Introducing: Ludwig Göransson on Talk Easy

26:21Coming back, we were talking about the five minutes before Christmas orchestral piece that you put together. You then studied jazz improvisation at the Royal College School of Music before eventually moving to the U.S. at the age of 22 in pursuit of your master's at USC here in Los Angeles. This, I think, was in the fall of 2007, a period that you once described as a very difficult time in my life. What did that look like? Just crying every night and missing my life that I had in Sweden and feeling very lonely. That is the opening of Oppenheimer. Yeah, it is. It is. I had those times. And the funny thing is that I had that already happen once in my life.

27:14Like when I was 15, I moved to Stockholm. I lived in a smaller city. I moved to Stockholm. I started a music high school. And then at that time, I moved home again. So I gave up and I moved back home. And then I always kind of regretted that decision a little bit. I didn't want to do the same thing twice. You couldn't give up again? I couldn't do that. I knew how much I would regret it afterwards. I feel like LA is probably one of the loneliest cities in the world. Everything is just so difficult to know where to go. You have to plan everything if you don't have a car. But the school, I mean, the school was great and it was competitive.

27:49The professors, and that's why I wanted to go there. The professors are all professional. And I think one of the things that was difficult was that the homesickness, I didn't understand what that was either. I didn't know why I was having all those feelings. I was just confused. Why am I feeling like this? I couldn't navigate it and not be in control of that. that was very scary what do you mean scary just not just it's almost something like like a jealousy you know jealousy is like a feeling you can't control at least for me like i remember the times where i had those feelings are you extremely jealous or something that it's just eats at you or it comes like a big hole in your stomach and that's what it was like at one night it can be i had the best time of my life and then like all of a sudden and 30 minutes later it can be just completely crushing and not knowing why when do you think you started to get some control over that um you're like never still here no but but uh it's not until recently where i'm like kind of starting to understand how those feelings came to be and and what that was all about and how i can try to give my my kids some kind of stability that so they don't have to kind of go through that.

29:05It does sound like I'd say you really of all the things we've talked about, it does seem like the thing that's most on your mind right now. Oh, of course. Yeah. Definitely want to try to understand myself as good as I can for for my sake. In that period, when you're in your mid 20s, did meeting and beginning to work with Ryan Coogler and then Donald Glover. Did that help you understand yourself in that moment? I think that was maybe one of the things, I don't know if we have that in common, but one of the things that Ryan and I had in common was definitely feeling like we're far away from our families and having a hard time.

29:46He's from Oakland. Yeah, he's from Oakland. And I was like, well, you're just two hours from home. It was like five hours from home. But that's not really what it was about. It was like your community. It was everything that's familiar to you and leaving that for something new and how difficult that is. And we could talk about that. It was special. And then, yeah, and then to go back to our teacher, Kenny Hall. Kenny Hall was an incredible teacher, professor at USC. He was a music editor who worked with John Williams on E.T. and Jerry Goldsmith and a bunch of his movies. And he was the only teacher at school that had a class for both composers and directors in the same class.

30:24Which is unusual. Which is very unusual, but should be obvious. Because music is one of the most important parts of film. And to get some direction from a professor for the directors to how to talk about music and how to approach that, how to talk to the composers, I think was incredibly helpful. and to have a class where we can discuss so we can also understand how the directors talk about music and how they think about music. Because we're all students. We're like, oh, this is, you know, music is the most important part of the film. And like, it should be the loudest, you know, part of the whole student film you're doing and take out the sound effects and the dialogue and don't give me any notes.

31:04That's kind of how you approach it from the beginning. Was that your policy back then? No notes? No, I was pretty open. But I definitely remember before I started USC that I had like this romantic image of the film composer getting the film, having several months to himself at some kind of lodge up in the mountains and just being able to write the whole film score by himself and then taking the orchestra and getting performed and magically it's in the movie. You had to settle for Los Feliz and Silver Lake, I guess. you know as your uh romantic hopes were kind of slowly dashed by the real process of making and creating these scores you did like dozens of scores for students at usc what stood out about ryan and his work first of all i was friends a little bit with ryan before he did student film so we had we already had a little bit of a relationship before he asked me to score his film.

