Osei Essed is a film composer and songwriter who has scored films such as Crater (Disney), Unveiled: Surviving La Luz Del Mundo (HBO), The Lincoln Project (Showtime), and Period. End of Sentence (Oscar winner) as well as writing and fronting Brooklyn-based bands The Woes, and Big Hands Rhythm & Blues Band (Ropeadope Records). We talk about having goals and ambition but not being attached to the specific outcome, the similarities and differences between writing for stage (songwriting) and composing for film, and some of the tools Osei uses to stay grounded and focused while facing daunting deadlines from multiple projects at once.
Osei Essed is a film composer and songwriter who has scored films such as Crater (Disney), Unveiled: Surviving La Luz Del Mundo (HBO), The Lincoln Project (Showtime), and Period. End of Sentence (Oscar winner) as well as writing and fronting Brooklyn-based bands The Woes, and Big Hands Rhythm & Blues Band (Ropeadope Records). We talk about having goals and ambition but not being attached to the specific outcome, the similarities and differences between writing for stage (songwriting) and composing for film, and some of the tools Osei uses to stay grounded and focused while facing daunting deadlines from multiple projects at once.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:07] Aaron: Hey, and welcome to today's episode of The Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss
[00:00:11] Michaela: and I'm your host, Michaela Anne, and if you're a brand new listener, thank you so much for checking us out. If you're a returning listener. Thank you for coming back.
[00:00:19] Aaron: We like to think of this show as the anti album cycle podcast, so it's not your normal show where musicians would come on and talk about their latest record. We wanted to focus on the hours that we as musicians are not on stage, and the tools and routines that our guests have found to keep their sanity and their creativity and their inspiration going while building a career around their art.
[00:00:38] Michaela: Between the two of us, Erin and I have almost 25 years of experience in the music business.
[00:00:43] Aaron: And through all of this, Mikayla and I have learned there's no one right way to build a career around your passion.
[00:00:48] Michaela: And in an industry where so much is left up to luck being in the right place at the right time, who you know, we wanted to focus on the things that are within our
[00:00:56] Aaron: control. So with that in mind, we decided to invite our friends and some of our favorite artists on to ask them the question, what do you do to create sustainability in your life so that you can sustain your creativity?
And the friend that we invited on today is probably the closest friend we've ever had on here. He is a ESE American composer and songwriter named OE ett. Who, sang the first dance for us at our wedding?
[00:01:19] Michaela: Yeah. And I, Jose started out playing in bands and he had a band called The Woes, which is, pretty notorious in a certain Brooklyn, New York City scene.
And he transitioned into becoming a very, well acclaimed and renowned film composer.
[00:01:36] Aaron: and his list of films that he has worked on is absolutely staggering, especially considering he's.
Been in the film world for a little more than a decade at this point. But just to name some highlights he scored period end of sentence, which is a documentary short on Indian women, standing up against the stigma of talking about menstruation and That won an Oscar for the best documentary short, he scored amend, which was I think a six episode series on Netflix.
Produced by Will Smith. He scored a mini-series on the Lincoln Project and we talk about a recent project he worked on called Unveiled Surviving La Luz del Muno. And back in 2019, I went up to New York and helped Osay score a film called True Justice, a documentary on Brian Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.
Which ended up winning an Emmy and a Peabody Award. So, Needless to say, he's worked on some, a very, very heavy documentaries as well as narrative films. But also an extensive list of movies.
[00:02:38] Michaela: So we were really excited to be able to record a conversation with Osse, talking about his approach and belief system around creativity and transitioning between a life touring on the road and bands playing late at night. Two, one that is spent in solitude, often composing in his studio during the day.
[00:03:00] Aaron: as I mentioned, OE was born in Surinam and Grew up going between Surinam and Holland before moving to the States in 1982 escaping essentially War and Surinam. And so we spent a lot of time talking about how this is translated into his approach to his career in that he has an idea of where he wants to go and what he wants to do, but he doesn't have attachment to.
That because he grew up with the situation of not really knowing what your future would be, which is a pretty unique situation, at least for most Americans.
[00:03:31] Michaela: We discussed the communal aspect of creating, being part of the happening, but not being what is happening and the power, and having the courage to pause and stop for a time and learn how to listen to yourself again,
[00:03:45] Aaron: which working with us, say frequently from here in Nashville, working remotely.
When you're deep in a film, it is. way more than a nine to five job. And there are deadlines, there's a whole team waiting for what you're doing. And so it can be really daunting to sit and show up and create on demand. so he has some great insight on how to stay creative and stay present and stay inspired through that whole process.
[00:04:07] Michaela: And without further ado, here's our conversation with Oe Esid.
thank you Oe for being our guest on the other 22 hours. You are our longtime friend, so I think one of our closest friends that we've had as a guest on this Thus far.
[00:04:23] Aaron: You're, you're the first guest that we've had on here that sang our first dance as a married couple at our wedding.
That's true. So congratulations. That's
[00:04:29] Michaela: true. Yeah.
