Elfman album drips with venom
When Danny Elfman started creating music during quarantine, what came out was a surprise even to him.
鈥淲hen I opened my mouth to sing more venom than I ever knew that I had in me came pouring out,鈥 he said recently. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 really know what I had to work with other than a lot of frustration and anger. And I think that鈥檚 what needed to express itself.鈥
The result is a sonic howl 鈥 part glam rock, part orchestral, part punk, with driving, industrial songs that are liable to disintegrate or tear off into a different direction. The title for the ambitious 18-track double album is perfect: 鈥淏ig Mess.鈥 It鈥檚 his first solo collection in more than 30 years.
鈥淚 was either writing really heavy or like really hyper energized, fast and kind of crazy,鈥 Elfman said. 鈥淚 found myself writing personally in a way that I haven鈥檛 before. And that was also surprising to me.鈥
Grammy- and Emmy-winning Elfman, a former leader of new wave band Oingo Boingo, has for so long turned his talent to fueling film scores like 鈥淏atman,鈥 鈥淏eetlejuice,鈥 鈥淏ig Fish,鈥 鈥淓dward Scissorhands,鈥 鈥淢ilk,鈥 鈥淕ood Will Hunting,鈥 鈥淢en In Black鈥 and 鈥淪ilver Linings Playbook,鈥 as well as the opening theme for 鈥淭he Simpsons.鈥
He says he had found a balance for his racing mind by alternating film projects and classical music 鈥 until lockdown. Then emerged rock. 鈥淚 think a lot of us kind of found parts of ourselves that we weren鈥檛 expecting.鈥
鈥淏ig Mess鈥 is clearly a pandemic diary, exploring isolation and alienation. Elfman samples Donald Trump in 鈥淐hoose Your Side鈥 and tackles quarantine in 鈥淟ove in the Time of COVID,鈥 which has the lyrics 鈥淟iving a life in a nutshell/Staying inside is a tough sell.鈥
The album had a curious birth. Elfman had been approached in 2019 by the Dark Mofo festival in Tasmania, Australia, and asked to create a crazy performance piece. He decided to combine strings and a rock band, something he calls 鈥渃hamber punk.鈥
He created a 12-minute instrumental but ran out of time to create a full hour-long set. He returned to it during lockdown and it became 鈥淪orry,鈥 the album鈥檚 first cut. Then the other songs came tumbling out.
Laura Engel, the album鈥檚 executive producer, has worked with Elfman for over 40 years, said he always likes moving forward, exploring new sonic territory and never being tied to a single genre.
鈥淚 learned early on that anything I do with Danny, it鈥檚 never going to be linear,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 always going to surprise me and it鈥檚 always going to be just a little bit more fun, more interesting and more brilliant than most anything else you could ever do.鈥
Elfman wrote much of the album in a house outside Los Angeles, where he, his wife Bridget Fonda, 16-year-old son Oliver and their dog fled to ride out the pandemic.
The house didn鈥檛 have a recording studio, only a little writing room. Elfman had a computer, one handheld microphone, a single electric guitar and a pair of faulty headphones 鈥 not the best equipment for putting together a double album. But he pressed on.
He decided not to fix any of his vocals when it came time to go to the studio and invited musicians 鈥 including drummer Josh Freese, bassist Stu Brooks and guitarists Nili Brosh and Robin Finck 鈥 to record their parts, one at a time, per COVID-19 protocols. 鈥淚 just kept most of my original guitars and vocals from the demos,鈥 said Elfman.
While 17 of the 18 songs are originals, fans of Oingo Boingo will notice Elfman has reworked one of the band鈥檚 old songs, 鈥淚nsects鈥 from 1982. Not surprisingly, the new one is darker and more political. He had intended it to be part of a set at Coachella and was thinking who could be the insects of today? His answer: US senators.
鈥淭hese are my bloodsuckers of today. These are like the human insects,鈥 he said. So the new lyrics go: 鈥淥ld white men, they鈥檙e back in power again/They鈥檙e sucking all the power and pride.鈥
He laughs darkly that the dystopian America he found himself writing about in the 1980s is looking more recognizable in the 2020s. 鈥溾1984鈥 seemed a lot closer to me in 2020 than it did in 1984.鈥
For the cover artwork, 3D scans of Elfman were transformed into a disturbing digital sculpture by Sarah Sitkin. It鈥檚 an unsettling trio of Elfmans, with one painfully emerging from the head of another. The songwriter said it captures how he felt with various parts of him, who are 鈥渓iving together, but aren鈥檛 good roommates.鈥
He hopes to be able to play 鈥淏ig Mess鈥 live one day in some form and show off what he learned during quarantine. One thing was to ditch his regular writing for a character and just write from the heart.
鈥淚t was scary because I was like, 鈥楾his is just me. I don鈥檛 have any protection here,鈥欌 he said. 鈥淲hen you write third person, you鈥檙e protected 鈥 you鈥檙e protecting yourself.鈥
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