32:05But also like his way of, you know, although it was a student film, it was a student film called Locks for his first project and at that time the student film he did didn't have any dialogue. So it was just music and sound effects. And the movie was beautiful. You see this guy in Oakland with long locks, like long dreads wandering around the streets. You see some gang members getting handcuffed by the police. He goes through the neighborhood. He sees like other kind of rough things and you're like what's going on where's this story gonna go and then he goes into the barbershop and he gets his hair cut off they sweep it up and they put it in a plastic bag and then he walks on his way home and then he enters his apartment and he opens the bedroom door and you see his little sister sitting there who has cancer and it doesn't have any hair and that's the short film and i i wrote some music for it and at that time i was living in a i was living on 28th street which in la is like fraternity street i didn't know what fraternities or sororities was before i moved and i wasn't part of the fraternity like they had gotten thrown out so it was only for grad students but i was sitting there in that little little room trying to write music and it was like crazy parties going on every night on the street you know the all the dudes look the same and drink them from the red cups and i really i literally felt like i was in an american pie movie and then ryan comes in and we sit down and i have headphones and i give it to him and he's like oh my god is this guitar oh what's this instrument and he was just so excited and having that reaction and like learning about the instruments we talk about the you know the techniques that we played and the take in and that was the that was the beginning of our working relationships.

33:48And that's still how it still feels like that. Why don't we take a look at that first collaboration for a moment so people can get a sense of what it sounded like. This is Locks, directed by Ryan Coogler.

34:36What do you think seeing that? It sounds so very early in my career. You know, like all your teacher at the time, like, you know, you have to find your own sound. And all the students are like, what are you talking about? How do you find your own sound? What is that? And I'm not saying that that was my own sound, but you can definitely hear some, an interesting balance between like melancholy and happiness. You seem almost skeptical to say the word. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a word you want to describe your music maybe, But maybe it is. Of course, it should make people happy. But it can be melancholic and make you happy in that way.

35:20I think it's an amalgamation of both. But the idea of finding your own voice, that is something we all have to try to find. Was that a challenge for you? No, I mean, I think for a lot of people, the way that you think about when you have to find your own voice is like, okay, I need to spend a lot of time by myself in a room and find my own voice. Well, at least for me, the way that I did it was the complete opposite. It was opening doors to other rooms with other people and talking to them or jamming with them and learn what they do and like being interested and, you know, wanting to discover and have a musical exchange with people that came from completely different backgrounds or cultures or played different genres and see if we can do things together.

36:12Looking back at it now, I think that was kind of what really shaped me to become who I am. When you started working with Donald Glover, this was like before he became Childish Gambino, you were scoring community at the time. Was it around then that you developed this approach where you would say, what we're making can be cool, it's just not cool yet? well well uh to me when i first heard his music i was hesitant before he even sent me any music because i knew him as being an actor and i was like in my mind i was like well okay a lot of actors probably think they can do music too and also in america like people have a confidence that you don't really demonstrate like that in sweden so when he was like yeah he wrote me an email like I'm also a rapper and musician and I don't know a lot of people in LA so maybe you can take a listen to the song and recommend or help me with the mixing of the track and then he sent me a song and I was like so surprised I wrote him back this is incredible but what if we just add some drums or add some you know live drums or we work a little bit on the arrangement and he was really receptive to that and we met up and we started to just work together for 15 years but But I thought his music was cool from the jump.

37:32And I was like, is there any way we can make this better? Is there any way I can just help in any way? I would love to be part of it. In those early collaborations, first on Cul-de-Sac, then Camp, then Because the Internet, did it feel like it was uncharted territory for you? Absolutely. I mean, I listened to rap music, not like the standard ones. The record I had listened to the most was the Fox Brown album, because I just thought it was so cool how she had like Egyptian music on there and like how they use those samples. And I was listening to that and like Midnight Cultures like over and over and over again.