[00:04:31] Osei: Well I'm glad to be that guy. I hope that the next guy, who is that guy is, just as good looking.
[00:04:36] Michaela: Well, and aside from just the fact that we love you as a friend, thinking objectively about the type of guests we want where our premise is to talk about the things we've all learned, navigating how to. Sustain and survive and thrive in a creative life where your livelihood is dependent on your creativity and all that comes with it.
And because we've known you so long and you've had such an interesting path, you came to mind right away to hear about your kind of biggest transition and also how you started. And I was thinking back, I think we met because I worked at Nonesuch Records when
I was like right.
outta college, like 22 or something, and our sweet friend Jesse Louder, was a huge fan.
Of you and your band, and worked with you guys. And he harassed me to no end to try and get Nonesuch to sign you.
[00:05:33] Osei: Didn't work,
[00:05:33] Michaela: And I was like,
[00:05:35] Osei: heart though.
[00:05:36] Michaela: I know. I was like, they sound great. But um, I'm like literally right out of school, I'm like an assistant. I have no power. But then that evolved into all of us getting to know each other and Aaron playing drums for you?
[00:05:50] Osei: Yeah.
[00:05:50] Aaron: I think Jesse hired me to play in the Woes before you did. think it was
like that
first tour.
yeah, I think it was that first tour going to Bristol Rhythm and Roots that I did with you guys in like 2009 or something like that. I'm pretty sure Jesse was like, Hey, the wolves are gonna go play this festival.
You should play drums with them. I'm gonna put you in touch with osa. And I was like, okay. And, and you know, that was that. Here we are in 2023
[00:06:16] Michaela: And then the first shows I ever played outside of New York, the first so-called tour that I ever did was with, you guys remember this? It was like
three
[00:06:25] Osei: remember. Yeah. Well, And you set up one of 'em at the Notorious,
[00:06:29] Michaela: what was it called? The Beaver
[00:06:31] Osei: I think it was called like the Beaver.
[00:06:33] Aaron: It was called The Wild Beaver Saloon.
That's what
it
was at. I remember you and I, and probably Andrew were sitting at some coffee shop in Red Hook, doing the thing that you had to do to book a tour. sending a ton of emails and all of that. And I was like, oh, Mikayla booked this show in Lansing.
We'll play here. And we were looking at the website and your mouth was just wide opener. Are you like, Are you sure you wanna bring your girlfriend to this place? And I'm like, she booked it like full on. Like This was her choice
[00:07:01] Michaela: and that was our best paid gig.
[00:07:03] Osei: It really was, it was our best. I mean, Sometimes you gotta take those kind of wild gigs because it's like, great, there we go. We're gonna take this
[00:07:09] Michaela: Yeah. I think the girls were wearing like chaps and underwear. Anyways, So OE had this great band, those Beloved called and still has sometimes playing
the
[00:07:20] Osei: every once in a while,
[00:07:21] Michaela: And you started your career as a songwriter, front person, touring band, and now you are a very well-respected acclaimed film composer.
How did that
happen?
[00:07:34] Osei: one accident after another. You know, we first went on our first tour, Aaron, I wasn't, I hadn't been trying to do that. It's just like where things were going and then there we were doing it, and in much the same way. I wasn't trying to become a film composer.
I never imagined myself as such, you know? was definitely stumbling in, same with songwriting even. I think my life is a series of oh, I guess I'm doing this now. I was telling, someone recently, how one of the first musical things I ever did was a battle of the bands.
Like so many of us, like in high school, and I'd been playing music for about two years with some friends of mine in my backyard and making up songs, just like all kinds of songs all the time. We used to like, have a lot of fun with our tape recorded. We'd tape record the songs and then speed 'em up and we'd be like, this is we're gonna make like the heavy metal, Alvin and the Chipmunks or something like that.
We were dorks like, it was like from the time I was 12 and I remember when we showed up at the Battle of the Bands and all the other kids, had been taking guitar lessons and drum lessons. Like we were not even nearly as legit. our drum set most of the time as it was, was like a cobbled thing that we had bought on the street at a, garage sale as well as like a table.
It was like, oh, great, yeah, we'll just hit it loud and that's fine. We can hear it. It does the thing that's a snare. It's fine. we cobbled it together and we got there and we were like shocked to see all these kids playing like Metallica songs, like legit songs like that they'd learned know, they knew all the rifs and we were like, you can just play other people's music.
This is crazy. Oh man. we're screwed. Everybody knows these songs. and I think my life musically has been a lot of that sort of just finding myself in a place and trying to figure out how to exist there.
[00:09:09] Michaela: did you go to school for music?
[00:09:11] Osei: I did end up going to school for music?
and you know, I'd gone to school for psychology. I'd gone to school for painting, for writing. I tried a bunch of different things. And then I bummed around, worked the worst jobs. parking cars. I was a bouncer. I did every job.
All the jobs, all kinds of hours. And I was like, oh, I should probably get a degree of some sorts. And my family is a bunch of people who believe very strongly in education. So they had been very much opposed to me going to school for music forever, always, even any other things I tried to do.
