Nathan Lanier on the sounds and strategies behind his Home Before Dark score

Lanier’s use of Native Instruments tools complements his classical training. Although he grew up in a music loving household, he and his siblings were the first generation to take this love into academic study. It was while studying violin at the prestigious Mannes School of Music in New York that the young Nathan would glimpse film shoots on the street. Inspired, he says: “I used some of my student loan money to buy my first computer and keyboard and what was a Roland XV5080, my first synth.” Eventually, this would lead to his first professional job.

“I got to work with Howard Shore a little bit as an assistant on the second Lord Of The Rings movie.” Following a relocation to LA, along came his first feature: a low budget movie made by a group of stuntmen. Lanier chuckles with recollection: “I think I got like 500 bucks to score ninety minutes of music.”

The Nathan I speak with on the phone today has that uniquely-LA combination of self-assuredness and sun-kissed zen. He tells me: “The successful people in Hollywood are the people that didn’t go home.” Yet, at moments he’s disarmingly self-reflective too, offering up nuggets I’m sure all us home producers can relate to. Lanier confesses: “You know how many times I have written something at night and I’ve convinced myself I’m a complete genius? And then the next morning I listened to it and I start to reconsider my entire life.”

But what advice would he give to those setting out on the arduous path of scoring?

“When you’re first starting out you have these preconceived notions of how things are, but also how you want things to be. It’s so easy to get disappointed because you get into a situation and you’re like, ‘this is not at all what I thought it would be. I think it’s very important to set goals and to pursue those goals. But as twists and turns come—which they will—and when things don’t turn out the way you thought, then go with the flow and adapt and enjoy the process and also enjoy the moment.”

Lanier continues: “I have a team of people that work for me and sometimes we’ll get somebody new in and we’ll be working on a piece of music and I’ll say, ‘this moment right here where you’re really excited about how this sounds? Enjoy that moment right now because this is the last time you’re going to enjoy it. Because what’s going to happen is you’re going to send it off and the client’s going to change it. And ultimately, they’re a pro and they’re probably going to change it for what’s best for the project, but it’s no longer going to be that original thing that you made.’ ”

In film, way more than in being in a band or working as a solo producer, Lanier emphasises the crucial role of team work over individual ego.

“So often as artists we get stuck in the importance of our individual voice,” he says. “We get so disappointed when it goes out and somebody changes it. They make the music too soft or they cut this cue or that. But we’re all contributing here, we all have to give and take, particularly in film and TV, it’s a collaborative art.”

Lanier emphasises the importance on serendipity, particularly when it comes to noticing those good surprises that occasionally come unexpectedly through mistakes. He explains: “We tend to focus on the negative but how many times do we have that happy accident? Like we accidentally put a plug-in on the wrong track, and then it sounds amazing and it completely makes the track.”

I ask what has helped him on a technical level. “You can take this with a grain of salt but organising your template in score order. Full disclosure, I’m a little OCD and I went to a very conservative music conservatory. So putting a score order, from my background, that’s the correct way to do it. I think it’s useful when you start working with orchestrators. It makes it easy for everybody because it’s a universal understanding of how to work.”

And finally, for Lanier, composing shouldn’t get lost in endless hours of scoring and obsessive reconfiguring of plug-ins.

“It’s so easy while you’re writing and six hours go by and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, where did the time go? What have I been doing this whole time?’” Lanier says, summing up the importance of balance. “You get so focused in on your work, but I think if you really want to be a great artist, you got to get out, be with people, have experiences. A lot of who we would consider to be great artists draw on those experiences in life, those emotions, those memories. And then they put those into their music and into their art.”

Season one of Home Before Dark is available now. Listen to the soundtrack below, and be sure to check out the show on Apple TV+.