Interview with Neil S. Bulk on Soundtrack Production

Hi, this is Neil S. Balk, album producer, and

you're listening to the Geekcast Radio Network.

We're not too old for this shit. Yeah. Hello

and welcome to the GeekCast Radio Network interview

of Mr. Neil S. Bulk. I am your host TFJone Mike

and joining me is the soundtrack producer himself.

Hello sir, how are you? Good evening, I'm good

thank you. How are you? I'm very well, very well.

This actually gets set up through La La Land

Records. That's how I found out about you, although

you don't exclusively work for them. You are

their, they are your client. um but uh over christmas

i was actually surprised that they actually i'm

very grateful to them because they've sent me

numerous soundtracks for review and when i saw

the lethal set on like eight discs i wonder if

i can get away with that of getting a review

copy and and sure enough matt sent it over you

know at christmas time i listened to Oh man,

how many hours of music is that? It's gotta be...

Each one's close to about two hours, so is it?

That's about eight hours of music. Yeah, it's

a lot of music, but it's a lot of awesome music.

According to... Yeah. So, that's how I found

out about you and I really wanted to be able

to talk to someone... at that time specifically

about the lethal set because like i had seen

the first three film soundtracks over the years

but i mean lol and records they are no matter

what anyone says in my opinion they are the premiere

soundtrack and scoring company they've put out

so many awesome things over the years and it's

just amazing how in depth and how detailed all

of the releases are Well, a lot of that comes

from the market. A lot of the soundtrack collectors,

I count myself among them, are passionate and

we want the detail and we want everything. Much

to the imagination of people like me, because

that's sort of double -edged sword of me. I want

everything, but... I also work on every, you

know, everything I work on. It's like, oh, I've

got to put that on there. And I, oh, I need to

find this and I need to put that on there too.

Which, you know, on Lethal Weapon was a challenge

at times. Sometimes things were missing. You

start working on a project. You know, we did

Lethal Weapon for a good long time. And even,

you know, things were coming down, you know.

down to the wire, we go, oh, I finally found

this cue that we've always wanted. It was, you

know, on some other roll. And so that's what

happens. But there's a lot, you know, there's

a lot of great labels out there. There's, you

know, there's Red Sarabande, of course, Intrada,

Critterland, and Roll, you know, putting all

this stuff out there. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

So, where did you grow up and did you always

want to be in the soundtrack business? Were soundtracks

always a big thing for you as a kid? Yes, they

were always a big thing for me. I won't reveal

my age, but I will say I was very young when

my father bought me the soundtrack album The

Star Trek The Motion Picture. And my dad is an

avid record collector, at least he was, he doesn't

really buy. LPs as much anymore very big classical

soundtrack fire and he had a peculiar habit which

Raising me I thought was the normalcy it turns

out it's not but he would buy a record and he

would write the date On the inside of the record

of the day he purchased it So my dad bought me

Star Trek the motion picture on LP on January

1st 1980 which I was very young, I can remember

playing that record many times on my Fisher Price

record player and being frightened and running

out of the room whenever I would play Klingon

Battle and then come back and listen to the rest

of the album. So that... I grew up in New Jersey

as a soundtrack fan, classical music listener,

all because of my father. It wasn't always something

I always... I didn't know what I wanted to do,

is what it comes down to. I was in New Jersey

for many years. and in many dead -end jobs. And

I knew some people out here. I knew Mike Mattesino,

the terrific producer, editor, writer, mixer,

mastering engineer. And I knew his partner at

the time, Dave Fine. They had done the terrific

Star Trek The Motion Picture, the director's

edition. I don't know if you're familiar with

that release. Dave Fine was the producer on that.

Mike was the restoration supervisor on that.

And I knew them and I'd talked to them a few

times and hung out and became friends and kind

of, you know, that close. And I saw what was

going on in the industry and I thought, oh, well,

I could probably come out and learn that. So

I came out and moved out here and put myself

through school to specifically learn Pro Tools,

which is the editing program I use. Editing,

it does editing, it does mixing, it does everything.

And it was not my goal to get into music at all.

I went to school to learn Pro Tools, but it had

an emphasis on post -production audio for film.

Sound effects editing, dialogue editing, foley

editing, mixing, that sort of thing. But as I

was doing that and learning how to use Pro Tools,

Mike Medicino occasionally on a project would

say, hey, you know, Neil, can you cut this for

me? And I go, yeah, sure. You know, you know,

can you load in this tape? Of course. Yes, I

can do that. And it felt like I was doing homework,

but I was, you know, doing, you know, you know,

some tasks on these projects. It wasn't, you

know, it wasn't anything, you know, major. I

wasn't producing. I was just sort of chopping

and labeling and doing busy work. But it was

who I, you know, I knew Mike, who introduced

me to Lucas Kendall. And one of the first things

Lucas said to me was, hi, do you want a cup for

me? Very awesome. You know, I'm looking for work.

I'm always looking for work. So I started doing

work for Lucas. And meeting people like Johnny

D. Davis at Precision Audio, who did the transfers

for many of our albums, including Leap of Weapon.

And I remember being in his studio one time while

he was rolling the tape for the Danny Elfman

score to Batman. Mm -hmm. And I said, oh, I know

this score very well. I said, I bet I know who's

producing this album. And I'd met the La La Land

guys, Michael Gerhardt and Matt Verbois, but

I'd never... I don't think I did any... I may

have done Blazing Saddles for them through Mike

Mattesino. And I called them up. I said, hey,

I hear you're doing Batman. Literally, I heard

it. I heard Batman. And I said, yeah, we have

it. We have Dan Goldwasser producing it. But

if we run into any problems, we'll let you know.

