Revell draws on twisted roots for inspiration

Graeme Revell

Graeme Revell is gushing about the moment in Assault on Precinct 13 when the psychiatrist gets shot in the head. You get the feeling that as soon as he saw the scene he couldn't wait to write the soundtrack to her death.

"To me, that is the highlight of the film. It was beautifully shot and acted. That's the part I like as a [composer], having to really step up to the plate and do my bit while everyone else is doing theirs," he says from Los Angeles.

It seems that more than 25 years after forming industrial band SPK, the New Zealand-born musician still has a penchant for the macabre.

This is the guy who formed a band with a mentally ill guy called Neil Hill, played videos of autopsies, surgical procedures, and pornography at their performances, and reportedly had a fetish for devouring raw sheep brains.

Now he's writing the soundtracks to some of the biggest blockbuster movies around - including Assault on Precinct 13, the soon-to-be released Sin City, which is based on the Frank Miller comics, and even the stupid comedy Miss Congeniality 2.

Born in Auckland in 1955, he moved to Australia after studying economics and politics at Auckland University. While in Australia he worked as an orderly in a psychiatric hospital where he met Hill.

In 1978 they formed SPK - named after a bunch of students with mental illnesses from Hiedelberg University in Germany who formed an organisation called Sozialistisches Patienten Kollectiv.

Early SPK was a torrid combination of feedback and industrial noise, but during the 80s it took on a more camp industrial-dance sound.

He laughs about the first SPK gig in Sydney: "I've met at least 5000 people who said they were at that first gig, but I know there were only 15 people there.

"I also remember one time I did a performance and I found an old butcher's hook so I stuck it in my left arm and pulled my sleeve down as if I had a hook arm. About eight years later a guy came up to me and said, 'I used to like SPK when the claw was in it'."

In 1980 Hill committed suicide. "He couldn't extricate his mental problems and eventually killed himself," says Revell casually.

Soon after, Revell went to Europe where he hooked up with the industrial-music movement headed by Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, and which later spawned bands like Test Dept, Front 242 and Skinny Puppy.

Although SPK were never as influential as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, they released nine albums, the highlight being 1984's Machine Age Voodoo.

The SPK song In Flagrante Delicto was the catalyst to Revell's career in soundtrack music. The song became the basis for the music to 1989's Dead Calm, starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill and Billy Zane.

"From then on I didn't have a day off," he says.

His long list of soundtrack work includes everything from spooky 1992 thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, to the cheesy horror From Dusk 'Til Dawn (1996) that starred George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino, to TV series CSI: Miami, and the dire Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck.

"The real role of music is telling the storyline and the motivation of the characters. Some movies do not move - they flat line - without a score," says Revell.

The soundtrack-writing process varies and it wasn't too long ago that composers got a finished picture to work with.

"Now, we don't get to see anything like a finished picture. It's more like a lot of actors standing bewildered in front of a green screen," he jokes.

This green screen is in reference to his latest project, Sin City, which was shot almost entirely against a green screen. To prepare for scoring the film he researched the Frank Miller comics that the movie is based on.

"I wanted to be knowledgeable about that because [the movie] is very respectful to the way he drew. But with Assault On Precinct 13 I stayed away from research."

John Carpenter, the director of the original Precinct 13 from 1976, scored many of his own soundtracks. Was there any pressure to match the original score?

"I'd never seen the original film, and they wanted to make something bigger and better so I didn't want to be influenced. I like taking on those things though, because there's always those fans who say, 'I like the original better'. But since then I've listened to the original score and it was good but it was a much smaller movie first time round."

Sometimes, says Revell, he has to rein in the music so it doesn't override the film - especially if the acting's not too hot.

"There was a whole film like that and it was Daredevil. I wouldn't say the acting wasn't great but Ben Affleck acts in a way which is fairly understated. And even though it was a super-hero movie you couldn't pull out all the super-hero-type fanfare you would usually do because he was more or less like a real person, rather than having super powers."

Revell says if he couldn't make music on a computer he'd be out of a job. But when it comes to the final recording of a soundtrack with a full orchestra he has the key role.

"I sit in the recording booth with the producer and director and they hear it being played by the orchestra and they react to nuances and they ask me to change certain things," he explains.

"Sometimes it's major re-writes and I have to relay the changes to the conductor. That can be a very expensive process with 100 players sitting there waiting for you to make up your mind. It's a lot of fun because when it's $2000 a minute, that's when the pressure's on. So I'd better get it right."

On Screen

*Who: Graeme Revell, NZ-born musician, soundtrack composer
*What: Soundtracks for, among others, Dead Calm (1989); the Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992); The Crow I & II (1994 & 1996); The Insider (1999); Blow (2001); Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001); Miss Congeniality 2 (2005); and Sin City (2005).
*Releases: SPK - Machine Age Voodoo (1984); The Crow: The Original Score (1994); OST - Sin City (2005)*Screening: Assault on Precinct 13 (showing now), Sin City (out in June)