Rosaline: The Untold Story of Romeo's Ex
CineConcerts was very fortunate to speak with the composer duo behind Hulu’s Rosaline, Drum & Lace and Ian Hultquist!
Composer Ian Hultquist
Composer Drum & Lace ( Sofia Hultquist)
CCineConcerts (CC): I find it super fascinating that you guys are married because it's so rare that you see two people together composing together. So, before I get into that I wanted to ask about your background. Sofia, you were born in Italy, is that correct?
Drum & Lace (DL): Yeah, I'm fully Italian. I've been in the US for 18 years as of this year, so half of my life.
CC: Did you go to school for music out there, is that how your musical journey began?
DL: I remember singing as early as three or four, you know, just always kind of singing along to something and then started taking music lessons. And my grandmother was a piano player, not professionally or anything, but she had a piano in her house. So, I started taking piano lessons and that then morphed into wanting to take guitar lessons and then drum lessons.
I was at a little music academy when I was in Florence, but nothing too serious to be honest. And Florence is really small and doesn't have much of a music scene. But by the time I was 18, I performed in some of the Piazzas and we'd put on some recitals, and I'd been in this rock cover band as a singer.
But, you know, I never really thought that music was a viable career, to be honest, just because I have somewhat traditional parents, being like, “Oh, you’ve got to do a serious job.” But when it came to applying for colleges and universities, I was given this huge opportunity to try to go to the US just because I did go to an international high school. So, I had done most of my classes in English and when it came to applying for colleges, I applied for all these colleges in the U.S. to do something completely different. And then I was like, “Oh my God, I should just apply to Berklee College of Music.” And I got in and I was like, “You know what? I'm just going to go do music because that's really what I love” and that's where I went. And I have always loved film and I've always loved all music, but I did not think of film scoring as a career until I got to Berklee because they had it as a major and I honestly kind of fell into it. And the rest is history.
CC: So, I'm assuming that's where you guys met each other? Ian, how did you get to Berklee?
Ian Hultquist (IH): Yeah, I think from like seventh, fifth grade onwards, I was really into music. I started playing the saxophone in school jazz band. And then when I was, I think 12 or 13, I got my first electric guitar and that really kind of changed the course of things for me. I was just obsessed with learning all the music that's on the radio, like all the pop punk bands that I would hear and new metal and stuff like that, and immediately started forming bands with friends and just always constantly like working with people, doing a lot of covers, trying to figure out how music was made.
And then as I got a bit towards the end of high school, it was kind of like, “Well, am I actually going to pursue this? Am I going to go to art school?” It was going to be a fine arts program. I guess I was always kind of like shuttling towards one or the other. And then we got into Berklee and ended up there.
But, you know, it's funny because when I first got there, I didn't necessarily jump into some scoring right away. I took me about two years to figure out that's what I wanted to do. I tried to do production. It's like learning, like production, engineering, but I had really good grades and I kind of came to the program, I tried music business, music therapy, and then I was like, “Wait, I've always been obsessed with film,” but I was never, I was just kind of understanding, watching. It was never making it.
DL: Which is crazy because your bar mitzvah theme was movies.
IH: It’s been right in front of me my whole life, I just couldn’t see if for some reason. I was like, there's a bachelor program where I can watch film and write music and discuss it. And I was like, “Why didn't I think of this ten years ago?” So that's how I jumped into the film scoring major and that's where I met Sofia.
DL: Yeah. We met our last year.
Still from Rosaline
CC: And then you guys jumped to doing it full time, moved to L.A. and have sort of been doing it ever since. Is that right?
DL: Not exactly. We took like a six- or seven-year detour.
We graduated in 2008, which was the worst year to get a degree in music. That summer, there was no jobs, no anything. And honestly, as an international student, I needed a visa to stay. So, I tried to find a job, but there were no jobs for Americans.
Ultimately, between one thing and another, instead of moving back to Europe, I ended up going back to school. So, I actually went and got a master's in music tech at NYU. And we decided to move to New York together. We didn't move to L.A. until 2014.