So I said, great. Wonderful. You know, just trying

to get my foot in the door, because I really

wanted to work on Batman. And they called me

up and said, hey, we're having some troubles.

We can't find stuff. Would you be able to help

us look for things? I said, yeah. You know, whatever

I can do, I'll be happy to help out. And for

the most part, we found what we were looking

for. I was able to make some calls of Warner

Brothers and my contacts there and we did some

searching and I found stuff in stereo and I said,

here it is. Let's put it on there. And that really

led to my relationship to La La Land Records.

After that, we immediately jumped into Batman

Returns. And I think we had Batman Returns done

just as Batman was coming out. So we did that

one really quickly. And then I did everything

else. So now you're all caught up. Mean I'm looking

through this will actually be in the show notes.

I'm gonna post the link to your your projects

album here I'm looking through this body of work

and ladies and gentlemen. Let me tell you that

Neil has worked on a lot of stuff It's just simply

amazing the stuff that you've done Thank you

take to get these soundtracks to us now. I am

I've always been see I I understand the marketing

for La La Land that they want to call it a soundtrack,

but to me they're scores. Most of them are scores.

To me it's a distinction. A score is all the

instrumental stuff. The soundtrack is all the

sung music that you would hear whether it's a

TV show, a film, whatever it is. What impresses

me so much about La La Land is they don't care

about distinctions. Like the Lethal Weapons set,

it starts off with Jingle Bell Rock, just like

the movie started, you know, the first film started

off. Which I think that's cool and interesting

and neat because that way you don't have to go

to multiple versions of that album, you can just

go to that one album. Jingle Bell Rock is an

interesting story if you care to hear it. Sure

first of all you always have a mindset you set

up the rules and you go well We're not gonna

put you know the songs are gonna be on their

own and we're gonna not even bother you know

You know we're not gonna put the songs in sequence

and then you go except for lethal weapon Well

that has to start with jingle bell rock doesn't

it even though it's like we came in score and

we went yeah Yeah, it has to open with jingle

bell rock the version of jingle bell rock that

opens lethal weapon is a Unique recording, I

think it's from 1956, I think it's a re -recording,

or maybe it's 65, I can't remember now, I did

this all last year, maybe it was 65. I think

the original recording was 57, and then he redid

it in 65 for MCA. And it was the re -recording

that was on Leap of Weapon. And we could not

find that anywhere, to the point where I was

on iTunes, typing in Jingle Bell Rock and going

through... hundreds of albums that had Jingle

Bell Rock on it, and they all used the original

recording and not this re -recording. I was like,

well, this has to exist somewhere. And ultimately,

I mean, at one point, I went to YouTube and I

found a video of a jukebox playing this version,

and the jukebox was playing the 45, and you could

make out the very distinct MCA logo on the label,

which is the cloud with the rainbow. I'm like,

okay, so I know this exists. So I went to eBay

and found people selling the 45 and I actually

bought the 45 we were gonna use a 45 and we're

gonna transfer them I bought two I'm gonna transfer

them and clean them up But it turns out we didn't

have to do that. We found a tape from the lethal

weapon production That actually had jingle bell

rock on I even had versions of it on one source

that got all trippy at the end to simulate, I

guess, Amanda's drug haze. They didn't use it,

and we weren't going to mess around with the

rights to that song to say, hey, let's put it

on again with all this trippy stuff. But we did

finally find Jingle Bell Rock, and that became

the opening of the album. So what is the difference

between the original and the re -recording that

you guys wanted? Oh, for Jingle Bell Rock, it's

just I... I can't, you know, at the time I could

listen to them just go, yep, no, not it, not

it. Now it's like, I don't remember, you know,

you do so many of these things and they just

sort of, you know, they sort of, your memory

goes, I don't need to know that anymore. But

if I hear, I'm sure if all, you know, at Christmas

time, when I hear the 57 version, I'll go, ah,

that's the wrong one. And there was no way I

was going to open Lethal Weapon with the wrong

Jingle Bell Rock either because soundtrack fans

are notorious for pointing out your mistakes.

So it had to be the right Jingle Bell Rock. And

I think that Lethal Weapon CD could be the only

place on CD to get that recording of Jingle Bell

Rock. Wow. So that was exciting. You know, I've

looked through your soundtrack projects album

and I've looked at the notes that you've made

where you said assistant editor or co -production

or what goes into producing? Like, okay, we know

that Take the Lethal Weapons set, for example.

Michael came and did all the music for it as

far as the actual score goes. But what goes into

the job of being an album producer or an assistant

editor or... Explain that to the listeners because...

Yeah, I'm sorry. Because it to me it's like Okay,

they produce the album. That means they Probably

clean it up. They obviously do how the tracks

are gonna go but go ahead and explain how it

works Well, there's no actual job description

that says well that falls into this category

this falls into that category at least for me

I mean, obviously if you're mixing an album,

you're gonna be credited as a mixer assistant

editing for me typically means I'll get the material

I will cut it, label it, line it up to the movie,

and then pass it on to somebody else. And I'll

tell you exactly what that means. So cutting

it means, let's say I have a reel of tape that

has five takes of the main title. And let's say

they used three of those takes. It'll be my job

to ID those three takes. and cut them together

to match the final performance heard in the movie.

