Thinking in Sound: Scott Lane on Making Awesome Stuff with Great People

Scott Lane is a creative producer at Overcoast Music & Sound in Richmond, Virginia. After a decade-long career in live music as a guitarist playing at venues, festivals, sold-out Red Rocks shows, and opening for major national acts, Lane moved back to Richmond to pursue his interest in producing and scoring to picture. He has worked on ads, TV, and digital media, scored films, written podcast themes, and produced albums for dozens of artists. 

LBB> When you’re working on a new brief or project, what’s your typical starting point? How do you break it down and how do you like to generate your ideas or response?

Scott> For composition, I typically write stream-of-consciousness on the piano immediately, and refine from there. Build something. Maybe delete the piano. What’s left? Two layers of emotional pull: first the improvised structure as a reaction to the problem I needed to solve, then second the intentional world building on top of that foundation.

As a producer, I like to think the same way. I really value that first idea energy, whether or not those ideas make it in the final product. Hashing out the vision in that first creative call with the client is an improvisation, an energetic process.

LBB> Music and sound are in some ways the most collaborative and interactive forms of creativity - what are your thoughts on this? Do you prefer to work solo or with a gang - and what are some of your most memorable professional collaborations?

Scott> I love to work together! Sort of similarly to the previous question, I approach it in two different ways. There is the type of collaboration where you get together in a room from scratch and try to make something incredible out of the chaos of improvisation. And then there’s collaboration where all parties show up having prepared, presenting ideas and using logic and reason to find the best solution. I love both. Often both are necessary.

I think nowadays, even if I’m working 'solo' on something, I always benefit from having a pair of trusted ears on it. There will always be some weird choice I make that I wouldn’t hear until it’s too late, but a collaborator who speaks the language will catch immediately. Or a fresh idea that comes from the perspective of not being in the weeds.

As far as memorable collaborations, I loved writing the theme for The New Bazaar podcast (hosted by Cardiff Garcia, formerly host of The Indicator on NPR). It was one of my favourite examples of teasing out musical ideas from non-musicians. In an extended brainstorming call with Cardiff and producer Aimee Keane, a particular inspiration ended up being a certain type of snare roll. It really had an attitude. DJ Harrison and I wrote the theme music and fourteen stings based off that specific reference.

LBB> What’s the most satisfying part of your job and why?

Scott> Quite simply, making awesome stuff with great people.

LBB> As the advertising industry changes, how do you think the role of music and sound is changing with it?

Scott> It’s more important than it has ever been, and also faster. Nowadays, it’s imperative to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all sorts of music, and the skillset to create an immersive experience on the fly. And a great library of existing music to license.

LBB> Who are your musical or audio heroes and why?

Scott> Nobuo Uematsu has been a huge influence since I was a kid. He did the music for most of the Final Fantasy video games. There’s something about his writing and sense of melody that really resonates with me.. maybe it’s because he is self-taught, yet composing for orchestra. The music is lyrical and human sounding even at its nerdiest moments. There’s tons of humor in it. It is more memorable to me than anything else.

On the post-production/mix side of things, I feel like I identify with the sort of Tchad Blake school of thought, and by extension Shawn Everett.. which is to say. No rules. Use things as they are not intended to be used. Nothing is sacred/whatever it takes.

I also think there’s a certain permission I granted myself to make strong, sometimes weird decisions and to be myself, however chaotic or raw, by listening to artists like Bjork, D’Angelo, Radiohead… and of course the music of Richmond VA, which is its own unquantifiable beast.

LBB> And when it comes to your particular field, whether sound design or composing, are there any particular ideas or pioneers that you go back to frequently or who really influence your thinking about the work you do?

Scott> I didn’t jump into composition until I was in my 30s, despite being a huge fan of film scores and probably paying more attention than the average rock and roll musician. I thought “one day I’ll figure out how to write for an orchestra, probably in a couple decades.” The one idea that really propelled me forward into actually trying to write for picture was this recurring theme of particular constraints leading to certain (great) sounds and concepts.

For example, Bernard Herrmann in Psycho, didn’t have the budget for a full orchestra, so he wrote what is easily one of the most iconic film scores, using only the string section. He tapped into some really wild bowing techniques and as a result, wrote something that was possibly better than it would have been with a massive budget.

Or if you consider all of the music that was made for early video games had to be manually inputed as code. Even when SNES came out, composers were manually entering text-based code to circumvent the limitations of 64kb of audio RAM. Besides the above mentioned Final Fantasy games, my personal favorite would be Yasunori Mitsuda’s Chrono Trigger soundtrack.

Also David Wise’s Donkey Kong Country soundtrack. A lot of this music is now performed by orchestras across the world, and it holds up in my opinion as some of the greatest music ever scored for media.

