Kevin Kiner: An Interview with the Star Wars Legend
CineConcerts was very fortunate to speak with Kevin Kiner about his score for the final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars! We discussed his approach to the Star Wars universe, the journey of Clone Wars from beginning to end, and what’s on the horizon!
Composer Kevin Kiner
CineConcerts (CC): Tell us a little bit about your musical background and how you got started on this particular project. Or maybe I should say how you got started with Star Wars in general.
Kevin Kiner (KK): Well, so my music background is that I grew up playing basically in garage bands when I was a kid. Grew up playing Yes and Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and whoever. Then I went to college because I was told I needed to not be a musician in order to make a living and then I just started gigging around LA and it kind of worked out and I got a job as music director for an act that went overseas. And so, I got into arranging for them and we were using like show orchestras and stuff.
So, then I dropped out of school and I was pre-med, so I dropped out my senior year and I had good grades, I was going to med school. But it’s better, I would have been a terrible doctor.
Then I came back to town, I got married in the Philippines and we've been married 38 years now, my wife and I, and I decided to stay off the road and I got some gigs for television shows. My first ever television show was a blooper show called Foul-ups, Bleeps, and Blunders with Steve Lawrence and Don Rickles as the hosts and then I started scoring dramatic series and some films. I did Leprechaun way back when, Jennifer Aniston's first gig as well. That was my first movie.
Then I started getting bigger and bigger television shows, I did CSI Miami. Which was the number one show in the world for many years and I think George Lucas was a fan of the music of CSI Miami. So, I got the opportunity to audition for Clone Wars. I think there were about five of us who auditioned for it and I got the gig. Huge honor. But having said that, I had done my homework, I had the Star Wars score since the early 80’s and I studied that score. I show it to people when I do clinics or whatever. I don't have it with me right now, but it's all marked up the cover’s coming off, I’ve written all over it what I think that John Williams was thinking in certain places. I mean, I really, really studied that score.
And so, I feel like when I did that audition it wasn't like I had to learn anything. I just had to execute it.
CC: Speaking of the legacy of Star Wars. It's really permeated every corner of our lives. I mean somebody who hasn't even seen an original film all the way through can hum at least two of the themes. So, the music in particular is very prolific.
What's it like to not only be a part of something with such a long and famous legacy, but a big part of its expansion? The Clone Wars, Rebels, and now The Bad Batch, they're really the bulk of what Star Wars has for television.
KK: I mean, it's a huge honor and it’s a huge responsibility. Having said that, it's everybody's dream, I think, certainly was my dream when I bought the Star Wars score in 1980-whatever-it-was. You know, I wanted to sound like that. I wanted to make that sound, that's why I bought the score ‘cause I wanted to know what the heck he was doing to make that sound.
Because I’m a guitar player, I’m a rock and roll guitarist and I was not steeped in classical, any of the teachings about classical music or whatever. I continue now to try to overcome that and make up for that by studying scores. Even now, I’m studying Stravinsky’s Petrushka and I was just listening and studying that today. So, I continue to try to learn and further my classical chops.
Having said that, I think there’s a strength I have in coming from the rock and roll world, and there’s modernism or at least hooked into the zeitgeist that is of now and of contemporary film score, so, I try to make that a strength of mine and at the same time you have to serve Star Wars. So, I'm trying to move the sound forward but also stay true to the philosophy and to the musical vibe of what a Star Wars score is.
CC: What would you say is an aspect of the score that you've brought to these shows that is really sort of your touch to the Star Wars franchise?
KK: I think percussion initially was a big thing, that was part of George Lucas's directive. It's always been one of my strengths when scoring things, is writing for percussion and writing percussively driven scores. Also, now, I believe that, you know, like with the very last episode of Clone Wars. a lot of analog synthesizers and stuff I used are things that I had from the early days, you know Moog synthesizers and things I had even thrown away and I had to go buy a new ones again because they’re back in vogue.
