Pitchfork: September 17, 2017
“Rick and Morty” has slowly grown its cult following since debuting in 2013, now finding itself at the fringes of the TV animation canon. Helmed by animator Justin Roiland and “Community” creator Dan Harmon, the Adult Swim show follows the adventures of a nihilistic, alcoholic genius and his adolescent grandson through the known universe and its endless alternate realities.
While most viewers recognize the show for its cleverly juvenile jokes, developed supporting cast, and plotlines that seem the result of getting stoned with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “Rick and Morty” also stands out for its use of music. Its original compositions can rival “The Simpsons”’ classic “Monorail Song” or Planet of the Apesmusical, burrowing in your head like the Ceti eel from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Overseeing the score is composer Ryan Elder, who introduced himself to Roiland when both attended Harmon’s monthly short film festival, Channel 101. Roiland and Elder teamed up on a short called “The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti,” a crudely drawn Back to the Future parody that ended up catching the attention of Harmon and serving as the groundwork for “Rick and Morty.”
As the show wraps up its third season (already featuring a Logiccameo and Chaos Chaos’ chart-creeping original track “Terryfold”), we talk to Elder about building the “Rick and Morty” sound from the ground up and scoring alien worlds. “The idea of creating something that you’re supposed to have never heard before is very difficult,” he says. “That’s not something composers usually have to do. But it’s also very liberating.”
Pitchfork: You’re responsible for the show’s over-the-top main theme. How did that come together?
Ryan Elder: It’s interesting, I wrote that theme originally for a different show Justin was pitching, which was called “Dog World.” There’s actually a reference to it in the episode “Lawnmower Dog,” when the super intelligent dogs choose to colonize their own world at the conclusion and Rick says something like, “A [concept] like that could make for a satisfying show, maybe at 11 minutes a pop.” [The theme’s] reference points were obviously “Doctor Who”—a super big influence on me—but also “Farscape” and “Invader Zim.” Justin and I talked about creating this larger-than-life sci-fi adventure score for “Rick and Morty,” and this theme that I had written for “Dog World” just seemed so perfect for it. Early on we were just like, “Let’s just use that and then down the road we’ll come up with something else.” But everyone fell in love with it, so we kept it in and that’s what you hear today.
While you’re not in charge of the show’s music supervision, the use of licensed songs is striking as well. Usually it’s for comedic purposes, like with DMX’s ”X Gon Give It To Ya,” but there are also emotionally cathartic moments, like when Blonde Redhead’s “For the Damaged Coda” and Mazzy Star’s “Look On Down From the Bridge” close out episodes.
That’s Justin and Dan’s sensibility. They both love that shoegazer stuff from the ’90s. I’ll admit, when I saw those songs in them in their respective cuts I thought, “This is so perfect. A) I hope they can get it [approved]. And B) I need to make sure that when we get to that point in the episode, my music doesn’t take up real estate so those songs have more impact.” If that’s the key moment in the episode, all of my score has to lead up to that.
Going back to the original score, walk me through a few of the more memorable music moments on the show. Season two’s “Get Schwifty” was written by Rick and Morty to save Earth in an interstellar music competition. Where do you even start with a premise that goofy?
So Adult Swim made these little animated flash games to promote season one, and in one of the games you controlled Morty and could find Summer’s iPod. On her iPod were three songs, one of which was “Get Schwifty.” Because it was meant to be almost like an easter egg in the game, Adult Swim didn’t get me involved. They took some music they already had and Justin did this improvised rap over the top of it. Then the writers heard those songs, loved them, and insisted we write a whole episode around them. “We need to write a whole episode around these songs.” When time came to put those songs in the episode, there was never any question that they were going to use those versions because they were so good and funny. I love how cheesy the beats are—I think it’s part of the allure. And Justin has this incredible skill to improvise lyrics and melodies in a really funny way.
In the season-two episode “Total Rickall,” where the Smiths’ home is invaded by parasites that reproduce by injecting themselves into increasingly outrageous false memories, Summer “remembers” her relationship with Tinkles, a magic ballerina lamb, which progresses into a pretty ridiculous ode to their friendship.
That one was fun. The writers wanted the song to turn on dime from this really fun, poppy thing, and then all of a sudden be this really aggressive rap song. We went back and forth on it for a while and eventually we were like, “OK, we’re going to combine songs that basically have nothing to do with each other,” but I made them work together. I love doing the rap stuff with the writers. The “Flu Hatin’ Rap” in season one’s “Rick Potion #9,” when Morty attends his school’s flu awareness dance, Dan just improvised vocals in freestyle. And then in the season two finale at Bird Person’s wedding, there’s this wedding singer/rapper doing this Digable Planets thing. I believe Dan called it “alien jazz rapping,” which again was Dan just improvising lyrics. He’s a pretty good freestyler, believe it or not.
Probably your most memorable original song so far was in season two’s “Mortynight Run” where a cosmic being of pure consciousness named Fart singing a tune called “Goodbye Moonman.”
They sent me the script and said, “This is a pre-record. We’re going to need to animate this. Can you put something together for us to animate?” The script just said, “Fart sings a David Bowie-inspired song,” and it had the lyrics. So I listened to David Bowie for several hours, which was definitely one of the more fun parts of my job. Then I just sat down with a guitar and started singing those words, and the whole process of writing that song from beginning to end took maybe an hour or two. I was eventually told, “Hey, we’re going to try to get Jemaine Clement [from ‘Flight of the Conchords’] to sing this.” We did this session where he was in New Zealand recording locally and we were in the office in Burbank talking to him over the phone. They recorded all his lines of dialogue for the episode, and then we had about 20 minutes left to get all of the vocals for the song. Luckily he’s a complete pro. I used his first take on the whole song. He nailed it right away.