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Exclusive Interview with Ronan Hardiman
Interview and photos by Annie from Dublin
Q: How does a new piece of music 'create itself' within you? Is it a melody line or a mood, or an overall concept that comes to you, or does it vary?
A: I would rarely sit down and begin composing in a total abstract way. It's usually for a project, so I would have defined the parameters in my own head as to what I'm doing.For example, these solo albums, Solas and Anthem, I have an idea for the sound, the way they should sound, if you like a global sort of overview of what I'm trying to achieve. So that really defines the parameters for me.
Q: Apart from classical music - which the Academy training must have put strong emphasis on - what musical styles have been your main influences?
A: I think deep in the recesses of my upbringing, traditional, although I wasn't aware of it until I started working on Lord of the Dance, how much of it had been ingrained in my consciousness.But I like pop music. I'm a big fan of pop music. I'm a real radio junkie. I listen to all the pop stations, chart music - right from the time I was a kid even when there was traditional music in the house I was more interested in pop music than what was going on around me, and there was nobody else in the family really interested in it.
My parents I suppose slightly frowned on it, I mean, every generation kind of doesn't understand the sound, thought it an awful racket, but to me it was a lifeblood, and of course when you're a teenager it's more a way of life, you identify with particular groups and it's something that you trade with your peers, and that gives you status, you know, depending on what kind of music you're into! So rock music and pop music have always been tremendous fascinations for me.
Q: When you first became a professional composer did you find the briefs of the commissions such as News program themes frustratingly restrictive?
A: No, not the slightest. In fact I enjoy working to briefs. I always saw what I do, the music business, as - and I've said this before - I always saw it as exactly that, music and a business. I approached my whole career-change from that point of view.I felt I had the talent, but I was also aware that you can be the most talented person in the world, but if you can't market yourself, if you can't work with a creative team, then all the creating in the world is worth nothing. And it isn't, you know, there's hundreds of people in their attics or garages who are a hundred times more talented, but that's not what it's about.
I mean, it is important, but it's only half the story. It's only half of the requirement for making a career in the entertainment industry. So I always saw it from that point of view, and I always saw working to briefs and working on projects where somebody has predetermined ideas on the music as a tremendous challenge.
Q: I have heard you compose much in your own studio with a television monitor. Give me a little insight into how that works. Is composing therefore in fact a very visual creation for you?
A: Yes, again depending on what I'm doing. I've done an awful lot of TV and film work so that would be working with or to a picture. So I generally get a mute version of the production, or with a little bit of dialogue so I know what is going on with the central characters. I find that often speaks to you.I find watching pictures will suggest a mood and suggest a treatment - particularly with TV commercials, which is a different discipline and even more challenging because you've got to get a beginning, middle and end sometimes within 20 seconds! So minor epics have to deliver!
But yes, I've always found the process of writing to a picture quite an easy one. Some people don't; some people prefer to look at the picture and then go away and think about it, but I like to replay it and replay it, and my equipment is such that I can run the piece of film and write a piece of music and then play it back, and then keep adding to it, make adjustments to it until I feel it's right.
Q: When you start to compose do you go straight to your studio to work from the very beginning, or do you go outside, to particular surroundings like the sea or the mountains to summon the inspiration?
A: No, I'm definitely a 95% perspiration, 5% inspiration person! It works differently for different people. I find the discipline of sitting down at the keyboard in front of the sound desk is a vital part of the process. You definitely do need to give your head space sometimes, but for me it's a disciplined process.I start at 9 o'clock for a full day until 6, 7 o'clock in the evening, depending again on the time allowance, but generally I'd be working those kind of hours. It works for me.
One of the things I've been doing for about 20 years is training every morning. I used to do it just to keep fit, but it's even more important now from the creative point of view, to have that rush of endorphins in the morning! My best creative time is in the morning, my best time for new ideas is in the morning - maybe it's a hangover from the bank, but I find the disciplined day works for me.
Q: The life of a composer must be for a lot of the time a somewhat solitary and sedentary one. How do you keep fit? Do you have interest in outdoor activities, if so what are they?
A: I used to run 4 or 5 miles every morning until about a year ago but my knees are totally destroyed so I can't run any more, having abused them for 20 years. So now I cycle. It's very inspirational in fact, now I cycle up the top of Killney Hill -- see the view of the city and down over Dun Laoghaire harbor, see the ferries going out. It's lovely, particularly in the summer.You're absolutely right, it is a solitary existence. It's the one thing, probably the only thing that I miss from the bank is the interaction with 80, 90 people every day, the customers, and I used to love that part of working because I think that's part of my nature.
I'm a bit of an extrovert, I love people, mixing with people, so I do find that part of what I do a bit frustrating, but by the same token I can't work with anyone else in the room, I just can't do it! I've tried it, tried co-writes, and it just doesn't work, I need to be on my own, in my own space.
Q: And what other hobbies or interests do you have?