The way I do that is I will actually have a copy

of the movie or a recording of the movie in my

Pro Tools session as reference. This is all very

boring, I apologize. No, it's not boring at all.

I will set up, I will cut up the tape, label

it, it'll say, you know, main title, take three.

you know, a real one, part one, take three, main

title, something like that. And then that gets

passed on to somebody else who will decide, you

know, placement, you know, where does it go?

I mean, fortunately for a lot of our albums,

since we have a movie as reference, we can...

We know the order it's supposed to go in because

it was meant to go in a certain order. This is

Q1, this is Q2, this is Q3, this is Q4, that

sort of thing. But there's combinations, you

know, maybe there's alternates. There's a lot

of decision making. If I'm just editing an album,

those decisions become someone else's. They become

the job of the producer. So in the case of Leap

of Weapon, you know, I came up with, in addition

to doing all the editing, I came up with the

track lists and the, you know, the sequencing,

the combinations, you know, putting cues together

that musically might go together or go together

that way in the movie, or we're supposed to go

together that way in the movie. You know, the

whole opening of Lethal Weapon 2, you know, main

title and chase the red BMW, I had those lined

up to the movie. They're not used all that much.

But if you listen to our album that's actually

how it was intended to go and that you know that

was a decision that I made and then I tacked

on Krugerrand at the end because it's so short

but it went with that scene so that those chimes

that all come in that's Krugerrand and that's

that is used in the movie but that you know it's

a little bit later in the scene but it's still

all in sequence and so that was my decision there

you know as a producer on that album. Other things

I did on Leap of Weapon was, you know, obviously

it was all collaborative. I produced it with

Michael Gerhardt, so it wasn't just me in a vacuum,

you know, we talked. But like, I made suggestions.

I'm happy we went through with them. The one

thing I really wanted the most in terms of packaging,

I leave that all to... Jim Titus, I mean, I said,

you know, we had some conversations, but I felt

for Lethal Weapon, for whatever reason, it was

an eight disc set, I wanted each movie to have

its own jewel case. There are other terrific

box sets out there, you know, movie series, television

series, and they put things in clamshells, which

are nice. But for Lethal Weapon, for whatever

reason, I just thought, geez, wouldn't it be

really nice if they each came in their own case?

And then Jim Titus went off on his own and got

the color schemes right and just... Completely

blew me away with this terrific package I mean,

yeah all four of these jewel cases Basically

match each of the film. I've actually got the

set right here in my hand And that was Jim I

mean, but yeah Lethal Weapon has a gray color

scheme Lethal Weapon 2 is a black color scheme

Lethal Weapon 3 is white and Lethal Weapon 4

is red that matches the color scheme It blows

me away. It still blows me away. It's a work

of art It really really is and then the overall

See I I got really fooled with I mean, I know

CD jewel cases are not that large But when La

La Land first put the promo picture up Over the

holiday season last year The the outside packaging

looked bigger in the you know, it's like You

know, objects in this picture look bigger than

what they really are because I thought I was

going to be getting one of those kind of clamshell

kind of things because that's the way the picture

made it look. It didn't look. And I got it and

I'm like, hey, wait, this is kind of small. It's

cool. It looks great. It's kind of small, though.

What I love about this set and the work that

everyone, you and the entire team put into it

is it's a total package it's basically okay I

can think of it two ways the actual case is a

gun and the four jewel cases are bullets that's

I mean because the outs the outer case is black

and red you know so uh... but no i mean i i actually

looked at my itunes list is what i'd what i do

when i get any any cd or soundtrack or whenever

i buy stuff on itunes or wherever i get it from

to put into my itunes library i will make a playlist

of its So I could have that out like that album.

I actually have five playlists for Lethal Weapon.

One for each of the four films, and then one

master list with all four films in one giant

thing. And I looked at it, it's the entire running

time of all the tracks. Seven hours and 50 something

minutes. Just under eight hours. That's a lot

of Lethal Weapon. I actually wrote up a two -page

written review for this set for La La Land Records,

and I spent, kid you not, dude, I spent the seven

hours, 51 minutes. No, I'm serious, like, because

me, I'm a podcast, you know, recorder producer,

so I basically work from home. So, I have a lot

of time on my hands. You know, and I'm not ashamed

to say that. It's, you know, sure, I don't get

paid to do podcasting, but I love it. It's something

I love to do. It's something that, you know,

keeps me sane. And, you know, I go through and

edit maybe because I record shows one to three

months in advance. So I'll record and then I'll

edit like five or six podcasts within a week

and then have them ready to go. But with this,

when I sat down with this over the holidays,

I was like, oh my god, this is, I can't stop

listening. To hell with sleep, this music is

great. I'm sure Michael Kamen would love to know

that. Yeah, may he rest in peace. He's terrific,

isn't he? The funny thing is, is after I got

this set, I did not know or realize that he did

the Die Hard discs! Yeah, as a matter of fact,

Laolant has put out Die Hard and Die Hard 3.

And, again, they were happening at the same time

as Lethal. You know, we have a lot of projects

going on at the same time. All at once, yeah.