They were just like tolerant a little bit more than music. They're like, you're gonna be real poor. And they weren't wrong, but I was already real poor. So I figured if I just like went and got like a degree of some sort, they'd be happy. And they were so psyched that I went back. They're like, oh, finally you're going back to school.
I told moves for music and they were like, I guess that'll be fine. And and yeah, I ended up going to SUNY purchase and meeting a bunch of really amazing musicians and friends and, getting just so much of a wider. View of what music could be in my life. And it definitely broadened my understanding and deepened rather my understanding of, the art and the craft.
[00:10:20] Aaron: Yeah.
You had a big influence on me like, cause I started touring with the worlds Fresh Outta college and I'm like, super conservatory headed kid. And I was like, oh, creating music in the real world living a life, and Rachel lived way down near Fairway in Red Hook at that point.
And I just remember like, we'd go to your house and rehearse and you just had a life and you. Were working various jobs within, like the woes were also touring substantially at that point.
And it was the first time I saw, I was like, oh, you can like balance a normal life and tour at the same time.
was that another thing that was kind of just happenstance was it intentional? Yeah.
as intentional as it seems outwardly.
[00:10:57] Osei: I think, maybe we find a way into living the way that we think life should be lived. I guess happenstance is a good word to describe it, but I, I mean, I don't think I could have done one without the other, I've tried not playing music.
I had full year and a half where I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm, done. I was somewhere in my twenties. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep it up. I just had to go back. It pulled me right back in. And in the same way I, I think, you know, now, Rachel and I have a life that's even more intertwined and even more down a road I guess many people find themselves walking.
We have two children, they go to school. We have dog that just came in. We, our homeowners. It's a strange place to find ourselves. And I guess a lot of it is just survival and luck and knowing the things that are important and keeping them close or, keeping some degree of perspective
[00:11:47] Aaron: absolutely. I saw you pull back from touring, in the kind of way where it's like touring is crazy and completely unsustainable. many years ago I was in my late twenties at that point, and I was like, what do you mean it's totally fine to drive around for three weeks and sleep on floors and come home with 70 bucks?
That's like what you do. We're living the dream. And you're like, there's more to it there. There's way more out there. And so I saw you pull back from that a little bit and, if I'm remembering correctly, you made this choice of I'm open to whatever musical thing comes my way, I'm just gonna try it.
And you ended up landing in, composing in working on films and all of that and being. Really busy with that. Is that pretty much what happened?
[00:12:30] Osei: Yeah. I pulled back from touring what followed was the year and a half where I decided music's done. I'm gonna get a straight job. Maybe I'll paint a little bit when I, find the time or the way to do that. in there, Rachel and I got pregnant with Sparrow, our oldest, and I was like this is great.
This is fine. This all lines up. But Despite the fact that we had this amazing kid, wasn't very happy or fulfilled feeling, and Sparrow wasn't, right there at the beginning of that. He came on the heels of the year and a half of saying like, I'm done with this.
Sandy also hit our apartment, and I still had like, all these musical instruments, I had like parts of my musical life that were still there. And I was just starting to become open to the idea of making music again. And then Sandy hit and I was like, all right everything can go away and be crazy.
Anyhow so, Michaela, you remember did a fundraiser for us and everything at that time and
like
we
lost everything.
[00:13:19] Michaela: yeah, we, I remember we came over and your whole apartment had been, flooded and I remember like throwing away the baby mattress, the crib mattress, and like bagging baby clothes. And you guys had gone up to Aing, right? Or around there. And Rachel gave birth in the midst of the hurricane.
[00:13:38] Osei: The night of. Yeah,
[00:13:40] Michaela: Insane. Yeah.
[00:13:41] Aaron: I remember very vividly cuz you'd walk into your apartment and you'd be like in the, main space with the kitchen and all of that. I remember walking in and the water had rushed in so forcefully that your fridge was, like diagonal leaning against the wall,
[00:13:54] Osei: it's pretty wild. And I think the perspective of, of not only that happening at the same time as we were having our, our boy and, just realizing how, everything was, made me really reassess what it was that I wanted to be doing. You recall I was working at the time for Stumptown and I was also working at.
Retro fret and main drag. I had three gigs, and I was working like 60 hours a week or something. none of it was directly music, you know, which was fine for a little while, but after that, I decided to focus more of it on music and I did. I wanted to be open to anything.
And
[00:14:30] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:14:30] Osei: I'm scoring films. that being said, I'm still very much open to all the musical things. I think on the way, I also did some theater stuff. I did, a Shakespeare play at the Polanski Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn.
Right. On Flatbush. And that was a really cool thing. That was like a four weeks of playing, Into Pit as it were for. A play for I, what was it now? I cannot remember the play. It was maybe six, seven years ago. But yeah, you know, that was really exciting.
This month or next month, I guess, I'm about to go on a tour with one of the bands that I play in, not The Woes. A very short tour, with, big Hands Rhythm in Blues Band, which is the bluesy punk band that I get to playing, which is really fun. We're going to Moldova, on a state department tour then to Switzerland for a couple of days, which is
is like a really neat, surprising little thing.