A: Well, just, kids really take up the rest of the time, you know! And music is - I know it's my career now, but it's my passion, so if I'm not working on something I'd generally be listening to things, getting ideas, I love music, any type of music .... I guess it sounds pretty boring to have just one interest but it's a burning passion!
Q: Tell me a little about your successes before your international breakthrough with Lord of the Dance.
A: Well, I left the bank in 1990 and approached the whole business with vengeance. I felt that I had something very valuable to market.And something that I found was that television and commercial producers didn't really like going down the road of commissioned music because they felt it was too expensive hiring studios and musicians, and they'd generally had bad experiences with writers, the kind of people who would be up all night and not available during the day.
I saw an opportunity to bring a fresh approach -- deliver the music I promised, and I could offer a very high quality service because the technology that was available now enabled me to do really high quality home recordings.
I took my redundancy money and invested it in that equipment. So, within three months after starting I got commissions and by the time I met Michael [Flatley] it was going really well. I was well in with the Irish network of people. I was probably on what you would call the 'A' list of people that they would approach to do music. Now I worked hard to get to that point and I had had commissions from the BBC and I had branched into commercials, so I was making a very good living.
The name Shanon came about through the record company that was doing it. They wanted my address for some form they were filling out, and I was living at the time in a house called Shandon, and whatever way they took, misspelled it, they took it that that was my pseudonym! And the artwork came back with this on it and I said 'what's this all about?' and then we looked at it and thought 'this is a good idea!'It was a mistake but we went with it, and to be honest the artwork was too far gone not to - but it seemed a good idea -- a pseudonym to separate the two careers -- of artist and writer. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Q: Celtic Classics (I & II) are favorite CD's for many people. The only frustrating thing about them is that they do not specify which of the pieces are traditional in origin and which are your own. For those who are not familiar enough with the traditional Irish music to know automatically, I would like to know which tracks are your own original compositions?
A: On Celtic Classic I, the original tracks are - Brigid's Ode, Pulcherimma, Kildare Lights, Emerald Grace, Slieve-Na-Man, Tara Tain and Music of Kells. On Celtic Classics II only 3 tracks are original, Ring of Kerry, Voyage of Maclduin and Galway Sway.
Q: I am sure I'm not the only one who wishes the Waterways TV series (for which you composed the beautiful evocative score of the same name) was available on video - though the sound is so visual our eyes tend to 'see' the pictures anyway. I have seldom heard a score that so many people recognize instantly what it illustrates without being told. Was that a challenge to create or something that just 'came' as an inspiration?
A: It was both really. It was a challenge to create, but I was working with a great team of people called MD Productions. It actually is available I believe, or at least has been. There were four series and the first three were brought out on video, though the production company that made it are no more now, disbanded and gone their separate ways.But it was just an amazing, beautifully visual production. I just found it so
easy, the pictures just spoke to me.For those who haven't seen it, it's all an exploration of the inland waterways, all from the point of view of a boat, which opened up loads of musical aspects - I mean, I just went wild! The producers were great, they gave me every encouragement to do whatever I felt was appropriate, and it was the kind of music I was into as well. It was quite a slow-paced series, with lots of opportunities for music.
Q: The Waterways music won an award for you in fact. Tell me about that.
A: The series won an award actually, a Jacob's Award here [in Ireland], and it was nominated for the Emmy Awards, that was 1994 -95, so it was a very successful series. Indeed the series is still showing, I still get royalties from all over the place!
Q: The movie My Friend Joe also featured your music. Tell me about that. Is the music available?
A; No, it's not. That was by an Irish-German company and it was very successful in Germany and France, on theatrical release - it won a Berlin Film Festival award.
Q: What date was that?
A: 1996 - In fact the night that I met Michael [Flatley] I had just got news that it had won the Berlin Film Festival award. I had done the score for it in 1995 and it was released in Germany and won at the Berlin Film Festival in '96. So that was a good day all round!
Q: Do you remember the exact date?
A: Oh, I can't remember the exact date, but it would have been the beginning of March.
Q: The role in The Commitments -- Tell me about that experience! Did you wear your hair that long for how many years? (Bernadette asked me to ask about that - I hadn't heard!) Are there any photos from that film that we might be able to use for the feature? How did you get the part?
A: Well, Alan Parker directed the film, and what he did was he auditioned every single band ever seen in Ireland, and at that time although I had left the bank and I was working in TV I was still playing keyboards and working with some of my friends doing the odd nighttime gigs, and had a band called 'Wreckage' that had had reasonably well known.So we were just delighted to audition, be part of the process. So we just went down and auditioned and I never thought any more about it.
It was in a pub -- we played for him and he was doing little video-vignettes of each character in the band, you know just about five minutes with the camera. I never thought anything more about it and then six months later, I just got a call out of the blue saying 'would you be interested in doing three or four days, we've a got a role here for you.' And I was the only on in my band that got a part, but it was fun, and when I went down to the set I'd say I knew 99% of the cast. There were all musicians I'd known all my life.... So that's how it came about, and it was just a great bit of fun.
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