- 2 days ago
The Emmy-award winning 'BEEF,' from Netflix, returns this week with a new cast and a new "beef." Our Audacy hosts made their way to Los Angeles to talk with the artists behind 'BEEF,' to see what makes season 2 different, and what’s the thread that runs through the series. Check out our conversation with composer FINNEAS from the hit Netflix show.
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00:01um well phineas thank you so much i'm michaela from 98.5 kluc and channel q
00:06first of all the composing is insane like i feel like i can't even find a song for my ig
00:12stories
00:12i'm like how does this touch the people my followers so that's like wild um but with a
00:20show like the beef season two i feel it's so emotionally complex and you're dealing with so
00:27many different elements korean culture gen z you have to sort of be able to speak to so many
00:32types of people how do you sort of prep for something like that it's a really good question
00:39i think the first thing you you have to do is try not to think about it right you have
00:44to not think
00:45about how it's all going to be received and just focus on like what you're reacting to and making
00:51that feels fun and interesting to you i mean like i when i was meeting sunny who's the creator of
00:57the
00:57show he let me read the scripts for the first few episodes and i really responded to them and thought
01:03they were you know funny and interesting and emotional and so i wanted to be a part of that
01:08because i reacted to it and then we started sending each other music and then you know i started writing
01:15stuff for them to try to use and um you know you just eventually learn by a sort of a
01:22process of
01:23elimination what things are really working for these scenes and what things you know feel like
01:28cool but not right for the show and it was a really fun um long challenging process that i learned
01:35a lot
01:35from and i feel like that's like really what i look for in my life is like what am i
01:39gonna what am i
01:40gonna learn from you know um because at the end of the day i'm like that's the that's the thing
01:45i
01:45get to take away um it's like oh i learned a lot from this yeah yeah hi i'm carla i'm
01:50with b96 in
01:51chicago and picking back off picking off back jumping off of that i know that um you said that you
02:01read
02:01the script and then you were able to write some things for it were there any scenes where after you
02:07watched them actually be acted out that you said you know what that's not right let's go in and
02:11let's change this into something more intense or something softer totally i mean i would actually
02:15say that that most of what i wrote i read the scripts and they started to film the show and
02:21i was on
02:21tour while they were filming so i'd go whenever i was in town i probably went to set like four
02:26times
02:27or something so not that many times um but i would write pieces of music after having read the script
02:33and send them and then when i started to see the scenes i'd you know maybe one little thread of
02:39something i had written would work but generally the stuff i really wrote that worked for everybody
02:44was once i was seeing the scenes because of exactly what you're talking about the performances from the
02:49actors and the way that the sets look and that was actually one of the coolest parts for me
02:54about visiting was like can i see the set of like the hospital scene and can i see this like
03:00i wanted to
03:00go i wanted to go really feel like what do these colors feel like and you know it was a
03:05fun
03:05experience for me um the the there's a piece that ends the show and that piece was like one of
03:12the
03:12few pieces that before uh the scenes had been edited um like when i just read the scripts i made
03:19this
03:19one piece it came to many pieces that didn't work but i made one piece that they really liked we
03:24were
03:24sobbing like i wish you were lying i was watching it on the plane here and everyone must have thought
03:32that i was afraid of heights because i was crying the entire time but you said you visited set only
03:37four times was one of those times when you decided you wanted to have a cameo i did yeah i
03:43did i did
03:43get to be in that scene with with um oscar which was really you know very fun i mean that
03:48was so funny
03:49because like the conceit is that it's a country club and it's in california and so you got a bunch
03:55of like snobby you know people in the music industry or the sports industry i like that sunny gave
04:01everybody an opportunity to play like the worst version of themselves um which reminded me of that
04:07movie from years ago this is the end the oh yes the um seth rogan movie but like they're all
04:14playing
04:14like the worst it's most selfish versions of themselves and so that like when he asked me
04:19to do it there had already been like the there's a scene where like michael phelps is really
04:25and then he's like venmo me yeah so they were like do you want to play a douchebag version i
04:34was like
04:34of course that's my dream um uh so that was really fun but yeah that you know everybody i really
04:41was
04:41very um sort of welcome to to ask everybody questions and um oscar and i actually thank you
04:49for doing this oscar when we were shooting our scene he was like he's like sometimes i like to
04:53like listen to music while i'm shooting because i feel like if it's just like that scene you know
