or wrong,

7:26 Luke F. Walton Definitely

7:26 Tristan Clopet but in

7:26 Luke F. Walton more right than I am.

7:27 Tristan Clopet my opinion, rhythm is one of the least negotiable things. Subdivision, you know, as an extension of that is one of the least negotiable things because the rhythm has already been sort of established by the editor, unless you kind of have like this big expansive.

7:47 Tristan Clopet you know sequence where there's long shots you know you have a lot more room to play with but

7:52 Luke F. Walton And for the people just so that we can understand kind of the process, is it fairly linear where it's like the film is pretty much picture locked and then do you like record the score and then they make editing tweaks? How does that channel kind of flow?

8:05 Tristan Clopet yeah most of the time it's you're working to picture and and you know you have a tight deadline because you're last in line or you're working consequently with with you know special

8:13 Luke F. Walton Yes,

8:14 Tristan Clopet effects or

8:14 Luke F. Walton yes,

8:14 Tristan Clopet whatever but

8:14 Luke F. Walton yes, yes.

8:15 Tristan Clopet again you know and there's a common theme here the less pressured you make the composer feel the more

8:21 Tristan Clopet You'll tend to get something more, you know, intrinsic to your film or in the same DNA of your film. You know, you hear a lot of stories in the film composing world about composers with memorable scores having started, you know, way, way earlier and even having it, you know, be cut around in one film I worked on recently. And I know the director, I've worked with him in the past.

8:45 Tristan Clopet I know the editor, I've worked with him in the past. and so i i was hired very early and i was writing to the script and the script has pacing it's not as kind of set in stone but the script has an inherent pacing and writing kind of just pieces of music that are bound by very little send it to them if they like it you know the editor might cut around it and and that's really cool it's it's really cool when you just when somebody else does something that dictates you you know like

9:13 Tristan Clopet You know, like, you know, when you're working on TV, sometimes they have title sequences, right?

9:17 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

9:18 Tristan Clopet And sometimes the title sequence graphics have been created and it's your job to hit the sync points. And when you have to hit the sync points, you're kind of tied rhythmically, you know, you're tied down rhythmically. More often than not, in my experience, you're writing the music and the special effects team is kind of editing to your music rhythmically or even harmonically and melodically, whatever.

9:40 Tristan Clopet Yeah, you ask two really good back to back questions and the answer is for both, it completely depends. It's all, you just get everything thrown at you and you just have to like.

9:51 Tristan Clopet like work around things you know because it's again and this is like kind of common with the comparison between the pop world records and and film composing is like you're just really confined a lot more in film composing and i love that a lot of people don't like that but i love feeling confined i like okay we there's only so far we can go this way

10:10 Tristan Clopet so for me that just like cuts down so much of what shouldn't happen you know what i mean um

10:16 Luke F. Walton Totally know what you mean.

10:17 Tristan Clopet if i'm sitting at like a blank session and i'm like oh my god like i have an idea for a song um this is what i want to say it's like there's just an array of options and for me that's not fun for someone like you that's like hell yeah we could do anything you know start with this sound and just go from there there The

10:36 Luke F. Walton even

10:36 Tristan Clopet way my brain works is just like, oh,

10:37 Luke F. Walton still like yes yes i agree i'm further on that end like the amount of decisions that i have to make especially when i'm doing a record end to end like from zero to mixed is just hilarious but like i am also doing it usually through my project or through someone else's project so there is like a fixed set of this is the general instrumentation this is the general kind of

10:59 Tristan Clopet that's cool.

10:59 Luke F. Walton vibe so there's like even then it's a nebulous cloud that shifts and moves but even then there are like creative parameters that do unlock other things the most daunting thing is to sit down and be like i'm gonna start a new artist project

11:13 Tristan Clopet mm-hmm

11:13 Luke F. Walton like oh my god what do what do what do i even sound like what do i sing like how do i pronounce my words all

11:18 Tristan Clopet of course i feel

11:19 Luke F. Walton those things

11:19 Tristan Clopet like that's like a that's like a twice in a lifetime thing right like being

11:22 Luke F. Walton exactly

11:22 Tristan Clopet yeah

11:22 Luke F. Walton and like thank god could you imagine doing that i mean that'd be kind of cool actually but um

11:27 Tristan Clopet yeah

11:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

11:28 Tristan Clopet totally

11:28 Luke F. Walton even in some of these worlds, I feel like those are your anchor points are the like decisions that are made for you beforehand or the things that you can kind of hold on to in the stormy sea.

11:40 Tristan Clopet totally man there's in this documentary we're mixing right now we found the palette pretty early on and it was narrow and so

11:53 Tristan Clopet in one cue bit of an action-y more action than you know um than it's not an action documentary but you know it's like someone like knocking down a door or something and that's like the biggest action in the thing but you're just like okay like we need a little bit of uh a kick drum here and it's like there's no kick drum in the score anywhere i can't use a kick drum because that's going to stick out like a sore thumb

12:18 Tristan Clopet uh i have these instruments uh it's it's kind of like an appalachia type

12:22 Luke F. Walton Cool.

12:22 Tristan Clopet palette and so you're just like you know am i going to use a kick drum for one scene once one cue no i'm gonna you know these are my options you know i can't just like bring in something for this like you know so

12:37 Luke F. Walton Yes.

12:37 Tristan Clopet it's just like knocking on the body of your parlor acoustic guitar you

12:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:43 Tristan Clopet know and like making that you kick drum that's that's exciting you

12:46 Luke F. Walton Yes.

12:46 Tristan Clopet know confines you ever read that book art of i think it's called the art of choosing or the art of choice

12:51 Luke F. Walton No, I haven't. sounds

12:53 Tristan Clopet it's

12:53 Luke F. Walton up my alley

12:53 Tristan Clopet that science basically laid out where it's just like the more choice we have the the less happy we are

12:58 Luke F. Walton i

12:58 Tristan Clopet yeah

12:59 Luke F. Walton took a class on that i don't know if it was one-to-one the same book but it was like the the science of happiness is like an elective and it was it was great it was the same kind of thing where they were showing study after study after study of like the grocery store actually makes people unhappy because there's just too many boxes of cereal and like we have this illusion of choice at the same time as

13:19 Luke F. Walton is like the paralysis of choice. It's kind of the worst of both worlds.

