Neil Norman and his Cosmic Orchestra

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Saturday, September 23, 2000

The theme is a familiar one. The mighty, stalwart chords of brass, the trilling woodwinds, the driving rhythm of the violins, the strident siren of electric guitar... Wait a minute? Electric guitar? What's that doing in the middle of the STAR WARS theme?

It's guitarist Neil Norman, the mastermind behind GNP Crescendo Records, which has released more science fiction film scores on CD than nearly any other label, and who's Cosmic Orchestra has released four 'Greatest Science Fiction Hits' albums that intensify science fiction film music with a rock and roll sensibility.

Norman's first Greatest Science Fiction Hits LP, following a straight rock album, was a success when it was released in 1978. 'I had fun with my first album, Not of This Earth, and it sold a few copies, but it wasn't successful,' Norman says. 'I was all depressed, and then my dad said, 'You know, you love science fiction movies, why don't you make a science fiction album?' We spent some money: it cost $25,000 in 1978; that was a lot of money in those days, but it was a huge hit, because no one had every done anything quite like that. It had all the right titles and a good cover, and it sold over 250,000 albums.'

The idea of translating classic science fiction music themes into a rock and roll idiom came about as a result of Norman's long-time love of science fiction. 'That's a hybrid of who I am and what I like,' says Norman. 'I love science fiction movies, but I'm also a rock musician and I like rock music. I love classical music, too, but I like having rock underpinnings under it, a'la Emerson, Lake & Palmer.'


In addition to recording albums, Norman and his orchestra are frequent and successful performers at concerts and science fiction conventions. He recently performed at the annual 'Alien Reunion' in Roswell, New Mexico. 'It's a specialized field of science fiction music, but most people get a kick out of it,' Norman said. 'We wear costumes, and we have a light show that is very unique and 'extraterrestrial.' We now have a lot of stars sing with us, like Tim Russ, Robert Picardo, Billy Mumy, Chase Masterson, Robert Beltran, Robert Duncan McNeil, the guy from ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, Victor London. We have a lot of fun with it, and we get great response.' Norman's interpretation and production of STAR TREK TV and film music resulted in a guest appearance on STAR TREK: VOYAGER in its 6th Season. He can be seen as a crewmember on the bridge behind Kate Mulgrew in the episode, 'The Haunting of Deck Twelve.'

Norman started off playing guitar and became a session musician in rock and roll bands. He cites Jimi Hendrix, Alvin Lee, Pat Metheny, Robin Trower, and the Ventures among his influences as a guitarist. When Norman went to UCLA film school, he wound up scoring a lot of his fellow students' projects. In fact, Norman continues to score films from time to time in collaboration with his band member, Bill Burchell, most recently an Internet series called THE ART POLICE, which is produced by actor Tim Russ for Galaxy Online, and recently finished scoring Robby Duncan McNeill's NINE MILLIMETER OF LOVE.

In the film music world, Norman's favorites include, not surprisingly, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. 'They're in a class by themselves,' he said. 'James Horner is edging into that, too. I admire Christopher Young; he is now breaking through into the highest echelon. I'm very proud of the HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II soundtrack. He was very touched when I gave him a big budget to remix that when we recorded the album, and that's why it sounds so good.'

As a group leader and a rock musician, Norman considers his approach to film scoring similar to that of any Hollywood composer. 'We have to be truly diversified,' Norman said. 'If it's appropriate to have sitar we'll do that; if it's appropriate to have orchestra, we'll do that, or synthesizers or rock drums and guitars.' Despite his rock and roll leanings, Norman feels equally at home behind an orchestra when the assignment demands it. 'But, I'm sure if someone said, 'Do the whole thing in opera,' I might say 'Well, I'm not the guy for that!' THE ART POLICE, for example, sounds like 'MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. meets OUR MAN FLINT,' or 'JAMES BOND meets GET SMART'a kind of 60's spy kind of thing.'

Norman occasionally confronts film music purists who don't think that rock and roll adaptations of their favorite orchestral scores are appropriate. 'Those purists are never going to be happy,' Norman says. 'They're not my audience. It's really funny: I'll be at a convention, and a guy will walk upthey don't know who I amand he'll say, oh, 'This Greatest Science Fiction Hits albumI hate this album! It's got drum beats on it; it's got electric guitar on it, and I hate it.' One of those purists. And then 10 minutes later, another guy will come up and say, 'Wow! Are you Neil Norman? After work every day I put in one of your albums, and it puts me in a good mood. I love your records!' For the purists, I just tell them not to buy my albums! Go buy the others. I release a lot of them, anyway!'