38:08I didn't have that deep knowledge of hip hop at the time and I had never really done a beat. But that's also what was so exciting. He was kind of introducing it to me and showing me like all these incredible songs I didn't know. And it was like, to me, like, yeah, learning a new instrument. And it was the most exciting thing for me. You know, around the time you two started really getting going, you, Donald, and a bunch of your friends starred in a short film directed by Hiro Murai called Clapping for the Wrong Reasons. Now, this is a movie I personally obsessed over with my friends as a soon-to-be freshman in college back in 2013.

38:48Why don't we take a look at one scene in particular where you are playing on the guitar a little bit? Yeah. Thank you.

39:43Yeah, I haven't seen that in 10 years. And what do you think? I think we're all like searching. I think Donald was definitely searching. And I didn't know, you know, how big part of it I was going to have on the record or if I was going to be part of it. It was a very kind of uncertain time, for me at least. And then there was those jump joy of moments where we were in the studio and that it was like one of the libraries and we were in the studio there and I think it was Chris Bosch's old house. Just out of nowhere, I was always kind of on the spot to come up with something in the moment really quick.

40:21That was both stressful but also kind of exciting and because Donald had a lot of that time I was like he had a lot of things on his mind so if something was going to stick we had a very short amount of time in the studio where he could just kind of get into the music and even though he spent a lot of time in the studio but I feel like when I was there we had to do something quick and it was stressful and then something great came out of it and it was kind of a moment of joy and I was and when that little moment of joy happened And it's like how, you know, I had sustained that, you know, okay, five minutes, 10 minutes, okay, 15 minutes.

40:56Oh, this is turning into a song, 20, you know, so it was like, it was a strange time. And also like with all the albums that he's done, like, I don't know where he's taking it and don't know where we're going. We, I just started off driving blindless, at least me. On that album, I thought we took it to some really interesting places. The way you're describing it, like that period of searching, even now, a decade removed, it still sounds as if it's kind of a mystery to you. It was a mystery because I was also in a situation where I didn't understand those feelings that I had. It was all about trying to get this music out.

41:38I think the feelings came out in the music. I mean, I know that the feelings came out in the music. And that's why it's so interesting to hear that now. I can hear that anxiety and stress, but the magic in that and just those little few guitar chords that I heard. And it's like a calming thing, especially that song, like the Flight of the Navigator. They all kind of feel like you're a kid and playing that in your room. And I think a lot of it comes back to maybe sitting there being a kid and feeling lonely and sitting in your room and trying to figure out what life's about. Back in the basement.

42:16Yeah. It sounds to me like it was like a self-soothing sound. Like you're feeling all this anxiety. And yet that track we just heard is extremely calming and kind of self-soothing. Yeah. No, it's, I don't know if you have kids, but it's definitely a thing you see when you start to understand a little thing, a little bit with the self-soothing thing. And how everyone finds their own ways to self-soothe. some kids suck on their thumbs some kids like touch their face in a different way some kids jam out to Metallica some kids jam out to Metallica and make sad melancholic songs that are also happy all that's happening is in them because you have great support from your parents but yeah I was definitely I think when I think back at it too I was lonely also a lot as a kid you know my parents They also worked a lot.

43:16And my sister was six years older, so I spent a lot of time just by myself, too. You've clearly used that loneliness and channeled it into the work. And I wanted to pinpoint those two moments with Coogler and Glover, because at least to me, they seem like the foundational building blocks of what would become a decade long collaboration. going from Black Panther with Ryan, for which you won an Oscar, to producing This is America with Donald, for which you won a Grammy, which of course, through this decade, brings us back to Oppenheimer. And part of this film is about a man obsessed with his work, a man who moves further and further into this project and farther and farther away from his family.