04:59there's some humor in that scene he was like i feel like the energy can change because sometimes
05:03you're on a set and it's like this it's very quiet and that's because if we played a song then
05:08the
05:08mics would pick it up whatever so me and oscar wore these little tiny invisible earbuds like we're
05:14on a date and we we decided together what would be fun to listen to and so i think that
05:20day we
05:20listened to like dance yourself clean by lcd sound system and again it's like it's just the quiet it's
05:27like when you're at a cafe and there's a song in the background and it you're just kind of nodding
05:30your head to it we're not like it's gonna start singing but it makes us feel like we're on the
05:34same
05:35page and um maybe made us you know feel like uh a little more momentum or something so that was
05:41really cool if i if i act some more i would i'll definitely be stealing i'll be stealing that because
05:47that was awesome hey phineas good to see you i'm bennett from the new 96.5 philadelphia uh your music
05:52made me cry a couple times through this season it was ridiculous uh the finale especially there was
05:58two moments in particular that stood out and it was very memorable very palpable uh this scene
06:04uh where they're talking about their 960 months yeah the music is so gorgeous and dreamy thanks and
06:11it just adds so much texture to the scene and then after that the kiss yeah outside the beautiful piano
06:17and then the hardcore synth that thank you ramps up he listened i mean i'm a i'm a pisces so
06:25i'm already
06:25in my feels that's like my as my you know ground state but it just sent it over the edge
06:30what do you
06:32think makes a score memorable instead of just being there in the background because i took away
06:38so much from from the score i mean the number one thing that makes a score memorable is a great
06:43film or television show right like if i'd if i'd written some piece of music if i'd put those exact
06:48same pieces of music in a show that you really didn't like you'd be like not thinking you'd be
06:53you'd be wanting your hours back right so that's the big privilege for me and and to some degree that
06:59is also the pressure right um if you've got oscar and carrie or um uh charles melton and kelly spainy
07:08um they're they're they've done all their homework they've learned their lines they've thought about
07:15that character they've you know austin's playing like a trainer he's gotten all buff
07:20he's probably already he stayed buff um he's grown that little mustache um and so it's like
07:28you know again the prayer you're like i don't want to let all these people who've worked so hard and
07:32the writers and the cinematographers so i think that that's the real kind of um bar that you're trying
07:38to sort of you know that you're trying to raise yourself it's like i want to really compete with
07:44all these people who are great um and uh you know i think like my references are always like when
07:50i
07:50watch a movie and i'm swept away in some piece of music from it it's melody and it's just supporting
07:57a great performance by a you know actor or great writing or something and i you know i'm just like
08:02you if i watch a movie i remember watching this movie called uh my old ass the audrey aubrey plaza
08:08movie
08:09yeah and she plays the future she plays the future version of a character that we're following
08:14and there's a scene at the end of that movie not to spoil it but like you're like i'm watching
08:18it
08:19with my fiancee and we're sitting there and i'm like i wonder if she's about to burst into tears
08:24because i'm about to burst into tears and then you do and then you like look at each other and
08:27you're
08:27both and that scene that i'm talking about is like i don't think there's dialogue in that scene i think
08:31it's just you know music and they're having this moment together and so i love moments like that so
08:37i'm very honored and it means a lot that you responded to those scenes in that episode thanks
08:42so much for saying that absolutely i'm megan holiday from k-rock in los angeles and you did
08:47just such an incredible job with the music and thank you for the laughs with your cameo as well
08:52you did such a fantastic job um how do you approach you know when you're writing your own music or
08:59writing with billy versus when you're scoring you know film and tv and this is not your first project
09:04you've worked on a lot of stuff in the past so and then also what happens when you have those
09:08days
09:09where you feel like blocked you know where you're just like i gotta get out of here and i gotta
09:13you
09:13know those days are hard right and they're really hard on tv film stuff because there's deadlines and
09:19there's so many that you know if you think about like each i i said this to sunny who's who's
09:26create the
09:26show creator like episode eight of eight this is the final episode just like 40 minutes of music in
09:33episode eight billy's last album is 44 minutes so it's like almost an entire album's worth of music
09:41only in the final episode of this whole series so it's a lot of music to create just by volume
09:47and that can be daunting because yeah sometimes you sit down and you're like damn i'm not having
09:52any good ideas and you're like well i better start because i have to make so many things before the
09:57end
09:57of the day but it's also kind of a gift because i think that sometimes you get precious with what
