Tell us a bit about yourself and your career path; what sparked your interest in music?

If you wanna go the long route, I grew up in Bay Village, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. I am so thankful to my parents who saw that I was into music young. My mom, Kay McIntosh, is a wonderful pianist, organist and singer and still plays at her church and in her dixieland band “The Elders of Jazz”. Cello was my main instrument when I was a kid. When I got to high school, my teacher realized I could pick up instruments really quickly. There was an opening in the upper level jazz band and that started me on bass. I also worked at a great record store called My Generation when I was in high school. I loved all the bands from Athens, Ga (REM, the B-52s and Pylon), so UGA was the only place I applied to for college. I knew I wanted to do music but I didn’t know in what capacity. I just knew I wanted to make music and be part of a creative musical scene. 

That’s where I started playing music in bands. My first band was called Year Zero. We played a lot of house shows in Atlanta. We were loud. I soon started playing cello in bands. I sat in at the 40 Watt with friends’ bands and worked the graveyard shift at Jittery Joe’s (at the time it was a 24 hour coffee house). I played on friends’ records in town and toured all over (of Montreal, Elf Power and more). That led to playing cello on records out of town (St. Vincent, Superchunk, Washed Out, Animal Collective), which then led to me hitting the road with Gnarls Barkley which led to me playing bass with Lil Wayne.

You’re a composer, musician and artist. How did you get into the world of film scoring and what was your first project?

I loved film, so working at Vision Video, a legendary Athens, Ga video store was weirdly the first step. I started seeing films with incredible chamber scores. The films of Mike Leigh really struck me. It was such an awakening that scores didn’t have to be symphonic! Don’t get me wrong, I love symphonic scores and I’m having so much fun writing them now, but I was writing chamber music and electronic music while studying composition at the time and it’s still my favorite stuff.

My first documentary score was for Astra Taylor’s film Examined Life, she put music from my band “The Instruments” over the opening credits, leading into a scene with Cornel West in a taxi cab and she felt like it was really working. She asked me to score the film from there. 

My first narrative feature was Craig Zobel’s Compliance which played at Sundance and really changed my life as a composer. We started talking about the project after my year-long run playing bass for  Lil Wayne on the road came to a close. I was working back at the video store in Athens and initially started writing the music for that score from the script. I moved to Los Angeles around the time we started the final mix. It’s wild how sometimes the moments when you feel the most unsure are when the doors open.

What do you take pride in, when it comes to your music?

I am most proud of my sense of experimentation and collaboration. I feel like that comes from playing with my found family of bands from the Elephant 6 Collective. Knowing there’s not one way to do any of this is really freeing and can lead to the most wondrous results.

Can you tell us about some of your upcoming projects?

I’m super excited for Dash Shaw’s animated feature Unknownia. I’ve been working on it for a couple of years. We got a Reel Change Film Fund grant and it helped us think about bigger instrumentation. That grant seeded the idea to go even bigger with the score. What a joy to write music for a pretty sizable string and brass ensemble along with a children’s choir!

I’m also really excited for the new Olivia Tremor Control record that’s coming out in October. For those fans of The Elephant 6 Collective, this has been a long time coming. It’s been a real labor of love for all involved. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’ve played on it recently and throughout the years. I’m really excited to just get the record, drop the needle on it and give it a spin.

What tips do you have for those who wish to follow in your footsteps?

It’s important to stay open to possibilities. I would never have known that picking up the bass in high school would lead to me playing with Gnarls Barkley and Lil Wayne on the road. I had cello teachers tell me to drop the bass to avoid messing with my technique, but what a world that opened up for me. You know, playing on SNL, Letterman, The Grammys, at the Hollywood Bowl and all that stuff. 

It’s really important to do what you love even if you aren’t getting paid for it. Writing music with all my friends and touring around the country in an econoline van and sleeping on floors was what I loved, and working at coffee shops and the video store allowed me to do that. It didn’t make me less of a musician and I met a lot of dear friends and collaborators in those places. That’s good to keep in mind if you are starting out as a composer as well. If you are working other jobs to make your music, you are still a composer. If you are writing music you are a composer.

Interview by Denisse Ojeda
Edited by Tom Nettleship
Photo by Marcin Szumowski