My Lethal Weapon DVDs and my Die Hard DVDs were

all back in Jersey. Oh, jeez. You know, I didn't

bring them out here when I moved, but now, suddenly,

I'm, you know, involved with Die Hard 1 and 3,

and then I wound up on Die Hard 2 as well for

Veres Sutter Band, and, you know, Nick Redmond

produced that with Mike Mattesino. So I wound

up on that one, which is great because I'm one

of those people that really loves Die Hard 2,

both the film and the score. And so I called

my mother up. I said, Mom, I need a favor. I

need you to mail me all of my Lethal Weapon DVDs

and all of my Die Hard DVDs, because I'm working

on all of these soundtracks. Obviously, we're

branching out to the family film territory with

all these projects. So I did. And on DVD, what

did I have? I had... Leave the weapons the actual

cut leave the weapon directors cut and you know

I had I had all the DVDs of these movies And

she sent them all out you know all these hard

are rated. You know Joel silver produced movies

with terrific Michael Kamen scores I Mean he

is just a master I You know we'll talk about

some of your other projects as well, but I mean

came and it's just a master because the the bullet

scene or not not the bullet scene the the shooting

range scene. Uh -huh. Oh, like, I can hear the

comedy in the music. I can hear Riggs doing...

I can hear Gibson doing his thing. You're talking

about that cue from the first film where he...

Yeah, where he basically puts it all the way

out there and then makes a smiley face. And it's

like, while I'm listening to the track, I can

hear him doing the sound effects. And yet, that

cue's not in the movie, you know? Well, that's

because he sings it in the movie. No, but...

Right? Yeah. The firing range cue is actually

not in the film. So did Kamen recreate that after

the fact, then? No, because he wrote it for the

movie and they decided not to use it. Okay. But

yeah, that was one of those discoveries where

you're sitting down and you go, oh, that's interesting,

and I forget on Lethal Weapon... Where I got

the time I had a where I got the titles from

I can't remember if they were vocally slated

You know with the engineer going, you know 3m1,

you know firing ring or whatever the slate is

I know I had some paperwork on it But yeah, that

certainly wasn't on the cue sheet because it's

not used but I took it and lined it up I went

oh it lines right it plays perfectly in the film

Yeah, but yeah You've also worked on you're a

huge Star Trek fan Well, I'm only about five

eleven or so but five nine sorry, yes, I do love

Star Trek You have it looks like you've worked

on almost every release that they've done in

some capacity. Yeah, I've been in well certainly

the feature films and some of the television

series Yeah, I think I think since yes since

the reissue started I've been on many of them.

Yes. Yeah What is your favorite Star Trek cue

from any of the discs that you've worked on?

Any of the discs? Any of them. That's like Sophie's

choice, isn't it? Well, I'll tell you the story

about working on Star Trek 2, which was the big

surprise. That might have my favorite, my favorite

Star Trek story, I don't know. I have two stories

about Star Trek 2, or maybe three, I don't know.

Cut me off when I get boring. Star Trek 2, the

cue that we all wanted, certainly I wanted it,

Lucas Kendall, the producer of the album, certainly

wanted it, was Enterprise Attacks Reliant, which

is the big climatic cue. It was never on the

original soundtrack album. It's where the Enterprise

rises up behind the Reliant and then blows it

up. And we always wanted that cue, and it was

actually the very first cue we heard on the tape.

It was cue 10M1, whereas they slated it M101.

And I remember I got to the office. Lucas's office

used to be right across the hall from the transfer

engineer. So I was going to Lucas's office to

help out on something. He said, Neil, you have

to hear this. Johnny, rewind the tape. And suddenly

here was that cue. And I went, oh, that's amazing.

I've always wanted to hear it. And there it is

off the tape. So that was fun. I can also remember

on that show saying, wouldn't it be really interesting

if James Horner recorded the alternate ending

to Star Trek 2? Because that's a movie where

they had a finished movie that was cut, was edited,

and they said, okay, that's terrific. And the

producers were like, well, Spock's dead and we're

not sure how much we like that idea. So they

went ahead and they shot that footage, all that

Genesis Planet footage at the end. where you

wind up looking at Spock's casket on the planet.

And they shot that very late in the game, so

late in the game, that Horner had recorded the

original finale of the movie, which went from

Kirk talking about I feel young and everything,

and then went off into space into the end titles,

and didn't have any of the Genesis stuff. And

then they went back and shot that footage, and

then Horner went back and wrote... an extra minute

of music to dovetail in, and they recorded it

all over again. So that was fun. That was fun

on Star Trek, too. But they all had sort of little

discoveries, all the Trek scores. You know, Star

Trek IV, finally hearing the alternate main title,

which we'd only ever heard about, you know, which

was Len Grossman adapting the Alexander Courage

main title, was fascinating to hear. And I was

glad we were able to include it on the album.

What goes into finding the alternates? Is it

just, you know, you said that Horner went back

and re -recorded other stuff, but what goes into

finding alternate takes on stuff? Is it just

that the composers record a bunch of music and

then the film company picks what they want to

use and then the composer has the stuff just

laying around? No, alternates are usually recorded,

you know, at the same time as the actual film,

you know, the film scoring. And the composer

may have an idea, you know, they may have discussed

something with the director and said, well, we

can do one of two things here. You know, here's

the one direction we can go and here's another.

And then it becomes up to the, you know, the

filmmakers, you know, the directors, producers.

I'm sure the editor has some say in it to go

ahead and say, hey, we like this one better.

This tells the story better. The tapes are always

clear. you know saying this is an alternate um

you know an alternate version or you know you

can just sometimes look you can or just listen

you know you go oh i have two forum ones what's

that about and you go oh well that that one's

different that's the alternate uh let's uh let's

say it's you know it's it's it just requires

you know paying attention and going through and

listening to the movie see what was done i know

in the case of batman returns there was uh a

cue that they did one version, and then they

did a completely different version, and then

for the final film, they smash them together.