But you gotta say yes because it's music And I
[00:15:28] Aaron: Yeah. And and really interesting places I've heard those State Department tours are, cool and unique.
[00:15:33] Osei: Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine that it wouldn't be, I it's just a part of the world. I, I don't think I'd find myself going to, Moldova anyway, maybe Switzerland, I'm excited to go and see what that's about.
[00:15:43] Aaron: Yeah. And you write for that band as well.
[00:15:46] Osei: Right. Yeah.
[00:15:47] Michaela: I wanna hear like more of the details of how your film composing career got going, but it feels like a lot of, you've done has been a let it come type of feeling of like, what's here. Okay, sure. where can be a little counter to what our greater cultural mindset is, especially pursuing a career Chasing things or like making things happen or putting yourself out there, it's opposite of that.
And you've done incredible things with it. this is all to say, I think it takes a lot of courage to say, I'm gonna stop for a minute, for a year for however long, maybe indefinitely, and just be open to what's gonna come where.
I would be terrified to do that. I would probably last like a week because I'd be like, no, I have to keep working. Otherwise everyone's gonna forget about me. I'm gonna lose everything and I'm gonna be broke in destitute. And have no perceived success. And that is something that's in my core, still important to me.
So to have that courage, is that whatever to you or is that something you've had to like, think about and work towards?
[00:16:54] Osei: I guess I grew up without a real strong sense of control over my fate. even though I think, or I've thought a lot about what it is in my power I can do to get from one point to another and have a goal in mind, the long-term goals it's something you can invest in, and you can give yourself to it wholly, but you can't rely on it being where you're going.
that's what I I believe at this very moment. And I moved here in 1982, and by that point I had already lived, in both Europe and in South America, back and forth four times. And I moved here because there were tanks rolling down the street. and for months we didn't know whether my father was alive. And then there were years that followed that were just extremely chaotic, in terms of our home life
[00:17:47] Michaela: Mm-hmm. And that was in, in Sur.
[00:17:49] Osei: No, that was when we got from Surinam to Westchester.
We got here the day after Christmas in 1982 and we came without coats. And we didn't own coats cuz we didn't need them. And, my father was probably a little bit wilder than my mother and a little less committed committed to stability.
But ultimately they were people who, my father was a psychologist, my mother. a master's degree and was teaching university. They were people who at the very least, were somewhat committed to stability. And there were tanks rolling down the street, and my mother and my sister and I were hiding for weeks at a relative's house because there were death threats against our family.
And so I grew up feeling what can you really control?
That doesn't mean that you don't want things and try to work towards them, but I think that's what you can do. You can want things and work towards them and accept that that might not work out.
[00:18:42] Michaela: Yeah. maybe there's a deep, difference growing up like that versus my very safe, probably pretty controlled environment and very stable environment, even though I moved as a military kid, but it was, you very like traditional. My two kids, two dogs. We had dinner every night when my dad was home from not being out in the military, but it felt very safe.
So I think I grew up with this idea of I have complete control over what I become or do in life, if I don't, then it's my fault rather than, You don't have that much control over these bigger outside things. So the world can happen and it's not any fault of your own. Even if you worked the hardest, you were able to work the most talented, whatever those things are, but you learned early on the danger and the unjust, unfair things out there that contribute to you feeling like maybe no matter what I do, I'm not gonna be able to actually determine everything about my life.
[00:19:43] Osei: Yeah. I mean, I think that's 100% true. I think you've been, I. Working and you've gone to school and you've met all these amazing musicians and instrumentalists and writers and all this potential, there's all endless potential in people.
And you see it and you meet 'em and you're like, oh my God, that person's I'm incredible. But then maybe they decide you know what, I'm gonna go work on houses instead because they're better suited to that, it's okay. There's nothing wrong there.
I guess aside from the things that we want, there's also the idea of function.
And I think in particular for art, What purpose does it serve aside from serving me and I think it's all not always our time. And sometimes it is.
[00:20:19] Aaron: can you elaborate more on the,
[00:20:21] Osei: Yeah I, I, I think maybe, I might be able to, I guess what I really love about and this is a little bit of a segue. what I really love about making music for film is that, you get a sense of your music serving a function. As much as I've loved playing on stages, I think my favorite shows and, you've been with me for many of them, Aaron, are the ones where we are really interacting.
Like, There are people like a little bit too close to the band, Phil is at his steel guitar and he's pissed because like there's somebody that's dancing and it's cool that they're dancing, but they're dancing so goddamn close to the instrument. I think that, that to me is The best music, that's the best experience of performance for me. It's great to be on a stage, but like that distance, I'm like, huh, no, I want, I wanna smell these people. I know they smell bad. I know they haven't showered. It's fine. Get in here, let's get, let's go. It's like I might not have either, especially if we've been touring.
I've been wearing my onesie, my onesie Ike for five days.