13:22 Tristan Clopet Exactly. Exactly. And there's like, there's been some studies on that, that restaurants have like adopted, you know, we have five mains on the menu,

13:29 Luke F. Walton yeah

13:29 Tristan Clopet you

13:29 Luke F. Walton right and

13:29 Tristan Clopet know, we don't

13:30 Luke F. Walton i have like like

13:30 Tristan Clopet a diner full of stuff.

13:31 Luke F. Walton make some decisions for me you're the chef you know

13:33 Tristan Clopet Yeah, yeah, give me a fish. fish give me a white me give me

13:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:36 Tristan Clopet a dark meat you know

13:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:37 Tristan Clopet but um yeah in the book it talks about how there are like pretty successful um arranged marriages like arranged marriages are you know maybe there's other elements going into that you know pressure or whatever but yeah i just i just find it funny like the psychological comparison between you know these are my options and we can do anything we want

14:00 Tristan Clopet you know and and there are i'm sure like there are scores you know there there are definitely scores out there where it's just like we're going to use the kitchen sink and that's that's the choice you

14:09 Luke F. Walton Yes.

14:09 Tristan Clopet know so that anything you throw at the audience in the third act is

14:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

14:13 Tristan Clopet not going to sound out of place you know you see that movie the brutalist what'd

14:17 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

14:19 Tristan Clopet you think

14:20 Luke F. Walton I liked it. I thought that it was, I'm trying to remember everything about the score now though.

14:25 Tristan Clopet The score was well received.

14:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

14:29 Tristan Clopet I think it won the Oscar.

14:31 Luke F. Walton Won the Oscar.

14:32 Tristan Clopet But yeah, it was a beautiful score. I just thought it was so interesting. I don't know why my mind went to this where there's sort of like an epilogue in that film and it's meant to be Toth's last. uh i shouldn't spoil it for people should

14:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

14:46 Tristan Clopet i well

14:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

14:48 Tristan Clopet there's there's a there's an epilogue yeah

14:51 Luke F. Walton I'm looking up that Daniel Blumberg wrote over

14:55 Tristan Clopet dan daniel bloomberg or bloomberg yep

14:57 Luke F. Walton two

14:57 Tristan Clopet yep yeah

14:58 Luke F. Walton hours of music for the film.

15:00 Tristan Clopet it's a it's a long film i think it's a three hour film or something like that 202 and a half but yeah that score takes a sharp right turn at the end and if you've seen it you know what i'm talking about

15:11 Tristan Clopet for the epilogue and i just i found it so interesting it's kind of what i love about it it's just like there are no rules really i

15:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:17 Tristan Clopet mean all the shit that i've just said it's

15:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:19 Tristan Clopet it's not true i know you do whatever you like like you know it's it's so funny like that wc thing where it's like you gotta learn the rules and then and then remember that there's no rules you know it feels like if you do kind of step out of the confines intentionally sometimes it can have a pretty rewarding Uh, effect.

15:40 Luke F. Walton Well, I think that's why your choice of words for palette is really great. And I feel that way sometimes when I'm doing an album, too. And like I was reading about Beatles and some of their old recording sessions, and they were talking about Day in the Life and how they didn't quite have the budget to get the whole orchestra, so they were triple tracking the orchestra and it sounds a certain way.

16:01 Luke F. Walton All these like little constraints leading towards other decisions and obviously... Alec, Sgt. Pepper is pretty maximalist in terms of the...

16:09 Luke F. Walton the options that they had Yeah. but at the same time i feel like it was intentionally like this song is more baroque this song is more clarinet focused and then the last song we're going to smack you up the face with everything we've got i think that that progression even of itself with such a wide palette um it's choosing like how much do you deploy at what time and how do you save some in the tank for the maximal just like the epilogue but like day in the life of um

16:36 Luke F. Walton We'll hit you with all we've got.

16:38 Tristan Clopet Yes. Isn't it so interesting that they were having that sort of plan for their audience in that moment and it's almost exactly the same plan that a filmmaker has. It doesn't really exist that way in recorded music anymore. I find that so sad. I heard somebody speaking about Sgt. Pepper's and being like, the benefit of Mr. Kite would not be a song today because

17:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

17:05 Tristan Clopet it has a strict purpose in the journey of that album. You know, same with Maxwell's Silver Hammer, you know, like you're not going to like nobody wants to hear that song on its own. I love that song, by the way. I love that song. But you know what I mean? It's a function. It's a cog, you know, and like it's part of the journey. It's a scene.

17:22 Tristan Clopet in the in the record i find it so sad that like that's not a thing anymore like it's

17:27 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

17:28 Tristan Clopet rarely a thing you know

17:29 Luke F. Walton i

17:29 Tristan Clopet in record music

17:29 Luke F. Walton mean like the shuffling the playlist era both of those things kind

17:33 Tristan Clopet the

17:33 Luke F. Walton of cut against

17:33 Tristan Clopet single

17:34 Luke F. Walton it

17:34 Tristan Clopet era yeah

17:34 Luke F. Walton um the other thing that i think is a lost art is the like the closing song like that either

17:41 Tristan Clopet You mean like the hidden track?

17:42 Luke F. Walton the hidden track or like the last song in the album being like the best song in the album like

17:47 Tristan Clopet Yeah,

17:48 Luke F. Walton uh you

17:48 Tristan Clopet man.

17:48 Luke F. Walton know like you're like exactly

17:50 Tristan Clopet Yeah.

17:50 Luke F. Walton or like in utero like uh all apologies or uh just like

17:55 Tristan Clopet That was cool.

17:56 Luke F. Walton nirvana

17:56 Tristan Clopet You know, I never understood why artists didn't sequence their albums like a concert.

18:04 Luke F. Walton yeah exactly because nobody gets to it people burn out and then they don't get You know get to the the

18:08 Tristan Clopet Is

18:09 Luke F. Walton late

18:09 Tristan Clopet that

18:09 Luke F. Walton stuff.

18:09 Tristan Clopet what it is?

18:09 Luke F. Walton I think that's

18:10 Tristan Clopet I was

18:10 Luke F. Walton why I

18:10 Tristan Clopet always wondering that. Yeah.

18:11 Luke F. Walton try to I try to as much as I can in my music

18:14 Tristan Clopet I Yeah.