10:03you're working on if you think about you know any any area in your life where you are sort of
10:08like
10:08worried about how you're representing yourself or whatever i get this way with writing like a speech
10:13or a something as simple as like a caption or something sometimes i'm like no no that's not right
10:18but it's like the the gift with scoring this is like you're just making stuff and you there's not
10:24time to overthink it there's not time to you know get too precious about it so i really like it
10:30and
10:30then also and i like this too like if i make something whether i love it or or i don't
10:35we're
10:35still gonna i'm still gonna play it for the director we're gonna see how he feels even if he loves
10:39it he
10:40might have one idea that changes some of it it's like so you you really have to let go of
10:45that kind
10:45of like you know i make i have to wait till it's perfect you know it takes away that kind
10:50of
10:51perfectionist um thing and then you know it's it's um i would say comparing it to like working
10:57with billy like i treat the the writer director as the artist right so if i'm in with billy even
11:04if i think i've got my best idea if billy's like it's fine but i'm not responding to that i'm
11:09like
11:09cool this is your it's your album we'll try something else same deal with the you know writer
11:13director it's like this is your vision here and i'm participating in it but i'm not gonna let my
11:19kind of ego get and i'm not gonna tell you you know what i mean if i interpret a scene
11:24if i go
11:24like i think this scene is really there's a lot of anger in this scene and the director is like
11:28i
11:28don't i think the characters the actors are are angry enough i think i want to score like how sad
11:33it is
11:33that they're fighting right now i'm like oh great i didn't you know i'm not gonna go like wrong like
11:38i'm like it's your it's your show you know well if anything it makes you see things from like a
11:42different perspective oh i didn't even think about you know changing the mood in that way and so then
11:47you're having like a moment of learning as well so yeah absolutely that's really cool i'm still
11:51gagged on the earbud because as i'm thinking about it yeah of course like we're loving it because you've
11:58composed such amazing music around these scenes so why wouldn't you have something to listen or
12:04reference to when in the scene oscar actually was like we could listen to some of the your score
12:09and i was like oh i would be so distracted if i were listening to my own thing that i've
12:14made for
12:14this scene i'd be so kind of like is this good enough i'm so embarrassed like you know what can
12:19we take that for us uh was that g minor but if i were acting in somebody else's movie and
12:23they had
12:24a different composer and i love the music i'd probably want to listen to it it's cool yeah um but
12:28yeah i mean you think about anything in your life you think about your drive anywhere you think about
12:33like how much those uh you know if you're in a good mood you put on a song to to
12:38really soundtrack
12:39that so it was very cool and um and and also i think oscar seems like he would never need
12:45this
12:45but like that the the inside baseball is that actors do that and then have somebody tell them
12:50their lines get out yeah oh my god see i have an earbud right now and someone's telling me what
12:55questions to ask but you could but you could right you know and it's you're still you're still the
13:01performer you're still going like i just thought of this just now you know but but i think that that's
13:06you know that's probably also really helpful imagine if you're like doing a uh you know a tv
13:12show and you're in your 10th year and you just got the script and they rewrote it right before the
13:16scene i mean like you go on snl and they they're holding a cue card with your lines so i
13:21think that
13:21anything that's like you still have to be a good actor and perform it well but it's like if you're
13:25like i didn't they changed all the lines before i got on set and i don't want to fuck them
13:28up
13:28then got it in your ear pretty cool did you have to memorize your lines or was it very okay
13:32but i mean i had
13:33like 10 lines it's not a lot of memory and and memorizing stuff i think because of music
13:39is something that i i have to do a lot i have to memorize chords and lyrics to songs and
13:46play them
13:46and you know even though i'm writing a lot of the songs i'm playing it's like still forget stuff you
13:50have to go relearn it and and remember it so you know it's not not a thing that i'm uh
13:55afraid of
13:56although sometimes you really you can really make mistakes and i mean you're juggling so many things
14:01because you do help write for billy and then you're writing for this and then you also are in
14:04your own band that's right and you said that uh like the episode eight has 40 minutes of music
14:08were you able to like hit up your band members like did ashley help you out at any point or
14:13was
14:13this very much a solo project for you it became i went into it sort of thinking i would maybe
14:19be
14:19more collaborative than i ended up getting to be okay and i think that's because selfishly i love
14:26to collaborate like that's more fun for me like a lot of days on this project even though i had
14:31fun
14:31making the music it's like i'm it's very isolated i'm like in my dark studio watching the screen
14:37playing stuff and it's like i always have the most fun when i'm in a room with somebody like billy