So it opens up with one version and ends with

another. And then, so I said, okay, well, I have

an alternate. I'll just use the unused parts

and put those together. And that's how I put

the alternate on that. You know, Lethal Weapon

was the same way. He came up, you know, you find

a piece of music. I remember finding the alternate

gun battle for Lethal Weapon 3. I'm just going

through my tapes, and I had grown up with the

Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack album. I bought that

when it came out in 1992, and Armored Piercing

Bullets was one of my favorite tracks. So I would

listen to it over and over again, and then when

I was working on Lethal Weapon 3, and I came

to a queue, I don't know what the slate was,

and I went, oh, that's Armored Piercing Bullets,

or as they call it, gun battle. But I went, oh,

this is different. You know, I don't this piano

line is different and there's no that's that's

an alternate and it turns out yes They did do

an alternate Gun battle. So it's just a matter

of going through the tapes and hopefully there's

paperwork Sometimes you don't have that and it's

just a matter of listening and going through

Yeah Talk a little bit about, I know we've been

lethal weapon heavy in this interview, but it's

such an amazing set and something that really

interested me on it was the fact that first time

ever that 4 got its release, that boggles my

mind that 4 never had a release until now. Yeah,

it is. I can't explain it. I don't have an answer.

In the 80s, big films were not getting soundtrack

albums. Back to the Future had an album with

very little Alan Silvestri score on it. Why Lethal

Weapon didn't have a score release, I don't know.

However, it was very nice to finally say, here's

the whole thing. Yeah, so I assume you just went

through the movie? Yeah, that was a tough one.

That was a tough movie. That was a, that's a

notorious film, Leap the Weapon 4. A notoriously

rushed film. In terms of, you know, I don't know

specific dates. I just know that in terms of

actually shooting and editing the movie, it was

a matter of months. Like I think they may have,

like it came out in July, I think it was July

1998. And I think they started shooting maybe

in January 1998. So think about that, in six

months, or seven months, or however long it was,

they shot, edited, scored, did all post -production

on this film. And the music in the final film

was kind of a mess to sort out. There was a lot

of tracking where they would take music from,

you know, maybe another part of the movie, or

in the case of Lethal Weapon films, maybe another

Lethal Weapon film, and put it into the movie.

So lethal in the case of lethal weapon four I

had You know I had That's that were pretty clear

in terms of the slate so I could put it in order

Whether it matched the actual fight what you

actually heard in the film. It is That's open

to interpretation But I can tell you that it

is in the order that Michael came and conceived

it Whether it's actually heard that way in the

film The actual album may not match the movie

Hmm interesting All right, so we talked about

Batman and in his live -action films Talk to

me about co -producing with John Takis on sit

ran the animated series John take us actually

take us sorry I know you've never met him, but

it's like the first it's the first thing he ever

said to me And he'll be thrilled. You're like,

hey, we got his name right. Tell you about Superman.

Superman came up right after I did Star Trek,

the original series. And Star Trek, the original

series, was a 15 CD set of every piece of music

written for the original Star Trek television

series. And it was exhausting. And we did it

very, very quickly. We started that one around

April 2012, and we're out by December 2012. We

did 15 CDs in that time, booklet, whole thing.

So then they said, hey, we want to do Superman.

Superman the Animated Series. And I went, oh,

no. Why can't I just do a nice one disc release?

No. Come on. And keep in mind, in the middle

of this, I'm still doing Lethal Weapon. Right,

right. You know, Star Trek was very, very fast.

Star Trek started in April 2012 and went through,

you know, like I said, it was out by December.

It was out the beginning of December. So it was

done way before that. Before Christmas, yeah.

I was asked to start on Lethal Weapon summer,

I think it was summer 2010. So that gives you

some idea how long Lethal Weapon was in. production.

It was in production for almost three years,

four years, holy crap. Let's just say that Lethal

Weapon, in terms of movie chronology, Lethal

Weapon 1 came out and two years later Lethal

Weapon 2 came out. Yeah. So yeah, this set was

in production for a long time. So getting back

to Superman, he said, we want to do a Superman

album, you know, Superman soundtracks. And I

went, oh, and I really had to think about it.

But what it came down to was, John Takis is a

very good friend of mine. I've known him for

years. I've known him. I knew him before either

of us were involved with soundtrack albums. I

met him in Boston at a John Williams concert.

And it came down to, wow, John really knows this

music. I can go and I can find this material.

I can edit it. I can do, you know, I can do all

my stuff on this, but he knows it so well. He'll

come up with a playlist that I can, you know,

put together and prove and you know do the whole

thing this is going to be a good collaboration

and that's what it was that's what it came down

to so ultimately it came down to I would you

know I have to work with John on this because

I know with him it's in really good hands and

I won't screw things up too much and Superman

turned out great you know it was it was one of

those productions where we had a lot of material

we didn't have everything But it sounds great.

Out of the, I think, oh man, I know I'm gonna

screw this up. I think there are 52 episodes

of Superman. Out of that, you guys have 20 full

scores on there. Yeah, that's a lot. And for

me personally, I wasn't sure how that was gonna

go I knew all the themes were gonna be there

and everything else like the main theme in the

in the closing theme and you know obviously Last

Son of Krypton three -parter that was gonna be

there I figured that was gonna be there but the

crowning jewel on that for me is world's finest

Oh my god McQuistion oh god I actually talked

to the three of them mm -hmm Carter I'm gonna

screw her name up. Little Leader Imanis and Michael

McQuistion. I actually interviewed them because

I originally had wanted to talk to Christopher

Carter about his Batman Beyond stuff at the time

because so far there's only two soundtracks of

that and the one for the TV series it's I think

Ten tracks and that's I know Batman Beyond specifically.