18:14 Luke F. Walton try to do that because like you know all these bands that are going out playing their their big record it's

18:20 Tristan Clopet yeah yeah

18:21 Luke F. Walton like sometimes it's a bummer when like the big record is front-loaded then they

18:25 Tristan Clopet totally

18:25 Luke F. Walton go out and play this tour and it's like well

18:26 Tristan Clopet and and and in today's world at least for me i'm i'm hearing a new record and i'm like you know i i and i don't blame them one bit but you know it's front-loaded so you hear a new on artist and you're like you you hear the first song you're like hell yeah this is cool hear the second song i like this one too hear the third song this is cool too

18:45 Tristan Clopet you know fourth fifth sixth you're like yeah it's cool you know and then seven eight nine you know and it's just it's such a sad trajectory that you know this artist kind of put all their favorites at the beginning because

18:56 Luke F. Walton mm-hmm yeah

18:56 Tristan Clopet they know that their audience's you know attention span is short and so they put all their favorites in the beginning and they put all their least favorites in the end and as a whole listening experience which nobody does anymore case in point

19:11 Tristan Clopet um you know it's kind of like a sad thing where it's like okay i've heard the first one that's the best they have to offer but then you know what i think about and and this has been a conversation of contradictions uh throughout i

19:21 Luke F. Walton Ain't it music?

19:22 Tristan Clopet hope you i hope you love music more after this uh like you too for joshua tree you know they did that they had they had like their friends come in or maybe their wives or somebody and they played them the record out of sequence And they asked them to rate them, like rank them.

19:40 Luke F. Walton Huh.

19:41 Tristan Clopet And they sequence

19:42 Luke F. Walton Interesting.

19:42 Tristan Clopet Joshua Tree based on how much everybody liked each track.

19:48 Luke F. Walton Really.

19:49 Tristan Clopet So they did exactly that.

19:50 Luke F. Walton Huh.

19:50 Tristan Clopet They put their most popular track first using data, not just like hunches or personal opinions.

19:55 Luke F. Walton Right.

19:56 Tristan Clopet And, you know, that's a pretty great pretty listening

19:58 Luke F. Walton it's

19:58 Tristan Clopet experience,

19:59 Luke F. Walton pretty good that's

19:59 Tristan Clopet you

19:59 Luke F. Walton that's

20:00 Tristan Clopet know, but I guess nobody's writing like a track nine like U2 writes a track nine.

20:04 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah that's like a special era of youtube but at the same time i think there's always hope you know like the pendulum could swing people are listening to four hour long podcasts and

20:16 Tristan Clopet Yes.

20:16 Luke F. Walton like mega youtube deep dives and stuff like there is this weird appetite for going further and maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe there that would return or some of that magic energy would come to the lp experience

20:29 Tristan Clopet You know what? And also just because the artist feels like track eight is not the thing that's going to. grab someone it

20:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:38 Tristan Clopet doesn't mean that it's not super cool in its own special way i

20:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah. But I do think it gets way cooler if you bookend it a little bit and like have some bangers at agree the end.

20:47 Tristan Clopet i agree but we're old so

20:48 Luke F. Walton But we're old, you know, that's how it goes. Yelling at clouds. I did it.

20:55 Tristan Clopet back in my day

20:57 Luke F. Walton So I want to talk about the transition from performing live, sharing stage with. incredible people we were talking about uh great good fine okay X

21:07 Tristan Clopet Mm

21:07 Luke F. Walton ambassadors

21:07 Tristan Clopet hmm.

21:07 Luke F. Walton Weeknd i mean like tovelo billy bragg do you miss any of that excitement or do you feel it in a different way yeah

21:15 Tristan Clopet I don't really miss it, but I have a very fond memory of it. Very grateful for it. Yeah. For me, it's like if I can do music for a living and I and I don't have to sleep in like, you know what I mean? You know where I'm going with this? Yeah. I also don't love the spotlight. I don't like being on stage very much.

21:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

21:36 Tristan Clopet And you kind of have to be on stage. With Great Good Fine Okay, it was great because I was next to the drummer. And I even turned my keys sideways, like staring side of the stage. And it's just like, I hope nobody looks at me. I'm going to do my thing. That's not a good recipe for touring.

21:54 Luke F. Walton yeah it's that's a good sign that's a good sign for you that you uh made

21:57 Tristan Clopet i feel like i made the right decision yeah but but i do i really do miss being in a band that's

22:02 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

22:03 Tristan Clopet wonderful

22:03 Luke F. Walton right

22:03 Tristan Clopet yeah because because because it is very isolating i mean you know if you're if you're kind of recording all your own parts and stuff yeah i do i do miss being in a band and like you know the next morning after or even right after the gig driving to the next thing talking about the gig i

22:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:19 Tristan Clopet have a lot of great memories of working with the people in that band but being on the road i don't know it's you know i am pretty grateful i i've seen like kind of all the 48 mainland states that's

22:30 Luke F. Walton That's cool.

22:31 Tristan Clopet that's pretty amazing you know um somebody's talking about el paso the other day and i was like i've been there you know

22:37 Luke F. Walton All right. You interrupt this very important broadcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars. Share it with your.

22:42 Luke F. Walton with your friends this is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow so if you want to do this you go onto the podcast screen right you click on the dot dot dot on spotify under there it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars if you could do that for me that's the best way for the algorithms all this stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please please please just please just hit those three dots and a five star would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out

23:08 Luke F. Walton out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and uh here's the rest of the episode

23:17 Tristan Clopet How why else would I go to El Paso, you

23:19 Luke F. Walton i've

23:19 Tristan Clopet know, have

23:19 Luke F. Walton never been to the dakotas that's that's a gap

23:22 Tristan Clopet you not

23:22 Luke F. Walton on my not a lot of shows are my

23:26 Tristan Clopet Yeah, right.

23:27 Luke F. Walton world maybe

23:29 Tristan Clopet They don't

23:29 Luke F. Walton during Appalachia music we could get

23:31 Tristan Clopet Yeah, right.

23:32 Luke F. Walton so

23:32 Tristan Clopet Yeah, right. Have you ever thought about doing scoring?

23:34 Luke F. Walton I've done some stuff for commercials I did that I didn't love it I still don't love it I've

23:40 Tristan Clopet Did you write a picture or did you have a song licensed?

