Born, raised, and based in the UK, composer Benji Merrison has worked with every major UK broadcaster—in addition to other international networks, brands, and creators—and has achieved both critical and commercial acclaim, including an Emmy nomination for his musical work on BBC One’s nature docuseries Dynasties.
In SAS: Red Notice—a British action thriller film based on Andy McNab’s novel of the same name—Merrison’s score emphasizes the psychological and emotional stakes of its hero Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan), particularly his mental decline. Merrison, in fact, gradually deconstructed, reworked, and subverted the film’s main musical themes in order to echo Buckingham’s descent over the course of the film.
Indeed, Merrison, in our interview, calls himself an “improvisatory composer,” harkening to both his classical piano roots and his love for jazz. And it’s precisely this paradoxical musical journey—the rigidity and formality of being a classically trained musician mixed with a, for this project, self-proclaimed “need to undo some of that formal training”—that, in a way, makes Merrison the perfect composer for director Magnus Martens’ film.
I had the opportunity of interviewing Merrison about his work on SAS: Red Notice. In addition to his approach, Merrison talks about his love of world music, the challenges of working during a pandemic, and embracing sound-creating technology.
Hi, Benji! I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for taking the time to answer some of The Nerd Daily’s questions.
Congratulations, first of all, on the film! This is arguably one of the biggest films—in terms of action and (literal) explosion—that you’ve worked on thus far. How did you initially get involved with the project? Were you familiar with the Andy McNab novel? What, above all, drew you to the project?
Thank you so much. SAS: Red Notice has been a wonderful project to be a part of, and landing the job was quite a chance thing really. I met the music supervisor, Laura Katz, at an event in LA and we got chatting about the project and the fact they needed a British composer. Of course, I put on my most over-the-top British accent at this point!
She put me in touch with the producer, Laurence Malkin. Larry rang me up and said, ‘can you be in Amsterdam tomorrow for a screening?’ Slightly flustered, the ‘yes man’ in me kicked in and I was indeed there the next day (this was pre-Covid of course). I think my enthusiasm must have impressed him because after some composition tests to picture, I got the job!
I understand that improv sessions were a key part of the composing process—would you elaborate more on the process and how you ultimately approached capturing the tone of the score?
Absolutely! I’m generally quite an improvisatory composer anyway. My main instrument is the piano, and I play a lot of jazz, so I am very comfortable writing in the moment. Whilst I have classical training, I’ve actually felt the need to undo some of that formal training, and learn to write from a more instinctive, ‘in the moment’ kind of way. Improvisation is a great way of achieving this.
The improv sessions often involved myself, Larry Malkin (producer), and Peter Clarke (music editor). I had a cool Cubase template prepared with loads of interesting instruments all stacked in a session, so I could go from an intimate piano sound to a full orchestra with mad synths and pulses mixed in. I had programmed some midi controllers to do all sorts of things to each instrument, including pitch bending the different layers (some going up, some going down in pitch).
With this template, I started off jamming a simple ‘English Country Garden’ style riff, whatever fell under my fingers easily, which became the ‘Tom Buckingham’ theme. I then gradually wigged out more and more with the midi controllers until this massive, intense, swarming orchestral sound hammered out! Larry and Pete were like ‘What was that?!! That sounds like psychopathy right there!’ This developed into cues such as ‘Emergency Response,’ ‘Two Psychopaths,’ and the end of ‘Finding the Player.’ As a matter of fact, quite a bit of the score came from this one improvisation. I find that funny and inspiring.
(Minor spoiler alert!) The score very much parallels Buckingham’s (Sam Heughan) psychological trajectory. Some musical tracks, in fact, are deconstructed versions of other musical tracks, effectively representing an unfolding of his character’s psychopathy. Was this something you and the filmmakers talked about? What was the collaboration process like on this film?
It was very clear from the beginning, that the film needed very clear thematic statements, but that these would gradually subvert, morph and degrade over the course of the movie. It seemed like the most ideal way to represent psychopathy. In addition, I took ideas of those themes, and, for example, shortened them into an ostinato figure, or played them in retrograde or inverted, that kind of thing.
Absolutely, deconstruction was also a big part of the process. This happened both on a thematic level, but also on a sonic and instrumental level. Over the course of the movie, I would take something like a timpani or snare (which very obviously says ‘militaristic’ in an almost cheesy way) and I would run them through various effects chains or spectral processing, to become something very new but derived from the same source.
I like this kind of idea, but only when it means something to underline the narrative. In this case, it was a logical and proportionate approach. I also think it worked.
You are a classically trained musician, but you’ve also embraced—and mastered—music producing and engineering. Do you always work with both live-recorded and engineered sounds? In a broader sense, do you think one can exist / be used without the other?
Sound is sound, so I’m not all that worried how it is created. I’m much more interested in the emotional response of an audience to those sounds.
I think it’s important to be a master of all types of sound generation so that you know which approaches and techniques are going to work for each score. In this sense, my classical background and also the music tech and processing background come in very handy.
In most of my scores there are live elements, alongside processed and/or engineered sounds. Any type of technique or sound generation can absolutely exist with or without others. I don’t find it useful to have ‘rules’ about music, anything goes as far as I’m concerned.
How have lockdowns and the pandemic at large affected or changed your way of working? Were there any particular challenges you faced, especially in 2020?
I was quite fortunate to have a separate studio at home already, prior to the pandemic hitting! So, in that sense, I was very well setup for the new restrictions. I’ve been working for a few years now with my good friend and sometimes co-composer Will Slater. We both live in different cities, so we have the online collaboration thing down to a tee now!
As with everyone though, there have been many challenges over 2020 of juggling work and other life pressures exacerbated by the pandemic. I’ve found I have to be super focussed with my writing, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
I’ve missed doing ‘in-person’ recording sessions, and am really looking forward to getting back to that. I did manage to do a great session at Abbey Road a couple of weeks ago, which was a real treat. I also can’t wait to get back to attending film festivals and live events.
What is your favourite instrument to play? And what is your favourite to listen to?
This is quite an easy one! I started playing the piano at around six years old, so it is like an old friend to me. It will always be my favourite instrument to play and listen to. However, other instruments I love and play (with varying degrees of success!) are the bansuri (Indian Flute), saxophones, and hurdy-gurdy. I love world music, in particular Indian and Indonesian music, so I’ll add that combined instrumentation into the mix also.
What’s next for you?
It’s a busy year ahead, I feel very fortunate. I’m working on two new David Attenborough series at the moment. I have a feature on the Beatles (and their time in India), coming out very soon too. I’m excited for people to hear these new scores – I’m very proud of them.
SAS: Red Notice is now available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video.
