George Sarah: Music for Electronica Part One

The composer/musician discusses his collaboration with BUFFY's Anthony Stewart Head on the album MUSIC FOR ELEVATORS

By Abbie Bernstein     November 29, 2002

Composer/musician George Sarah has one of the more distinctive sounds to be found on album, TV and the L.A. club scene. His electronica-meets-classical compositions can be found performed live around Los Angeles in company with the String Trio at venues as varied as Abundant Sugar, the Getty Museum, the Knitting Factory and the Joint. He's also written soundtrack music for the films THE CURVE, MASCARA and the documentary THE GIRL NEXT DOOR and the Discovery Health Channel's PLASTIC SURGERY: BEFORE AND AFTER and contributed pieces to episodes of ROAD RULES, UNDRESSED, FAMILY LAW, ANGEL and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (Sarah has also appeared onscreen in BUFFY episodes "Beer Bad," "Wild At Heart" and most recently in the "Hell's Bells" episode as the tux-clad leader of the classical ensemble at the called-off wedding).

The BUFFY connection [IMG3R]figures significantly on the album MUSIC FOR ELEVATORS, the collaboration between Sarah and series regular Anthony Stewart Head. Although the two men had met previously and their sensibilities turned out to complement one another, the teaming wasn't originally their notion, Sarah reveals: "The record label [Beautiful Is As Beautiful Does] suggested it. They knew I was on the show [BUFFY] and they knew [Head] was on the show. At the time, I was one of their in-house producers. But it was their idea."

Socialization came before collaboration, Sarah recalls. "The first two or three weeks, Tony and I talked about music, because it wasn't something where he was looking to do an album, [although] it sort of was in the back of his mind, and you stick two people in a room together for a year, you'd better be able to get along with him. He's a really cool guy, sincere, hard-working, talented, so after we knew that we'd get along as friends, and we had a lot of similarities in musical taste, then we started working together. And then we wrote for three months, even before we signed the contracts. Tony and I getting together on the weekends and writing songs that's just him and I. We came up with about 22, 23 song ideas. And then it was time to make the record. I'm really happy with the result."

On MUSIC FOR ELEVATORS,

Head wrote the lyrics for all save the instrumentals, the cover of the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" and "Last Time," a contribution from BUFFY creator Joss Whedon. Sarah and Head collaborated on most of the tunes, with Sarah composing solo on "Qu'est ce que j'ai fait" and "End Game" and Head contributing the music for "Babies." "I think there were three songs that Tony had lyrics for from a long time ago, stuff that he was working out with his previous band," Sarah recalls. "Every song was a little different. There were certain songs where he had lyrics from God knows how long ago and he was like, 'Yeah, this is something I was working on in 1985' or whatever, and he still had the lyrics, and he revised it a bit. A lot of the songs, it was just like, 'Okay, come over and let's just jam.' I would record everything we'd do, so I have like 12 hours of jam sessions on DAT. I'd just press 'record,' and we'd have a loop going on the drums, a repetitive rhythm, I'd sit at the piano and he'd pick up a guitar or vice-versa or we'd just start doing things. There were two songs that I had nearly finished the music on 'End Game,' which was just a piano ballad when I was working on it, and 'Que'st ce que j'ai fait,' which is the French song. That was stuff that I was working on: 'What do you think of this?' And he put words to it."

For the most part, Sarah says that he and Head encouraged each other to explore themes of personal interest in their songwriting, with the rare occasional note: "'End Game' was something where we actually made it shorter, because it's a really long song originally, and [Head] suggested, 'Well, let's trim this part,' and it's still a five-minute song."

While Sarah [IMG4R]enjoys working with Head and other lyricists/singers, the meaning the composer ascribes to his instrumentals are independent of any lyrics. Indeed, he acknowledges that a lyricist's intent might be different from his own as a composer. Sarah compares the collaboration to a writer and director working on a film: "The author and the director aren't going to see eye to eye on everything, but one can't exist without the other in the final [movie] product."

Be sure to check back soon for part two of CINESCAPE's chat with George Sarah.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at feedback@cinescape.com.