Hi Anna, I’m absolutely thrilled to have you with us!  Musically speaking, you’ve been prolific working as a composer, songwriter, singer, and artist. Can you share more about how your story started and how it has continued?

Happy to be here!  Growing up, I never even considered being a musician.  I played a little bit of piano and knew I could sing but had no interest in being in front of an audience or making such a bold career move.  I thought I could be an accountant or if I wanted to be creative maybe a music supervisor (which didn’t even have that title yet).  Writing music really kind of fell out of my mouth and into my lap.  

It was the very early 1990’s with a sensibility I felt more comfortable with as opposed to when I grew up in the 1980’s.  In the 90’s it was okay to not want shiny production or ripping guitar solos.  I knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do that.  My style was simple and deadpan and that translated into my musical identity.  Whatever was easiest to play and whatever I was thinking about was my go to.  A friend, Will Baum from Love Child and 9 Iron, showed me how to play bar chords on my brother’s acoustic guitar (my brother is left-handed so the strings were upside down) after he tuned the guitar to an open chord.  Something hit me and all of a sudden I couldn’t stop writing songs.  From there, I formed that dog. (as a joke at first) and after five years in a band I moved into working in film and television.  I scored my first show in 2000.  It was non-stop and overwhelming.  I loved it but was also terrified by it because the pace can be really extreme.  I had to throw together a home studio (beyond my trusty four-track that I wrote all my that dog. songs on) and learn Pro Tools basically overnight.  Daunting and gratifying to say the least. 

I bounced back and forth between composing, writing songs for film and television, making albums and writing with and for other artists for the next almost 20 years.  I learned so much exercising all of those “muscles”.  How to be an engineer.  A producer.  Collaborator.  Arranger.  Sing in different styles.  Write in different styles.  Become a very versatile lyricist.  But after a while, and a lot of uphill battles, I decided to really focus on composing.  My timing was good.  I met Craig (Wedren) and we decided to look for a project to work on together.  And from there and through that collaboration I adopted a new and sustainable attitude about composing.  And so far that has been paying off.

I’m a huge Yellowjackets follower and have the utmost respect for this score.  Would love to know more about how you and Craig (and the showrunners) have evolved the score over these three seasons.  Something I am loving about the score for S3 are some of the more quirky elements that have come into play during the scenes of the grown up characters.  I’m noticing some new synths and textures that are so unique and cool- and I’d be curious to know in what ways the S3 sound differs from prior seasons.

Thank you!  It’s interesting because a lot of the score has evolved but is still so deeply rooted in what makes Yellowjackets so Yellowjackets.  But it was definitely a choice to make it a little more fun.  I feel like the highs are higher and the lows are lower this season… in all the best ways.  Craig and I have some synth plug-ins that we were excited to dig into.  Basically whatever is weirdest is what we gravitate too.  And to use whatever it is sparingly (hopefully).  Craig also has this really interesting modular synth from Russia that we used to create a lot of the less melodic and more textural sounds.  

As the storylines of the show got deeper, the showrunners, Ashley, Bart and Jonathan, encouraged us to do the same.  I am always hunting for where we can layer different themes and sounds from linking the past to the present and vice versa.  It’s really interesting on a psychological level to link music to points of where trauma occurred (in the wilderness) to how it plays out later in life (in current times).  

The score for Yellowjackets continues to contain a primal urgency that is super effective and beyond verbal explanation (go listen, if you haven’t!), especially (or maybe only?)  in the flashback scenes.  The vocalizations, percussion, and synth elements of your cues awaken some hidden or suppressed feral quality when watching/listening that I myself haven’t really experienced before.  I love the way this score makes me feel like I want to release some primordial vocal cry.   How did you and Craig arrive at this core sound for the show?  What was the early process like, and by S3, has the process changed too?  Also, are there two differing instrumental palettes for the past scenes and the present?

When I talk about working on Yellowjackets I always liken it to hanging on for dear life to the bumper of a car with “Just Married” written on the back window with cans flopping all around and bouncing off of the asphalt (or dirt road depending on the time period).  The pilot for Yellowjackets was made a year before the series was picked up.  Karyn Kusama directed the pilot and invited Theodore Shapiro to score the pilot.  She wanted the wilderness to have its own sound.  One that reflected the young women trapped in the wilderness.  Teddy brought in Caroline Shaw, an incredible singer, instrumentalist and composer in her own right, to create the beginning stages of what would help shape the world of the wilderness.  The score of the pilot is very unique and was an incredible place for Craig and I to jump off from.  

We are both singers and frankly weirdos. We were encouraged to lean into both of those things. Using our voices to create a very unique sonic palette mixed with classic vocal arrangements.  We found that the score evolved as the seasons evolved. Whatever the wilderness called for we found a sound for.

In addition to Yellowjackets, you’ve worked on many other TV/film projects including School Spirits (Paramount+ with Showtime), High School (FreeVee), Shrill (Hulu), I Love That For You (Paramount + with Showtime), Harriet The Spy (Apple), Josie And The Pussycats, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and more.  Are there certain things you bring to all of your media projects, or is each time you work on something completely new and different?  I’ve noticed you do really unique/singular stuff with percussion and vocals across various projects.  What do you feel is your signature style as a composer/artist, or do you feel you have a signature style?

