‘Battlestar Galactica’ and ‘The Walking Dead’ composer Bear McCreary would love to be an astrophysicist

Arguably one of the best components of SyFy’s “Battlestar Galactica” series was Bear McCreary’s music. It is an incredible amalgamation of influences, beats and melody that perfectly fit the show’s out-of-the-box outer-space drama.

“It was not just another space sci-fi show,” McCreary told me in a recent interview. “What we were working on at that time was something extraordinary.”

Now that “Battlestar” is long over and done, McCreary’s busy scoring AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and another SyFy series, “Eureka.”

Here the 32-year old discusses his aural influences, his favorite film scores of all time, the process of making television soundtracks and what he has in store for the future.

Andrew Belonsky: Richard Gibbs asked you to work on the “Battlestar” miniseries. Then, after he decided not to join the actual series, you became the lead composer. You sort of got drawn into that universe and have since done a number of sci-fi-esque shows. Were you a sci-fan before “Battlestar”?

Bear McCreary: Absolutely! I grew up on sci-fi, horror movies and TV shows and comic books and novels. My passion for music definitely started was in that genre, so it has been very exciting to be able to give back to a genre that gave so much to me.

Belonsky: Is there a particular score that you remember from your childhood that you found to be particularly inspiring or captivating?

McCreary: I probably couldn’t narrow it down to just one; there were so many scores that really opened my ears to what was possible at a very young age. Among those, I remember “Back to the Future” by Alan Silvestri, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” by Danny Elfman, and then a little bit later “Beetlejuice. Also “Conan the Barbarian” by Basil Poledouris was a big one; “The Empire Strikes Back” by John Williams, too.

There were so many great scores coming out in the early and mid-80s that you couldn’t go see a movie without hearing fantastic music. It was a very exciting time for me to be just discovering this art form.

Belonsky: You are of Armenian and Irish descent.

McCreary: Yes.

Belonsky: And that background finds its way into your music, for “Battlestar,” at least.

McCreary: Without question. In fact, one of the first things that I did was explore the possibility of putting my own heritage fingerprint on the music, because the idea was that we would not use Western orchestral music. We had to use non-typical film score sounds for this project, so I started thinking about what instruments mean a lot to me personally and seeing if I could find a way to work them into the show.

The Aremenian duduk found a way in very quickly. It took me a few episodes, but I found a very good home for the uilleann pipes, the Irish bagpipes. Also you hear singing in Irish Gaelic, as well as a song that I wrote in Armenian, which is heard in the beginning of season three. They were there because the show needed a multicultural sound, but they were also there because that was my way of putting my own spin on what we were doing.

["Allergo" from "Battlestar" season two.]

Belonsky: What is your process? Do you receive the scripts before and read them and then think, “Okay, well the cast of ‘The Walking Dead’ is escaping from the CDC, which is exploding,” or do you watch the footage? How does that work?

McCreary: Well I definitely read the scripts, but most of the time I do that just to get a basic idea of what we’re going to be doing, because most of the time I find that you don’t really know what a scene needs until you see it. It can look fine on paper and when you finally watch it cut together, you might realize it needs something else. Or, as is frequently the case, through the process of casting, acting, directing, lighting, editing, cinematography, the scene can take on an entirely different character, so I find that a script is a fantastic tool for envisioning what the story is going to be, but in fact is a pretty useless device when it comes to figuring out what the music is going to be.

You’ve just got to wait until you see the cut. When I watch the cut, I am able to tell very quickly what the music needs to be and the ideas come much quicker, so most of the time I wait to think about music in a practical manner until I have a cut of the show in front of me.

Belonsky: And what instruments do you play?

McCreary: I’m a keyboard player. I studied classical piano for about fifteen years growing up and then I picked the accordion maybe 12 or 13 years ago and got pretty good. Those are my main instruments. I can carry a tune, but I don’t consider myself a singer. And I played trumpet from middle school all the way up to the end of college, so I’ve played trumpet for about twenty years and continue to be terrible at that. But, basically, I’m a keyboard player.

Belonsky: Were your parents musical? I know your father was a professor, but I’m not sure what he taught.

McCreary: My father is an oceanographer, but he also studied music and was a classical guitar player for many years. There’s a lot of music on both sides of my family. On my mother’s side, you have some trumpet players. Both of my father’s parents were piano teachers and excellent musicians, but I guess since my dad’s parents, my brother and I are the first professional musicians in the family in a couple generations.

Belonsky: Your brother is also a composer?

McCreary: My brother Brendan is a singer/songwriter. In fact, you heard my brother sing “All Along the Watchtower” in “Battlestar Galactica.”

[Footage of McCreary, Katee "Kara Starbuck" Sackhoff and Brendan McCreary transitioning from "Kara Remembers" to "All Along the Watchtower" during a 2009 concert.]

Belonsky: Your wife has worked with you, as well.