I think that had 52 episodes so But no, I mean

Superman you can't believe you only won. I understand

you under enormous pressure, but only wanted

to do one disc I'll tell you about Superman you

were you're right. I don't know how I know that

I know we've done about half the scores And I,

at one time, when we were gonna start Superman,

I pulled in a bunch of material and I had some

stuff that isn't on the set. There's some episodes

of it. Because John, you have to understand,

John had it mapped out. He said, these are the

scores that I want on this set. I went, okay,

so we got stuff pulled in and I went, well, I

also have this one in case something doesn't

work out. And I toyed with the idea of... You

know, we're doing Superman. Let's do it in true

Superman fashion. Let's do one and two at the

same time. And then just, you know, much the

way Richard Donner made his Superman. I went,

let's do one and two at the same time and we'll

do eight CDs and we'll get them all right. It

didn't happen that way. I hope a volume two happens

someday. Volume one was... Really a lot of fun

to do again terrific Jim Titus artwork Mike Mattesino

was the mastering engineer on and he did a terrific

job on it the composers all loved it and So I'm

hoping and now I'm hoping hey, maybe we can do

another four CD set wouldn't that be nice Yeah

That would be awesome I mean, you know again,

that's over That's On all four discs, it's close

to 168 tracks, 5 hours and 15 minutes. That one

was really pushing it in terms of running time.

I think we're a couple seconds under 80 minutes

on a few of them, or something like that. We're

right on the edge of breaking CD players with

that set. What really surprised me about that

set is some of the 22nd promos themes. I'd have

to look through my list and see what it's actually

called. I don't have the disc for me. Right,

what surprised me about some of those is you

have Shirley Walker and Bruce Timm and what I

assume are the original recordings from when

they did those. Yeah, that really surprised me

that that was on there. I liked I think that's

great Occasionally, you'll find that stuff on

the rolls. I just did I was talking about this

the other day, you know, someone said oh, I really

wish these albums would have supplemental stuff

like Like DVDs doing them. First of all, I'm

like, well, don't we don't we present alternates?

Don't we present? If it's neat, if it contributes

something, if it... You know, because usually

I buy a CD, I want to listen to music, I don't

want to hear people talking. Right. But if it's

a bonus thing that we can put on there, I think

that's neat. On North by Northwest, there was

no chit chat or anything, but I found one incomplete

take where Bernard Herrmann started yelling at

the orchestra. Put that on the album. Oh my god,

all I can think of is Orson Welles in the Pease

commercial of the 4th of July. And there was

a precedent for having Bernard Herrmann yelling

at the orchestra on CD. I think there's some

of that on the day the Earth stood still. So

I was like, okay, this will be nice too. No one's

ever heard this yelling at the orchestra. So

it's on there. I like the Superman stuff because

it's all happy stuff going on. These are the

composers. The one that sticks out for me is

where Shirley Walker talks about how one of the

producers fought to have original scores written

for every episode and not just record 10 scores

and then track them in for the remainder of the

series. And that's really terrific. We like having

extra music and you know written for these shows.

Oh Yeah, you know that was part of her her program

and and and he it was Bruce Tim that it said

hey look, you know we want the music to be a

part of the show just as the animation is just

as the voice acting is and everything else and

Yeah, I mean he was a big proponent of doing

that And they went along with it, and it was

simply amazing. I hope to God you guys get to

Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.

Oh man, those two cartoons. See, for me, because

I understand Justice League Unlimited, it changed

the main theme and it changed the format of the

show. But I still say it's one giant show, Justice

League, airing from 2001 to 2006, is 91 episodes.

I get they changed it over, they gave it a makeover

with Unlimited, but to me it's still all one

show, because it's all the same cast, it's all,

you know, it's the same stories of the same characters,

but I hope somebody gets to those soon. because

we need those on on on disc. Michael Gerhard

loves the DC universe. It wasn't clear from,

you know, all the Batman album. Oh, God, the

Batman album Superman. And he loves the DC universe.

So I'm sure that there have been discussions.

I don't know about them. You're right. Right.

Yeah. No, I mean, the Batman albums, the Batman,

the animated series albums. Oh, man. so awesome

all right um what have you got is there anything

you can kind of tease us with or any kind of

hints of projects you're allowed to give out

I know you know Hollywood you guys have to sign

a whole bunch of contracts and everything else

but I don't sign anything actually but it's not

up to me to announce titles I leave that to the

labels. They have, you know, their own programs.

Let's see. I can tell you that I actually listened

to an album today that has been in production

for a while. I first cut it in January 2013,

and I just heard my first pass at a master today.

That's a fun score. Not a long album, so I got

my wish. And I was, you know, just before this,

I was cutting up, you know, another television

series. just, you know, chopping and labeling.

I've got stuff, you know, the labels have a lot

of things in production right now. So hopefully

some things will be coming out this year, you

know, later on this year. But yeah, I don't think

I have anything that's imminent right now that

I've been involved with coming out. So unfortunately,

I can't name anything, but just know that some

good stuff is happening for sure. Awesome. Awesome.