23:43 Luke F. Walton done both I've done both writing a picture was definitely more fun I do think that a longer form piece would be more fun because then it would be a

23:51 Luke F. Walton much more of like an immersive experience rather than a lot of what i've done has either been like i'm pitching along with a lot of other people like you know inch deep mile wide kind of work the opposite would definitely be attractive but i don't know i'm not a great generalist i can play a lot of instruments but i like i've got a pretty strong sonic fingerprint at this point that i don't know if i'd be super good at doing anything other than like tangentially

24:17 Luke F. Walton my sound or

24:19 Tristan Clopet Yeah, yeah.

24:20 Luke F. Walton picture and if it was that i would i love deadlines i i like i i like making creative decisions and running um so i think i would enjoy the pace and the collaboration but yeah i would have to find the right fit i think i don't think i could just do anything yes

24:33 Tristan Clopet Is your musical interest as a listener broad?

24:38 Luke F. Walton definitely

24:39 Tristan Clopet So

24:39 Luke F. Walton Very

24:39 Tristan Clopet your musical interest is broad and yet you don't feel like it translates to a desire to write in those styles.

24:47 Luke F. Walton not really i i like borrow add to but i i at least for what i'm doing now and what i've kind of evolved into i feel confident and happy with kind of like my musical self and

25:02 Tristan Clopet Cool.

25:02 Luke F. Walton be like okay yeah like jazz version but it's gonna be like jazz version of that i'm not a good chameleon i kind of never have been and even i'm even more so now of like yeah i've like i've practiced i've played in bands of different genres and like i've done all that

25:15 Luke F. Walton all that stuff every time every time i try like at least for the last several years every time i try and be like okay i'm gonna make a country song or whatever it's like weird Scoobert Doobert folk rock country it's like ah okay and like it's just it's just me

25:30 Tristan Clopet But

25:30 Luke F. Walton all the way down not

25:31 Tristan Clopet are you kind of doing that, you're doing that under the guise of Scoobert Doobert?

25:36 Luke F. Walton always no

25:36 Tristan Clopet No,

25:37 Luke F. Walton i've

25:37 Tristan Clopet okay, so this might be our song for somebody else,

25:41 Luke F. Walton yep

25:41 Tristan Clopet but it kind of always... magnetizes

25:45 Luke F. Walton I

25:45 Tristan Clopet back think to,

25:45 Luke F. Walton it's yeah

25:46 Tristan Clopet right.

25:46 Luke F. Walton and I think it's just kind of like where my taste has gone on so many different levels I think I would be better if I had other people that I was working with if there was like another mix engineer if there was another drummer or something like that but if I'm like doing end-to-end it's just I got I have too much of myself into the final product and it just kind of sounds like me doing another genre sort of halfway which like maybe some people would be into their stuff sounding that way but uh

26:11 Luke F. Walton I don't know if I can authentically do something like make Appalachia style. I could make an Appalachia tinged thing. Maybe

26:20 Tristan Clopet Yeah,

26:20 Luke F. Walton with the right players I could. But yeah.

26:22 Tristan Clopet So you know what's interesting about what you're saying? It reminds me of hearing an interview with David Bowie. And man, I hope I'm not doing a 180 on this. I don't think I am. But I thought he said at one point... that he will he knows a song is finished when he can't hear himself in it isn't that crazy i

26:43 Luke F. Walton that's crazy yeah

26:44 Tristan Clopet i i hope i'm not fucking that up and doing you know doing the inverse you know the song's not finished until i only hear myself you know it

26:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.

26:52 Tristan Clopet could be the case I don't know but I

26:54 Luke F. Walton Either

26:54 Tristan Clopet I thought he

26:54 Luke F. Walton direction's

26:54 Tristan Clopet said I either

26:55 Luke F. Walton profound, so it's like, yeah.

26:56 Tristan Clopet direction yeah I mean For me, it's like, I love not hearing myself.

27:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:04 Tristan Clopet In fact, if I hear myself, I don't like it. It's like, oh, I've used that move before. I use that move in this project or whatever.

27:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:12 Tristan Clopet Oh, that's a tendency, you know, that I tend, you know, you are writing as an extension of you. And I'm writing as an extension of me. and this huge other thing you know so

27:30 Luke F. Walton yes i i almost feel like somebody that like only trained their arms or only trained their legs like i'm just so skewed in that direction when somebody's

27:37 Tristan Clopet like interesting

27:37 Luke F. Walton all right time to do bench press it's like well i yeah yeah only squat

27:40 Tristan Clopet interesting yeah yeah yeah yeah

27:42 Luke F. Walton which is like i can do some hopefully i'm not scaring away potential work

27:48 Tristan Clopet i know that's the scary part yeah that's the scary part man it's like you you do this Appalachian tinged score and then people like oh that's the guy who does Appalachia stuff you know it's like no no no this was this was a one-off or whatever you know hey I shouldn't say that because I like Appalachian music but but you know what's interesting though is that there is a little bit of

28:12 Tristan Clopet a self-consciousness that comes along with being trying to be a chameleon or aspiring to being a chameleon

28:18 Luke F. Walton Okay.

28:18 Tristan Clopet because you don't have any one genre mastered you

28:21 Luke F. Walton Okay.

28:22 Tristan Clopet know what i mean i mean you're writing a an appalachian style documentary and it's going to you know an appalachian you know bluegrass player a mandolinist is going to look at that and be like yeah this is like watered down or whatever you know uh unless you're like going full bore and you're getting i don't know kind of you're putting it through the filter you're putting everything through that

28:41 Tristan Clopet through that filter and yeah

28:42 Luke F. Walton Can I tell you a story? It just came into my head. So this was for a documentary. It was like the worst musical experience I think I've ever had. Not really, but sort of. I was asked to make Bavarian music.

28:53 Luke F. Walton i was like i don't i don't have history with the very music i'm just gonna listen to

28:57 Tristan Clopet But

28:57 Luke F. Walton it of

28:58 Tristan Clopet you said yes because you have course to say yes.