[00:21:18] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:21:18] Osei:
And I love that sense of being really like in the middle of something. And I think with film music, I get to do that. think with music and theater, you get to do that too. You're, You're just a part of a happening and you're not, what's happening and you never are.
And so it just makes it feel like that is the function of music. It's like to bring community and to bring life. And I've seen lots of shows on stages that I've loved and I thought, wow, that's really incredible. But When I'm watching a show like that, I think more about the craft of the show than I do about the moment.
And I love both because otherwise I don't think I would've been attracted to making music in the first place. But for myself, I really love just being immersed.
[00:21:57] Aaron: Yeah, I, I can't remember exactly when it was, but we played. Some loft party in Bushwick
and Yeah. And Dan was play, you know, it was, the woe is like large band.
Um, One of those things that were, I think we started at one in the morning, it is just amazing, like being in the thick of all of that. And the music that you wrote slash write for the woes is so much that, the instrumentation of the band, the way the music was performed, the way you wrote the music, it was very inclusive and like very, I wanna say community oriented, but that's not exactly what I meant.
it kind of felt like music, for the people. the songs would totally Stand up on their own with you and a guitar singing them. And then are, for the people in a different way, for the, for the mind and for the soul and for the connection of I feel that too, or, Yeah.
absolutely.
Or that's an experience I've had. but then the way that it comes to life just pulls people in. it didn't surprise me when you told me that you were starting to compose more for films. I'm like, of course I see the connection there.
[00:22:56] Michaela: But there's also like the way that you conducted the woes, which was like, okay, you have the woes big band. There's so many people who were part of the woes at different times or all at one time, depending on where you're playing. If you're going on tour and you take three people with you, or if you're playing at Sunny's and you've got like 10 people amongst all of the other drunk people that are in the room So there's also this very communal social aspect in the act of creating, where in film you have a function that has all these other pieces, but you're doing a lot of the work in solitude.
I think being a musician so much informs how we live because of what our work is and the way that we interact with people if you're doing live performances versus now spending your days mostly in your studio alone.
I think about this for Aaron too, composing, recording yourself, more of like a nine to five structure, not out in bars. How does that inform your. person, your mental, emotional, physical wellbeing.
[00:24:00] Osei: That's a really great question. I spend a lot of time thinking about that actually. Especially over the last. Three years with the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, I was still playing in bands pretty regularly. I was playing in both the woes and big hands, rhythm and blues, and I was between the two bands I was playing, I was down in the city, maybe, four times a month, playing once or twice a month.
And it was just a wonderful way to keep that part of my alive and share that with friends and strangers. I guess over the last couple of years I've been, much less around people and I've also been very busy, so it means that I've had less time to meet new people, but also I think one of the great things about.
Making music and performing music, and especially having it be, as somewhat chaotic, but inclusive as the woes have been, and some of those shows get to be, is that you get to be a part of things and you don't really have to talk to people. You can talk to people afterwards, they'll talk to you and you can listen, but you've given everything of yourself, don't have to be the focus of anything. You can just be there. You can be. so I'm not very practiced at making new acquaintances outside of that. And I live here in the suburbs, so it's a very strange thing. It's also a question of once you make a friend, I keep my friends, I'm friends with my friends for decades, and the question of whether. This community is one that I'm ready to fully embrace is one I've thought a lot about. Last year you mentioned Dan Aaron Last year I got to be in Los Angeles for about six months, with Dan, Dan Roamer, on a few projects, and there's a lot of our community, a lot of folks who used to be in New York that are now there, and then a lot of new folks that I've met over the years as I've been, back and forth from la. it was the first time that the pandemic had eased up.
And so I got to be with friends every single day. I mean, I missed my kids, I missed my wife. I came back a few times, but it was the first time that people were starting to go out and be amongst each other. And I was there. Amongst people I already knew. And, like, I was like, oh, right. this is what life is supposed to be. And I came back here and I, continued to be busy and it was winter and all the things that are, are our normal in life. And so, now it's warming up again. But I've spent a lot of time in the last six or seven months thinking like what is it to be by yourself and to be, busy in this way with only yourself as a barometer throughout the day or throughout the week, throughout maybe a month. And then all of a sudden you have to go outside and you say hi to your neighbor and you say, hi neighbor, and your neighbor says hello. And you're like, all right, I'm going back in now. And, you know, that's it.
[00:26:35] Aaron: Yeah. how do those two things influence your creativity, being around people all the time? Because you're in LA and you're working with Dan, you're also collaborating creatively with people. Correct. It's not just just seeing friends. how do each of those affect your process?
[00:26:51] Osei: Well It's interesting cuz I, I do get to, do collaborative work, remotely as well. it is a different kind of collaborative work, but, everything from collaborative work. You and I have done Aaron, where, will talk about happening inside of a piece. And I'm like I need the percussion to sort of feel x, y, Z way.
you might send me something, I'll do a crazy mock up and I'll be like, can it be this? And you'll say, yeah. Here's a more perfect version of that. That actually sounds like music again. so there's all different degrees of collaboration and I think, I value all of them.
