The Newton Brothers Don’t Pull Punches in “Daredevil: Born Again” Score
Some of the earliest Netflix original series were that of lesser-known Marvel superheroes. Of all those now-cancelled series, one of them is getting a second chance on Disney+. Daredevil: Born Again is a continuation of the 2015 Netflix series. The new show picks up one year after Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) has hung up the Daredevil mask seemingly for good. However, Born Again shows that it’s not easy to leave a life of crime-fighting.
The Newton Brothers, Andy Grush and Taylor Stewart, have built quite a career composing scores for horror films. Their first foray into the world of superheroes was the animated X-Men '97 series on Disney+. It was their work on X-Men '97 that landed them the Daredevil: Born Again gig.
With the first four episodes of Daredevil: Born Again now streaming on Disney+, The Newton Brothers sat down with Beyond the Cinerama Dome is discuss their longtime collaboration with Mike Flanagan, honoring the Netflix series, and keeping Marvel’s secrets.
My first question is about Midnight Mass because that’s when we last chatted. You’ve worked with Mike Flanagan so many times now over the course of the years. Having worked with him so often, what is it like to go into a project without that decade of history between you and the showrunner or the director?
Andy Grush: From hearing stories from friends, it's probably a lot like dating. I feel like every project is a new relationship, you know? You're like, oh, what does this person like and dislike? You have to find communication with everyone. It's a team, right? There's not just one person, but it's how everyone interacts with everyone else. Music is very personal to everyone, so it's not like you can just say, oh, well, this person likes rock and this person likes jazz, and take influences from that. It's more of getting a feeling for what the taste is and then how that applies to the project.
With Mike, there are certain things we know, like we're not going to have tiramisu for dessert with Mike, you know? He wants something else. Not actually, you know the point I'm making. On a new project, it's these new relationships and it's obviously a new story. It's just about getting in and mining the ideas musically and then seeing where those ideas sit with everyone. A lot of times, the ideas that we'll think are working might not be right for the show, or they might be right for one person and not for another.
It's about finding how we get involved in this story and that's where it gets scary, but in a good way. You really have to get outside of your comfort zone for the tricks that you think may or may not work. We have to figure out how we make this unique to the project so it's not like, oh, we heard the score and it sounds like this meets this, you know? You want it to be like, oh, you didn't even notice the music. That's almost the ideal.
I think it's interesting to hear your idea that the music gets lost, because I would think composers don't want the music to get lost.
Andy: I mean, I think it’s the feeling that you don't want to stand out in a way. It's nice when you can have moments where it's, oh, this music is really moving me. I feel like in other moments, you want to be part of the show, part of the characters. There are standout moments and those are nice to have. I think, overall, it's nice to be part of the project so you're blending in in ways that viewers don't necessarily notice all of the time. That’s probably what I should have said. (laughs)
courtesy of The Newton Brothers
I heard you’re lifelong fans of Daredevil. What is it like to now be part of this character’s long history?
Taylor Stewart: It's surreal. From the moment we got the news that we had the job, it was sort of like this childhood sort of love that you think back on. Being a fan of the comics and the Netflix series, it was super, super exciting. Then, of course, the fear sets in and the work begins.
Andy: I feel like…Taylor, do you agree with this? It's almost like you get excited because of what your experience has been in the past for the project, the comics, and the show, but then you kind of have to cut yourself off from that and put it aside because what you think is the thing that’s in you isn’t really the thing you need to do for the show. Does that make sense? Does that make sense at all?
Taylor: Yeah, I think every project that you do, at the beginning, there's a reality to just getting it done. There's a certain level of quality that everything needs to be at, and it's sort of always trying to outdo yourself and getting to that level. Being that we're obviously big fans of the property, it had its own additional weight to making sure that was met. It was exciting and fun at the same time.
You couldn't fully shut off from the Netflix series because you do incorporate the original theme into the new theme for Born Again. So can you talk about respecting the original theme, but also making it Born Again? Apologies for making a pun.
Taylor: First off, I think just as fans, when it's not a complete restart with new characters, and it's a continuation or an expansion in this case, it’s about deciding what elements are you going to keep and redefine. As a fan, you’re familiar with certain things. I think it's a great compliment to John [Paesano], who wrote the original theme, that everyone remembers that melody, that theme, that hook.
It's almost like trying to rewrite Star Wars or rewrite Superman. I think there's a time and place to do it. In this case, since we're continuing it, it didn't seem appropriate to completely ignore the original theme. We wanted to expand and build on it. A big part of that was exploring who Matt is and the conflicts of his life and what's going on with him.
It's seven years later and things have changed, things are different. It's about starting and building himself back up. Does he want to be Daredevil? Should he be Daredevil? We wrote a new melody for Matt, and it was super fun to blend the old with the new.
courtesy of marvel
There's a duality that all superheroes have to exist in with their heroic side and their day-to-day selves. Can you talk about the sonic and musical differences between what we hear when Matt’s wearing the Daredevil costume and when he’s not? Are there instruments that are only reserved for Matt and others reserved for Daredevil? He’s only put on the suit one time so far this season, right?