28:59 Luke F. Walton because i want money and uh i made this like weird accordion i'm like i don't have time to hire a player i'm reaching out to the guy that's doing like the production coordinator whatever and he's like no you just got to do midi you got to figure it out i turn in this like phoned in weird accordion keyboard midi thing and then the director

29:19 Luke F. Walton director is like i'm presumably in a very thick german accent this composer doesn't understand the music of bavaria

29:25 Tristan Clopet Oh,

29:25 Luke F. Walton at all i don't man i'm sorry i'm

29:27 Tristan Clopet Oh, no. Did you

29:30 Luke F. Walton so

29:30 Tristan Clopet change

29:30 Luke F. Walton embarrassed

29:30 Tristan Clopet your name for the gig? Give

29:32 Luke F. Walton i

29:32 Tristan Clopet yourself

29:32 Luke F. Walton don't

29:32 Tristan Clopet a German name?

29:33 Luke F. Walton yeah exactly yeah that's that's that was the piece

29:36 Tristan Clopet That

29:36 Luke F. Walton that was too

29:36 Tristan Clopet was

29:36 Luke F. Walton big

29:36 Tristan Clopet the problem.

29:37 Luke F. Walton exactly Yeah, no, it's it. I'm certain it sounds terrible. It's probably it probably is the worst piece of music I've ever made and I did it professionally. So sorry, Bavaria, I've let you down.

29:50 Tristan Clopet no i mean it's it's it's a journey you know and like sometimes it's going to work and sometimes it's not and we make music that's what we do you know and i'm glad you took the gig I'm glad you had that experience. I've had many like that. It's, you know, it's only makes us stronger.

30:09 Luke F. Walton it's true it's true that's

30:11 Tristan Clopet Oh,

30:11 Luke F. Walton so

30:11 Tristan Clopet but who the hell says play a fucking MIDI accordion? That was, you got bad advice, man.

30:16 Luke F. Walton true it was just set up to fail and i failed did i

30:21 Tristan Clopet Oh, jeez. Yeah, I've done kind of all kinds of stuff like that. There was one time I had a music editor working on a film.

30:30 Tristan Clopet last minute of course reaching out to me is there any way you can do like a country song and i was like yeah i love country what kind of you looking for and he's like something like down and out at a honky tonk in texas in the 80s and i was like perfect say no more so i wrote this song she left me and took the dog and i did it in like 12 hours and i sent it in and

30:58 Tristan Clopet it didn't make the film uh it was in it was in the edit uh

31:03 Luke F. Walton Well,

31:03 Tristan Clopet this

31:03 Luke F. Walton yeah,

31:03 Tristan Clopet this is a film that you may have seen um huge it would have been awesome to be in this film because i love

31:08 Luke F. Walton okay,

31:08 Tristan Clopet this film but uh it was in the edit for a really long time and then they just decided to go um musicless in that scene but sorry it would have been source music meaning a diegetic they're at the bar these two people are at the bar that was one of the best moments of my career and it didn't even make the film But it was just so cool to say, all right, I have 12 hours, let me listen to a couple George Strait songs,

31:31 Tristan Clopet you know, let me hear how that snare sounds, let me hear how the lead guitar sounds. and do it and yeah it's faking it totally

31:39 Luke F. Walton yeah

31:39 Tristan Clopet faking it it's really fun to to try

31:42 Luke F. Walton yeah

31:42 Tristan Clopet to try and and and do it so

31:44 Luke F. Walton and you do learn a lot by just by doing it because you have to listen so deeply you have to be you have to keep the decisions moving yeah

31:50 Tristan Clopet much man so much when i was uh really really young and youtube was just invented i thought it would be cool to get like people to check out my music by doing

32:03 Tristan Clopet covers i used to do like these split screen covers where i'd play i'd record myself playing an instrument of time hopefully people would search for the song and then they would see the cover you know and this is not new now but back when youtube came out and it worked like people found you know people found the stuff that i was doing and then and then found my music but the reason i'm telling you this is because i learned so much learning that song in two hours

32:29 Tristan Clopet and then performing it under pressure you know i gotta get this video up on youtube in the next whatever so it you know you search for that song and and my video comes up third or fourth or fifth or whatever man doing that you learn so much you learn so much so fast it's like that what directors say to young directors or just like you can go to film school and it'll help you or whatever but you're not going to learn until you till you do it the best advice is just go do it

32:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:55 Tristan Clopet And you know, it'll suck in the beginning and whatever your your craft will not meet your opportunity yet and you keep doing it.

33:02 Luke F. Walton I feel that way so strongly about like tools, production tools, new VST like instrument or technical side of music creation. It's like, yes, you can take a class or whatever, but you're going to learn so much more if you just keep running into problems and blowing down the wall, especially on the technical side, because you can brute force it. on like

33:24 Tristan Clopet Yeah.

33:25 Luke F. Walton i don't understand how this program works i'm going to figure out a way for this program to work like a musical instrument or playing drums or something like that your whole neurons have to change for something that's just purely technical craft just like getting in it getting your hands dirty uh

33:38 Tristan Clopet Yeah.

33:38 Luke F. Walton did the world for me

33:40 Tristan Clopet Yeah. Yeah. I went to school a little bit for recording engineering and I remember the day that the professor was trying to teach us what compression sounds like, and it was so hard for me to hear what compression sounded like. And he would, you know, he would give us an example of like an AC/DC song, be like, do you hear that? And be like, no, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

34:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:04 Tristan Clopet What, you know, and then you get in and you start messing with the threshold and you're like, oh, now I get what compression is doing,

34:10 Luke F. Walton Yep.

34:11 Tristan Clopet what the difference between that and a limiter is.

34:13 Luke F. Walton Yep.

34:14 Tristan Clopet to your exactly your point get your hands on it you know and like i don't think there's any danger in this generation or the

34:20 Tristan Clopet Yeah or the next generation of doing that i mean you're forced to do it you know but yeah Yeah, talking about Luke and Russ, those two guys are incredible. I mean, they're incredible in general.

34:31 Luke F. Walton Mm

34:31 Tristan Clopet They're

34:31 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

34:32 Tristan Clopet incredible musicians, but they are wonderful technically too. And they've taught me so much, you know, even just sending them references or even working together on things. And even, I mean, I still work with them.

34:44 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

34:45 Tristan Clopet From college,

34:45 Luke F. Walton i

34:45 Tristan Clopet yeah.

34:46 Luke F. Walton mean that's the biggest thing about like music school is you get to be around people that are so good that you just learn from being next to them like osmosis

34:55 Tristan Clopet I didn't go to music school.

