Michael Whittle. Press photo.
Michael Whittle is a Santa Monica based writer, producer and composer (he did the score for Stefan Van de Graaff’s film One of Us just to mention one.) He enjoys making music for movies and he’s done music for commercials. Next year his debut album Like Shadows Do, will be fully released and he’s already sharing it song by song on Spotify.
You have a master’s from USC Thornton School of Music. Has it always been music for you or what did Little Michael want to do?
– Haha, That’s a great question! Little Michael, like a young, young Michael probably wanted to be a basketball player, because I grew up in the ’90s in Chicago and Michael Jordan was like king!
He tells me that he started to learn how to play covers on guitar when he was 16, because he thought it was cool and that’s what girls liked, he confides in me with a laugh. He went to college initially for an English degree in his undergrad, thinking he might be a businessman or a lawyer, but his parents told him he could choose what he wanted as long as he got another degree.
-So I chose music because those covers turned into me being in bands and then I kind of fell in love with it.
Getting to work with music, something he’s dreamt of since he was a teenager, feels like a blessing and he says he’s grateful for that every day.
He dropped his first solo single, Lie To Me So I Will Be Alright on Spotify just before our interview, and that makes me wonder:
What do you lie about?
-What do I lie…? Michael laughs. Ah, that’s a big question. What do I lie about?
He tells me how he thinks that songwriting can be a bit of a lie.
-That might be a little controversial, but songwriting is like you’re telling a little bit of a lie, because when you’re telling a story, even if it’s autobiographical, there is like a truth, truth: what actually happened? And who knows how to interpret that, because we could see the same event, and I could interpret it differently and you could interpret it differently.
He tells me he thinks there’s an emotional truth to things too and he thinks that’s kind of a lie.
-It’s not the actual truth, so a lot of my lyrics are based on how I’m feeling, whether I know it or not, it just subconsciously comes out and then months or years later I figure out: oh, that’s how I was feeling or that’s what the song’s about! I don’t know, I’ve always thought songwriting is a little bit of a lie. You’re telling an emotional truth, but it’s not the real.
How would you describe your music?
-Ooh! I’m getting pretty good at it, because doing interviews for the Lie To Me… single, I’ve gotten to talk about it. It’s definitely alternative music, with 90s influence for sure, because at heart I’m still that kid in Chicago in the 90s. And then of course, like indie. So like indie alternative music, with a dark post-punk quality, I don’t know… he laughs.
I can hear the Swedish band I Are Droid in Michael’s music, but I’m always so unsure labeling anyone’s music that I had to send a link with I Are Droids music to our mutual friend Stefan asking if he could think of anyone while listening to it.
I tell Michael that Stefan could hear it too.
-Oh really!? Yeah, Stefan knows, because as you know, we grew up together in Chicago, he’s been around me since I was a baby, so…
That’s so sweet. He told me about your dad’s being friends?
-Yeah, our dads have known each other since they were babies too.
What instruments do you play?
-I’m just looking at the instruments around me, he says and turns his head.
Mainly he plays the guitar and a little bit of bass. All the bass and guitar parts in the album are performed by him, he says. Then he lights up talking about Madi Vogt:
-I had all the drums done by Madi, they’re a fantastic, fantastic drummer! They made my song sound like real songs! Madi also tours with Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) and with Finneas – Billie Eilish’s brother.
He also plays a little bit of violin, and did that on some of the One of Us score.
-Most of what I wrote for that was for cello, but I had a “real” cellist play that. I play keyboard too, because most composers have to sample out stuff on keyboard.
The process
The work process looks different depending on what he’s working with. For the One of Us score he got daily rough cuts from the film set from Stefan, and he improvised to the screen.
For songwriting he usually starts with chords, or if he records something musically, instrumentally, then he starts to sing to it.
For the album, he went back to his roots, just an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar and just playing chords and singing over it.
The song is usually gibberish and makes no sense at first.
-And then I spend months and months and months trying to write lyrics! It’s ridiculous how long it takes me to write lyrics. Everything else comes quickly if it’s good and then the lyrics just take forever.
-With One of Us, I first did the whole rough cut with some violin and I was like: oh this is cool, it’s really minimal! I sent it to Stefan and he’s like: “this is really cool, but we might need some rhythmic elements”, because it was just kind of all over the place, Michael laughs. It was very experimental, which Stefan loves, but he was right, the film needed a pulse, so we added that too and then cello.