14:41and
14:41we're collaborating but ultimately this show became really collaborated uh collaborative because i'd go and
14:49sit with sunny the uh creator and jake who directed a couple of the episodes and we'd discuss stuff so
14:55that became collaborative enough you know um but i sure would i sure would love to do you know i
15:02always am telling billy she'd be really good at scoring stuff like you've great ideas for melodies
15:08and you know you're such a good big brother because you're like i just know i'm not my big brother
15:12i'm
15:13out of here right now as a fan of the show what do you hope that people walk away with
15:20what what sort
15:21of sense or feeling such a good question let's see um
15:29i think that like in essence like all of their disagreements with each other and it's all sort of
15:38like forms of denial that the characters are in and a lack of willingness to communicate what's really
15:45going on which is like their own insecurities about themselves or their life or something you
15:51know i think like as the show progresses and you really hear from the characters how they're feeling
15:56inside you're like oh yeah but if you'd if you were just saying those things in episode one or two
16:03you're you know brave enough or vulnerable enough to say that you know you could have fixed everything
16:09right then yeah none of this would happen you wouldn't have had a show but i think that that
16:13would be that's how i hope that i i often say that as a joke about like living my life
16:18in a way that
16:19isn't inspiring to write about where i'm like yeah i just want to be a good listener and a you
16:25know
16:25good communicator and like that doesn't always lead you to write a song about how angry you are but
16:32you can you can make it up you can you know you can pretend or you can channel something else
16:36but
16:36that would probably be like the thing i hope people take away from it is like just just talk
16:40about how you're not how you're reacting to something but like why talk about like why you're
16:45feeling a certain way i love getting lost in the sauce about how you know your songs and music gets
16:51created like i know that you recorded a sprinkler yeah at the country club and and then put beats to
16:57it that's right and it sounds sounds really good water bill well water bill was like the demo track and
17:04we we we uh used it all over the place but yeah that was like one of the first things
17:09that i was
17:10trying to explore was like you know if i'm making a television score and it's not an album for somebody
17:16it's not this like how am i gonna what what's my excuse to do something i wouldn't do somewhere else
17:20right if i said to billy hey i've recorded all these sprinklers i went i went on a this is
17:26like
17:26really this is really what happened i'm like i went on a hike i recorded all the sprinklers by the
17:30golf
17:31course let's make a song how's your day going billy would she would have every right to be like
17:36why like this sounds cool but why are we doing this right you know and that's maybe we could still
17:42make something good but the why in this case is like the show takes place on this country club
17:46you think about how green the grass always is when you're at a golf course on a country club and
17:50how
17:51expensive it is to water it enough to have it always be green and they're rhythmic and i think that
17:55it's a kind of a stressful type of rhythm and i think of the beef world as this kind of
18:01anxious
18:01like oh my god they're very unsettling they're about to find out this thing so it's a lot of
18:05ticking time bomb yeah it's like a time it's like a clock were there other nuggets like that yeah
18:08there's there's a lot of uh sounds of insects there's a lot of like oh wow stuff that sounds
18:14like bees because it's another you know there's a bunch of flowers i have this vivid memory of going
18:19to a hotel for my anniversary with claudia and like sitting outside to eat our breakfast or
18:27something and it was like high season and there's like so many bees like in the orange juice and shit
18:33and i was like i know i don't blame them but i was like real sugar i was very i
18:37was very distracted by
18:38the presence of all the bees on all of my fruit and um coffee so uh yeah just sort of
18:44anything that
18:45felt like it was like oh this is this big excuse to you know be imaginative and use these sounds
18:51that you wouldn't otherwise use so that was a real gift i love that yeah yeah um i was just
18:56thinking
18:56we had june bugs when we were a little at night and that sound still reminds me so much of
19:01my
19:01childhood what is it i don't know what a june bug is how much is what does it sound like
19:05they just sound
19:05like a little yeah not me doing this in front of me but it really the sound takes you i
19:14think it's
19:15the most nostalgic totally of anything else totally agree is there anything that you created that
19:21you ended up not using that you would have that came as a close second or something that you think
19:28back now like oh seeing it in a full maybe it would have been cool to to have that here
19:32there were so i
19:33mean there was like so many pieces that didn't make the show because they're just attempts they're
19:40me trying stuff out and then even the show uh you know again it's so much music and we're putting
19:47out
19:47like a soundtrack album as you often do and so when i was listening through like everything i'd made to