All right. Well, is there anything else you want

to bring up or talk about about soundtracks or

anything else? I just want to thank everybody.

I have a Facebook page. I got a Twitter page.

I got a Google Plus page. I want to thank everyone

for the support. I can't believe, but I'm looking

at my CD shelf right now and it's full of, I

admit, I'm vain. I have a CD. It's like a trophy

case of just, it's all my CDs. You know projects

that I've worked on is like it's full and I can't

believe that you know Here are all these albums.

So I have to thank everyone who's you know purchased

them. I have to thank the labels Who put these

things out and employ me? It's it's terrific

I'm grateful. Everyone's grateful. I'm thankful,

you know that you're interested enough that you

want to talk about these things for you know

Trust me I mean, it's an immense pleasure for

me because, like I said before, I've always been

one of those people that if the music on any

project, whether it be film, TV, whatever, if

it grabs me, I then have to go seek it out and

hear it outside of the movie because I fully

believe you don't get a full appreciation of

the music in a film. unless you hear it outside

of the film. Did you have anything to do with

the Days of Thunder release? I don't know if

you did or not. Not specifically. For a lot of

land on a lot of their albums, they will pass

through my ears at some point. Okay. And on Days

of Thunder, that was one. I remember being at

the Mastering Engineer's studio. Doug Schwartz

mastered that album. He's got speakers the size

of my car. And so I got to hear Days of Thunder

on that system, and we were like, okay, and maybe

we could, you know, this cue needs some work

or something, but yeah, that was mainly Dan Goldwasser's

show. My memory of Days of Thunder is my grandmother

in 1990 saw it and liked it, so God bless her.

Because, you know, the thing with that one is

until LLN released it, Just like lethal for it

was 23 years Since it since the film came out

before we actually get a real soundtrack of it

and the funny thing with the days of thunder

disk is Is that there's a lot of music that Zimmer

has in that I don't know if it's in the film

or not But there's a lot of stuff that's in there.

That's really cool that works with what the tracks

were in the film. With the film itself, because

it's stock car racing and the engines are so

loud, sometimes the music gets drowned out. Again,

that's why I love listening to the music outside

of whatever the project that it's in, because

it's just such great music. Yeah, and that's

the nice thing about these releases because,

you know, these expanded soundtrack releases

that we do, because invariably what happens is

you see a movie, you buy the album and you go...

This is great, but they left off my favorite

piece of music. So in the case of, you know,

Star Trek 2, they left off Enterprise Attacks

for Alliance. And, you know, it's just all, you

know, the whole opening of Leap the Weapon 2,

you know, I'll tell you, Leap the Weapon 2 was

fascinating because I went through and prepared

a document for that one, you know, because that

did have an original soundtrack album released

in 1989. And it was, you know, it was songs and

score. But what it turned out to be was songs.

some underscore and cues specifically recorded

for the album that Michael came in, you know,

wrote and arranged specifically for a soundtrack

album release. And what it came down to was about

15 minutes worth of the lethal weapon to score

as all that had ever been released until our

album. And I didn't realize that until I was

working on it. And I sat down one day and I typed

up the scene and went, oh my gosh, 15 minutes

of music from this score that runs about 80 minutes.

And it's like no wonder all of our favorite stuff

was never on that album so it is now and then

we all you know One of the things that I like

to do is include the original soundtrack album

Or at least an album version of something. It's

different enough, and if I have space So people

who said well, I really like that original soundtrack

album. You know what? We preserved it. It's on

here or you can program your CD player or make

an iTunes playlist of the original soundtrack

album using our one new release You know, we

just did la la land just put out Dennis the menace

by Jerry Goldsmith and that was a that was a

fun project to work on we went from having half

the score to you know, like I had half the score

I was from the materials and and suddenly we

wound up having everything and I went through

it and It's an 80 -minute CD, and if you take

that CD, and you'll see they have a section of

album tracks, you can arrange those with other

cues to make the original soundtrack album, if

that's your preferred listening experience. So

I try to honor that with our... Interesting.

Yeah, it's not a matter of, well, forget the

original album, that doesn't matter anymore,

to the point that we did another Jerry Goldsmith

album this year, the Blue Max, which I produced

with Nick Redman. for La La Land. That was an

album that's the sixth soundtrack release for

the Blue Max. You're sitting there and you know

they're like well Intrada did it a few years

ago now we're gonna do it here's the material

like well how am i gonna i can't improve on an

Intrada release this is a terrific release so

i just sort of came at it from a different point

of view and i'm like well it's the sixth soundtrack

album what has never you know what's never been

done for the Blue Max that hasn't done five times

before and so I went through the Blue Max and

came up with an album that is a little different

than the ones that came before but we made an

album in such a way that you can program the

five previous soundtrack albums if you want to

if you want to go ahead and program the you know

the uh The original LP the reissue LP the first

CD the reissue CD the entrada CD or if he doesn't

listen You can it's all on there It's it's it's

it's as close to being your own album producer

as you can get for the blue max You can make

your own seventh release of it and that's that's

that comes back to the philosophy that I have

of Yes, I want to put out the full score, but

I don't want to ignore what came before You know,

it's you know, especially you know in the case

of you know lethal weapon where Michael Kamen

produced specific albums. Who am I to say, no,

no, no, no, no, no. We're not including Michael

Kamen's, you know, stuff that has to be on there.