I don't think one is a higher degree, I would say it's a circle and we move around the circle and they're all different kinds of ways of fitting in together and speaking to each other. And there's all different kinds of shorthands we've developed in all kinds of different approaches that different friends or collaborators have in communicating with each other to get to the place where, We feel like we're really talking to each other I don't know what your writing process is like, but I find, when I start in on a project the first few days I'm getting there and somehow, sometimes by the end of a six week long or eight week long project, I look back and I look at the music I've written and and I might remember one thing, one little piece that made it all come together, that made the whole thing make sense and define the language of that project.
But there's a meditation to it, I think. And once you get going, you're just gone. You can just go, you can tap into it, it exists and you remember how to get there. And I think when you're working with other people whether it's in person or whether it's remotely, you're still looking for the way.
For both of you to get to that place and then to have a short hand so you can say, okay, great. turn the thing on again, and turned it back on. So now we can go back in and figure out how the pieces fit. So there's something exciting about doing that in person because remotely everyone ends up being much more gentle with each other because we recognize you don't know my face right now.
We might not be FaceTiming, or you might not get my tone right now, or I can't give you a hug or a tap on the back, or any of the small, little communications that we apes do to let each other know that we don't mean anything in a pretty shitty way. And then when we're in person, sometimes it's hard to remember to do that sometimes.
I feel so strongly about an idea, or I feel that this thing should be this thing and I don't know how to communicate it exactly yet. people talk about their strengths being their weaknesses, and one of my weaknesses is the way that I think about music isn't necessarily always totally or harmonically.
or maybe even not rhythmically. There's just like a feeling that I know that I can make. And once I've made that feeling, it's defined and we can break it apart and look at it as harmony or as a, rhythmic figure or whatever it is. But not until it's fully formed.
Until then, it's just exploration. And I think doing that with someone else, and Dan is one of my favorite collaborators because he gives me the space I need for that. And then were able to get back to that very quickly. As soon as I've done it, he's like, all right, this is what that was. And we get there together again, you know, whereas where I'm by myself, I'm like, all right, look at it.
and I'll go down a entirely different road because it, I'm not another person. And I think every single person you collaborate with has something that they can bring to that, and we can talk about it and find our way to ideas in new, innovative ways that are unexpected.
think that's performance in a sense too, right Is like you have this idea that you're like, this is alive, we have to remember to not kick the dancers. We have to remember to like, be welcoming and leave space for other people
[00:30:15] Michaela: also for our listeners, Dan that he keeps mentioning? Is Dan Roamer a film composer And producer you watch any film or tv, you've probably heard dance music
[00:30:26] Osei: absolutely. and Dan and I met at Purchase College that he's one of those amazing people I mentioned having met there and he played into woes, he produced some Woe records. He had his own bands and he's just one of the most talented and kind and warm and considerate people. my first film that I ever made music for what was it the last season and it was with Dan and, another friend of ours, another really wonderful musician named Oscar Shababa, who lives in the Dominican Republic, was here at the time.
I don't remember if he came back from the Dominican Republic. He might have been. In Japan and then came back. He was around I know he wasn't in New York and he came back and we were so excited that Oscar was back and we all spent a lot of time together making the music for that film.
And we'd all played into woes together and we'd all done other things together. we were making music in the moment, for that film. without that first thing, I don't know that there would've been a second thing, but there was.
[00:31:26] Aaron: yeah, I want to circle back a little bit to what you were talking about, your view on music and it not necessarily falling into being tonal or rhythmic or anything, but really just being like an energy and that theme. For the project that you're working on, obviously you can argue that that's also something that needs to happen when you're working on a, a record, but it's a very tangible thing when you're working on a film.
There's very much a theme or a feel to the whole film. That's kind of a string that runs through the music as well. Is that easier for you to find when collaborating with people? you had mentioned that you view that potentially as a weakness just because it's maybe like a less standard view of music.
Is it harder for you personally to get to your spot of finding that with people than it is alone? Or does that shift.
[00:32:13] Osei: I think it depends. I think it depends on, both the film and the collaborator. when collaborating on a film, whether you're collaborating with a composer or you're just writing the music by yourself, ultimately collaborating with, know, a slew of other voices.
There's certainly a director, potentially an editor, potentially producers that you are going to be answering to that you're going to have to, find a common language with. I think finding that initial sound, that initial idea, that initial spark, there's always an idea there.
There's never a moment where I'm like, oh, well there's no music in my head. I guess I'm, this film is just gonna not work. Um, I think that figuring out how closely the feeling that you're trying to cultivate, works with the director's vision, and with the storyline and where maybe, you can help guide a story, whether consciously or subconsciously in terms of your, fellow collaborators.
that takes work that takes a little bit of time to get to, and it, it's, it's almost always the same amount of time. It's almost always, you know, a week, maybe two of trying things and figuring out how they all worked together.
