Ten years ago, Gustavo Santaolalla It was news because he was dabbling in the nascent video game industry as a songwriter for The Last of Us, horror game and apocalyptic action that HBO has now adapted for television. Today he is an essential participant in the series that everyone is talking about.
Faithful to that experimental essence that has characterized his career from Arco Iris, founding band of Argentine rock, the 71-year-old musician, composer and producer has ventured into a new role, already established as an audiovisual composer after the Oscars for Secret in the mountains (2005) and Babel (2006).
That first step into the gamer world was much celebrated. The video game developed by the Naughty Dog company for Sony PlayStation, one of the most awarded in history, launched a second part in 2020, again with music by Santaolalla. It was evident that he would write the score for the starring series Peter Pascal and Bella Ramsey.
in dialogue with clarionthe founder of Bajofondo and producer of Café Tacuba, Divididos, Bersuit and many other groups, talks about how he got involved in the game that became a series, talks about the influence of ronroco in his career as a soundtrack composer and his enthusiasm for trap and urban music from Argentina.
“I am very happy with everything that is happening with the series. Is fantastic. We had expectations that it would go well, but you never know », he says via Zoom from Los Angeles, the city where he has lived for some time, showing off a luxuriant white beard.
“When you’re working on something like this, you know there’s a history with the subject. But when there’s so much promotion, you think there might be a “backlash” — an adverse reaction — or something fans of the game don’t like. But the truth is, no: both critics and audiences have embraced the series and it’s a worldwide phenomenon,” she says proudly.
The ronroco and the chacarera, for export
Santaolalla says that after winning the Academy Awards and establishing himself as an audiovisual composer in Hollywood (Commit a murder, El Cid AND finch are some of his latest works), had several offers to enter the video game market.
“They offered me several things after the Oscars, but I am very much demanding (selective) to choose what things to get involved in. And when I met Neil (Druckmann, co-creator of the game and series) and he told me the story, that’s what I had in mind, conceptually. Later I found out that people were crying while playing, like in the movies, and that confirmed what I had thought,” he says.
The song in the series, which is the same as in the game, has a familiar chacarera sound, and was originally recorded in ronroco, the favorite instrument of recent years, the one that defines it in both movies and TV.
“Now there are banjo versions, guitar versions, everything, but I wrote it hoarsely and it appears in the titles of the series as the original version,” he warns.
“Another thing was to put 6/8, let’s say. But the timbre of the instrument was already assimilated. Today when you listen to it, it also has something of the blues. But it is also what I was looking for: combination and fusion ”, he explains about this reminiscence of the Santiago del Estero genre.
-As an audiovisual composer you have found your sound linked to our folklore. But it’s rare to hear that in a doomsday action series. How did you manage to include it in “The Last of Us”?
-With conviction. Because if you have a vision, you must have the conviction to achieve it. One of my lifelong dreams, ever since the days of Arco Iris, was to introduce the 6/8 rhythm in different ways, which is very clear to us in the chacarera. And I have many songs written with this intention. And something very gross on that journey was the discovery of snoring.
-Why?
-Because I’ve always played the charango. And when I discovered snoring, a world opened up for me. It is an instrument that, while belonging to the charango family, is very different. Having a hold up which the charango does not have. Snoring gave me a chance to play finger pickingas they say here, which sounds like an arpeggio and allows melody and accompaniment to be played at the same time.
Although Santaolalla had ronroco recordings that he had accumulated over 13 years, he dared not present them to the public. Until he met Jaime Torres, the Tucuman legend of the charango.
“When I met him, I became a good friend and he was the one who pushed me to do it. I explained to him that I didn’t have the technique, and he told me that there are no rules, that he had found the spirit of the instrument. This is how my album comes out snore. And that album is what got me into movies, because that’s where Michael Mann became interested (the informant), so Iñárritu became interested (Babel) and there I started with cinema. This is where the snoring bell came into play.
Music, part of the DNA of “The Last of Us”
The television adaptation of The Last of Us was directed by Craig Mazin, creator of the acclaimed Chernobyl -also from HBO-, in collaboration with Neil Druckmann, creator of the game, who entrusted Santaolalla as composer of the franchise.
The series has released five chapters out of a total of nine (Sundays at 11 p.m. on HBO Max and HBO). The former marked the most-watched debut of an HBO series on the HBO Max platform in Latin America, surpassing the launches of the dragon house and of Euphoria 2.
What does music bring to the series?
-The duo of Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin was incredible. I had to make the music and I always like to give it a lyric which seems very nice to me. They say “that music is part of the DNA of the series”, that it is as important as Joel or Ellie and that it is part of the genetics of The Last of Us. All of this had to be adapted to a different pace, because the storytelling of a program is very different from that of a game. But the characters are the same. And it’s always about telling stories.
His love affair with new rock
Always attentive to new musical trends, the electronic tango band Bajofondo has launched together with the Argentine trapper and freestyler YSY A the song native sound of the rivera fusion of suburban sounds with hip hop, where Santaolalla is encouraged to rap.
-How are you doing with trap and all the new urban movement?
– I’m doing just fine. With Bajofondo and Ysy A we made that song. And I wrote my part, I did it. And getting comments from kids who don’t know who they are and asking, “who’s the guy rapping there?” it’s incredible. And those guys like Duki talk about my flow…
-Do you think it’s the new rock, as many say?
I don’t like this kind of statement. But it occupies a place that before, in Argentina, was occupied by rock, absolutely. There is a generational problem. We were 18, 19 years old in that founding base of Almendra, Manal, Vox Dei and Arco Iris, after Lito (Nebbia).
One of the things I’ve always criticized is that after us a sort of gerontocracy has been generated in Argentina, with great rock values. When I produced Divididos, Bersuit or Arbol, which I had since I was a child… Los Árbol in the first album was already 30 years old. And all of a sudden, when these kids come out and start filling the carnival, they’re like, “Who are these kids?”
-And what happens to you?
-I love it. I love that such a movement has emerged. And in fact I am in relationship with them, I have an emotional relationship. I’m there to do something with Wos and I celebrate that. Then, within all this, there is also everything. There are alternatives that I like that have content and everything, and there are more random things, which are also useful and useful.
Source: Clarin