You know, I want it on there. I want to enjoy,

you know, his conception. I think, you know,

his Lethal Weapon album is terrific. You know,

that opens up disc two. of our release, you know,

and he had his own suites arranged and some different

mixes and stuff. So, what it comes down to is

I want my release to be, you know, the full thing

and more. And I hope people enjoy that, they

seem to, and I'm very grateful for that. Awesome,

awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, it's just... I mean,

you know, it's just an absolute pleasure being

able to do reviews for La La Land and doing some

of these soundtrack reviews. Like, I didn't really,

like, I knew when I wrote up the Lethal review,

I knew at some point I was gonna have to do a

page break because I'm like, I can't sit here

and write about these four discs and just have

one paragraph per disc. I have to sit here, immerse

myself in the music. Listen to the seven hours

or so and you know, right? I actually how I wrote

that that were the that two -page review up is

Like I was saying earlier I took Everything from

all four discs put in one playlist and then I

took everything from each one and put it into

you know, lethal weapon one two three and four

and when I was writing the lethal weapon one

Section I would listen to lethal weapon one two

three four, etc. It took me Total of Probably

72 to 96 hours to write that thing. No sir. I'm

dead serious That's a lot of it's a lot of lethal

weapon it's a lot of music to listen to but it's

a lot of good music to listen to because like

i was saying with the with the the shooting range

scene even though in my head i can hear gibson

doing the you know i can hear him doing that

as i'm listening to this music cue i'm like oh

yeah that's the scene where he put the smiley

face right there on on the on the uh on the gun

paper because that was just it's just one of

those awesome awesome scenes and then lethal

three i mean that was when you know lorna came

in and just the the tones that came and uses

in that are you know not only do you have really

sinister tones for when jack travis is around

but just how how rigs is a character changed

in that film from the first two is just simply

amazing and came and adapted the music to that

You'll have to forgive me. I will admit I haven't

listened to these lately. Seriously? Perhaps

I should have refreshed my memory, but I think

it's Lorna's first fight. It's in Weapon 3. It's

not used. It could be Lorna's first fight or

Lorna's second fight. You'll have to forgive

me. I don't recall which one it is now, but it's

not used. And it's the most exciting cue. You

sit down and go, wait, this wasn't even used

in the movie. How is that possible? This terrific

action piece. And I made sure to make it a sample

when the album came out because people need to

hear this. It's never been heard before. The

funny thing is it was actually also on the Lethal

Weapon IV Dats, slated as opening car chase or

something. So I guess at some point they planned

on using it in Lethal Weapon 4 and it didn't

happen. But it was on our Lethal Weapon 4 album

as well as our Lethal Weapon 3 album and probably

sometime around this time, you have to understand

this time last year all I was listening to was

Lethal Weapon Masters trying to refine the album

and get them into something that we could release

and I remember listening to Lethal Weapon 4 going,

wait a minute, that's Lorna's first fight. Did

they re -record that? And I put them in the Pro

Tools. I go, nope, that's the exact same take.

Let's cut off Lethal Weapon 4 because it doesn't

belong there. See, now, I'm surprised that they...

didn't use Lorna's first fight in the movie because...

Let's just clarify for your listeners. I'm not

quite sure which one it is. It's either Lorna's

first fight or Lorna's second fight. It's been

a while. I'm looking at the disc right now. It

says... I don't think it says. No, it has Lorna's

first fight. There's an asterisk next to Lorna's

first and second fight and it says... The asterisk

is previously unreleased means it wasn't on the

original soundtrack album, but that doesn't mean

it's not Okay, but it doesn't mean it's not in

the movie. Yeah, okay No, because I remember

the Lorna's first fight tracks. I remember those

being in the movie It might not have been on

the original disc. No one for sure is not in

the film. They tracked it with something from

lethal weapons Interesting. Yeah All right, well

I'd like to thank you for taking this time to

chat with me about all things soundtrack. My

pleasure. Anytime you want to chat about a soundtrack,

I'll let you know. Assuming you don't get lots

of feedback from your ears saying, hey, you know,

thanks for putting me to sleep or... Oh, no.

Come on now. Stop being all self -deprecating.

Come on now. No, it's interesting for me because

I'm a fan of sound, like, recently. i'm obsessed

with brian tyler music because he's one of today's

premier composers in my mind and i've listened

to his transformers prime season one soundtrack

and iron man three soundtrack god knows how many

times since those released because it's such

amazing music and it goes back to what i was

saying earlier not to repeat myself a third time

you gotta hear sometimes you gotta hear the music

outside of the production because It makes it

so much better when you can hear the clear tunes.

I agree. Obviously, the music is written to support

the film. That's its purpose. The soundtrack

albums are an ancillary item. It's a by -product

of, well, I wrote this for the movie, but it

can be enjoyed away. It's basically the only

thing that you can enjoy away from a movie. I

suppose you could read a script, and they do

print scripts. but you can't really, there's

nothing else you can take out of a movie and

enjoy elsewhere. It's really just the music where

you can go, oh, we can pull this away and sell

another item that people can enjoy and re -experience

the movie, something specific that's in the movie,

but it's a separate thing, it's apart from it.

It's sort of an interesting phenomenon. It is,

it is. Alright, well, I'll be back after this.

Thank you so much, Mr. Bulk. Thank you, great

talking with you. It's beautiful! Well, there

you go, folks. That's my interview with Mr. Neil

S. Bulk, album producer to the stars, worked

on Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Batman, Star Trek,

and everything else. Stay tuned for GeekCast

radios. Other episodes coming up later this month

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