34:56 Luke F. Walton you didn't go to music school interesting

34:57 Tristan Clopet No, I couldn't get in to the music engineering.

35:03 Luke F. Walton gotcha

35:03 Tristan Clopet I wanted to be a music engineer because

35:06 Luke F. Walton okay because

35:06 Tristan Clopet I didn't like the spotlight.

35:07 Luke F. Walton you went to um right

35:08 Tristan Clopet Yeah,

35:09 Luke F. Walton exactly

35:09 Tristan Clopet UM, yeah,

35:10 Luke F. Walton but

35:10 Tristan Clopet yeah.

35:10 Luke F. Walton but you were on a different path

35:11 Tristan Clopet I

35:11 Luke F. Walton than

35:12 Tristan Clopet was an English major. sure i

35:13 Luke F. Walton I know that. That's cool. Cool.

35:16 Tristan Clopet couldn't i couldn't get in the music school because i didn't have um there was like one fucking science class i couldn't i didn't have and i'm terrible it's like chemistry or something it's like something

35:26 Luke F. Walton You've

35:26 Tristan Clopet really basic

35:26 Luke F. Walton got to get chemistry to get into music school?

35:29 Tristan Clopet maybe it wasn't chemistry maybe it was physics i didn't take either of them i never made it that far in high school uh but yeah they they they said no thank you and uh which is cool whatever uh i went to I really enjoyed my learning there at that school.

35:45 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

35:45 Tristan Clopet And then I just hung out with the music kids because I was doing my music on the side. And that's where I met so many of my friends, you know, now. But yeah, like learning so much from them. Yeah, there's just just being in the room, listening, looking, you can pick up a lot of stuff, you

36:05 Luke F. Walton Yes.

36:05 Tristan Clopet know, if you're open to it.

36:07 Luke F. Walton Yes. And if you have a certain baseline level of understanding, like one of the things that I remember early sessions versus sessions now, a lot easier to watch people and follow their workflows now because I understand most of the tools and I'm seeing how they're deployed versus in the beginning, it just was like a whir of shortcuts

36:25 Tristan Clopet Oh,

36:25 Luke F. Walton and windows.

36:26 Tristan Clopet you're like some beautiful gui like um pops up and you're like what are all those colors you know wow what's a what's a phaser you know yeah man

36:42 Luke F. Walton So I also I wanted to ask you about the different films and works that you're scoring. Does it does it make you nervous when you're like, all right. like martin freeman or like uh

36:54 Tristan Clopet yeah hell

36:55 Luke F. Walton you

36:55 Tristan Clopet yeah yeah

36:55 Luke F. Walton know brian cranston it's like yeah

36:57 Tristan Clopet yeah

36:58 Luke F. Walton okay because you're seeing you're seeing them on picture you're like this is one of the best actors

37:02 Tristan Clopet yeah

37:02 Luke F. Walton and they're like i need to be their co-star right now

37:05 Tristan Clopet yeah man exactly uh i remember the so the first gig the reason i had to to leave um great good final k was because i i kind of always knew that film scoring was a dream and i i got offered an assistantship right is that a word assistantship apprenticeship

37:19 Luke F. Walton it

37:20 Tristan Clopet whatever

37:20 Luke F. Walton is now you're

37:20 Tristan Clopet i was assistant

37:21 Luke F. Walton the anglian

37:21 Tristan Clopet for

37:21 Luke F. Walton English

37:21 Tristan Clopet A

37:21 Luke F. Walton major,

37:21 Tristan Clopet great

37:22 Luke F. Walton you're the English major.

37:22 Tristan Clopet composer named Chris Hagen offered me a gig as his assistant and my first project was the Infiltrator with Brian Cranston and I remember Chris was the best best possible composer to work for I mean encouraging is not the right word like And he just gave me every opportunity. I thought I was like, yeah, I'll go get coffee. You know, I work my way up, I'll take out the trash.

37:47 Tristan Clopet And he was like, no, I need you to do this and this and this, you know, and I started doing like a little bit of mixing. I started doing like some session setups, you know, finding him interesting instruments to build out his like templates and stuff, some routing stuff. And I remember very early on, way earlier than both of us wanted, he was under the gun.

38:07 Tristan Clopet has a composer often is in the film world and he was out in LA and he asked me to go to his studio and open up a session and work on it I can't remember what I exactly had to do and I'm writing in the cockpit now and i'm by myself he's 3 000 miles away and i'm like oh my god it's brian cranston on the freaking computer and this is right after breaking bad Oh, oh

38:32 Luke F. Walton my God. Yeah.

38:32 Tristan Clopet my god man i was so like it was like a pinch me moment it's like oh my this is so cool like this has to be good because people will watch this you know like holy shit uh so yeah it's not nerves it's actually i i love it because it

38:49 Tristan Clopet it is so inspiring to know that you are it's way easier to to write music underneath Brian Cranston than it is you know um somebody who's not Brian Cranston there are way less famous actors that that I've scored like scored I don't know what the hell the verbiage is but that are just as incredible you know and it's like when you get that performance it is so inspiring it fills my heart up man makes me so happy that I'm doing what I'm doing when you're like

39:17 Tristan Clopet You know, you're completing that scene or that sequence, you know, the actor or the director, whomever, the lighting, you know, the DP, whoever is taking that scene 80% and it's your job as the composer to finish that 20%. When you do it, it is like so fulfilling, you know, it's just, it's what keeps me coming back, you know, through all the muck and all the.

39:42 Tristan Clopet tough deadlines and the you know all this stuff is like that is the feeling that I live for and you've created like something with all these other

39:51 Tristan Clopet great people you know they're trying their asses off at what they're doing and like sometimes you got to do 80% of the scene and that's by design that's not because an actor is doing less it's because you know the music needs to do this in this scene or this in this montage or whatever but just kind of working with the other artists in this collage you know is so cool and there's a scene in startup season one Martin Freeman's character

40:12 Tristan Clopet And there's a scene in StartUp season one, Martin Freeman's character is having a mental breakdown.

