EXCLUSIVE
The ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Score Even Features a Goose
Composer Daniel Pemberton breaks down the eclectic Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse original motion picture soundtrack, dropping June 2
Brooklyn’s best – Spider-Man himself – returns to theaters on June 2 with the release of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The sequel to the critically adored animated film Into the Spider-Verse, the new film once again follows the Miles Morales version of the webhead as he deals with the trials of balancing adolescence and adulthood with some interdimensional travel in between.
Picking up a year after the first film, Miles (Shameik Moore) must reconnect with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), a multiversal incarnation of Spider-Woman, to take down a threat that could destroy all realities.
Featuring a murderer’s row of Spider-People, including the returning of Peter B. Parker’s Spider-Man (Jake Johnson) and newcomers like Jessica Drew’s Spider-Woman (Issa Rae), Pavitr Prabhakar’s Spider-Man India (Karan Soni), Hobie Brown’s Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), and Miguel O’Hara’s Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), Across the Spider-Verse looks to be bigger than not just its predecessor, but stand among the biggest multiversal movies that have become Hollywood’s latest trend (see: No Way Home, The Multiverse of Madness, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Flash).
The first film was heavily praised for its ambitious visual style, utilizing an eclectic mix of animation tactics to blend the different worlds of Spider-Man and evoke the feeling of a comic book come to life. A major part of that that often goes overlooked is the work done by composer Daniel Pemberton, whose bombastic, rhythmic approach to the film’s music not only gave Miles the introduction he deserved, but squarely defined the Spider-Verse series as something unique from the rest of the superhero pack.
Coinciding with the film’s June 2 release, Sony will also be releasing the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Original Score), with the lead single “My Name Is… Miles Morales” available now. Listen below.
Rolling Stone recently sat down with composer Daniel Pemberton to discuss his unique approach to creating Miles’ sound, the sonic tapestry of the various Spider-Verses, and how the soundtrack is breaking new grounds with geese.
What initially drew you the first film, Into the Spider-Verse?
When they first pitched the movie to me, the thing that really swung it was they showed me Spider-Pig — Spider-Ham, Peter Porker, whatever. And I was like, “Are you really gonna put a 2D pig in this movie?” And they were like, “Uh, yeah,” and I’m like, “OK, if you really want to do that, then I’m totally on board.”
There’s no half measures, you have to go full Spider-Ham.
When the first film came out, people didn’t get it at first. I mean, it did OK, but I [worked] on that movie, and I thought this was one of the greatest things I’ve ever worked on. I was expecting everyone to lose their shit when it came out, and they didn’t. And I’d have friends who I’d be like, “You got to see this movie,” and they’d be like, “What is it? Oh, Spider-Man… Another Spider-Man movie.” And I’d be like, “Yeah, this one’s animated,” and they’d be even less interested.
I think the movie is a bit like a band who’s played lots of small venues over the last two years, four years, and everyone feels like they’ve discovered it. And it’s their band, so to speak. And this is the time it plays a big arena tour.
You think people were less inclined to watch another Spider-Man movie because it was animated?
I still think there is a lot of prejudice against animated movies. One of the things Spider-Verse has done, that’s been amazing, [it’s] totally reset the way cinemagoers look at animated movies. There’s all different ways to tell a story and animation is an incredibly exciting way to tell stories; the imagination that can be utilized within that is so extreme. [For] a long time, and still to this day, they’re kind of looked upon as for kids, whereas really, animation is for everybody. And I think one of the greatest achievements of Spider-Verse is to slowly make people more aware of that and you can see its effect across the whole industry, like the new [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles] film.
How did you approach creating unique themes for each universe?
[They] did a presentation of all the different art-style approaches in the movie, which was phenomenal, talking about all the different techniques, from the sort of Syd Mead-inspired concept design that 2099’s world is very inspired by, to the watercolor drips of Gwen’s world. For me doing the music, I’m also trying to approach each world with a different palette and a different technique and a different approach. In this film, I’m playing off the palette and textures of Gwen’s world, which are a lot more dreamy. She’s kind of influenced by a ’90s, 2000s indie pop, synth-y, grungy kind of world, but with an art style that is incredibly dreamy, and slightly abstract.
Whereas 2099’s world is incredibly technological, futuristic, and that’s been a huge impact on how I approach it. His character is very harsh and technological, and so his world and his theme is more in keeping with that. And all the other characters — I don’t know how many worlds I’m allowed to talk about — [but] the first film was almost all Miles’ world, which was very influenced by hip-hop culture. Record scratching was sort of one of the key things behind his sound, which obviously, we brought in for the new film as well.
How many different dimensions did you have to score in total?
[I] did Gwen’s world, Miles’s new world, 2099’s world, Punk’s world, India’s world. Then there’s also Spot’s dimension. [And] then there’s another dimension I can’t talk about. Then there’s characters like The Vulture — he’s got a sound, which is kind of like fucked up operatic medieval music.
