Belgian composer Hannes De Maeyer discusses his newest projects, the soundtracks to psychological thriller Noise and season 2 of crime procedural Professor T, how he kept himself busy during the pandemic, as well as his upcoming projects.

It’s been almost three years since we had our last chat. It looks like you’ve been very busy. What’s new?

On the personal side, my daughter was born at the beginning of 2020. Three months after she was born, the lockdown was announced. So, for us, it was kind of like a present. We could spend so much time together with our little new family. We were kept in our bubble as everybody but we had a newborn so it was pretty special and precious.

Of course, professionally, the whole world was like, ‘What’s happening?’. Everything stopped for a minute, but I was lucky enough. I think in May I started working on an animation series called Ninja Express. The animators could just continue animating at home on their computers so that the project was not delayed. In the UK it’s on [CBBC]. That was a really nice project. Lots of work, obviously, it’s like 53 episodes of 10 minutes. Every week we had to deliver one. I think it took like a year and a half.

I also worked on the sequel of Immenhof [Immenhof – Das Abenteuer eines Sommers].

And also, on Rebel by Adil [El Arbi] and Bilall [Fallah]. Which is a big project. It’s pretty ambitious. It also needed songs to be composed before the shoot so it’s like a kind of a musical, but not really a musical. It has songs but it’s mostly rap or Arabic flavours. I worked together on the rap lyrics with the main actor, Aboubakr Bensaihi. For the more lyrical songs, I also worked together with Oum, who is a famous singer from Morocco who lives in France. And that was amazing. Her voice is so nice. And the way she approaches songs, the lyrics, it’s so poetic. I composed the songs for that movie and then they went on to do the shooting. And then after the movie was finished in the editing room I also had to make, of course, the other score. It’s also with choreography and stuff so it’s an amazing project.

STILL FROM PROFESSOR T

And then, Professor T, which is also pretty exciting because I worked on the Belgian version – I think sevenish years ago. It was really nice to revisit that world. But on the other hand, I couldn’t use the music I did for the first one, obviously. It’s a different director; a different actor; it’s in English; it’s not in Belgium, but in Cambridge. So, it had a little bit of a different vibe; a little bit more cinematic, I guess.

To start on Professor T was sometimes, in the beginning, a little bit daunting because I knew the world of Professor T, the Belgian version, so well. So, it was like a puzzle to solve: ‘How can I approach using the same fabric but adding something new to the table?’. And pretty soon I was really inspired by the talks with the director, Dries Vos. But also, when I saw the images coming from the shoots, I could follow the scenes that they recorded that day. I made like 10 or 11 themes. I sent them to the director just to try. And I think almost all those ideas have become a theme in the show. So that was really cool that I was pretty fast on the right track with those themes.

Season 2 came out recently. Professor Tempest is working more closely with the police, and he is taking steps towards growing. And so, he reluctantly goes to see a therapist. As he grows, how does the music evolve in this season?

The music in the second season is a little bit more serious, there’s a little bit more tension. And also, it’s a little darker. I think in the first season, there were lighter themes or lighter moods – there are still some lighter scenes, but in general, the music grew up a little bit, so to speak. It became a little bit more serious. And it was nice to revisit a lot of the themes that I’d created for the first season and adapt them, evolve them, let them grow up together with the series.

The one thing I noticed is that in the first season, I used the theme of the Professor – the main theme – a lot of times during the soundtrack, and I remember now when I listen to the soundtrack [of season 2] that there was less room for that. I tried to implement the theme, but it didn’t work with the images, it was mostly too much – which is not a bad thing, I think. It’s just something that happened.

Even though the professor can be quite serious and stiff, on the other hand, we have these more comical images, where he starts hallucinating, or the scenes with his mom and her little dog Kafka. How did you manage to marry the two styles and come up with such a harmonious soundtrack?

I don’t know how, but it felt mostly natural like in every project in that the images are dictating what you need to make and because the series switches between those light comical moments and then in the next scene you see the murder scene. But I think what glues it together is the instrumentation and the style of music. It has that retro feel but also those jazz elements in there and then the strings and the woodwinds which you can use in both atmospheres, in both moods.

And it works really well with the Italian songs selected for the movie.

Definitely. That has nothing to do with me, obviously, but indeed with those Italian songs, you also have that fabric of that retro-jazzy feel. I love those songs. It’s a nice era. I wasn’t born then but my love for that kind of music I think comes through the music.

STILL FROM NOISE

Another project of yours which was released recently on Netflix, is the psychological thriller Noise. You have a bit in common with the main character, Matthias. He’s also a new dad.

Exactly. It was funny because when I started working on the movie, my daughter was, I think, not even two months old. So, sometimes it felt like Inception because I was working on a scene where there were baby cries and then I also heard them in another place, farther away. And then I was like, ‘Is it in the movie or not?’ [laughing] Then I placed pause, and, ‘Oh, no. it’s the real one.’.  It was immersive. So yeah, I felt indeed a lot of connection with him and a lot of times in the movie, I thought, ‘Yeah, I get you.’. Luckily for me, I didn’t lose my mind. [laughing] Or not up to the point that Mattias did. But yeah, that was a special thing to experience that me and Matthias were in the same phase in our lives so that was funny.

