Trevor Rabin Talks 'Get Smart,' Hogging BMI Awards, The Serendipity of Steven Segal, & Eating Maggots With Yes

Rodrigo Perez

June 20, 2008

Trevor Rabin is a noted film composer, a South African, a maggot eater (sort of), a former member of progressive rock band Yes (yes!) and an all around good guy.

His kinetic scores ("Bad Boys II," "Enemy of The State," "Con-Air") have been heralded for ushering in a percussive-heavy era in action flicks and been aped by the 'Bourne' films and pretty much every
action/adventure flick in the book. He's won a shit ton of BMI film score awards (9 of them) and he may not have won an Oscar yet, but who cares: he wrote Yes' synth classic - "Owner of A Only Heart." In your face Academy. Rabin also scored "Get Smart." Oh yeah, Steven Segal of all people got him into the movie biz.

The Playlist: Trevor Rabin, heralded film composer, go! Were you a fan of the original series? Did you have any nostalgia for it? Do you own a shoe phone?

TR: Because I grew up in South Africa, I had heard of it but I never saw it. But when I was going to be interviewed for the project by (director Peter Segal), I really immersed myself in the whole thing, I watched a lot of it on YouTube and then went and got the entire series and watched that a couple of times. I got to know it pretty well and found it to be hilarious.

How important was it to reflect the music of the original TV series?
TR: I thought very important but I also thought it was important to find a contemporary way of doing it without losing the essence of the original theme. And also I thought it made the movie funnier by playing most of it straight and only occasionally playing the comedy comidically, musically speaking.

Awesome. Did you get to meet Anne Hathaway? Is she bland?
TR: I met Steve Carell who was very gracious and very kind about the score and thanked me for doing my job that helped in his view.

Congratulations. Your first major score was in 1997, how did you break into scoring movies?
TR: I had been on the road with Yes and made a number of albums. When we were playing our last show in Hiroshima, I decided – "I think I’m gonna do something else." [ed. heavy!]

I had studied orchestration and I technically knew enough to get into it, and I just decided “I think I’m gonna be a film composer.” My naivety led me to a very virtuous fate which was Steven Segal, he had asked a mutual friend if I could give him some guitar lessons. He was very thankful and he asked “Is there anything I can do for you?” So I just casually said, "Well it would be great if he had any names of agents and stuff because I’m thinking of scoring films." He casually said, "I’ve just done a film for Warner Bros. ["The Glimmer Man"] if you want to do it." And that was it I did that then Jerry Bruckheimer’s people saw the movie and liked the music and my second film was "Con Air," my fourth film was "Armageddon," and it pretty much has been like that ever since.

Best. story. ever. So, you’re noted for your percussive scores and yet you’re a guitar player – how does that work?
TR: I think movies, particularly action movies, lend themselves to being percussive and driving and as far as the guitar goes, percussion is one of the more complimentary devices for playing guitar on top. I think that’s just a natural kind of progression.

For the percussive scores, you’re expecting residuals from the Bourne films or is action film street credibility good enough?
TR: No… and I’ll leave it at that.

Oooh, sly. Are you going to continue to win all the BMI Awards? Gustavo Santaolalla's gonna get jealous, dude.
TR: Well my piano is getting pretty heavy because that’s where I leave them, there’s now I think ten of them there…

You wrote "Owner of a Lonely Heart" – can you jump on buildings and turn into an animal too?
TR: No, but I can eat maggots.

On the real?
TR: There’s a part in the video where the guy washes his face with maggots.

Ouch.
TR: Exactly.