(upbeat music)
- Hey, everyone.
You're watching our episode of In Studio,
and today's special guest is Kris Bowers.
Hey, man.
How are you?
- Hey, good, Brian.
- Thank you for coming in.
- Yeah, my pleasure.
- Congrats on your recent engagement.
- Thank you, thank you very much.
- So what we'll talk about today,
you'll obviously featured in the most recent episode
of our Magic Hour series,
which is incredible if you haven't checked it out.
Definitely go watch it.
Have to talk about Green Book, but I kind of want to talk about
your start and
what's the most interesting
about you?
I mean, there's so many things interesting about you, but
what's beyond interesting is that
what was decided for you was decided before
you were even born kind of.
- Yeah.
- Can you kind of talk about that and kind of
how this career was kind of decided for you and
how early of an age you started at?
- Yeah.
Yeah, my parents were kind of the opposite
of everybody else's parents and they wanted me
to be an artist.
So I think
in the beginning, it really came from probably the fact
that my dad wanted to be a drummer
when he was in high school
and my grandfather just wasn't having it,
wasn't even an option for him.
And my parents were really big on making sure that I did
as much extracurricular activity as possible.
So like, in addition to playing piano,
I was also playing sports, I was drawing,
I was doing all these others things but
piano specifically I think was something that
my parents and maybe even more so my dad really wanted
me to be and to do.
So yeah, before I was born, they were like
pulling piano CDs and like playing them
for my mom's stomach and stuff and
they really did a great job of trying to find
the best schools, the best teachers
and make sure that I had the best access
I could as early as possible.
- It was almost like you were destined for this, which is
incredible.
- Yeah.
(laughs)
It's pretty wild.
I feel like I'm
confused by it perpetually and I just
try not to ask questions just in case I jinx it.
(laughs)
- Now, one thing that I've read that is...
You said that your dad
pushed you a lot and
when you were younger in school, he kind of
compared you to other students and
when you performed at the White House,
he even said to you,
"Oh, you're only doing two or three songs?"
Can you kind of talk about that push and
what drove you and like
what decisions you were able to make
to make it your story and your career?
- Yeah, I mean it was funny because
that Hollywood Reporter thing that you guys did,
the Magic Hour thing,
the video of me playing when I was six,
my dad found it in the attic and like
went through the whole thing,
and they send it to me and I was like,
"Oh, thanks so much,"
and my dad was like,
"Oh yeah, well you know, the funny thing is that
"that's not the whole video."
And I was like,
"What do you mean?"
And my mom was like,
"Well you don't remember that?"
I was like, "No, I was six."
And after that video and of course,
it's me at six playing piano like that,
my dad proceeded to tell me about
why this other girl in the class was better than me,
why like, I need to practice more and all this stuff and
that early on, he was always trying to find somebody that
he would
make me look at and make me pay attention to
and then see whether or not...
or what it was that they were doing that was getting them
maybe further than I was at that point.
And of course, like,
you know, there are all kinds of things that are,
that maybe are issues with that that like,
you know, I'm dealing with in therapy.
But and my dad and I are fine now like,
there's no issues there but
the thing is
what it really did, though is have me constantly question
what it is that I could be working on.
And what that developed into later in life was like,
I started to look at not my peers,
but I started looking at my favorite pianists,
and my favorite musicians, my favorite composers and saying,
I wasn't in my mind competing with like,
you know, so and so in my,
that was also in ninth grade with me,
I was looking at Brad Mehldau, or Herbie Hancock,
or Keith Jarrett, and those were the people
that I was looking at as like my competition
and they were so far, obviously ahead of me that,
that it made it so that I was
just constantly moving the needle forward
and trying to figure out what I needed to do
to get better and constantly analyzing,
self-analyzing and I think that was probably the most,
the most beneficial thing that came out of that
constant pitting me against somebody else in competition.
- And even at the age of 12, you knew you wanted to
go into film composition.
- Yeah.
- I guess, what were the early films that you watched
as a kid that made you,
made you want to get into this?
- I mean, obviously, like all the Spielberg movies
from my childhood, they just like shaped
my life, you know?
And my dad also happened to be a big fan of
a lot of the other films that John Williams scored.
So like, whether it was Star Wars or
Indiana Jones and those films were really big for him
and so he showed me those films when I was pretty young
and wanted me to enjoy those franchises.
But I also really fell in love with Jurassic Park,
and E.T., and Home Alone, and all these things that
for me, when I watch those films,
those were the films and that was the sound
with John Williams that I
would go listen to outside of the context of the movie
and still like, feel all the same feelings
and get this excitement and all that kind of stuff
and still to this day, you listen to that music
and immediately, I'm transported back to when I was like
eight years old, nine years old,
seeing those movies and so,
those were kind of the types of movies that
early on started to shape my
desire to be a composer.