His solo album Like Shadows Do, will be released on No Ghost Records, a label he started by himself and he had a few friends that have helped him out. This way he feels he has more creative control and ownership of his music, and freedom.
He jokes: less budget, more freedom.
We also joke about the fact that he was connected to a label years ago for his debut. During Covid he lost interest in his music and since “no one was asking for it” and time just went by.
-But it was good, because I got to work with movies!
I started a different part of my career, which I’m very, very happy with, so…
He decided to release his solo album song by song, since nobody knows who he is (according to himself). And there will be a music video for each song he tells me and Stefan’s done three of them.
We can expect the songs on the album to follow a similar genre and style as Lie To Me…but different flavors: like slower songs and then there’s also darker harder industrial songs too. There’s someone that is even harsher than Lie To Me…
-Different flavors or different sides to the story, he sums it.
Stefan told me you had a hectic night shooting the music video for Lie To Me?
-Yeah, we didn’t have much time, he had the idea like a day or two before we shot it. We didn’t even plan on doing a music video, we were just together in Manchester for the One of Us premiere.
We were talking about music videos in general and he’s like: “I would love to do a music video for you.” I was like: What?! Really?
I hadn’t really wrapped my head around doing them and he said that he would love to, and just wanted me to know that. So he suggested that we could shoot it the last night that we had in London and just do it throughout the night. I was like: okay!
So we did it! I had makeup on for it and then after we finished, I took a shower and then went directly to London Heathrow to get on a plane.
Michael laughs at the memory and continues: It was a crazy night, it was a long night on the Tube, but it was fun.
Just to get someone to do the makeup for you with so few days notice!
-Yeah, it was crazy. Stefan just knows people in London, he had met Shenika Justine before, she’s phenomenal, so talented! She did the makeup for my scarred eye in like an hour and it stayed on the whole night. It was hot and sweaty and it just stayed on! She was great, I love her work!
How did you come up with the idea of the eye? What does it mean?
-It was Stefan’s idea. It was really hard, I remember when we decided to do the music video, he said: “so what’s the song about to you?”
And I was like: Oh, let me pull up the lyrics. Let me try to figure it out… I was trying to come up with some sort of meaning, because I didn’t know!
I was like: Oh, well, it’s probably a guy and he’s really lonely and everyone lies to him, but he just doesn’t have any… you know, like I was trying to string something together.
Then Stefan said: “all right, let me think about it”.
And two days later he’s like: “I got an idea! I think it should be something with someone with some sort of interesting thing with their face. A scar or deformity.” So we decided on scar because it’d be a lot cheaper, easier and less time consuming compared to a full face thing. It was just to make a physical manifestation of how he’s feeling on the inside, not being able to see things clearly.
And at the end, he had the entire idea: “I got the ending! He’s going to try to pluck out his other eye!” And I was like: That’s genius.
He’s so good at that stuff, I mean with One Of Us, it’s an allegory, there’s layers, there’s symbolism and he’s into mythology and he’s into Greek mythology, so the eye plucking thing kind of made sense. Long story short: it was his idea and it’s deep.
And you did the music for two movies for Stefan, and you said he’s done three music videos with you?
-Yeah, three music videos for me. I’ve done One of Us. I didn’t do his first film Simmer. That was actually someone else.
Oh, sorry!
-Don’t be sorry. I wasn’t even doing movie music at that time.
But then someone on the internet is lying about this because I looked it up and it’s listed on your IMDb.
-Yeah, it has me involved in it as an extra, because he asked me to be an actor in it, which is… interesting. It’s the only acting credit I’ve ever gotten in a movie, he laughs. Stefan wanted my wife and I to be extras in one scene.
-I hadn’t done any music for movies at that time, I was playing in bands so I was touring, and Stefan would always come to our shows. He has always been like our biggest fan for any band that I was in. But we are working on another film now. So you are right! We are doing two, because I’ve done some little bits of music for Stefan’s next film he’s in pre-production with.
How do you know what you want to put in with the music to the movie?
-It’s a great question. I try to turn off my brain and not think about it or I’ll think about it as deeply as I can before I start: we’ll talk about characters, we’ll talk about story, I’ll read the script.
The One of Us stuff, a lot of it was the initial violin stuff I made, and then some of the weird, basic noises. Focus on all of that was done to the script.
So I’ll talk and then I’ll think about it and then I’ll shut my brain off and I’ll go on whatever feels right. I try to just go based on intuition, like you’re closing your eyes and feeling your way around. After that, there’s the long time of chiseling away at some things and making sure that it fits perfectly.