Was there a brief or did you have more freedom to play around?

There was quite some freedom involved. The director [Steffen Geypens] had some temps in the movie and we talked a little bit about the music, but it was more like, ‘You have to try to find the right music for the project.’. But you only see it when you put it under the images, and [either] it works or not.

It was a difficult one to start because finding the right tone and the right moods was in the beginning pretty hard. It needed to be subtle but not too subtle. Hints of the horror, but not too much. It was maybe also because of the sleep I didn’t have at the time so that didn’t help as well. But when we found the right direction, we were on the train and then it went better and better and easier like that.

STILL FROM NOISE

Did you start working directly after seeing the picture or did you start with the script?

For this project, it was after I saw the locked cut or one or two of the latest versions of the edit. It was not based on the scripts. Obviously, I did read the script, but I didn’t start before I saw the images. So, I read a script and I visited the set just to get the atmosphere.

I can hear some extended techniques in the soundtrack. Can you tell me more about that?

One of the things that I thought was fitting for the movie was to have a pretty small section so you could hear the separate musicians. So, we only had a group of 12 string players. And also, an idea for what I wanted to use is indeed extended techniques because we didn’t want a sound that was too clean and too polished. So, I worked a lot with quarter-tone bands or different bands where you have an uneasy tone. But also, a lot of cluster things [that create] tension, where some players do tremolo, others do thrills and then you combine those in a nice-sounding cluster chord. I also asked the soloists to play a little bit sul tasto and sometimes sul ponticello. The idea was to not have the perfect sound.

And that helps the mystery of the movie and the music.

And also, because of those techniques, it was the first time that I conducted the orchestra which was pretty nerve-wracking. In the beginning, I felt not really comfortable because I hadn’t been doing it, but pretty soon I became comfortable enough and I wanted to be there because of all those techniques so that I could explain to the musicians [what to do]. So, it was a really nice experience for me. I felt really connected with the musicians. Otherwise, you’re in the booth. It’s something different to be in front of the musicians directly.

While working on Noise, did you discover any interesting sounds or techniques that you’d like to reuse in the future?

 Yeah, I think all of them. Definitely the mysterious ones like the sul ponticello but also the quarter tone bands or the halftone bands. It’s really effective.

Also, I’ve used an instrument called a halldorophone. I was aware of the instruments because Hildur [Guðnadóttir] used it for Joker and Chernobyl, but I didn’t pay attention to it enough. I think I just love those soundtracks. But then when I started working on Noise, there was a guy who emailed me [and said], ‘I play the halldorophone. These are some examples. If you ever need something like this you can always contact me.’ and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is perfect for this movie!’. So that’s also something I really want to use more in the future because it has so much character, it’s something you haven’t heard before – well, you have, but it’s not like it’s a clarinet or something – so it has a lot of atmosphere.

Is it versatile as an instrument?

Yeah, it’s versatile but it’s also really difficult because every take is different. You cannot recreate the same thing because it uses overtones and feedback. Which is interesting, but you better record it, otherwise… But yeah, you can do so much with it. But you need two persons to control it. The two musicians, Konstantinos Chinis and Ilias Pantelias, they live in Greece. I haven’t met them, so they recorded it at home, and we went back and forth. I didn’t have the pleasure to witness it in person, so hopefully, in the future, I will.

There are a couple of moments in the film where the cues are quite different in style from one another but the way they transition from one to the other into the next scene is seamless; the music travels with the story and the characters uninterrupted. How did you manage to create such a smooth transition?

Good question. We were always aware to make the music subtle enough. That was the key thing that the director wanted, to not make it too obvious. It’s mostly there in the background and gives a flavour to the scenes. I guess that’s maybe one of the tricks.

HANNES DE MAEYER AT WSA 2020. ©JEROEN WILLEMS

How was your collaboration with the director? Did you learn anything new while working with him?

It was a really nice collaboration. The funny thing is I already knew him for a lot of years and lately he did a lot of post-production supervision on a lot of the projects I did. So, I hadn’t worked with him as a director so it was nice to work with that hat.

I hadn’t done that sort of movie before, so it was really interesting to hear him teach me a bit about the genre and the music that he wanted. That was something I will take with me for the future.

Do you have any interesting projects coming up?

Yeah, definitely. It’s going to be a really fun year this year. Right now, I’m starting on a Dutch series. It’s called The Jewish Council and it’s a World War II movie about the Jewish Council in Amsterdam. It’s like a council that was created. The Germans wanted to collaborate with them, so they did that to prevent the worst from happening, but in the end, they have to choose in the Jewish community who is disposable and who is not. It’s a pretty strong theme. It’s a lot of emotions. And the crazy thing is that it really happened. That’s going to be a really interesting project. Also, music-wise, I think you can add a lot to that. It’s like five episodes.

And then the third season of Professor T which I’m also looking forward to. I’m really happy that there’s a third season so that’s amazing.

And also, a really exciting project for Channel 4 and Starz in the UK, it’s called The Couple Next Door. It’s a thrillerish series starring Sam Heughan from Outlander and Eleanor [Tomlinson] from Poldark. I’m really excited for that one. It’s going to be lots of fun.