In actuality, when Norman and his band adapt a theme from a score that isn't available in its original form, they usually do record it faithfully, with orchestral, saving their rock and roll licks for the 'already available' cues. 'It depends on the material, said Norman. 'My formula has always been for 20 years: if it's already out there, then I do whatever I want with it; I put guitar solos in it, whatever, and try to make it a different entity. If someone wants STAR WARS by John Williams, they can go and buy STAR WARS by John Williams. But if it's not available, like BUCKAROO BANZAI or the original OUTER LIMITS theme (until we did a whole CD, that is), I try to copy it exactly. I think I succeed more often than not. But my version of STAR WARS is bolero-rock, and I've gotten standing ovations on three different continents when I've played it live, so I know it's good. It was a hit in Japan and France.'

With the success of his first two albums, Norman found a bigger budget for the third and fourth Greatest Science Fiction Hits, which permitted bigger orchestras and more opportunities to expand the series' concept. 'I have been paying more attention to the purists, because I've gotten 20 years of feedback,' Norman said. 'When it's important, I really try to make it pure, using bigger orchestra. I had 36 violins on my last session, and it just sounded unbelievable. On something like that I might not let my guitar intrude as much. I'll put it way down on the bottom. Like on MEN INTO SPACE, one of my favorites, that's just the orchestra. The only synthesizer in there is just one on the very bottom, because it fattens up the sound. A layman would never even notice it, it just sounds like the orchestra's fatter.'

Norman usually is able to find the orchestra parts from the music publisher, but some of the more obscure themes aren't available anywhere, so he and his collaborators have to reconstruct the parts by ear. 'Between myself and some of my band mates and Jack Smalley, we're able to make it sound like it should. Hall Daniels worked with us on the older albums, before he died. He was Les Baxter's right hand man, and he was brilliant. I used to call him in and say, 'SPACE: 1999, copy this exactly, except I'm going to stick a guitar on the 3rd verse,' and he'd do it exactly. But I come from a rock background, and I like that rock energy.'

Norman finds that some film music translates well into a rock and roll arrangement, and some doesn't. 'Something like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK starts as rock, and it's easy,' said Norman. 'On some of the orchestral stuff, I have trouble finding any guitar parts. It's just not always appropriate. Sometimes it'll be just a little single line like VOYAGER or something that works well on guitar. Or DEEP SPACE 9, I just put power chords down on the bottom. There's my whole band and occasionally some collaborators, and we all put it together. But I don't have to put my guitar on everything, just where it's appropriate. I can be content just being the producer or just guiding the arrangement of the synthesizer or whatever.'

Norman has worked with his current band for the last four years. 'This is my latest performing band, and they made my last album,' Norman says. 'They're very seasoned musicians, and they make a large contribution. But I use a lot of studio musicians, so it depends. On some of the orchestral work, there are 70 guys there, and then we brought it back to my studio and overdubbed a few synthesizers and called it a day. Many of the musicians were the same who played on the original film soundtracks. I try to include them whenever possible.'

Norman adds, 'It's harder to find music that's not available. On our next album, we're digging down very deeply. It will probably be the last one for another ten years. We're doing, like, SCIENCE FICTION THEATER. That's very obscure; only a real fan knows stuff like that. We may also do the theme from QUARK; most people wouldn't even know or want to do that. THE CRAWLING EYEreally obscure but brilliant. Some of them are unbelievable. I never do anything I don't like; I frequently reject ones that may be interesting just for collectability, if the music doesn't measure up.'

In addition to recording his own music, Norman has been an executive producer for GNP Crescendo Records for 20 years, producing not only his own recordings but those of his favorite groups like Robin Trower, The Ventures, and Grammy-winner Queen Idanot to mention an impressive array of science fiction original soundtrack albums. GNP has released such important and hitherto unavailable soundtracks as Russell Garcia's THE TIME MACHINE, Jerry Goldsmith's OUTLAND, Andrew Powell's LADYHAWKE, Ryuichi Sakamoto's THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Maurice Jarre's FATAL ATTRACTION, a 2-volume collection of GODZILLA soundtrack music, the seminal electronic tonalities of FORBIDDEN PLANET, GODZILLA 2000, and HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME.

The company also produced first releases of such classic science fiction TV music as John Williams' LOST IN SPACE (and other Irwin Allen TV scores by Williams and others) and the original OUTER LIMITS, more recent TV scores from FARSCAPE, ALIEN NATION:, QUANTUM LEAP, FOREVER KNIGHT, and many STAR TREK soundtracks and music compilations. 'I'd like to monopolize science fiction recordings, from GODZILLA to STAR TREK to ALIEN NATION to OUTLAND,' Norman says.

While composing and producing have their share of rewards, being up on the stage with his band is always exciting for Neil Norman. 'I like performing,' he grins. 'Just sitting in a room all day, composingI don't want my whole life to be that. It all feeds off of each other, and the band serves as an excellent 'promotional' vehicle. We just did an album with Tim Russ, and we got standing ovations on our recent European tour. It's a lot of fun.'