19:52kind of cut down like what's gonna be what's gonna make sense to listen to because really even though
19:57there are so many pieces like because there's eight episodes like there's four or five pieces that
20:02are pretty similar to each other and so it's like i'll just put one of those on the soundtrack you
20:05need all five um but yeah there are some pieces where i was like oh this i totally get why
20:11this
20:12didn't make sense in this scene in this show but like maybe i should you know go investigate this and
20:17take out the you know take this out of the scene that it was for and you know write a
20:22song over it
20:22maybe but you know i guess i guess that'll time will tell um and i i try to i again
20:29i like the i like
20:30the idea of like i'm gonna make music and and it's like it's like anything where you're just like
20:35yeah we're just trying stuff out and it'll it'll work or it won't i'm not sort of always like but
20:40i
20:41they killed my precious thing yeah i'm like yeah it didn't work honestly though that's a compliment
20:46since you've sat down to you and i think for like younger viewers you make it very okay to do
20:53the
20:53inevitable which is try and fail i'm so cool with failing i love it i love to fail i just
21:01don't really
21:01like not trying yeah when i feel like i didn't when i was too scared to try the thing i'm
21:08like oh
21:08that sucks that's the regret then i didn't even learn and if i'm like oh i failed so many times
21:13there's a quote in a movie i love called eye origins about these two scientists and they're
21:17one of the scenes they're like they're failing and the one of the characters goes turning over
21:23rocks and finding nothing is progress and i think that that is like i try to remind myself of that
21:29all the time of like yeah you're just you're just on your way there and sometimes it makes you feel
21:34bad because you because you trick yourself into thinking you didn't make any progress but you're
21:38like no no i tried i tried that yeah now i know it's not that yeah you know on the
21:42topic of learning
21:43i know it's not your first experience scoring yeah i love your work in uh vengeance a few years ago
21:48so good what have you learned from your previous work that you applied to beef season two
21:54honestly from a psychological level like that you just like you just get convinced it'll never end
22:01because that's just how it feels there's so many things to work on and you've got all these
22:06scenes in all these episodes and you know notes and revisions and whatever and so you're
22:12you know you have to kind of trick yourself into being like i've done this before and
22:16it'll it'll be over i mean like i remember feeling that way before i'd made
22:19an album with billy i remember being like maybe i'm never gonna finish this album
22:24because you feel that way every time but then you do and then when you feel that way the next
22:28time
22:28you think like yes but you will because you know everything eventually does get finished so
22:34that uh was part of it and then i always tried to just sort of like the other thing was
22:39um
22:40oscar isaac's character josh plays this guy who's like to put it mildly like not great with his money
22:47and he has this man cave and he has a old vintage synth in the man cave that's like very
22:53expensive
22:54and he clearly bought it because he was a fan of like hot chip or else he sounds like i'm
22:59gonna buy
22:59this cool synth and so i was like oh it'd be really funny if like a lot of the score
23:03is like played on
23:04that synth because i had like one like it so i started playing it on this synth that uh oscar
23:11isaac's character has in his garage um which i just thought was like that's really fun and i get
23:17this excuse to do this and there wasn't that plot line and disclaimer or vengeance so it's gonna
23:22automatically sound different to those things what was it like when you finally finished i know you
23:28mentioned saying that this kind of felt like a really long project what was it like when you hit
23:32that final note and you were like ta-da i think you think that you're done like four times
23:37so like i think my friends were like i thought you were done i was like well i'm almost done
23:42i have
23:43this one more thing um but very satisfying i mean satisfying to see it all exist as a as one
23:50piece
23:51and also to to you know i'm a big uh uh you know it's hard for me to sleep at
23:57night if i have
23:58something i'm procrastinating and avoiding doing and so i think that's like such a relief to be
24:03like oh my god i did my i did my work i accomplished the thing you know something to check
24:08off the list
24:08i love check i love checking boxes yeah i love checking stuff off so that's a big and and when
24:15you score stuff you really they the the you know the music editor sends you a sheet of like all
24:20these
24:21things to check off and it feels good every time you every time you change the color of something
24:25from like in progress to like approved approved you can check this interview off your list as well
24:31is that is that the end that was a good that was a good final
24:36she had them in the ear you can wrap it up
24:41there's one more i'm kidding the longest question is
24:43that's so fun thank you so much
24:46thank you guys appreciate it for your time slick ending it was very good
24:49thanks guys
24:50you
24:51you
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