McCreary: Yes, she sang on “Battlestar.” She was featured on every season, so anytime you hear an ethereal female voice on any of those records, that’s her. She has contributed music to “Human Target;” she’s contributed music to “Caprica;” she worked with us on “Terminator.” Honestly, I’m blanking on all the other things she’s done. She has worked with me on almost everything, as has my brother. It’s very interesting, because I’m very picky about singers and about pitch and power in vocal performance, and it just so happens that my brother and my wife are literally two of the best singers in Los Angeles, if not on planet earth. They really are exceptionally talented.

Belonsky: Do you ever watch movies and think that you would have done a better job scoring them?

McCreary: It is hard to shut off that part of your brain. It is not that I would do a better job; it’s hard to get lost in the narrative when you’re so aware of every aspect of production. You’re so aware of how it was cut together. You can hear when lines of dialogue have been rerecorded. You can’t shut that off anymore when you spend 10 hours a day in creative discussions with people about solving issues like this, because certainly music is one of the ways that you cover up all of these little cracks in the pavement. Music smoothes over all of the corners that have to be cut for various reasons. It is hard when you watch a finished project to get lost in the drama of it. And that is sort of a test for me: when I’m able to watch a movie and really get taken away.

Belonsky: What about your own albums? Do you plan on releasing any albums that are not attached to movies or television?

McCreary: I would love to! But, frankly, I just don’t have the time to deal with it at the moment. I get so much artistic satisfaction through my soundtrack albums, which I very much think of as almost concept albums. The music is written and produced in such a way that it flows very much like an album.

It always amuses me when I’ll see reviews of my albums that say, “Well, the tracks are in no apparent order,” because I spend months putting them in order and making sure that when you listen to a “Battlestar Galactica” album or my “Human Target” or “The Cape” albums that what you’re getting is a musical experience that is separate from the show. They are using pieces from the show, but they’re also a musical experience on their own. I find that so intensely satisfying that it’s hard for me to set aside time to do a project of my own, but I definitely have ideas and things that I want to do and one of these days I’ll get around to it, I’m sure.

["Through the Vortex" from "Eureka."]

Belonsky: If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing? Were there some alternate career paths that you considered?

McCreary: It’s really tough. I mean, you’re talking to a guy who has wanted to do nothing else but music since he was five. But honestly, I often entertain thoughts that I would have ended up an astrophysicist or something. It’s so fun to think about the universe and how big it is — thinking about that, I feel like I’m connecting to something in the same way that I feel when I’m writing a really good piece of music, like you’re connecting to something bigger than yourself. I don’t know if I have the smarts to hang in that crowd, but that’s certainly something that fascinates me endlessly, which also probably ties into why I like science fiction so much.

Belonsky: Are there any albums that you would recommend to our readers? What are you listening to now? Or maybe there’s an artist that you are keen on who deserves more attention?

McCreary: Well a lot of the music that I listen to is soundtrack related. I think in that neighborhood, the artist that I have rediscovered in the past few years is Shirley Walker. She I think was one of the absolute unsung heroes of this field. She did “Batman: The Animated Series,” she did “The Flash” television series, she did “Space: Above and Beyond,” and La-La Land Records just put out her “Space” work in a three-disc set that has been in my car for the past few weeks. The work that she did is absolutely extraordinary. If you check out my score for “The Cape,” which was absolutely inspired by her work on Batman and Flash, you’ll notice that I dedicate the entire record to her memory. So, I would check out those albums from La-La Land Records. They’re incredible.

Belonsky: I never saw “Space: Above and Beyond,” though I vaguely remember it being on.

McCreary: I actually have never seen it either. I remember that it existed, but most of the time I’ve ever heard of it was from people talking about Shirley’s score, and now I understand why.

Belonsky: Speaking of short-lived 90s-era sci-fi shows, I recently watched all of “Earth 2,” which I actually liked. I was into it. I mean, the acting was terrible, the special effects were heinous, but it was still kind of a cool show.

McCreary: Yeah, I remember that one had Clancy Brown on it, which was the only reason I ever watched it, because I’ll watch almost anything that he’s in, but I don’t remember it being good enough to justify getting lost in. I remember it having its moments, for sure.

Belonsky: You know who else was on it, aside from Antonio Sabato Jr: Tim Curry.

McCreary: That’s right — yes!

Belonsky: Let’s switch gears to “The Walking Dead.” What is your thought process for that show? What are you hoping to achieve?

McCreary: I’m hoping to create a genuinely terrifying atmosphere in a unique way. I’m striving to avoid the cliches of horror films of the past 25 years, but still scare audiences. It can be very tricky. Some scenes really require a simple, tried-and-true approach. But most of the time, I’m able to find something in the narrative or the character arcs to highlight in addition to the pure terror: to underline a threat that is either philosophical, emotional or personal, instead of just physical.

Belonsky: Finally, any future projects you would care to share?

McCreary: I’m working on a feature called “Knights of Badassdom” that is going to be really fun. It stars Ryan Kwanten, Peter Dinklage, Steve Zahn, Summer Glau and Danny Pudi and is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s a hybrid of genres, including fantasy, horror, adventure and heavy metal. Fans are going to really enjoy it.

[McCreary and "The Walking Dead" percussionist Jonathan Ortega discuss their work on the AMC series.]

For more on Bear McCreary, check out his website.