Some of that electronic sound, especially the very last couple scenes in episode 12, season 7 is all electronic. That's something that was never done for Star Wars that I think I brought to it.
CC: What was your process for scoring? Did you ever receive the scripts first or did you receive them in process of animating or did you just get the final animation to score to?
KK: I get something that's close to the final animation and then hopefully by the time I'm in earnest really composing I get almost all final animation. I do get the final cut so I'm writing in time in the correct sequence. I write to picture. I have always been somebody—I don't sit around and write concertos. I've always been someone who is inspired by picture. When I see picture, I hear something instantly and that’s my thing. I’m not a songwriter and I'm not a classical composer either. I am somebody who feels a mood from a movie or a television or an animation or whatever it is and then writes music to that. That's my muse, is the motion picture.
CC: How would you say that the music of the show The Clone Wars has sort of evolved over time? You’ve been with the show for 7 years so it's a lot of time to let the characters develop and grow.
Still from Star Wars: The Clone Wars
I know that the character Ahsoka is for sure the first character that I associate with the show just sort of because she was introduced there. So, with her in particular it really is from beginning to end for her—although not exactly the end, her character's now appearing in other things. How would you say that the music in general has sort of evolved from when you first started to now?
KK: Well, you say that she's the first character you associate with Clone Wars. And that was the first theme I wrote for George Lucas and Dave Filoni.
CC: Really?
KK: Yeah, that was the first theme I wrote. And I remember writing for that theme and I used Japanese flute called a shakuhachi just trying to feel her femininity but her strength, there's this light and there's a Darkness to her and there's both of that in her theme you know?
As there are in so many Star Wars characters, you talk about the light side and the dark side of the force so that's in all the characters. There were so many elements I was trying to put in Ahsoka’s theme and I'm really proud of Ahsoka’s theme. I mean, John Williams has written some of the greatest melodies in the history of film composing and I tried to meet that bar when I’m writing for Star Wars, it’s a very high bar. You got to jump pretty high.
CC: Specifically for a single character. What's it like to really get to show her at sort of all stages of development for me the first cue that actually springs to mind I believe is called “Ahsoka Leaves.” It's actually in a previous season the beautiful, beautiful piece, but then of course she comes back in the last in the last season and there's a cue for that which I can't remember the name of.
KK: But she doesn’t come back to the Jedi. And the title “Ahsoka Leaves” is not her leaving Anakin, but the Jedi Order. That’s what it’s all about. That’s possibly one of, over the hundred hours of Star Wars music I’ve written, that’s probably my piece of music that I ever wrote for it.
And what’s it’s like is…it's a dream, you don't get to do that often. There aren't many vehicles, you know, feature films don't usually allow you to do that because it's such a long
arc that has played out over years of my life, years of the character's development, years of the sophistication of animation and the way that story-telling has evolved. I’ve been doing this for 14 or 15 years now on Star Wars so everything has evolved and we have evolved, Filoni and myself and everybody associated with Star Wars animation has evolved, our tastes have evolved as have the characters.
So, to be able to kind of be linked with her when she was just a little girl and just kind of thrust into a really gnarly situation in the first clone wars feature film to when she leaves the Jedi Order, to where she's walking through at the end of season 7, she's walking through the battlefield.
Even into Star Wars Rebels, she’s fighting Darth Vader. It’s just tremendous. You really get to sink your teeth into something like that.
CC: My personal favorite cue from the last season is actually “Burying the Dead.” It’s just so beautiful and I feel like it's one of those moments that fits so perfectly that it must have either sprung to you fully formed or must have been a real challenge. Would you say that there any cues in particular that jump out as having been really challenging or just, boom, you had it instantly?
KK: When I first wrote Ahsoka’s themes, the first thing I ever wrote for Clone Wars, that came just right away. I had ideas and things I wanted to achieve with the theme, but it just flowed really naturally.
The only thing that’s been really, really hard the whole time in Star Wars was rearranging John William’s original theme for the main title. In almost all my interviews I tell the story that I said to George Lucas, like, “John Williams did this correctly the first time.”