- Now for Green Book,
how did you first get involved with the film?
- Yeah, so first,
it came from a few different
channels, avenues, yeah.
So Tom Wolfe and Manish Raval, who were the
music supervisors for the film,
who are incredible and they did such a great job with like
creating this world and this period
with all the songs they chose,
they're also really integral with
trying to find composers for the projects that they work on.
And so they were one of the first people that
really pitched me for this.
Along with my agent, and
a couple of other people who
found out about me and I think that the producers had like
just done their own research but
Manish and Tom and my agent were kind of the ones
that really put me in front of these people
as somebody that might be able to handle
all the different aspects of the job.
Like the piano playing, the composing,
and teaching rehearsal, and all that.
- Which you did flawlessly.
- I appreciate it, yeah.
It was definitely, as soon as I
had that first meeting,
they're like,
"Yeah, can you handle all this stuff?
"Can you like, you know,
"can you handle learning the piano music and all that?"
And I was like,
"Yeah, sure.
"That'll be easy, that'll be fine,"
and then I went and listened to Don Shirley's music
and I was like,
"Holy cow, what did I get myself into?
"This is really tough."
- And in terms of listening to his music,
you didn't have the,
you had transcribed everything from listening to it.
So can you kind of talk about
how is that possible?
(laughs)
How do you do that?
- Yeah.
Well again, that's something that
I just happened to be very prepared for.
I mean, that's how I learned to play music
was mostly by ear.
I mean, I,
obviously, I had to learn how to
read sheet music when I was really young.
I started that when I was like six, but
to learn jazz, the only way you can really learn that
is by listening to it and by trying to emulate
the other people.
And you're trying to capture more than just the notes.
You're trying to capture the way that
this person's touch is on the piano,
the way that it feels when they play something and
the way to transcribe something is to try to transcribe
all of that and that's the best way.
It's just like learning a language.
You know, you don't learn a language by reading it.
You learn it by hearing it, talking to people,
and really doing it.
So yeah, so having to do that for this film,
really was just like I was back in school.
Like I was just transcribing stuff, I had to do that
every day when I was at Juilliard and I think that
I was used to that part.
That was actually the easier part.
The harder part was learning then
getting it up to speed.
'Cause when I transcribe, I transcribe it on the piano,
and I listen, it's just
literally listening, trying it, listening again
like over and over and over again and then
after I finally figure out what the notes are,
then it's just about trying to practice it
and get it up to speed and get it so that it feels,
so that it feels natural to me playing it.
- Now, the film was so powerful.
What scenes would you say kind of stuck out to you the most
in terms of
its impact on the audience, its impact on
Don's story,
what would you say?
- Yeah.
I think a few things.
One of the first scenes I wrote to is a scene
where Mahershala gets out of the car
when they have some car trouble and
Tony, or Viggo's character
is putting some water into,
I don't know cars well enough to know
where he's putting the water, but
he's doing something under the hood.
And,
Don gets out of the car and just kind of stands there
and there are all these field workers that are,
that kind of stop what they're doing and they look at
this black man that obviously, is dressed
in a way that they maybe haven't really seen before and
he's being driven around by a white man
and that's even more surprising to them.
- Which they have a lot of those scenes of like...
- Yeah, just that recognition of like,
wow, that person is different than,
the same but different.
And the same thing for Don's character in those moments
where he realizes that
these people are the same but I'm very different.
The recognition but yet, still like this isolation
that you can feel in that moment in the way that
Mahershala plays that moment,
that was the first scene for me that I could really
sink my teeth into.
Because in general, I can relate to that story,
I can relate to the idea of like,
always feeling like you don't belong in either side
when you
might be a person of a color but then didn't
maybe grow up in that environment as much or
whatever it is, whatever reason why
you might feel uncomfortable,
so I could relate to that but that moment
was the first moment that it really
had an impact on me and so that kind of the first moment
that I started writing to.
- Now one of the
other amazing things to come out of this film
is your relationship now with Mahershala Ali
and his,
him praising you every chance he gets.
He recently just brought you on
stage at the Critic's Choice Awards.
Can you kind of talk about that and
working with him and
how it's been, I guess?
- Yeah.
I mean, it's all been pretty wild.
You know, I think you work on these projects some times
and you have some moment where you might be able to
interact with an actor
and they're worried about so many other things that
as a composer, I'm kind of like,
I'm here to help you but obviously,
like I'm not expecting to generate a real friendship,
at least not that quickly.
And from the first day,
we hung out for like three hours.
And we hung out and he was playing piano for
three hours, playing a C major scale over and over again
and then afterwards, we walked around, and we talked about,
he asked me like what I've been up to and like,
a little bit about my backstory.
We like walked into a couple of like clothing stores
and stuff like that.
And I
was probably trying to act normal.
