New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Composer Michael Gatt is proud to announce that he composed the original score and main titles for the new Syfy series Blood Drive, dubbed "one of the ten best shows to watch in June" by Rolling Stone Magazine.
"Before writing a note of Blood Drive, I first worked with synth and guitar tone specialists to create a quiver of custom synth patches and guitar tones that would become the bedrock of its sound," Gatt described. "Having the specific instrumentation became evermore crucial as each episode of the series is very different as each pays tribute to a different grindhouse genre, thus the score would change with each episode as well. Along with heavily recurring themes, the instrumentation helped glue the overall score together and keep a signature sound to the score regardless of whether I was writing straight up horror or the Blood Drive version of spaghetti western music."
Los Angeles 1999 - The Future: where water is a scarce as oil, and climate change keeps the temperature at a cool 115 in the shade. It's a place where crime is so rampant that only the worst violence is punished, and where Arthur Bailey — the city's last good cop — runs afoul of the dirtiest and meanest underground car rally in the world, Blood Drive. The master of ceremonies is a vaudevillian nightmare, The drivers are homicidal deviants, and the cars run on human blood. Buckle Up, Lube Up and prepare for everything you know about Cable Television to Blow up!
"The show is very meta and the score is no exception," Gatt explained. "The 'HEART Enterprises' theme weaved into cues when our characters talked about HEART, conversely, the lobby music of the actual corporate headquarters is the theme being played as boss nova elevator music and there is even a corporate video for HEART that plays like an 80's feel good commercial."
Gatt wrote themes for many of the characters. "The characters are so fleshed out, while reading the scripts, their respective themes just started to play in my head. Arthur, a straight-laced cop has a very a heroic theme. Grace, our femme fatale, has a theme that dove tales with Arthur's theme and is usually played on a Dick Dale like surf guitar - this was great for stinging her moments and helped bring levity in an otherwise insane scene. Slink, who struck me as a vaudevillian Mephistopholes, has a demonic circus like theme that like the other themes gets completely reimagined throughout the series." In episode 10, Colin Cunningham (the actor who plays Slink) gets into the act - performing his character's theme on sax on some of the score cues.
Michael Gatt is a composer for film and television as well as the Creative
Director of Gattsound. He has been blessed with an extraordinary life. Touring with various bands, he has shared the stage with the likes of the
Black Eyed Peas, Squeeze,
Social Distortion and even Spinal Tap. Taking a sabbatical from performing, Michael spent years traveling the world with nothing but his guitar and a backpack. He visited over 50 countries, learned Spanish and Portuguese, and was able to broaden his musical horizons jamming with locals all around the world.
Upon his return, Michael set his sights on composing. He established GattSound, a boutique music and mix facility, and initially began composing for national commercials, video games, and movie trailers. Michael then had the chance to score a show for Shark Week, and was instantly hooked on the story telling nature of long form composing. This led to a string of shows for Discovery Channel, including four of the highest rated shark week shows of all time.
Shortly thereafter, Michael was given an opportunity to score a short film for the Despicable Me Minions franchise. This led to numerous collaborations with Illumination and Universal, including six more short films featuring characters from Minions, The Secret Life of Pets, and SING.
Blood Drive will have its world television premiere on Syfy starting on Wednesday, June 14 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
