Backstory

“The first full length feature film I scored was “Chicago Cab” directed by Mary Cybulski and John Tintori; it was based on a play called “ Hellcab” written by Will Kern who also wrote the screen play. Helmet was on tour so I spent every free minute in the back lounge of the bus with my cassette 4 track and old Akai MPC 60 drum machine then flew on days off to NYC and Los Angeles to record (pre Logic Audio/Pro tools/computers etc).  I feel fortunate to have been part of this movie; the cast  is incredible and Mary and John were great to work with.  Paul Dillon, Michael Ironside, John C Reilly, Gillian Anderson, Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Laurie Metcalf and one of my favorite actors, Michael Shannon. The score is lo-fi-groove with my guitar, bass, Farfisa organ and faked harmonica playing. I enlisted my pal Wharton Tiers (co- producer/engineer for “Strap it On”, “Meantime” and “Monochrome”) to play drums along with my drum machine tracks. 

The next batch of movies I scored with my pal, USC film profi Patrick Kirst for our friend (met him at a Helmet show!) in Mobile Alabama, director Drew Hall.  These were not all star casts but Drew did a great job with unknown and inexperienced actors.  Each film was better than the last.  Skyhook, The Phoenix Rises, Sons of Liberty and Convergence.  Drew is open-minded and gave us a lot of freedom to experiment sonically which is a lot more fun than trying to write generic film music. 

Over the last 20 years I’ve been fortunate to work for Academy Award winning composer (and in my mind musical genius) Elliot Goldenthal. The first film was “Heat” by Michael Mann but I’ve played on Elliot scores for Neil Jordan movies In Dreams and The Good Thief as well as 3 cool Julie Taymor movies, Titus, The Tempest and Across the Universe. We did one-offs as well; S.W.A.T, Final Fantasy and probably some I’m forgetting.  

I’ve also been really lucky to work the last few years again with Patrick Kirst on 2 or 3 movies a year including Inherit the Viper, Villa Eva and the teen romantic comedy, smash hit trilogy, The Kissing Booth 1& 2 (we’re currently working on 3!). Patrick like Elliot gives me a lot of leeway to experiment.   Some stuff doesn’t work but most of it ends up in the movie.  

There were other films I dug playing on including Collateral and Catwoman but those composers probably didn’t have Elliot or Patrick’s stomach for my messy guitar skronk cause I’ve not been asked back!

About 10 years ago I scored a short film (also with Patrick Kirst) called “Death Delivery” that was directed by my dear friend and amazing artist, Rob Prior. Rob did the “Seeing Eye Dog” album cover and really cool custom art on a half dozen guitars generously donated by my friends at ESP for a film called “Tatua” that never got made. I even wrote a song called “Revenge Destroys Everything” as that was the tag line for the movie. Oh well, the good news is we finally got to work together on Rob’s first feature length film, “Painted Beauty”. It was shot in Hong Kong last year with an excellent cast including Claire Holt, Clifton Collins Jr and Bar Paly.  Rob, like Elliot and Patrick seems to love  the noise, tension and destruction I create.  Along with my trusty writing partner Daniel Wehr and boy wonder orchestrator over in Berlin Markus Zierhofer, we did our best to ruin Rob’s  first film. I am really happy with the score and the collaboration in general and looking forward to the next 3 films we have lined up. With any luck the studio will release “Painted Beauty” in early 2021; I’m fully expecting to get the Golden Globe for our work!

In 2014 I licensed an album (Movie Music Vol 1) to Sumthing Distribution (Niles Rodgers’ label that released a lot of video game music I think?) for worldwide digital and streaming. After whatever the legal amount of time passed for the distribution deal to run out the album reverted back to me.  I’ll make it available again soon through the same digital platforms.  In the meantime I’m also compiling the music I wrote that was too messy (rejected cues!) for a nice movie about an artist obsessed with gore and inspired by a serial killer, and that will be made available on my Movie Music Vol 2 compilation.” -Page Hamilton