40:20 Tristan Clopet and he's in the car by himself he's done something that he wasn't supposed to do he regrets it and it's a pretty big consequence it's actually kind of brilliant that the director Ben Keetai just thought like what are we going to do for this how are we going to show this character kind of breaking down I'll tell you what we're going to do we're going to put a camera on Martin Freeman and we're going to let him break down for like two and a half minutes and it's like heart-stopping

40:48 Tristan Clopet just watching this this guy go through all the million options in his head of how he's going to get out of what he did and he's sitting in a car like he's in the front seat of the car the car's not moving he's

41:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:03 Tristan Clopet just like he needs a second to like take it all in and figure out what he's gonna do or whatever and he's incredible because he's martin freeman and then it's like it comes to comes to me and you're like okay score this you know and

41:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah

41:19 Tristan Clopet ben ben always says like you know he he's he's he's wonderful to work with because he knows exactly what he wants you know he doesn't need and i'm not i'm not saying that the directors or showrunners that you use temp or inferior anyway like no it's but ben has an idea a theory about score he wants the score to be what the character feels in their gut

41:42 Tristan Clopet especially in sequences like that so he's just like make music that sounds like what is happening in his gut in that sequence remember that night so vividly scoring that scene because it's just like it's me and this this incredible actor and it's like don't fuck it up like just he's doing so much on screen

42:00 Tristan Clopet you don't you know like he's doing 80 you know he's doing 90 and your job is to just kind of paint over it and dance with him and dance with the cutting and it's so rewarding it's so rewarding to just do that you know i'm sure it's like for you or for people who are in you know bands like full-time it's like when you're playing with your bandmates you're dancing with them i'm

42:25 Luke F. Walton Yes.

42:26 Tristan Clopet never i've never been a great improviser so that's why why that's why i do it on film but yeah man it's uh seeing these people seeing these like luminaries on the screen so inspiring it's a little bit nerve-wracking but it's very inspiring because it's just you you can just discern so much emotion from what they're doing you know it's it's quite easy to like put that into music it's not like you ever sit there and go gosh what am i gonna do

42:57 Tristan Clopet you just you take what they're giving you you know which is a hell of a lot it's a lot harder when the scene is like you know i've done my fair share of projects where you're like what is the purpose of the scene or like what is the actor trying to you know to convey then maybe the music is doing a little bit more than it should be doing you know and that that's really hard that's a hard position to be in yeah but that's a good that's a great question i hadn't i hadn't actually kind of articulated that that feeling before

43:22 Luke F. Walton That's beautiful. It's beautiful. When you're breaking... breaking down a performance like that like you know if you don't remember this exact one just

43:29 Tristan Clopet Yeah.

43:29 Luke F. Walton zoom out a little bit of are you blocking it out like are you putting in markers of like this kind of emotion this kind of vibe this enters here like do you sketch it that way or do you just start like laying down instruments and doing it by feel like how do you how do you structure just from a procedural standpoint taking on that challenge

43:45 Tristan Clopet Really good question. I think that rhythm is something that has more or less been established.

43:53 Tristan Clopet because the cut has a rhythm you know as we said the tone is something you can only really extrapolate when you see it so i don't know how to put it into words but you kind of just get a sense of what the picture what the colors it's not like a synesthesia type thing where you're it's not like that it's like it's a timbre thing

44:19 Tristan Clopet It's like it's a timbre thing where you're just like what what tam you start with tam like what needs to How present should the score be making itself? Are we cutting are we kind of like? really truly underscore

44:33 Tristan Clopet And I feel like that's a great place. That's a great energy kind of, you're trying to figure out the energy of what the score is supposed to be doing in that scene. So with that scene, with the Martin Freeman scene in the car, you're in the car with him. It's really dark. He has the visor up.

44:50 Tristan Clopet and he's kind of like he's kind of looking at himself in the mirror you know the little mirror and the visor and the only light in that scene is kind of like the illumination from the dashboard and the thing and like you know you know what that sounds like you know we're not going to be using like a neck pickup les paul you know like power chord you know what i mean like we know what that feels like

45:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

45:15 Tristan Clopet what does that feel like in music that's the fun part is like what does that sound sound like so yeah it's it's it's a wonderful exploration i think i used like a upright piano super low like the lowest register a little bit of like a berlioz foreboding thing and then i had like a really really really fucked up funny enough electric guitar maybe it was in the neck pickup um like just wailing

45:43 Tristan Clopet Wailing, not so much lyrical stuff, but really, really fast right-hand stuff,

45:47 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

45:47 Tristan Clopet super quiet. I wanted it to just feel like there was like a worm in his stomach that was just like...

45:55 Tristan Clopet Ooh, nice.

45:55 Luke F. Walton Nice,

45:55 Tristan Clopet like

45:56 Luke F. Walton sounds

45:56 Tristan Clopet restless you know and the whole time we kind of have this like motor of like the really low like first octave on the piano and just the most important thing is to not do too much and that's just kind of what that moment felt like was just like this march towards a horrible horrible outcome because he knew it was he knew he couldn't really get himself out of this situation but it's not just a march it's this like

46:23 Tristan Clopet It's this internal pain and like panic and scraping like of his gut where he just knew like

46:33 Tristan Clopet i know i can't do anything i'm marching towards a horrible outcome but i'm gonna try i'm gonna try i'm gonna try i know there's something i can do i know there's something i can do and like putting those things together was what matched what was on the screen you know what i mean that's a really weird answer to the how i would think about you know that question yeah

46:52 Luke F. Walton I got one more for you if you're ready.

46:54 Tristan Clopet yeah

46:55 Luke F. Walton All right, so this show is called Love Music More. The segment's called Love Music Why. It's a complicated question, but it's a very simple question. We've talked about it already quite a bit. Why do you love music?

47:08 Tristan Clopet Oh gosh, do I?

47:10 Luke F. Walton Fair. That's fair. The shortest love music

47:12 Tristan Clopet Sometimes

47:13 Luke F. Walton -wise

47:13 Tristan Clopet I

47:13 Luke F. Walton response.

47:13 Tristan Clopet do, sometimes I don't. Okay. Why do I love music, man? I don't know why I love it, man. I don't. I think it's a little bit magic.

47:27 Tristan Clopet I can't say like that it makes me feel a certain way or, you know, like a lot of people say, a lot of non-musicians I've heard say, I love music because it makes me happy. I'm having a bad day. I put on music. It makes me happy. It's, I think when you're in bed with music like we are, it's a different sort of relationship. You know, we like you and I will put music on and it could make us really sad.