The score for both films is much more electronic — much crunchier — than the standard superhero fare. How did you work to set it apart from the pack?
Well, I’ve definitely made things crunchier, which has been a big cause of debate amongst the filmmakers. I originally approached the first film trying not to use an orchestra at all, and I realized that wasn’t the right thing to do. I wanted to do the first film almost all electronic and record-scratching, and then I realized it wasn’t carrying the emotion in the way I wanted, the way anyone wanted.
And all through this film, there are so many different noises, themes, sounds that are all interlinked. So that it’s really complicated. There’s rhythms that are interlinked with rhythms elsewhere. There’s melodic ideas that represent characters, represent story beats, represent concepts within the film. And some of them are linked in very obvious ways. [Some] of them are linked in ways you’d have to really, like really pay attention to notice. But it hopefully pulls the whole film together into making it like a very cohesive universe, both sonically and visually.
You mentioned Spider-Man India (Pavitr Prabhakar). How did you pay tribute to Indian music or blend that with the crunchy stuff?
With the Indian stuff, we played around and there’s this record, which is a really interesting record by a guy called Charanjit Singh, called “Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.” And this is a record that was made in 1982, [a] really futuristic Indian record that almost like preceded acid house. And this guy made these Indian ragas on like a Roland 303 and a Jupiter-8 and some other synthesizers. I don’t know how familiar you are with acid house music and rave culture, but this record is almost six years before that really took off. And it is amazingly ahead of its time. And that was a big influence for me. This idea of taking the fun of a bouncy electronic baseline and throwing Indian stuff on top of it.
Most people don’t really think Indian culture created music that potentially preceded seminal moments in electronic music. We think seminal moments in electronic music generally came out of Detroit or Germany, and they also came out of India.
How does Miles’s theme evolve in this new film?
The first film ends with this cue called “Spider Man Loves You,” which really is basically Miles’s theme. And it’s the combination of all these thematic ideas into one piece of music, which is Miles’s piece of music. And with this one, I wanted to open with that kind of theme, but just be mixed in a way that was a lot more fun. I just wanted to do like a crazy showcase of record-scratching. Because I think on the first one, we did this whole thing — we call it scratch the orchestra — where we record the orchestra, and we then put it on the equivalent of vinyl, and then we scratch it in and re-edit it in. And this one I wanted to really push that in a sequence. So, we’ve got everything in it, everything you see on screen, I’ve tried to scratch so some of it’s in.
It opens on Miles stopping someone being squashed by a car, we scratched car-crash noises. There’s Miles fighting somebody, we’ve got all the punch sounds to scratch those. There’s Miles drawing with a felt-tip pen, we’ve got loads of recordings of felt-tip pen. We’ve recorded those and scratch them back in. And then we’ve got my favorite bit probably in the entire score, which is I think is the first time it’s ever happened in a superhero movie or any movie: we have a record-scratched goose. So there’s a scene where Miles is caught up with a goose. And I was like, let’s try record-scratching a goose sound over there. And it worked. It was a great sound to record-scratch. So, you know, this is a seminal moment in film music history where a goose is prominently featured on the soundtrack.
Historic. Who is your favorite of the Spider-Folk?
As I’m English, I’m probably going to have to say Spider-Punk. I actually was doing the voice for Spider-Punk for a bit because they couldn’t find anyone to do ADR, when they were doing really early animation, who could do an English accent. So, I was the voice of Spider-Punk for all of two minutes. A very terrible voice. But you know, they went with some other Daniel — Daniel Kaluuya.
Everyone’s got something very special about them in this movie. I like each Spider-Person for different reasons. There’s musically ones I like more than others, like I love using 2099’s theme. He’s got a really nice, aggressive sort of siren. Gwen’s got this very nimble, balletic, floaty synthesizer style, which is quite nice to drop on top. I think what’s interesting is taking each of these characters and having themes that are universal. The film talks about universality of being Spider-Man, and how bits that may have connected with Miles may now connect with Gwen or other characters, but in their own sonic world.
Does Spider-Cat have a theme?
Spider-Cat doesn’t have a theme. I don’t think Spider-Cat has enough screen time to have a theme. [I] didn’t know Spider-Cat was a big player in this film!
How do you weave your score around all of the major songs written for the film by other artists?
The first film, [the score] is competing with these huge songs. The Post Malone song is the most streamed song on the internet — [the] universe, ever — and so I think it’s taken a while for people to understand what the score is bringing to the universe. But [this] film is going to expand the universe musically, and connect it. And the music of the score is a very important way to connect Into the Spider-Verse into Across the Spider-Verse and to expand the world. And it features a goose, so I don’t know what else you’d want.