So, we were in New York kind of doing the New York grind with grad school and working and then working on post-production stuff. It really just took a little bit of time for us to realize that we wanted to try to go to L.A. because Berkeley tells you to become an assistant, go to L.A. to work your way up. And I think neither of us were really into the idea of doing that. And I mean, for me, L.A. was just so far away from everything known and honestly very foreign to my personality, too. And I was just like, “Oh, my God, no, I hate L.A.”
And Ian took a much bigger detour.
IH: That trend of playing in bands with friends continued through college and then one of those bands actually started to take off. So, I was doing that full time for a number of years. And it wasn't until 2011 where we had a big break from touring. And I started realizing I wanted to do scoring. “How do I get into this?” And I really just started cold emailing people I went to high school with that were in New York or L.A., but doing some sort of entertainment media, whether it was like short films, commercials, anything I could really get my hands on and completely started from the bottom to get my feet wet, relearn production techniques. Because a lot of the stuff we learned at Berklee, it was just kind of an older way of thinking about it, I feel like. And we figured out our own language and tech methods and everything.
We were being taught to conduct to a clock at Berkeley, which is…
DL: It’s like you have to learn the constraints to learn how to break them, you know? So sure, I think we were boxed in and so you realize that you can do things outside the box. And you know, I think that that's essentially how our career has kind of been this whole time.
CC: Let's just jump right into Rosaline, which is sort of like you’re breaking the mold of Shakespeare a little bit. It's rewriting Shakespeare for a younger audience and from the POV of the ex, which I think is fascinating.
Thinking musically about it, where did you guys rest individually as composers and creatives with trying to resurrect this baroque style, but also completely breaking it apart and writing it in a way that's new? How did you approach that creatively?
DL: I think what was really helpful for us is that we were brought onto the movie really early on. We were brought on when they were filming, because there's some on camera music moments. Not to give any spoilers away, but there's a party that happens and they needed to have a Renaissance band playing music for the party. Maggie Philips, the music supervisor, had the brilliant idea of doing Renaissance pop covers of a Robin Song an, Enrique Iglesias song, a Roxette song.
That's really how we got our feet wet, because that gave us a way to start thinking about how we're going to integrate the time period, but with the modern lexicon.
And what was really cool is that they essentially left it up to us to decide what this Renaissance band was going to look like. So, they were like, “Okay, you guys have a week to tell us who hire to have on set.”
And you know, there's limitations because pianos hadn't been invented then and we all depend so much on the piano. So, there's harpsichord, but there's no sustain. So then how do you keep things interesting? So, we ended up coming up with this Renaissance band. And I think that that really helped because that gave us time between even just working on that and then working on the score, which was like a good handful of months.
So, everything was just ruminating and we were thinking about stuff. But I think that really helped.
IH: Yeah, that really kind of forced us to figure out a bit of a template right away.
And then from there, it was us doing what we do, I think that Sofia and I have a bit of a sound. It's actually when we work together that we kind of drift towards and it was just trying stuff out, seeing what Karen Maine liked and what she didn't like. There was a lot of peeling back. I think we kind of went a little too big at first, like really big ensembles, huge string sections. And we actually pared it back. So, we were mainly writing with a string quintet for most of them.
Still from Rosaline
CC: How would you define your sound together?
DL: Well, for this for this project, Ian's described it as Renaissance Pop, which is great. But for our sound together, I don’t know.
CC: Because it is an interesting mix. Sofia, your solo album Natura is a really interesting soundscape, a mix of all different sounds. But Ian, when I listen to your music, you've got more orchestral, traditional instruments. Do you kind of meet in the middle somewhere?
IH: Yeah, I think so. I feel like if you really had to break it down, I think maybe I write a bit more melodic and she writes a bit more textural.
DL: Yeah. And also, I think Ian’s really good at making things very clean, like his production chops are really good. Whereas, I feel like I'm a little bit more of the disruptor.
IH: Sofia is definitely more outside the box than I am.