I don't know if he thought that I was normal
in that first meeting, but afterwards,
I was like,
"Holy cow, I just like
"hung out with Mahershala Ali,"
and I've been a fan of his for a long time.
And same with Viggo.
Like anytime I was
on stage with them, I was like,
"Where am I?
"What's going on?"
And so for him to not only be that open
from the very beginning and
then to be as dedicated as he was to try and get this,
this role as right as possible and as specific as possible
and all the way down to
how should his posture be?
Where should his hands be?
How should his hands be shaped?
- Do a posture move.
- Yeah, I know.
(laughs)
My posture's really bad.
All those things were things that
he was obsessing over and,
and then even helping me with where we were on set
and he was like,
"You know what, when you play,
"can you actually like,
"maybe lean forward when you do this part
"and maybe like, you know, just straighten your back
"a little bit more during this section?"
And it really became this,
we became a team trying to figure out how to
best represent Don Shirley when he was at the piano.
And I just had so much respect and awe and admiration
for him to have to
memorize these lines and figure out all these things
and then have to
play this
or act like, pretending this,
playing this incredibly difficult music
and play some of it and then
have to act like it's all normal.
It was pretty wild to see him
do all that and do it so flawlessly.
- That's so great.
And obviously, next up is the Oscars and I'm
predicting and hoping you get many shoutouts 'cause...
(laughs)
I'm sure they're coming your way.
Next up, we're going to play a game.
It's kind of our staple game here.
It's called Fishing for Answers.
Are you up for that?
- Yeah, I'm definitely down.
- Awesome.
Can you fish?
Are you a good fisher?
- I've actually only fished like twice in my life.
- Yeah, I've never like really fished.
- Yeah, my grandfather used to fish all the time.
My dad's allergic to fish, go figure.
- Oh, really?
You can just grab one of these.
- Better get a good one.
- [Brian] We'll do the whole bowl, too, so.
- Oh, the whole bowl?
Wow, okay.
What is your hidden talent?
Hmmm.
- So we know what you are really talented at.
Is there anything else
that maybe people don't know?
- No.
Actually, maybe I'm pretty good with like
visual things.
I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was younger but
I don't do that at all anymore but
I think it still translated into,
I usually make all like, my own flyer,
all my own concert posters or like
a lot of my artwork a lot of times is like
designed by me and like all that kind of stuff and
I get really obsessive with like,
trying to design visual things and so
maybe that's...
I don't know if it's a talent but that's
hidden.
(laughs)
- [Brian] Here, grab another one.
- Alright.
Mahershala Ali has praised you for your work with him
on Green Book,
will we see you and him work together again
and what will that look like?
- Yeah, I hope so.
You know, we've been talking about,
you know, at some point doing that together.
I think that it's more so that whenever our schedules allow.
I mean, he's incredibly busy and I'm getting busier.
But right now, we're just talking about
going to see some like, music together
or trying to like, decompress and you know,
being able to enjoy life a little bit together but
there's a couple things that he's been,
he's had in mind and some things that I have in mind
so I'm sure there'll be some
work done together at some point.
- And I feel like it's genuine in the sense where
you both really do want to work together again
so it will likely happen I feel like.
- Yeah, yeah, definitely.
That's the hope.
- That's great.
Yeah, you can just toss those anywhere.
- Just throw 'em around.
Favorite Aretha Franklin song.
- So can you tell the story about when you met her at the...
- So I did this competition called the Thelonious Monk
Piano Competition.
- Which you won.
- Yeah, that I won. - Congrats.
- Thank you.
In 2011
and she was receiving like a Lifetime Achievement award
when that happened and I
did the semi-finals
and after I finished playing, somebody was like,
"Oh, do you mind coming out to meet somebody?"
And I was like,
"Oh, yeah, sure whatever."
And as I'm walking out, they're like,
"Oh, by the way, it's Aretha Franklin
"that you're about to meet."
And I was like,
"Oh, okay, that's a little different."
That's one of the only times I've been
speechless, like I met some pretty cool people
and I met her and I,
all I kept saying is,
"I,
"I'm such a big fan.
"I'm such a big fan of yours."
And so she asked for my information and then...
- You stayed in touch?
- Yeah, exactly.
So like, a little bit after the competition,
she ended up calling me randomly.
I had no idea who she wa--
or who it was an I answered the phone and she started
talking to me and at some point,
I put together that it was Aretha Franklin
that was talking to me.
Yeah, and then we kind of developed this relationship
where I was playing at her birthday parties,
at her Christmas parties, and like
a bunch of different things for her.
But favorite song, I would have to say,
maybe her version of
Mary, Don't You Weep on the Amazing Grace album.
It's like her, that album is
by far one of my favorite albums of all time and
her singing on that track and that track just,
you can hear the church, you can hear like,
everybody with her as the song builds and grows and
it's a pretty emotional experience listening to that album.
