Paul Leonard-Morgan on following his instincts and scoring 'Pretty Lethal'

In Leonard-Morgan’s later work with bands, including string arrangements for Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian and her albums with Mark Lanegan, as well as working with Mogwai, Texas, Simple Minds, and a remix for Snow Patrol, his musical capabilities further grew. ‘I was classically trained while I was at the Conservatoire, and Glasgow had this really thriving music scene, so I ended up just working with bands doing string arrangements. I was known as The Classical Dude, “Oh, there's Paul, he's trained classically”. So I’d do string arrangements for bands. And then from the string arrangements, I started producing them. The bands liked the fact that I was doing films, and the films liked the fact that I was working with bands, and that's really how it got started.’

With such a diverse body of work, we were curious to know more about how Leonard-Morgan approaches each genre. When scoring dramas and long-running TV series, the focus is on evolving themes while developing a sonic palette to draw from.

‘You can't just keep on using the same material, because otherwise it's just gonna get so boring. I'm in the middle of Watson at the moment, which is a 20-parter for CBS and Paramount+. You have themes for different characters, but I think mostly, you come up with a palette. Every time Watson appears, or he meets Sherlock, there's a big string theme, whereas when they're in the medical drama part of the episode, I've got these real big synths coming on from my Moog, my Roland Jupiter X, and my Pro3. So it's a real combination. It gives you a rough palette to work from, but you want to permanently evolve those themes.’

By contrast, scoring a film has a less linear approach. ‘It's great because you come up with the characters, and then you go, “okay, that's gonna work there, there, and there—that's your love theme. Then there, there, there—that's the action vibe.” You start going through it, but then you get to the end of a film, and then it's just like, “Okay, NOW I know what I'm doing!” And then you go back to the beginning, and then you delete half of the cues, because you’ve suddenly found that palette, that theme. It takes going through that film for the first time to really find out what you're going to do.’

After the initial viewing and alignment with Jewson, Leonard-Morgan began ideation for the score. ‘This is about girl empowerment, about five dancers who are going to make it through, but they need to work together to escape from this castle where Uma Thurman’s character has kidnapped them. So I said, "Let's not just do a typical classical soundtrack. Let's have it crazy. Let's have a punk band meets cyberpunk electronica meets full-on massive orchestra”. Then we started talking about how we could combine those elements and where we were going to use them. So the end of the whole film has this massive boss fight, but it's set to "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", whereas the other boss fights are all crazy combinations of electronica orchestra and punk band.’ 

With such juxtaposing sonic ideas, Leonard-Morgan not only had space to play with the styles of music he incorporated into the soundtrack, but also the range of sounds he could create for it. Throughout the writing process, Leonard-Morgan found that the Seaboard 2 enabled him to explore soundshaping in unconventional ways and, in the process, stumble upon some happy accidents.

‘It is a horror film, but it's more like a fun gore film, a romp. So my thought was, we've got this pulsing bass, which is a low reverse Moog, whenever you’ve got the baddies down in the basement. In these boss fights, you've got a riser, which was done on the Seaboard 2. When the girls are in charge, you’ve got that electronica and the punk band, and in the big action scenes, the orchestra comes in. So you've got that classical, “Tchaikovsky on steroids” with all this other stuff going underneath.’

‘It wasn't so much the sounds that came with the Seaboard, although there are a few there that are pretty good, as in, presets. But of course, on film work, you don't have tons of time to come up with those sounds. But it was about the playability. It's this instrument on steroids, isn't it? I call the soundtrack “Tchaikovsky on steroids” — the Seaboard is this keyboard on steroids because you can do all of these things, which you can't in any other world. So again, from electronic risers going up and down, to taking such a simple instrument as a Celeste, but then dousing it in reverb and doing weird detunes and weird stuff, it was just awesome. And then that helped me come up with a tune by the way I was playing it’.

‘It just really depends on what you're doing, but there's got to be something that calls to you right at the start, and you've got to go into film and TV, etc., with a thought process behind it,’ he continues. ‘You hope that that's going to work, and even if it doesn't, it gives you an idea, a spark. I did a film last year called Last Breath, and I had gone into the sea at Malibu and just sampled myself hitting some boats, and that turns into percussion.’

Whether it's a film, a video game, a TV series, or writing a ballet, Leonard-Morgon says he’s searching for a vibe, something that will allow him to experiment. He takes this ethos of experimentation to his music writing, too. Rather than reaching for what’s familiar, he tries to do things differently where possible and give his mind the space to make creative connections through different activities.

‘I think if you sit down at your usual instrument, it's always going to sound the same. I play the piano pretty well, but I also play the violins, I say, very badly. I play all the string instruments. I play a lot of wind instruments. But I think for me, if you sit down at an instrument, it's like muscle memory, whether you're playing samples or you're playing your real instruments.’

If Leonard-Morgan’s experience proves anything, it’s that excitement and curiosity about the many forms that music can take, and staying true to his vision are the driving forces behind his creativity. By embracing all possibilities of sound, whether intentional or discovered by accident, you shape a sound you can call your own. ‘Don’t try to be like someone else. Just keep having fun. Fun is the most important thing. You've got to enjoy what you're doing. I'll go back to that, “build it and they'll come” thing. Instead of thinking “oh, I'll be like Paul or oh, I'll be like Hans”, or whoever you're trying to imitate, don't, because by the time you catch up with whoever it is you're trying to be fashionable, they'll be out of fashion as well. Obviously, watch what's on and see what's current, but do your own thing. Come up with your own sounds, and people will react to them. People react to authenticity. Be yourself.’ After lending some of his own advice, he reflects on his journey to think of the words of advice that he would have loved to receive as a burgeoning composer — to stop worrying so much. ‘I was never really taught film music as such. So it was like, “Oh, I wonder if they'll like this. Does this suit their film?” I've really chilled out in the last four or five years and gone, “Right, do you know what? Instead of wondering what they want, give them what you want”.' 

‘If at the end of three or four weeks, you can go, “That's fine. I can always play it safe if you want me to play safe, but let me do my thing first.” Then you'll find that by having this story and by having this vision for it, it makes it so fun that they don't know what they want, so stop trying to guess what they want, and instead just do your calling to it, go and do something interesting, and they'll reign you in. And the good collaborators, the good directors and producers will then say, “Hey, I love that bit. How about we take it up there?” And it's the best, most fun feeling when at the end of a soundtrack you've got no idea how you got there! But you've got to start somewhere, and you start by just doing your own thing. So don't try to guess what people want. Just follow your instincts.’

Discover more from Paul Leonard-Morgan on Instagram, YouTube, and his official website.