CC: Would you say that that’s what “genre fluid” means?
DL: Yeah. Also, because even when I find myself performing, you know, like even this past weekend I was in Durham playing a festival and I played one night and it was a full-on beat set and, you know, just really loud and distorted. And then the next night I did an ambient set. And Ian’s the same way with the scoring.
So, I just feel like we have like a sound just because of the way that we use texture and the way that we use melody. We can go between genres or, I mean, even in Rosaline, it's like going from super comedy to more orchestral stuff.
IH: It's hard to define because it depends on the film or project in front of us, we might write something completely different. But I do feel like we both have similar backgrounds in what we liked as kids, musically. I think that always comes into play.
DL: There's a bunch of crossover of bands that we both love.
IH: We're obsessed with Radiohead, we're both love Incubus.
I think we both pull a lot from the music that we listened to growing up and it always comes through one way or another.
DL: Ian did call our music that we did on Dickinson deconstructed pop.
CC: Were you excited for this project because it was asking you to break the mold so to speak?
DL: Yeah, it was super fun. There were a few cues where we went a little weird and they were just kind of like, keep it a little bit more within the palate, which is understandable.
You know, it's also like the bigger the project we work on, not to say like the less creative you are, but the more you're trying to appeal to a larger audience. But the producers and 20th Century Studios were into what we were doing. They really didn't give us that many constraints, to be honest.
IH: No. It ultimately came down to what's right to serve the film. And, you know, I think any notes we got were definitely valid.
DL: And they made the score better for sure.
CC: Is there something that you found out about yourself creatively or as a musician? Is there something that you did that was just so weird or crazy?
IH: I think for me it was mainly being able to write for live instruments that we would record because we don't get the chance to do that very often. We worked with string sections a lot, but the way that we write, most of the time, it's like kind of textural. It's like supporting what's already there. It's not necessary to focus, whereas this film almost every single cue has live instruments on it, including strings, flutes, the whole Renaissance ensemble. Any other composers would be like, yeah, whatever, big deal. But I think for us, that was such a nice change of pace.
DL: It was very validating to be at the recording sessions and feel like people looked at us like we weren't frauds. Everyone has imposter syndrome, you know, every once in a while. And especially with our work together, we're dubbed synth composers and we do a lot of electronics, but at the same time it does sometimes feel like we haven't had a chance to write for live instruments as much. And this was just so much fun, just seeing the players have fun, and being able to communicate with them. And that's the other thing, we worked on the songs at the very tail end of the worst of the pandemic. So, to be able to be in the room with people, that was such a nice change of pace. Just feeding off the player’s energy. And we worked with this orchestration company called Joy Music House, and they were all lovely. And I don't know, it's just really fun. It just really felt like a team coming together.
CC: Would you say that the live recording aspect is something that you want to continue to try to push for in your future projects?
DL: Yeah. We usually have a couple string players or a few people play with us, but never to the extent of this. We've never had this many players on anything.
IH: We did three days of recording sessions. Normally we do like 3 hours. This was a nice change.
Still from Rosaline
CC: Do you write collectively or do you go to your different spaces and sketch compositions out and then work on it together?
DL: We do everything together. I can't really think of any project where we divided and conquered. We literally just approach everything at the same time together, down to composing on the same keyboard, playing in different octaves. It's always worked best for us.
When we were living in New York, we had a side project, an indie pop band, if you may. So, we started writing together back then on more pop song type stuff. So, I feel like we've been collaborating for so long that it just feels pretty natural. And one of us will take the reins and start off with a cue or have an idea, right? That's also back and forth. Sometimes Ian has an idea for a chordal structure or I’ll have an idea about a beat. So, it's always like one of us will kick it off and then we'll be in the room together.
IH: Yeah. We've never done it where you go to your studio, I go to mine, and right away it's always the idea has to come and it sparks together. And then from there, maybe we can take some time to ourselves to fiddle with it. But it really is a full collaborative writing experience.
CC: Do you get ideas at random times that you record? Are you thinking about melodies 24/7?
