Trevor Rabin Profile

Date : 28 August 2005
Producer : Linda De Jager
Presenter : Derek Watts

He wrote the score for Hollywood movies like Enemy of the State, Armageddon and National Treasure and won more awards than he can count, including several Grammies.

It started off with classical piano lessons as a boy. ¬He then embarked on a lifelong love affair with the guitar. The name is Trevor Rabin, South Africa’s celebrated guitarist, singer, songwriter and
composer.

You might remember him from Rabbit or Yes, but Trevor Rabin has left the rock stage for the lights of Hollywood. He has written the score for 25 movies.

Here at his Los Angeles home studio, he creates the stuff Hollywood dreams are made of.

A stone’s throw from the houses of the producers and actors he composes for, Trevor is crafting away at the music of yet another feature film - Glory Road, to be released soon

If you would watch or listen to a movie without the music, you would be amazed as to what a difference the score makes. And that is where Trevor has found a new profession - playing with our emotions.

Trevor Rabin (composer): 'I think the most vivid way for someone to understand what a movie is without the music, is to take the music out. I mean, you’re basically ripping the heart out of the film. If there’s a scene which is supposed to make you cry, the music better help you get there or you?re not doing your job, you know. And then another thing I think music is important for is editing. You know, you need to help smooth edits over. '

Trevor: 'Since I was maybe thirteen years old, I always noticed the scores. I always noticed: ah, I love the way they’re playing the picture. And I always knew when I didn’t like a score.'

But before he would end up in Tinseltown, Trevor’s career would take many twists and turns.

He left the hugely successful band, Rabbit…. the first South African rock album to go gold with the album Boys will be Boys, when political pressure took its toll in the late seventies.

International fame would come in London with the rock group Yes, when Trevor penned songs like Owner of a Lonely Heart ¬ and Evergreen, which resurfaced this year as a popular remix. But after fourteen years, somehow Yes also did not satisfy his artistic ambitions.

Trevor: 'And I remember we were playing in Hiroshima, and it wasn’t a great show. It was a great tour, but that last show the sound wasn’t great and it was hard work. And I went to the bar afterward with my assistant, and I said to him, ‘I think that’s it’. And he said, ‘What do you mean?’ And I said, ‘The thought of playing these songs,…I’ve played them about a thousand times on the road… the thought of playing them again soon - I need a break from it’.”

Trevor left the group - yes, ten years ago, but music is still his life, and a major shift in his career started with a simple guitar lesson.

Trevor: 'Talking about Hollywood, a maitre d said that Steve Segal, who is one of the owners of this restaurant, knows that I come there and he really would like me to give him…’coz he’s a guitarist and he’s not bad, but… he wanted me to give him some guitar lessons. I thought, ‘yeah I don’t mind’, and I went to Steven’s house and we sat down and played some guitar and he said, ‘Thanks so much, I really appreciate it’. He said, ‘If there’s anything I can do for you or any way I can reciprocate…’ And I said, ‘Well, if you know anyone, you know, an agent or someone’. I was thinking of getting into film scoring. And he said, ‘Well, I’ve just finished a movie - if you want to do the score’.”

Derek Watts (Carte Blanche presenter): “Just like that?”

Trevor: “Just like that, and I said yeah.'

It turned out to be a 25 million dollar Warner Brothers Film - The Glimmer Man.

Unfamiliar with movie industry jargon, he was baffled by the term ‘POV’ on a script for a Russian espionage movie…

Trevor: 'And they were always referring to this guy POV and I thought: ‘you know, I’m not getting this story ‘coz they talk about POV all the time, but he never talks in the movie’. I didn’t understand it was Point of View. I thought POV was a Russian agent. '

Dealing with the pressure of being creative, with deadlines drawing near, would also prove to be a new ball game for Trevor.

Trevor: 'In the rock world it was very different. Record companies would call me and say, ‘Is the single ready?’ I’d say, ‘You’ll get it when it’s ready’. I can’t manufacture something that’s not there; it’s got to be felt. And you do that in film and it’s, ‘Alright, well thanks for your time. There’ll be someone else on it’. So you have to get it done.'

Derek: 'And after all that, you take it to the director and he says, ‘I hate it’?'

Trevor: “That is the hard part.”

On average Trevor can work up to 12 weeks on a movie score before a release.

Trevor: 'In the old days there used to be a theme they would come up with; a theme, and the composer would then go to the piano and play for the director and say, ‘Tthis is kind of what I’m thinking’. And you know, he’ll play it on the piano and say that the French horn will come in
here, and then sing over it, and then there is a big surprise at the end.'

These days the sophistication of samples and computers allow the composer to orchestrate creatively, but not on paper.

Trevor [demonstrating to Derek]: “Well, as I say, I’ll start maybe with a piano sound. In fact, my acoustic piano has a program where I can play something and then play it back to myself. So, in order to arrange it, I’ll write like a string… a first violin part and then maybe a second violin, and then there’s violas, cellos and double bass. And then melt it altogether. Every one of these is an audio track or a track of an instrument. There are more here. So there are literally hundreds of tracks for different things.”

Most often some sections of the score will be re-done by an orchestra, but on low budget movies, Trevor will settle for the virtual sound and do the whole mix in his studio.

Trevor: 'But I have had orchestra sessions, which has been hard work and it has not gone as well, but even on balance that sounds (gestures) … you know, because it’s real, there are real people playing.”

Derek: “Do you think of the specific actors while you are writing a score?'

Trevor: “Good acting makes it much, much easier. Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans - I loved writing that score because he’s, well all of them are, just so good in there. '

Derek: “Trevor, the music business has a reputation for sex, drugs and rock ’n roll, and yet you’ve been a family man. You have been married almost three decades.'

Trevor: “She just doesn’t know about any of the others [laughs]. We have been married over 25 years and it’s… you know, it’s still feels like we’re starting.”

Trevor’s son Ryan grew up on the road with him during the Yes years and he is now a popular drummer.

Trevor: “I remember when he was six years old I was doing… there was a tribute to Ahmed Ertican who was one of the great record guys of all time. And there was a big tribute to him. Yes played, Genesis played, Led Zeppelin played. And during sound check they were sitting in the audience, checking each other’s sound. And my son got on the stage with the microphone, singing ‘I’m Bad’ - Michael Jackson’s ‘I’m Bad’, and did the backward walk, you know.”

Michael Jackson turned out to be just one of the many stars Trevor would collaborate with. His guitar work also featured on the albums of the likes of Seal and Tina Turner ¬yet, he still found time to work on solo albums and make guest appearances. Lately, however, the writing of film scores like Enemy of the State takes up most of his time.

Derek: “Trevor, have you sussed out Hollywood totally? Do you know how it works?”

Trevor: “Not at all. Not at all. I mean, my Hollywood is my Hollywood. That’s one thing I have learnt is that there are so many little worlds within Hollywood which function within themselves and kind of eat away at themselves. I mean, the only time someone worries about another movie is, is it going to be released on the same day as me.”

It seems as if Trevor takes the Hollywood game with a pinch of salt, spiced with a little touch of humour.

Derek: “Surely, Trevor, when you look at that view you’ve got, you get into your Aston Martin and head down the road where the Hollywood sign is right there, you feel that you’ve made it?”

Trevor: “I don’t know if it’s fortunately or unfortunately… I’m always thinking about how I got the last thing wrong and how I’m going to get it right next time. So its hard; I never look at it from a retrospective point of view. I try not to.”

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.