[00:33:21] Michaela: when you're writing songs, you're just writing what you wanna write, right? You're writing about what? The lyrics are about what you're feeling, it's all determined by you. But when you're writing for a film and you have all of these directions and then obviously the topic of the film, how does that inform your creativity?
Especially a lot of the films you've been doing are pretty heavy matter. If you wanna mention just a handful of them. I mean, the one Aaron worked on with you was True Justice, the H B O documentary about Brian Stevenson. You mentioned a couple recently that I was like,
[00:33:55] Osei: Oh, I did one um, called Unveiled surviving la Luz muno this last winter, which was about, I don't know if you know the church, LA Luz Muno. if you look them up, you'll recognize their temples
[00:34:10] Michaela: I saw the trailers for this and I didn't know that, that you worked on that one.
[00:34:14] Osei: Yeah. And that was dark.
you know, It's about all kinds of child trafficking, child abuse, rape and, just the exploitation of, of women and of men and boys and girls, and just horrible humans doing horrible things in completely predictable ways. Sadly predictable ways. were asking how that informs my creative process working on projects like that.
I think, again, a lot of it has to do with finding a common language with the storytellers and recognizing yourself as only being one part of that. So to take, surviving Del Mundo, an example, was some back and forth initially between myself and the director as we tried to find a way, and it took about two weeks, two, three weeks, through about, 15 minutes of music in that.
And then the rest of it came very quickly after that because the language was defined. We knew how we wanted to tell that story. We knew what the pacing was going to have to be, because I think very often, you that's a big thing. I think in terms of how we can misinterpret a storyteller's intent is how quickly anything is moving or how slowly it's moving and, music can aid that, in either direction.
And somebody might say, I know that what we have here is moving very slowly, but we really need for it to feel as if there's, a lot of tension here, so how are we going to build that? And all this sort of conversing that has to happen in order to figure out what our, our means of transport is gonna be from one
side of the film to the other, one side of the story, to the end.
Yeah.
[00:35:48] Aaron: Do you find coming from a background of like writing songs, Do you see threads between the two? Does that give you a unique perspective on how you score things?
[00:35:56] Osei: I think more so. historically did not. Maybe it does. I guess I can't look from outside of myself enough to really see whether it's the songwriting specifically. I also a lot, so maybe there's something there as well. there's so many things I do from project to project I might do differently each time.
In terms of assessing how I want to approach the storytelling or how any someone needs me to approach the storytelling. the songwriting helps certainly. But I think also not too many defined ideas about how it's going to be before I know how it's going to be or how it needs to be.
And I guess maybe that's like a songwriter's thing, is that you're open to what might next.
[00:36:38] Aaron: Yeah.
put the antenna up, put up the sales, and see what sticks there.
[00:36:41] Osei: Yeah.
[00:36:42] Aaron: How does the actual creative process differ? Because if you're writing a song, 99 times out of a hundred, you don't have a deadline. maybe you have an idea. You start with the idea and you chase that down.
But like with a film, you very much have a deadline. There's a whole team and a whole production train. Yeah. That's waiting on you. That's the thought of
[00:36:58] Michaela: being a film composer gives me anxiety.
[00:37:01] Osei: Well, I think the most difficult part for me in songwriting exactly the opposite as what it used to be. It used to be that and it's changed over the last, decade. used to be that I would write words. I'd hear words all the time. I'm like, oh, how am I gonna put that to a melody?
And, and then maybe I'd find the melody. But most of the time now, If I'm writing a song, and I hadn't written songs in a few years, and just recently I wrote, some songs and it felt very good to write them. But words were not only the last thing that came, but unlike, my historical songwriting where I would have an idea of what I was going to write about.
songs, I just decided, oh, okay, I guess I'm gonna write about this thing. this is what these lyrics are gonna be about. And there was already a melody and maybe I changed some of it, to match the syllable count or whatever it was, or, to match the tone the lyric.
But most of it was written before I got to the words. And I think with film writing, the reason that it can be as fast as it can is that once you decide on the order, you know, I talked about I start with an idea, the idea doesn't necessarily. Start out as being harmonic or rhythmic or anything.
It's just like an energy, it's a thing that I have to like, figure out what it is. And once I figured out what it is, then it is, but until then, it's just like something that exists in ether. You know, people, things exist like on multiple planes. They, They exist out there. And so them being out there is, a thing.
And I know what it sounds like in there, but I know that also if I drag it from in there to in here, to out here where we all are and we're able to hear it together, that it's not gonna be the same. It's not gonna mean the same thing because out there it's surrounded by a whole lot of things that are happening inside of me that are not necessarily happening inside of other people.
So it's defined by its surroundings. And so when I pull it back out here, it's to define it by these surroundings. I have to like, add things or take things away or it's just a different, it's a different idea now. it's changed.
[00:38:55] Michaela: Do you have things non-musical in your life that you feel and maybe it's changed.
over time, but that you feel are essential to. Your ability to create and to work practices or hobbies anything that feels like when I do these things, this helps me stay, right?