44:08And as I was re-watching it last night, I was reminded of this quote you had where you said, when I go into the studio, regardless of whether I write the music, produce an album, or write a film score, you just immerse yourself into this other world. You become obsessed. Most artists are extremists. You close yourself off and the work becomes your world. That obsession that's central to Oppenheimer, did you feel that kinship in making the score for it? I think that's very true, but I don't consciously, I don't think about any of that when I'm in the process. It's more afterwards, like the conversation we have now, where I see that being a pattern in the way I work.

44:55the pattern of obsession and for me that's the only way i can do it really and i think also with age comes you know you get a little bit of different you're having you're starting family you're starting to see your priorities in a different way but i'm not saying that i'm doing i'm having the wrong priorities but i've definitely been the last 15 years just non-stop doing that you know without breaks like extremist world to extremist and they're also extremely different too it was also why i think it works for me because it's so i'm like a different person different world every time and it's so exciting to discover these places but it also takes a toll what toll has it taken i think more now for me it's more important to kind of take the time after you finish something like this and think about how it affected you and think about how what happened you know how it happened how it came together and and where the places you went and reflecting more I guess I'm just more interested in that now, where before that I was just on a train, on a self-train.

46:00And I realize now how all these experiences had such a deep impact in me, both on music levels, but personal levels. And I'm excited because after I finished Oppenheimer now, I've had some time to engage with everything else in my life. And that's kind of a very exciting chapter for me. we've spent a lot of time talking about you know the personal side of making music and the process your process but when we take a step back this film is like coming out at a very fascinating time especially in hollywood because of course there's this strike that's happening and one of the big existential fears and issues at play is the use of artificial intelligence, which throughout the film's release, Nolan has explicitly made the comparison between Oppenheimer developing the A-bomb in the early 40s and the theoretical physicists that faced backlash and uncertainty from the U.S.

47:08military in Congress, much like the tech industry is facing today in its race to make AI more powerful. He said, quote, when I talk to leading researchers in the field of AI right now, they literally refer to this as their Oppenheimer moment. They're looking to a story to say, okay, what are the responsibilities for scientists developing new technologies that may have unintended consequences? When it comes to making music, where are you at on what ai can do will do how it will change the job itself uh i'm very interested in in these type of questions and and in the technology and and it's not even at the doors it's already entered our houses enter our living rooms and our listening experience especially you know with that drake weekend song that everyone you know i don't know how many million views it has but it's quite a lot I still haven't heard it yet.

48:05Okay. So you can't like deny that it's going to change music forever. You can have anyone sit in their room and just like, oh, I want to have a beat that sounds like Michael Jackson from the 70s. And I want Bruno Mars to sing a happy birthday message to my wife because she loves him. You know, I don't think there's a way to stop that from happening. I think we all just need to embrace it and know that it's here. I think it's going to be a big shift in music about But you're going to be able to hear the difference. You know, I think people are really going to be able to hear the difference in what's made with computers and what's not made with computers.

48:45And how much computer was a part of this and how much computer wasn't a part of it. Do you think people will be able to distinguish between the two? Yeah, absolutely. I think maybe there'd be a different service. like AI music will be cheaper and music that people put their own minds and hearts and brains to would be more expensive. And I think everyone's going to start using these tools that are going to come to place. And it's just like, what shortcuts do you want to take? Like how much you want to shut your own creativity off? And I think there's going to be some important decisions you're going to have to make.

49:19Have you been thinking about that for yourself? Like what you're willing to use and not use? Shortcuts taken, not taken? No, I want to try it all, give it all to me and see what I can, how I can customize it as much as possible and make it. But I don't have any tools yet. So I don't, I haven't worked with any AI software or things yet, but I think that's just a matter of like probably months or weeks or it's already things out there that, that I think people are using. I want to see what it's all about. You sound completely unafraid about this future. You're kind of one of the first people I've talked to that seems only optimistic.