IH: It's kind of relentless.
DL: I feel like the last couple of years we've just been at home, so we've kind of just been working all the time, right? And now I think we are really good at coming into the studio and being like, “Okay, this is our space where things can let loose.” Because we’re just like everyone else, we have a lot of stuff on our minds, just life. So, I think that those kind of take over when we're not in the studios. But you know, I'm sure we both have plenty of voice memos. I know I do with melodies and ideas.
CC: Sofia, you have a solo album that was recently released. Ian, do you have any solo compositions, anything that you're working on?
IH: Not really. I always threatened that I'm going to do one and then I get another project and I just focus on that instead. And when I’m on projects, when I'm done for the day, I don't want to work on more music. I want to go relax and watch TV or something. I would need like an expansive break from scoring to get in that mindset.
However, I do work with other bands as a producer and musician here and there. There's a band in L.A. called Dear Boy that I work with a lot. They had an album come out last month that I played on, I think almost every track. So, I do get my musically creative fixes outside of scoring that way. But yeah, one day I'll actually get my act together and make something that's just me.
CC: Sofia, do you have another album that you're working on, or is there something that you're potentially going to do?
DL: I feel like I'm always working on something. This record took a while to, not to come together, but just I feel like I'm kind of a traditionalist in the way that I think about releasing music. So, I still feel like I haven't even had a chance to really perform this record that much. I've only been able to perform it two or three times so far just because of like backlog of shows. And, you know, the touring industry and the music industry in the past couple of weeks, it's kind of been falling apart. And so, I still feel like I'm not done with this record. So, I haven't been fully invested in trying to write for the next one, even though I do a lot of improvisation when I perform live. I sometimes will just feel inspired and do these Instagram live improvisations. A lot of those do turn into tracks. So, you know, I have a few things that could materialize into something soon, but I haven't really been sitting down, “Okay, my next record is going to come out next summer” kind of thing.
But I'm excited. There's still a lot of people that are discovering the records and that's been really fun too, to meet new people and meet possible collaborators and labels and just all that fun stuff.
CC: Are there any tracks on the Rosaline album that you specifically want people listen to for something really cool?
IH: Oh. In “Mind the Fish” our dog has a cameo in it.
DL: Yeah, we try to sneak in our dog barking in a lot of stuff. “Mind the Fish” might be one of the most like sonically interesting just because there's so much going on.
IH: It’s one of the biggest ones.
DL: There's this little drum machine, literally like $120 little drum machine box, which features on it that I think is just one of the most versatile pieces of gear that we own, which is fantastic. There's a couple themes that are really pretty. I think “Horse Escape” is the one that we always say is like the big track.
IH: “Horse Escape” is like the epitome of…for this film it feels the most like me and Sofia sounding. If someone asks what we sound like, you could give them this track.
DL: And then there's a track right after that that's called “Dario Leaves”, which I think then taps into a lot of our sound as well. I mean, all the things that every track has something unique. And I think we were able to do a good blend of the Renaissance instruments or use the harpsichord and the strings and synths in a way that they all work together. So, I can't really think of any other track in particular.
IH: In the Rosaline & Juliet montage we have a Petzold flute featured.
Still from Rosaline
CC: What is a Petzold flute?
IH: I might be wrong, but I think it's a German flute and it's made out of wood and they come in different sizes. Daniel Hart famously used gigantic ones that are like six feet tall on The Green Knight score. But yeah, we had three amazing woodwind players in for a session and one of the guys, Dave Weiss, had a Petzold. He's like, “Check this out.” It is a very distinct sound, so we couldn't use it very often.
It almost sounds like a wooden train whistle a kid would have.
DL: Honestly the woodwind players were like the MVPs. They showed up and they unrolled their scrolls of flutes and they had like 12 flutes each and they were like all different colors and shapes.
IH: It's like when a chef has a bag of knives.
See, that's what I mean. Like, for us we’re like, “Oh my God, we get to work for musicians.” That's why it was so exciting for us.