After the divisive response to movies like Suicide Squad and Justice League, the DCEU has regained its footing with more critically acclaimed adventures like Shazam! and Aquaman, to say nothing of unconnected spin-off films like Joker, which absolutely exploded at the box office and won multiple Academy Awards. The latest film based on a DC Comics property is Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), a rollicking semi-sequel to Suicide Squad that focuses on the delightfully twisted worldview of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn following a less-than-amicable breakup with The Joker.

Birds of Prey has earned significant critical acclaim for its audacious charm and willingness to shock and surprise audiences with unparalleled action sequences, off-the-wall humor, and comic book sensibilities, all of which are let even further off the chain by the film’s R rating. One element of Birds of Prey that has been held in particular regard is its score, by composer Daniel Pemberton. Rather than the bombastic orchestral cues that frequently define the superhero genre, Pemberton leans more into a more energetic rock and roll style, interjected with unique themes for each character. He also co-wrote original songs for the film, including The Joke’s On You, which serves as the film’s de facto theme, incorporating elements of his score to create a moody but empowering anthem that perfectly captures Harley Quinn’s terrifying-but-fascinating psyche.

Pemberton spoke with Screen Rant about working on Birds of Prey, from discussing his particular approach to the realm of blockbuster superhero films to sharing a thrilling story about running across the Warner Brothers backlot in an effort to convey his vision for the film’s score. He also talks about working on original songs for the movie and his love/hate relationship with temp tracks.

Birds of Prey is currently playing in theaters nationwide, and the soundtrack album is available now.

Congratulations on the soundtrack release, which just came out this week.

Birds of Prey has such punk rock sensibilities. It’s a real breath of fresh air in so many ways, and I think that extends to the music, which is such a rock-and-roll score that you don’t often get from this type of film. Basically, I love it and thank you.

Thanks very much!

So, tell me about working with Cathy Yan, the director. Did she have a vision for the score, and how did you work towards that goal with her, even before you started composing?

I’m glad you enjoyed it!

Kinda building off that, can you talk about writing Harley’s very particular theme? It opens up the movie and really sets the stage for everything that’s about to go down. It’s a piece that says, like you said, “Hey, whatever you think you’re gonna get in this kind of movie, forget about all that.”

I was slightly wary of this movie, originally. I’m not a huge fan of comic book movies, in the sense of… So many of them feel very similar, and I don’t feel like there’s a lot of space for alternative forms of expression, or new ways of doing things. But chatting with Cathy, within five minutes I realized she felt the same way I did. And she told me what she wanted to do with the film. She wanted to do a side of Gotham City we’d never seen before. She didn’t want to do things the same way they’d been done. And that is always good news for me. I’m like, okay, great, I can actually try to make something new. I love making something new, things that are surprising. I think, a lot of times with films, you see the poster and you kind of know what you’re going to hear, and what the movie is going to end up like before you’ve even seen it! And I want to do things where you have no idea what it’s going to be like, where it’s going to be a surprise, with every score I do. With Birds, it felt like a really good opportunity to do something different and open up the world of comic book films to a slightly different palette.

So how did you articulate your thought?

I’m based in London. I had gone over to America, to Warner Brothers, to start looking at the movie and talking about ideas. We were seeing the edit on the WB lot. That scene, they had scored it like action, like an action moment. And I thought, hmm, it doesn’t feel right for what’s happening. This scene isn’t about her blowing up a big chemical plant; it’s about her breaking up with Joker. So I thought it should be a breakup song. So I had the idea in my head, an idea, I think it’ll work, but I didn’t know. And we’re talking about it for a while, and I thought, there’s not much point in just talking about it, it doesn’t really help.

That’s awesome.

I said, “Is there a piano anywhere?” And they said, “No.” But then I remembered there was a piano in the office of the Head of Music, which was on another side of the lot. So I phoned up his office, Paul Broucek, and he was out. So I was like, great, can I quickly break into his office? And they’re like, “sure.” So I ran across Warner Brothers, to the other side of the lot. I went into his office, put my iPhone there, and he had a little electric piano there, and I just recorded these notes (he plays the intro to “The Joke’s On You”), you know, basically a longer version of that.

As a musician, you have an idea, but no one else can hear it until, well, they hear it.

I take my iPhone and start to go back across the lot, and the music department were like, “Hey, do you want to borrow this golf buggy?” And I’m like, “F*** yeah, I want to borrow the golf buggy!” So I got to borrow a Warner Brothers golf buggy, which still, to this day, feels like the most I’ve made it in Hollywood, in a golf buggy driving around Warner Brothers. (Laughs) So I got back, we just stuck on what I’d done, it wasn’t done to picture, it was was rough, but it just worked so well. We watched it and were like, “f***, this is going to work!” In my head, I knew what I wanted to do to it, but nobody else knew. I knew it was going to work when I saw that, and it was very exciting, and I knew that it would become the beginning of the whole film.