Taylor: For Matt, it was really about something minimal, very internal, and very personal. We just had one solo voice that actually expands to multiple harmonies and solo voices later on throughout the show. It's a real simple sort of melody, and it's slightly haunting. It was that sensation we were after with Matt.
With Daredevil, it's more about bringing in Catholic elements, really leaning into the organ. Then we used a big, huge choir. You have this more delicate, almost broken sort of minimalism for Matt, and then it gets into a more traditional, big Daredevil sound when he puts the suit on.
It's funny you bring up the amount of times he’s wearing the suit because I think as a viewer, you're like, did he put his suit on yet? We know he wants to put his suit on, but he can't because of the tragedies that happen. So it's funny you say that because I think everyone's like, oh, did he put his Daredevil suit on yet?
At what point did you guys come into the series? Did you have a quick turnaround time?
Andy: We came on, I want to say 18 months before. I could be wrong. It could have been two years, it could have been 14 months. There was a big lead time for us to explore, and we jumped in with a lot of pre-score ideas and thematic material.
Most of it actually is what you hear in the show, or iterations of it, because we had a good idea based on the scripts and discussions with the team. We understood the goal, and then we had the background of the Netflix series to understand where we needed to launch and end up.
We had a fair amount of time, but then of course, as episodes start locking, it's funny how no matter how much time you have, you always want more. Eventually, it just comes time, pencils down, here we go. We had to record, get things tracked and mixed, and even in that process, we found things that were a lot of fun. We did have a good amount of time, though, on this one.
courtesy of Marvel
The most distinct part of the score is the choir. It's so, like you said, haunting. It just really overwhelms you. Can you talk a little bit about who that choir is, where you found them?
Taylor: There were two sides of the choir. I recorded the actual full-blown choir in Vienna at the Synchron Stage with male and female vocalists. It was beautiful, gorgeous, and had these moments of feeling religious, which was intended. We also had our assistant, who's actually a solo soprano, sing on a lot of parts and do multiple tracking to get the feeling of an angelic choir.
Andy and I also sang on the score for some of the male vocal stuff. A lot of the times where it's Matt’s theme, it's just Andy and me, which was great because it felt very personal to the character to contribute to that.
Andy: That first solo voice is just Taylor. That one solo voice you hear at the beginning is Taylor singing on that. A lot of what we were talking to each other about and to the creatives on the show about was this vulnerability that all the characters have, even Fisk, everyone. I mean, everyone in life has their vulnerabilities and we wanted it to not feel like it's just being glossed over.
Part of that, especially for Matt, was you want to feel very naked and afraid, to use the show's term, but that solo voice really conveys that. Like Taylor said, it's haunting. It's singular. It draws you in to question where this series is going.
This beginning is very stripped down, and then we get into other parts, like Taylor said with the choir. I spent the first, I don't know, 25 years of my life in Catholic churches, playing, singing, all the things. Something that resonated with me was the cantors throughout the mass who would sing. I had one from when I was younger and she had a gorgeous voice. I remember being young and hearing her up there. She would guide and everyone would just follow as she would sing a line and then ask everyone to follow. We all know this, have seen this, and heard it, but we have elements of that in the show. The call and response is sort of what’s happening in the city at the time. That became a bit of the sound of the city as well.
courtesy of Marvel
My last question for you is about scoring the fight scenes. There've been a couple fights in the first three episodes, but that feels like something that’s hard to get off of just the page. It feels like something you have to wait until you visually see to find the music for it. Can you talk a little bit about what that fight scene scoring process is?
Taylor: We did both. We wrote fight scenes before we had pictures, just based on scripts. Then when we had pictures, some of it was new and some of it we took from the sketches. I think it was sticking to this palette that we came up with, which was not necessarily always big drums, always big horns. The brass was not used for a lot of characters in this series. It was more about using the momentum of the organ for a lot of the Daredevil stuff, and then for things with other characters, we could bring in a little more odd instrumentation or different kinds of weird sounds.
For more traditional moments, which I can't say yet, we used some drums more traditionally for other characters. It's sort of a mix and match based on who was on screen. It was fun to go from these whispery choirs where everyone's broken and crushed to super-aggressive, massive bleeding, and fighting. I love that stuff. I love the change because it's fun to write.
Is it hard to keep the Marvel secrets? It feels like it would be.
Andy: It's good that there are two of us because we can talk to each other about it. If I didn't have Taylor to talk about this stuff, I would lose my marbles. It is very hard.
Taylor: I think it's that you're just excited about it and you want to join in with everybody else talking about it. It's easy to let something slip, I think, if you're not watching yourself.
For example, we went to dinner with the showrunner, Dario [Scardapane], and the son of the producer and I brought my car. I have this old car. It's a 1966 Mustang, and when I bought it, the guy who built it had an emblem of the Punisher right inside the car. I was super surprised, and I was like, oh, wow, I love the Punisher. And he's like, yeah, me too. I drive it around and people would comment when I would take it to get service. I drove it to dinner and I showed Dario and he was like, oh my God, you got the Punisher logo on it. These random things happen and we get excited about them from the fan side of things, so it's fun to talk about, but it's easy to let things slip.
Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Letterboxd, & YouTube. Check out Movies with My Dad, a new podcast recorded on the car ride home from the movies.