This is my new boss, right? And he's George Lucas and I'm arguing with him that it's a bad idea what he's telling me to do. Because I just can’t imagine I don’t think—I’m positive, I didn't improve the theme at all. I did something different with it, and I think I didn't ruin it, which was probably the best possible outcome. It’s like do a better version of the most identifiable piece of music on the face of the Earth by one of the great masters. I'm sorry, Rembrandt was great. Don't mess with it.
So, anyhow, that was uncomfortable. But I'm really happy that I did what I did and didn't, I don't think, wreck an immortal melody. I brought it forward and put some percussion with it and did something interesting
CC: I think it works really well. I personally really like that it's a little different because it's a good setup for the show. Because it is Star Wars and it is connected, but it's not quite the same. I do like that it's got its own flavor in the Star Wars universe and I think that the new rendition of the main theme really sort of sets you up for that in a nice way.
KK: Thank you. Scared the ever-lovin’ crap out of me, but…
CC: Yeah, I can imagine that that's got to be scary, one of the first projects you have to do.
KK: That's why when I was able to write something of my own which was kind of the next thing I did. The first assignment was to rearrange that theme, but the first theme of my own that I wrote was Ahsoka theme. Maybe that's why it was so easy, I get to do something of my own now.
Composer Kevin Kiner
CC: Tell me a little bit about the music for The Bad Batch. I know it's going to be released this May on Disney+, what can you tell us about the music so far?
KK: A few things. I’ll show you an instrument that I use. I only use it in a couple of cues. This is called a GuitarViol and it’s a fretted, six string [guitar]. You bow it. It makes a very distinctive sound. I play that in a couple of scenes, very soloistically with just kind of an atmospheric sound and with a vocalist also and that's in a few scenes.
We’ll probably release that on the soundtrack when the first few episodes come out, sometime, but having said that, I am bringing new things to that. And it does move forward in the same way that Season 7 of Clone Wars moves forward, but yet it’s still a Star Wars score and it's still me.
And my sons are co-composing with me and they do a fabulous job. My oldest son is 33 and my youngest is 29 and they keep me fresh and they're very good composers.
CC: Are there any cues in particular for The Clone Wars: The Final Season that you would really like people to take a step back and listen to again or to really focus on?
KK: I'm nominated for an Annie this season of animation awards for Clone Wars Season 7, Episode 12 and on my website and I'm putting up a video that has three of the pieces of music that I wrote for episode 12 and it plays along with the scenes they were written for but with no dialogue, without any sound effects so you can hear the music. So that would be on my website on KevinKiner.com. I don’t sell it or anything like that it’s just there for you to listen to, I think it’s going to be in the for your consideration category on my website.
CC: Can you tell us which cues will be on there or should we wait and see?
KK: Yeah, it’s the very opening cue of the show, which we recorded via Zoom in Budapest, Hungary, with A live choir and a live orchestra. And there’s an action scene and then there’s the very end sequence which we were talking about, “Burying the dead.” And then Darth Vader, walking up and picking up Ahsoka's lightsaber, you’ll be able to hear all of that in its fullness.
Still from Star Wars: The Clone Wars
CC: Recording on Zoom, so this was during the pandemic?
KK: Oh, no, I’m wrong. I’m sorry, I’m thinking of Bad Batch.
Well, no, the choir in Budapest we still recorded remotely. I didn't go to Budapest that time. I did go to Budapest a different time to record for Rebels, I believe. So, we recorded the choir in Budapest and then we recorded the orchestra in Prague and I went Prague and conducted and was at that session, so, thank you for correcting me. That was December 2019, just before the pandemic.
CC: The pandemic has really affected the way a lot of people have to approach recording right now.
KK: Yeah, all of The Bad Batch music we’ve had to record remotely. It winds up sounding great because we don’t use the Zoom audio, we use ProTools audio, which is exactly what we use in normal recording, they send it to us overnight.