49:57I'm just talking about the music aspect of it. There's other problems, obviously, and it's going to be other consequences. But the music aspect of it, I don't think, at least for me, I don't see any threats in computers making music. Some people are going to listen to it. Some it's going to be great. It just kind of depends on who's making it. Well, before technology changes how this job is fundamentally done, why don't we celebrate a human feat? Is there a track from Oppenheimer that you are most proud of? Like one that you want people to hear as we leave this conversation? yeah we should probably play the the can you hear the music track and for me that was one that was like a breakthrough moment i had on this project but also in a way i have made music in kind of in a technical level but also but also it was like kind of like a eureka moment for me like on a technical level writing a composition that goes faster and faster and faster but after a while after a couple of bars, you don't even, the listener and the audience doesn't even feel it and start to think about it.

51:13It's just, it all, it's just an emotion. And then one of the important parts of the process was to figure out a way how we can get the orchestra to perform this in one take. Because if you see the charts, it's literally like 21 tempo changes. It goes faster, slower, faster, slower. And if you just see it on the page, you're like, this is not, you're not going we get 40 string players who play this in a way where it's going to sound good in one take but we worked on this for three days and kind of banging our heads against the walls like how how can we get this performance right in the end it's like serena she was like well these musicians are incredible she's been playing with them for 15 years they're like the hollywood studio symphony and they this is their job they sit in the studio and play seven hours a day to to a click to a metronome and we figured out a way to to give the musicians a click in their head the tempo change the time change in their mind and their heads before it happens on the page and when we gave them that track it just this magic happened so that's a really interesting how you combine technology and computers because this this music you couldn't have really written it without computers but then putting that organic element into it with this live string players playing it all in one taken organic way gives it so much life and makes it timeless and makes it feel like it's human.

52:36I guess we should listen to how that all turned out. All right. This is Can You Hear the Music from the film Oppenheimer.

52:58Thank you.

53:29Thank you.

54:09When you're listening to that, could you have ever imagined that that young, lonely kid playing music in the basement would one day create something like that? No, I don't see that in a curse. My dream was to become a member of Metallica. that never happened there's still time it's still time no but it's like it's like my dream was you know i was i was dreaming about playing my instrument being on stage and playing big crowds and like and we've done that you know we did that with childish and and then i was dreaming of being a pop producer and being producing music and that happened too and and then i was dreaming about being a film composer and and then that happened too and and um musically all those goals and milestones and stones just i guess i was was lucky i kind of bring up that basement once more as we leave because i've heard that this past summer you went back down into that basement with your mother where you were looking for toys for your kids.

55:16What was that like? To go back to that place, not for you, but for your children. It was kind of magical. You know, kind of stepping into that. At that time was just all the reality, and now it's a memory. But it was my safe space. It was my soothing place, you know, where I felt calm, and that's where I felt most like myself. It was a beautiful moment going back there and everything obviously felt super small. I feel like I was a giant now in Lilliput land. See all those guitars still hanging on the wall, seeing those old tape machines, old tape records that I used to use and how they're all still there.

55:56And yeah, just thinking about like, what am I going to do with all this when I get old? And are my kids going to do the same thing? Yeah, it's a lot of questions. Did you find a high school report or something like that? Yeah, yeah. I found a high school report, right? I guess you talked to my mom. Yeah, I called her up. I called her up right before this. No, I didn't talk to her. Oh, so how do you know? You said it in an interview. Oh, okay. Yeah. I really appreciate that you think I called your mother before this podcast. It means we've done our job. Yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, you really don't.

56:33No, but I found the high school report of my five minutes to Christmas. when I wrote about the process, how I created it. And it's still in my backpack. I don't know why. I see it laying there and I know that I want to read it. But at the same time, I don't want to go back to that kid that I was and the way I was thinking about music then. Because it's... I feel like it's because I thought I had it all figured out. I was like, write the report about it. This is how you make music. But now I know now that I didn't know. I didn't have it figured out. You've been really putting it off. I've been really putting that off.