This is just to say, work with what you’ve got. Get started.

LBB> When you’re working on something that isn’t directly sound design or music (lets say going through client briefs or answering emails) - are you the sort of person who needs music and noise in the background or is that completely distracting to you? What are your thoughts on ‘background’ sound and music as you work?

Scott> I’m usually listening to music throughout the day — whether it’s referencing something from a client link, for inspiration, or sorting through library music. I tend to live entirely in the world of whatever I’m creating at the time, and find unrelated music to be a distraction that pulls me out of that world. When I’m not working on a creative project though, I usually listen to a few choice film score and OST playlists.

LBB> I guess the quality of the listening experience and the context that audiences listen to music/sound in has changed over the years. There’s the switch from analogue to digital and now we seem to be divided between bad-ass surround-sound immersive experiences and on-the-go, low quality sound (often the audio is competing with a million other distractions) - how does that factor into how you approach your work?

Scott> I think we should be nimble and not precious about what constitutes great work. The level of fidelity is one factor out of many in measuring the effectiveness of a piece of music, or a mix. To me, it’s like comparing a mono, 8-track Motown recording to a modern hifi cover of the same song. Even if the performances are just as good, is it going to hit you in the same way? Maybe.

Probably not. The same is true of media. What’s the context? How do we best serve it?

LBB> On a typical day, what does your ‘listening diet’ look like?

Scott> My 2-year-old daughter will only listen to Green Day Dookie right now. She demands it every morning during breakfast, on the way to school, and during dinner. So that’s what I got right now. I’ve been sneaking in a lot of Joe Hisaishi though.

LBB> Do you have a collection of music/sounds and what shape does it take (are you a vinyl nerd, do you have hard drives full of random bird sounds, are you a hyper-organised spotify-er…)?

Scott> Honestly, no. None of that. I have a vinyl collection but it’s been a couple years since I listened to it. I don’t have an extensive hard drive of esoteric sounds. My approach has always been more to make stuff from scratch. Manipulate real and software instruments into sometimes unrecognizable sounds. One good example would probably be… I have a single sample of a washy cymbal roll that I recorded in my living room in 2017, and I’ve used that on almost every project I’ve ever made.

LBB> Outside of the music and sound world, what sort of art or topics really excite you and do you ever relate that back to music?

Scott> The relationship between fiction writing and music is inseparable. They share the same space in my brain. They both ask you to paint a world. To react. To me, language and music are equal mediums for basic human conceptualization.

LBB> Let’s talk travel! It’s often cited as one of the most creatively inspiring things you can do - I’d love to know what are the most exciting or inspiring experiences you’ve had when it comes to sound and music on your travels?

Scott> The first that comes to mind is meeting Beppe Finello outside of the Uffizi in Florence, Italy when I was 17 years old. He was an absolutely prodigious nylon-string guitarist who wrote instrumental music. I haven’t heard the music that I bought from him since I lost the CD in my early twenties, but I remember all of it. It’s not on Spotify or on the internet anywhere that I’ve been able to find, but he was a legendary street musician in Italy. He passed away a few years ago, I learned from an internet forum when I googled his name last year. I had a conversation with him when we met, and he must have sensed my excitement, because he really spent a lot of time talking and encouraging me to continue my journey with music while a crowd of people waited for him to continue to play. It’s something I’ll definitely carry with me forever. If anyone finds his album Tracce di Imagini, please reach out and let me know how I can get a copy!!!

Also I studied in Tralee, Ireland for a short semester in college. I bought a cheap guitar in town, and brought it to a pub several times a week, often rolling solo, where the regulars taught me a bunch of traditional Irish music. I can’t say I remember a lot of the lyrics these days, but it pops up in life more often than I would expect. I’ve gotten to sing The Auld Triangle a couple times recently! That time in Ireland was in retrospect very surreal, occasionally wild and dangerous, and certainly very formative musically.

LBB> As we age, our ears change physically and our tastes evolve too, and life changes mean we don’t get to engage in our passions in the same intensity as in our youth - how has your relationship with sound and music changed over the years?

Scott> In my twenties I toured nonstop, basically living on the road for 7 years straight. Playing loud rock and roll shows, hurling my body around on stage, excited to be in front of crowds of people.

Nowadays, just the thought of that lifestyle hurts my body. I couldn’t be more thankful for that time with friends, building family, all the ups and downs of a career in live music. But I also am so happy to come full circle to the passion I had when I was in college for film scoring. Being able to work on all media formats — ads, tv, movies, digital media — is such a joy, and it often gives me the same level of buzz as a standing ovation after a great show.