47:52 Tristan Clopet um it could be cathartic you could make us really angry it could alleviate anger so it's like asking like why do you love your wife you know like i don't know just i don't know but i can't live without her you know it's like it's yeah it's it's really hard it's hard it's like i don't know why i don't know why i wish i knew why but i can't articulate it why do i love music it's not a choice i know that much

48:19 Tristan Clopet you know yeah

48:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

48:20 Tristan Clopet man

48:20 Luke F. Walton I like

48:20 Tristan Clopet i don't know i'm

48:21 Luke F. Walton the analogy.

48:22 Tristan Clopet really sorry why do you love music what's what's

48:24 Luke F. Walton I

48:24 Tristan Clopet a good

48:24 Luke F. Walton don't

48:24 Tristan Clopet answer

48:24 Luke F. Walton want to turn

48:24 Tristan Clopet for this around. question what's a good answer why do you love music yeah

48:27 Luke F. Walton I don't know what a good answer is. That's why I'm asking so many people the same question. I really like the analogy, though, to your wife, because I've always felt that where if people ask me why, it feels like it becomes...

48:42 Luke F. Walton shallow false version of itself if I try and just like list off positive personality traits it's like that's not the love if the reason why I was in love with my wife was because she was perfect it wouldn't be love either because love is accepting imperfection and that would just be recognition or like worship And that also is more shallow than

49:11 Tristan Clopet Yeah.

49:11 Luke F. Walton what I think the relationship to music is because it isn't always pretty. And there are times where you like question why, why did you spend so much time doing this? There are a million other things that if you just spent 10% of the time that you put into this, into that, you'd have a wildly different life.

49:30 Tristan Clopet Yeah.

49:31 Luke F. Walton But then you would also have a wildly different life. It's like all of these tradeoffs and then doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like a service. It feels like it's all things. And I personally think that music is the best art form, totally open to debate. But I feel that way because it brings the most out of me and it feels the most reflective of what it's actually like to be a human being.

49:56 Tristan Clopet Hmm, interesting.

49:57 Luke F. Walton A tangible intangible lives and dies as time passes. it's reborn like a phoenix and then dies again i really like intros and outros because i think that they are these anchor points of that music existing and then not existing and i think if you don't pay attention to them and treat them with the love and care you're not like treating the entire piece or whatever you're making with love and care um

50:21 Tristan Clopet Hmm.

50:21 Luke F. Walton it's part of the reason why i don't like commercial music very much because i felt like it was so commoditized um that it almost felt like using my powers for bad

50:31 Tristan Clopet yeah totally totally totally yeah i totally

50:35 Luke F. Walton because i get love

50:35 Tristan Clopet that so side too

50:35 Luke F. Walton much if i didn't love it so much i it wouldn't hurt me you know it's like what i think yeah that's that's my uh my tiny response

50:43 Tristan Clopet yeah

50:43 Luke F. Walton to it

50:43 Tristan Clopet it feels like a parent to me

50:46 Luke F. Walton yeah

50:46 Tristan Clopet feels

50:46 Luke F. Walton really

50:46 Tristan Clopet like you know like why do you love your parent i don't know i was just born loving them like you know um they're just they've always been a part of my life and i've never questioned why i love my dad but

50:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

50:57 Tristan Clopet you

50:57 Luke F. Walton yeah

50:57 Tristan Clopet know I do because he's my dad you know it feels a little bit like that but yeah that's that's an interesting thing man like using your your gift or your talent or whatever you want to call it like using your aptitude using your years of honing the skill What do you want to use it for?

51:18 Luke F. Walton Mm

51:18 Tristan Clopet And

51:18 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

51:18 Tristan Clopet I think, you know, you have a lot to say. It's so interesting that anything you can create, anything you create, it's so hard for you to not have yourself in it because you, I feel like I'm the total opposite. And I think that's such a beautiful thing,

51:34 Luke F. Walton It is

51:34 Tristan Clopet you

51:34 Luke F. Walton a beautiful

51:34 Tristan Clopet know,

51:34 Luke F. Walton thing.

51:34 Tristan Clopet such a, such a cool thing that like. We can do whatever we want with this thing,

51:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

51:41 Tristan Clopet you know, and you know, there's no rules

51:43 Luke F. Walton totally. And I'm super jealous of the ability to hear, digest. turn it into a version of and like pull yourself out of it i think all of Well, that is

51:56 Tristan Clopet so don't

51:56 Luke F. Walton cool but it

51:57 Tristan Clopet be jealous because I'm not saying I can do it,

51:59 Luke F. Walton yeah okay fair

52:00 Tristan Clopet you

52:00 Luke F. Walton i

52:00 Tristan Clopet know, I try

52:01 Luke F. Walton think

52:01 Tristan Clopet to do it.

52:01 Luke F. Walton the credits speak for themselves like i don't know i i think it is fun that you can have within the talent of music and the vocation of music and the craft of music of which it's all because i have seen various levels of talent with various levels of hard work and it is not a fair race um myself

52:20 Tristan Clopet Of course not.

52:21 Luke F. Walton included there are plenty of people that blow have blown by me several times over but like it is fun that you can even within that have micro versions in the same way there's all these different types of intelligences uh trying to distill it into like an iq test or a jury in a music school or something like that it's like that is reducing it so far that um it's

52:43 Tristan Clopet Reducing

52:43 Luke F. Walton like yeah

52:44 Tristan Clopet it to a chemistry class. Yeah, I agree.

52:46 Luke F. Walton yeah to one chemistry class So where can people keep in touch? Where can they send you good chemistry books for you to read?

52:58 Tristan Clopet My Instagram is Tristan Clopet at Tristan Clopet and I don't know if I'm on anything else

53:06 Luke F. Walton That's enough.

53:07 Tristan Clopet Yeah, that's enough.

53:07 Luke F. Walton We'll get you.

53:08 Tristan Clopet Yeah.

53:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah. And.

53:11 Tristan Clopet We'll reach out, listen to your to your work and um Thanks, yeah, man. definitely uh hopefully we can hang out sometime.

53:17 Tristan Clopet Thank you, buddy. Yeah. I've really enjoyed talking to you. Yeah. I was excited to speak to you after hearing your previous interviews and this has been a lot of fun and just as engaging and insightful as I thought it would be.

53:28 Tristan Clopet Okay, said that. Yeah.