57:15Maybe I know it's just going to bring back a lot of memories and emotions. And I just need to find the right space to do that. Well, whatever that is, I'm excited for you to revisit that past self. But until then, I want to look ahead a little bit. because one of the other main components of a Nolan movie is time. How we use it, how we try to bend it to our will, how we regard time that has passed or time that has yet to come. But time is also something I think you've long been preoccupied by, well before you began working with Nolan on Tenet. Because isn't it true that when you left for America at age 22, landing here in Los Angeles enrolled at USC.

58:04Did you map out how you wanted your career to go? Yeah I feel like I've always had like I always had the five-year plan a tenure plan and like I always know where I'm going to be the next you know I don't know how that's where that comes from but it's always been kind of milestones in my mind about where I want to be and what I want to do. And I guess it's some kind of magic, right? You create your own future. Your mother said when you moved here, here were the big three things. Get a job as an assistant one year after graduation. Score your own projects after three years. Win an Academy Award within 12 years.

58:44Sometimes, she said, he's much faster than what he planned. They all turned reality, I guess. But yeah, that's interesting. Well, now that you're back home and you're sitting with this past year and thinking about what's to come, what do you want down the line? I think right now, I'm just, I know how I work. I know what makes me happy. I know what type of process makes me happy, what kind of collaborators makes me happy. and if I can get that and have the time to enjoy with my family as well I think that's the only thing that I mean I'm asking for a lot but I'm not sure how I'm going to do it but I think I know a way and I feel like every day I'm getting closer to the answers of all those questions you have and also all those questions I had and feelings that I didn't even think about as a kid and it's like I'm trying to kind of trying to like going back into those times and understanding it now and I realized how important that is from like a musical clarity of it I'm probably more excited than I've ever been to to kind of step back into it and discover new paths and new ways and new worlds and and that's also why I wanted to take a little time off and to really get back I can do that headspace again.

1:00:06Well, the first thing you said when we sat down was, I'm afraid to cut my long hair because it may make me a different person. I may be someone new. And I have to say, after having sat here with you for this last hour, I kind of think you don't need to cut your hair to become a different person. I feel like it's already happening right now. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'll keep it. If not for me, then for Ryan Coogler. Yeah. Thank you. And whatever person you end up becoming and whatever you make because of it, I am so looking forward to it. And I just want to thank you on a personal level for making so much of the music that was kind of a soundtrack to my formative high school, college years, without which I don't think I would be the strange other long-haired person sitting in this Zoom call.

1:01:08Well, I appreciate that. And we should meet up sometime in real life and be that strange white guys with long hair sitting in the back of a coffee shop. I look forward to it. Ludwig, enjoy the rest of the summer. You too, Sam. It was a great time talking to you and I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you. Until next time.

1:01:58And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us five stars on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you like to listen. I want to give a special thanks this week to the team at Online Voices in Stockholm, the Academy Library, IDPR, Universal, and, of course, Ludwig Goranson. To learn more about all of the music discussed in today's episode, be sure to visit our show notes at talkeasypod.com. For more conversations, I'd recommend our talks with Pedro Pascal, Hiro Mirai, Tessa Thompson, Alana Haim, Deb Hines, and Ruth E. Carter. To hear those and more Pushkin podcasts, listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

1:02:43You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at TalkEasyPod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy, or our vinyl record with writer Fran Leibovitz, You can do so at talk easy pod dot com slash shop. That's talk easy pod dot com slash shop. Talk easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janixa Bravo. Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Our research and production assistant is Paulina Suarez. Today's talk was edited by Caitlin Dryden and mixed by Andrew Bastola. Our assistant editors are Clarice Guevara and CJ Mitchell. Our music is by Dylan Peck.

1:03:24Our illustrations are by Krisha Shenoy. Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek Gabrzak, Ian Jones, and Ethan Seneca. I also want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries.

1:03:50I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.

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