(laughs)
Alright.
Looking back, what's one thing you would tell
your younger self?
I would say just to
one, be patient, which I still have to tell myself now.
But also just to
trust myself more.
You know, I think that like
in general, I was always questioning whether or not
I was like, doing the right thing
when it came to progressing in music or
working on my music or trying to figure out like what my
style was or how I would approach composition
or how would I approach improvising stuff like that and
kind of going back to my dad,
I think a lot for a long time, I was
constantly like comparing myself to others
but in an unhealthy way.
I think there's a healthy way to do that
and a way to do that where you're,
you're not making yourself feel worse
as you're trying to figure out the things you can build on.
And I think that
yeah, like I probably had
a time in my life where that was difficult because I was,
I wasn't being kind to myself as I was trying to figure out
what to work on.
And so I think just trying to figure out how to be
kinder to myself, you know, I think would've been the thing
I would've told younger me.
(laughs)
Alright.
If you could go on a roadtrip with anyone,
who would it be?
I mean, other than my fiance.
Because if I don't say that,
(laughs)
she won't be my fiance anymore.
(laughter)
Hmmm.
Man, that's a tough one.
I'd have to say
maybe Bill Murray.
That's random, but.
- [Brain] Okay.
- Yeah, I feel like he would be a fun person to go on a...
- Did you see the Golden Globes one?
- Yeah, with the cheersing and stuff, yeah.
I feel like he's
a character and I would just
be entertained the entire time.
- That'd be an interesting
ride, too.
He's probably the best person to go on a road trip,
actually now that I think about it.
- First impression of Kanye West.
- So working on Watch the Throne,
can you kind of talk about that experience?
- Yeah, so it all happened because
I happened to be working with Q-Tip a lot at the time
and so
he was asked to work on some of the songs
for Watch the Throne as we were finishing it up
and they asked me to come in to
add just some additional keys and
sentence and stuff like that.
I think the most interesting thing about
seeing him work was just one, how
specific he was but in a way that I started to understand
a little bit more.
You know, I think that
he can kind of be talked about or made fun of
because of how specific he is but
there was a moment where I was playing through something
on the piano
and I started changing some of the chords
because I was like,
I'm a jazz musician, I'm playing these chords
that are pretty simple, and I kind of would change it up
for myself.
And as he's trying to sing along,
and I changed the chord,
out of nowhere, he's like,
"Why are you playing such like, abstract chords?
"Why are you changing the chords?"
And in my mind at the beginning, I was like,
"I mean, these are the same chords.
"Like what are you talking about?"
And then Q-Tip was like,
"Ah, just play,
"like just stick to the triads."
And then later, Kanye explained to me where he was like,
"Yeah, when you change those notes,
"like I can't hear the melody that I'm singing anymore
"and like it totally changed the color of the chords for me.
"Now that chord is something different.
"Like, I feel something different when I hear that chord.
"And so now I want to sing something different
"but I was trying to like find this thing
"with the chords you were playing and when you changed it,
"it just totally changed the way that I heard it."
And that,
that actually made me all of a sudden respect,
I mean, even just like pop music on a different level.
Because I think for me,
I had always thought as a jazz musician that like,
it was simpler,
but it's not simpler because it can't be more complex,
it's simpler because there's a reason for it,
there's a feeling behind it, or there's a,
there's just more specificity than I thought there was to it
and so it made it so that
as I was approaching
more popular music, I was trying to approach it with
a different level of respect, which I think was
pretty cool to get from that.
- Last one, which is actually the
funniest one, I think.
- See, I did it purposefully.
- I don't know how it ended up
last.
- You lucked out.
Have I ever eaten a pizza like Tony Vallelonga?
Man, first of all, I'm lactose intolerant,
which sucks.
- This is not that funny.
- Yeah, this makes me a little angry, actually.
(laughs)
No, I mean, I used to eat--
well I used to eat pizza a lot.
I used to eat cheese a lot.
I didn't become lactose intolerant until like college.
And I used to be a really chubby kid.
Like I was
between
middle school and high school I probably lost like 80 pounds
and it was probably 'cause in middle school,
every single day, I ate a personal pizza
and a Cherry Coke almost every day.
Which is not healthy at all.
Yeah.
So, I did fold that
but it was an individual pizza.
I've never eaten a full.
- He had so many quirks in the movie that were just so
interesting.
- Yeah, and the cool thing is apparently, that came
out of Viggo just hanging with the family.
They were at a pizza place and somebody told him
that that's how Tony used to eat pizzas
and so he went back to Pete and he was like,
"Can I do that in the film?"
And he's like,
"You can try it once and if it works the one time
"then like, sure, we can keep it in there."
Then they did it once and of course like, obviously
it stayed in 'cause it's just so
specific and funny.
- Seriously, thanks so much for coming on.
This was great.