I wouldn’t say I have a singular style however, whenever I try to break too far out from something that comes naturally to me, I can’t escape my own stamp. So I’ve learned to really embrace that. I’m a singer first, so it’s always a pleasure to bring vocals into a project.  Scoring with vocals can be difficult because vocals in a score can sometimes step on dialogue or be distracting. So I try to find ways to make sure that doesn’t happen. Except in Yellowjackets. Haha.

Each project is its own. And I love finding whatever the voice is for the score. The world where the characters and storylines and sets live. Whether it’s very subtle or eerie or sweet or melancholy or just punches you in the face. 

For Season 3 of Yellowjackets you also co-wrote the original song Sleepwalking.The song appears in the season finale which is epic and music-heavy. Could you tell us how this song came about and how you collaborate writing songs for television? 

Songwriting is my first love. Whenever I get to incorporate a song into a show alongside a score that I’m working on I am thrilled. When the prospect of Craig and I writing an original song for the finale came up we were very excited. There was a song that Jonathan, Ashley, and Bart had temped into the episode over those scenes with Lottie that they were very attached to. But the artist wasn’t open to licensing it and so their thought was if we can’t have that song then we must have an Anna and Craig song. And we were up for the challenge. 

Initially, we adapted a piece of score into a song that we thought worked really well. But we wanted to give them options. When it works, it just works and Craig and I know that. So we like to give them different pieces to really see what lands. So he had the adapted score song, and then we wrote two more. One of them being Sleepwalking (which we almost wrote to picture). We had the scenes looping in the background to stay in the world and see how things fell. And the first time I sang the big “ah’s” at the end was right at the moment when Lottie started screaming in the cave when she saw the antler queen. And it really clicked for both of us that this would probably be the one.

We were on a very intense deadline so we didn’t have time to really sit with things. It was a very fast paced experience. I think it was pouring rain. We were working at Craig’s studio and the power went out. We set up in his living room with a fire and a handheld microphone and took it from there.

The simplicity of the track was intentional. The score is so dense, and we wanted this song to stand on its own. And then obviously it had to build into something, but it was important to us to keep it spare and melancholy, and true to the experience of the young women in the show in the scenes. And we also tried to approach the lyrics that way. I become in engulfed in Yellowjackets when we’re working on it. I relate to so many of the emotional nuances. So a lot of those feelings are woven into the lyrics of Sleepwalking. Their longing and competition and angst and vulnerability.  The way the words and the chords and the harmonies fell against the picture really felt magical to us. And we’re both super proud of the song.

We ended up doing a video for the song as well. We were just gonna follow each other around with an iPhone and then we thought to ask Bart, who directed the finale, to see if he wanted to direct the video. And he said yes! And we shot this really weird cool beautiful video for Sleepwalking. I of course play the ghost of wilderness past and poor Craig has to keep going through life, generation after generation, being haunted by me.  Or is he haunting me? That’s how it goes in Yellowjackets land. You never really know what’s around the next corner!

Another venue folks may know you from is your performance work as a recording artist with that dog. , an LA-based rock band from whom came such bangers as “Never Say Never” and “Old Timer”.  Are you currently working on more music as a recording artist, or spending more time in the film/TV space these days?  How was it being in that dog.?  Got any fun stories for us?

I loved making the last that dog. album Old LP that came out in 2019, but since then I am mostly focusing on working on scores and writing songs for projects. I spent a lot of years making albums, producing other people’s albums, writing for other artists, and writing for all kinds of projects, and it’s quite nice to just have one focus right now. Obviously, I bring all of that experience into this. And I’m grateful for all of it. But it’s been a true joy to explore this part of my musical brain. I love nothing more than to watch TV, work, and make music. I get to do all of that as a composer! And sometimes I can even wear my pajamas all day. It also offers an opportunity to collaborate a lot. Building up those collaborative relationships have been really special for me and helped me move forward as a composer. 

You’ve also had experience working in theater having composed the music, and written the book, and lyrics with Charlotte Caffey (Go-Go’s) for Lovelace A Rock Opera, and other shows.  Can you tell us more about your past/present theater work- and what drew you to working on theater projects?  Were you a theater kid, or no?

I was most definitely NOT a theater kid. I could hardly sit through a play, let alone a musical. Even if it was when I loved. But the writing experience with Charlotte was incredibly powerful and educational. It was like a boot camp for the both of us for songwriting- creating these worlds and characters really showed us what worked and what didn’t. We were really fortunate to have an excellent team that we were working with for feedback and collaboration. And the casts were phenomenal. I’ve learned a lot from being in those experiences. Seeing how people show up to work and how much they can bring these thoughts and songs to life.

For Lovelace, we hired Katrina Lenk to play Linda. She was unknown at the time, but we saw something so, so, so special in her. And we were right, obviously. She went on to win a Tony award for The Band’s Visit. I learned so much from her. Her unpretentious, selfless, and absolute commitment to the group effort really helped me see why collaboration is so important. Everyone had to play their part and everyone was just as important as the other, even if she was in every scene. Everyone has a purpose and everyone has to depend on each other to come through. I absolutely loved that. I experienced some of that in my band but the environment was incredibly different. Quite the opposite.

Interview by Connor Cook

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