But the initial heart of it, I try to just feel my way through it.
Do you and Stefan work the same way together when it’s music for his movies and for your music videos?
-I was a little nervous at first with our music video. I knew that he was going to make an amazing music video. I was more nervous about our working relationship, because it’s so different from when we worked with the movie, and we’d only really been working on One of Us up to that point.
I was nervous about working on One of Us too first. Obviously we played sports together and we hung out all the time. But working together, especially with something that’s so personal to him, like One of Us is, was nervous for me.
And then once we got through that I was like: Oh, it’s easy! We have a working relationship with his films now and it’s so easy. He offers me a lot of freedom, he’s the best collaborator and I can really say that! He really lets me explore, gives me freedom and we love the same type of music. We get along very well.
With my music videos it was a new experience again. Now we’ve done a few videos, and found our way of working. He’s just so easy to work with, it’s crazy. There’s so many egos in this business, and he’s not one of them! It’s so fun to play around and work things out.
The process with other clients for film score is different, Michael tells me. A couple of directors he works with regularly send him the scripts.
-I love reading scripts! He exclaims.
But most of the time he gets involved after the final cut.
You’ve produced and written for some artists before. Do you have any names you want to drop?
-The biggest person, well, I think the one that had the biggest streaming recognition was Faith Marie, and that was a long time ago, like 10-12 years ago. She’s still making music and she’s still super talented. Everyone should check out her stuff. I was listening to some stuff that she’s going to release soon. It’s phenomenal, she’s amazing!
So I think that as far as a producer, that’s kind of like the biggest artists. I’ve done some little things with Top Dawg Entertainment and some artists there, but I’m not going to name names because they’re still in development and sometimes they choose to release it and sometimes they choose not to. But Faith was phenomenal to work with. Her music’s incredible!
Writing for someone else is a very different process according to Michael. He thinks movie music always comes more naturally for him for some reason. When he has a visual in front of him, music comes up.
Producing for others is easier compared to working on his own stuff. Before he made movie music he treated producing like it was his own music:
-What would I build underneath it, if I had sung this song? It felt natural at the moment.
Now he feels it’s different when he produces. He treats it more like the vocal line is a dialogue, which he finds weird after doing movie music.
-I treat it like that the vocal line is the story. I get to build a score around it to tell the story.
Before he was more focused on aesthetics.
-What does the artist want to sound like? What are her favorite bands? And build something around it that she would like. Now it’s like: this is a character and their story, and they’re saying something in the song. How can I score or produce something around it? So I’m more focused on character and story now. It’s interesting.
Can you feel that you are leaving a stamp of you in other music?
-That’s a great question! I haven’t really thought about it but there’s always a part of me in everything. That’s just the beauty of collaboration. When you take the heart of you and the heart of someone else and put it together.
So what’s next?
-The album is done and I’ve written a lot of the next album too which is great. So I’m going to continue with that and I’ve played a few small little shows in LA, which has been fun! That’s something that I loved doing and I stopped doing it for like eight years so I love getting back into that!
And then for films: I’m working on four or five projects right now. Some are short films, some are feature length films.
There’s just so much that I’ve been busy with, I don’t know… it’s been a lot, so I’ve got to choose different times in my day: okay now I’m working on film music, now I’m reaching out to those and those for my music, so it’s a balance.
I’m going to continue just doing movie music and my own music and see where that takes me.
My last but favorite question: If you only could listen to one song for the rest of your life, which song would it be?
-One song for the rest of my… I don’t want to say something stupid!
He takes the mission very seriously and tries to attack with facts. He starts looking at his playlist to see what he listens to the most. He huffs and puffs and complains over having to make a decision to stick with for the rest of his life.
-When I grew up my dad had so many different…
I’m just buying myself some time… he says while laughing and then continues: My dad listens to Depeche Mode, Green Day, Barenaked Ladies, a lot of alternative music. We went to see Depeche Mode like a year ago, I got him tickets for Christmas and that was amazing.
-But if I had to choose one song, out of those albums… Okay, this is one that I’ve listened to for most of my life. Joy Division, which is not embarrassing, because they’re cool. It’s a song that’s been special to me for a long time. Since I was younger until now. I’ve just always listened to it.
So it’s Atmosphere by Joy Division. I’m probably gonna listen to that song for the rest of my life.
Perfect!
-It’s a perfect song.
Thank you so much for your time Michael!
Since our talk Michael has released two more songs (and videos), you can find them all on his Spotify.