[00:39:15] Osei: there's not been a time that I can recall having a real issue creating. If I need to make things, I can make things or if I want to make things, I can make things, in order to want to I, want to feel good and in order to feel good, I. Try to eat good food and make meals that I like and drink wine that I like when I feel like drinking wine.
I ride my bicycle a lot. I've been riding a bike for a few years now. out in LA last year. That was, I think, one of the greatest things because again, you know, it was really wonderful to be around community, but I also missed my family so deeply. I think despite the fact that I'm somewhat I'm really open to where things take me.
I'm also ordered in the way that I live my daily life. So not waking up every morning and having two kids who needed to be fed, and needed to then go to their, school or daycare. Really messed with my schedule. Like, I had no sense of who I was. Like, you know, really.
I was like, what am I even like, I don't, if I'm not the guy who has to get these kids out the door and give 'em breakfast and like, make sure they have lunch and that they get picked up afterwards and that the shirts aren't backwards, like then who am I? Um, one of the things I was doing out there was riding my bike on Sundays.
I would take my bike out to uh, the beach and ride it down from Santa Monica to Rhode Hondo and that was really lovely. I think moving my body it's pretty fun and pretty exciting. Staving off decrepitude for another decade or two,
[00:40:39] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:39] Osei: so,
[00:40:40] Aaron: Do you have anything when you're in the thick of a project? And, being in the thick of a project can be multiple weeks, way more than a nine to five,
[00:40:50] Michaela: yeah.
The demands of your, when you're coming up on deadlines and
[00:40:53] Aaron: Yeah.
How do you keep that going? I'm sure there are times there where it's just there's no brake pads left and it's just like metal on metal grinding, and it's just like the wagon along. Do you have things that you do to keep yourself fresh since you're not writing songs for yourself, you have to keep going.
Is there things that you do to stay refreshed?
[00:41:10] Osei: Yeah. You know usually during those times it's because there are multiple projects moving at the same time. At maybe different paces or at the same pace. And when that's happening, I think figuring out when to dedicate time to each it's an important skill.
Also setting I have two hours now to work on this. And, you look at the alarm you, you not, you don't have to beat yourself up if you go two hours in six minutes, but, two and a half hours is too long. so I, I think, giving yourself a set amount of time in order to accomplish a task.
I meditate during those times, like I, I'm pretty bad about meditating regularly. I sometimes I'm like, oh yeah, I've been meditating for, a month and a half. But it's almost always when I'm really busy and it's just because I need to remember how to listen to myself.
And because you're collaborating so much all the time, so, You're listening to dialogue, you're listening to, other sounds that are happening in the film. You're watching the film, you're talking to directors, you're talking to producers, you're talking to your musicians, to, assistants or orchestrators or any number of people.
then your kid comes up and he, they're talking to you too. And so, just like, I think finding the way to remember yourself, is important. Mikayla last year when we first started, piano lessons, that was a huge help for me.
just
Spending 20 minutes to 45 minutes a day playing piano, remembering oh yeah, this is what it's like to learn how to do a thing. And this is what it's like to have to focus on something that has no really end goal.
the only end goal is just to be like somewhat better at it the next time I go to do this. it's refreshing and it keeps you feeling alive. I play all these, um, plucky instruments and it was really, it's been really fun to learn how to do something else a little bit better.
[00:42:48] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:48] Osei: Was pretty bad at it.
[00:42:50] Michaela: No, you
[00:42:51] Osei: it now,
[00:42:53] Michaela: but, the other thing is like you said, the, what is it? To give attention to something where you don't know the direct transaction of it in a way you're learning piano, you're a film composer and a musician, so it's going to benefit you, but it's not like, oh, I'm gonna get paid for this, or, oh, I'm going to complete this song from it.
But there's these deeper ways that internalizing and learning that is going to benefit your work as a composer, but also kind of intangible ways that it also just helps your brain and your system by just putting focus on something like that. And this might seem like a duh moment, but I liked the way that you said that meditation. When you're in your busiest time as a way to remember how to listen to yourself. Cuz I always think of meditation as like clear my mind, no thoughts. And I struggle with it because my brain is rapid fire constantly. Aaron's always, like you started talking in the middle of 10 thoughts that you had I have no idea what was going on.
You started that sentence halfway very sharp
[00:43:55] Aaron: scene change all of a sudden.
[00:43:57] Michaela: And I've always thought of meditation as oh, how do I clear everything and stop everything? And the idea of being like, oh, maybe all of those thoughts is like all the noise that's coming at me all the time of different people and what I'm reading and whatever.
And thinking of meditation as a way to remember how to listen to yourself was really
[00:44:16] Osei: Right on. well, I'm glad I could be helpful. I, I live to be helpful.
[00:44:21] Aaron: Yeah. I think that's a beautiful spot to kind of wrap this up.
[00:44:25] Osei: Right on.
[00:44:26] Aaron: Thank you for taking the time to, chat with us this morning and share some of your world with us.
[00:44:30] Osei: it really is wonderful talking to you both and you guys are amazing and I'm happy you're doing this and I can't wait to hear other people also.