CC: I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier. You said that you were studying a particular score at the moment. What was the name of that score?
KK: Petrushka by Stravinsky.
CC: That’s so cool! I love that you sit and study scores on paper and pencil. If we stop learning we sort of stop growing. What other scores have you or would you like to study?
KK: I'm a big Tchaikovsky fan, a huge John Williams fan and I’ve studied him forever. But a lot of the time it’s better to study the guys that your heroes study. I know John Williams studied Korngold and Stravinsky and those, I'm not sure about Tchaikovsky, but I imagine everybody, you know, he’s really steeped into classical literature.
So, the reason I really like Tchaikovsky is because he's a huge melody guy as well, more so than Stravinsky. Those guys, same as John Williams, Tchaikovsky just everything he wrote—if you go to the Swan Lake or any of his ballets, there’s like eight melodies that everybody in the world knows because it’s just classic. “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” they just go on and on and on and on. Just things that everybody knows.
I really love his composing. In terms of more modern, there's a guy, Erich Korngold who I know John Williams studied him quite a lot and he was a film composer as well as a classic composer. But everybody, I’m working on doing Bach exercises on piano in the morning.
A lot of it’s because I’m a rock and roll guitar player and I’m trying to broaden my horizons constantly.
CC: What advice do you have for people who would like to get into composing to picture?
KK: My first piece of advice is be sure that that's what you want to do because, you know, it's not an easy career and the competition is like crazy fierce and the gigs don't always pay as well as they should. Yeah, the really high-level A-list people are making a very good living but it is a very difficult career.
The reason I say, “Be sure,” is because you know, I like I said, I write music when I see picture and that's why I'm a composer. If that's your thing then go for it. And then find out what you like, what your voice is, don’t try to—sometimes we have to imitate other people because that's the job. Sometimes you'll get a gig where a producer just loves, say it’s John Williams or safe Thomas Newman, or say it's so whoever, Danny Elfman, and then you have to kind of imitate those guys. Which is really unfortunate because I don't think it furthers his film or television show at all, but some guys, that's just how that how they work and that's a big part of our making a living.
But really, you want to find your own voice. And in the best possible world, you are creating something new that you really like that you and have invented, so that’s why I look at like the electronics stuff, or just playing that instrument in Bad Batch or whatever. I’m out of the John Williams World in that sense, you know, I'm still am able to write for Star Wars but I'm bringing something that's of myself and something that I have been kind of invented with that.
So, follow that, that's my advice for a young composer.
CC: What's next for you? Are there any upcoming projects that you're allowed to tell us about?
KK: I'm currently working on Season 6 of Narcos, which is Season 3 of Narcos: Mexico and that's really, really a lot of fun. I'm also starting Season 3 of Titans and Season 3 of Doom Patrol.
Those are really, really fun shows, Doom Patrol is heavily electronic. Titans is going in a new direction a little bit in Season 3, which I can't really say, but it's going to be really fun.
And then just finishing up Season 2 of City on a Hill with Kevin Bacon. I play that instrument, the GuitarViol quite a lot in City on a Hill in a very different way than I played it in Bad Batch, I’m sort of hitting it. It's a technique called Cole legno and so you take [the bow] and you hit it. It’s a rhythm instrument that way. So, I'm doing that in City on the Hill. I love that show, Kevin Bacon’s one of the great, great actors and he's so, so good. If you haven’t watched it, you’ve got to watch that show.
One more thing, my sons and I are working on a series for Netflix called Trese, and it has to do with Filipino folklore. I think I told you I got married in the Philippines, and my children are half Filipino and they really got into this. The Filipino folklore myths in Trese are on the horror kind of side of things, with monsters, that are true Filipino legends and myths. So, we’ve just been we just been working on that. We went out, we had some of their relatives go to the extremely remote areas of the Philippines with digital tape recorders and record some indigenous people chanting. There are certain chants that can only be done if there’s a funeral or something like that.