The more faith they’ll have in you by default. And by now, you’ve got a lot of that good will built up.

Yeah, that can often be a bit of a curse, but the more movies you do, the more slack you’re given on that front.

I’ve interviewed composers before, and it’s a common theme, like, if they’re not the ones composing the temp music, they don’t want to hear about it!

The thing is, it’s always about the work. I don’t really care how films do. I just care about whether the work’s good. And I feel quite pleased with how well my movies have turned out, musically. I think the scores are all quite different, and every time you do work like that, it buys you more freedom on the next movie, to try and push it more. And people are hiring you because they want that. They don’t want you to copy temp music. If they wanted me to copy temp music, then why would they hire me? They can go hire other people to do that. Eventually, you create this world where you are encouraged to be experimental, encouraged to try and do things differently.

Birds of Prey is a spin-off, but it’s very much it’s own thing. Did you incorporate any influence from Suicide Squad or any of the other DC Comics movies? Or was it completely not a factor?

Yeah. Well, I mean, temp music can be useful sometimes… Temp music is a pain in the a**, but it can be useful for working out tone or coming up with different ideas.

Are there any rules for your take on a comic book movie? In addition to Birds of Prey, you also did Into the Spider-Verse, so for both films, did you have any self-imposed restrictions of things to avoid?

I kind of felt like this is a very different… Like, the whole point of it was that we were doing a different take on everything from the previous movie. This feels very much like we’re living in Harley’s world. The story is very much Harley’s vision of the world. But Steve Price, who did the music for Suicide Squad, is a really good friend of mine, and we talk a lot on the phone. He’s an excellent guy and a very good composer.

Well said! My favorite TV show of all time is Miami Vice, and–

It’s really hard to say what they are, because there’s tons of things you try to avoid, but you end up doing them a lot of the time, even if you’re trying not to. But I always try really hard to not do the obvious thing. Sometimes, that just makes my life stupidly complex, because there’s an easy way out sometimes. And I don’t like taking the easy way out! I like pushing and trying to make it different. The difficult thing is, even in the filmmaking process, loads of people want to take the easy way out. If you push back as a composer, all you’re doing is upsetting those people you work with. But you have to try to convince them you’re pushing back for good reason. I liken it a bit to being a waiter at a restaurant. If someone comes in and they say, “I want the burger and chips,” you say, “Look, I can totally make you a burger and chips… But I think I can make you something way nicer that you might prefer, and you might find something new.” And they’re like, “Yeah, maybe.” Your job is to try to convince them to try something different, rather than to just go for the burger and chips with ketchup everywhere. And there’s nothing wrong with burger and chips! A well-made burger and chips is an excellent, excellent meal! But I don’t want to make burger and chips every time.

For sure. And another thing that show did, which Birds of Prey does as well, is it uses a lot of licensed songs that play throughout, that flow naturally into and out of the score. Are you involved in those choices? Do you know already that they’re going to put Barracuda and Black Betty during these key scenes? Do you compose with that in mind?

Oh man, that’s so great. What a great score! Jan Hammer! Like, f****** great score! Again, such a great, out-of-nowhere score. Obviously, the vogue at the time was raw synthesized scores, they were very much in vogue, but again, you’ve got something in there that is such an iconic couple of themes. They create a memory of that show, which is almost even bigger than the show!

More: Okay, But Where Was Batman During Birds of Prey?

Birds of Prey is interesting, because there’s a couple of songs in the film that I co-wrote. The Joke’s On You, that was based on my riff from the beginning, and we were like, let’s turn that into a song. And the song, Danger, is based on Harley’s theme. I always wanted to mash up the score with rock or hip-hop. So we got Jucee Froot to rap on top of that. But some other choices, yes, I’m sitting in meetings with everyone, and we’re going through everything, and it’s like, right, great, or no, this is s***, and some things I might have strong feelings about, others I don’t, other things I think are great in the film, other things I’m not sure on, but that’s the nature of filmmaking. And, you know, while I’m not necessarily choosing all the tracks, I’m definitely involved in the conversation about them. And I also need to know because I’m trying to make my score feel like it’s part of the same world. You’re trying to play in the same sound world for the whole film, so all those things can feel like they belong together. I also think that being involved in that songwriting process makes a really big difference. We now have this theme, this emancipation theme that became The Joke’s On You, and that plays throughout the film’s score, as well. These things all feel like they really belong together, rather than a bunch of disparate ideas. And so I think it’s one of the things that I hope happens more often. With me and other composers, having more communication and collaboration between original score and songs. I think it really makes a big difference about how you feel about a movie and how everything fits together.

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