Belgian composer Hannes De Maeyer is hands down one of Europe’s most versatile composers. To be convinced of this fact, one need look no further than his gorgeous soundtrack for the Belgian war drama ‘Torpedo’, which summons the flair of old Hollywood war scores; or ’Gangsta’, a thriller imbued in 80s nostalgia with its old-school electronic sonic world; or the tense soundscape he crafted for the Amsterdam-set crime series, ‘Women of the Night’.

As it turns out, 2020 is a busy year for Hannes and he has a few exciting upcoming projects up his sleeve. He re-teamed with his long-time collaborators, Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah (‘Bad Boys For Life’), for ‘Rebel’, which is set for release in 2022, ‘The Racer’, which was selected for this year’s SXSW and will premiere in Belgium theatres on 9 September, as well as the sequel to ‘Immenhof – Das Abenteuer eines Sommers’, titled ‘Immenhof – Das Grosse Versprechen’.

Tell me about your beginnings as a media composer. Have you always wanted to write music for film and TV?

I started learning the piano when I was a kid. I wanted to play the drums but my parents didn’t let me because I was already making a lot of noise on the pots and the pans. [laughs] But after about five years I did also learn the drums.

I also studied French horn, but then I was already in the conservatory in Ghent so I didn’t have much time to practice enough. I was more composing and stuff. I had to let that instrument go, but I’m still a huge fan of the French horn. But yeah, I was always interested in movies in general. I was and still am a huge Disney fan.

HANNES DE MAEYER BY SANDER BUYCK

Alan Menken!

That’s my hero! [laughs] Well, I have several heroes but he’s one of them, definitely. ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, all those Disney movies where music is, of course, very important. From a young age, I was in awe of all that music. I listened a lot to it and then tried to play it.

When I was really young I went to Disneyland in Paris with friends of my parents and I saw in the shop a big book with all the notes and all the songs. I wanted the book so bad! I was not polite, I was like crying and stuff. Just to say I was already obsessed with that music and I wanted the piano book to play the Disney songs.

Later, when I was in secondary school, [for an assignment] for the music class I chose to write about film music. I also let them hear my favourite tunes by composers like John Williams and Harry Gregson-Williams that I had burned on a CD.

In my last year, I did an essay about the music of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’. I had watched the movie hundreds of times [laughs] and I wrote a complete guide about the music.

Do you play any instruments on your own scores?

Yeah, when there’s some percussion I try to record percussion here and there. My drum hasn’t been set up for years now, so I’ll usually ask a drummer because I’m a little rusty in playing the drums [laughs]. I could do it, of course, but it’s easier and better to use a professional player. I play the piano and all the other instruments that are programmed on my computer.

Because I’m a pianist, as a composer, I play music and I improvise until I feel it’s good and then I start from there.

HANNES DE MAEYER BY SANDER BUYCK

You’re quite a versatile composer. You compose in styles such as orchestral, modern electronic, 80s electronic, instrumental, and so on. But what is your preference?

I like to be versatile and I like to do different things because you can dig deeper in a certain style or in certain sounds. I think that’s what attracts me also to making film music – that it’s not the same every time.

In ‘Gangsta’, there is no real orchestra or real instruments, it’s just programmes. But on the other hand, there was ‘Torpedo’, where it’s only the orchestra and then nothing digital. But I don’t think I have a preference. But, of course, considering the music I was listening to in Disney movies and stuff like that, I have a big love for orchestras, strings, orchestration, etc.

I think it’s the combination of both – or sometimes separate – that makes it so interesting for me. So it’s hard to choose.

‘Torpedo’ must have been an amazing opportunity for you then, as it’s such a bombastic, rich, Hollywood-sounding score.

That was definitely a dream project. I had so much fun writing for it. They don’t make projects like that here in Belgium. It was a really nice opportunity to make music like that.

Also because I’m a huge fan of Michael Giacchino. I had listened to his ‘Medal of Honor’ soundtrack a lot of times. I really love those soundtracks. And then ‘Torpedo’ came around and they wanted WW2 action music. So that was a bit my homage to that kind of music and it was so fantastic to finally write it. And also to see how difficult it is to make [laughs]. Because it was really hard work. It’s so many notes and so much to write. It was a challenge, but a really fun one.

How did you get the project?

It was actually through the producers. I’ve known them for a very long time and they like to work with me and they’re always – I hope [laughs] – happy with the results. They were on board for the first feature film of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, called ‘Image’. They also produced ‘Black’ and ‘Gangsta’. So they proposed me to the director.

You worked on a number of projects with Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. What attracts you to the projects that they bring to the table? What makes you come back every time to collaborate with them?

 First of all, I did a lot of projects with them.

Secondly, one of the producers on ‘A Team Productions’ [‘Image’, ‘Black,’ Torpedo’, Gangsta’] is Hendrik [Verthé]. When I was in my last year of conservatory, I wanted to do my final project about the making of film music. I had to investigate how to make the results sound really realistic and enhance the samples with the use of certain real players.

So I wrote to the film school’s final year [students], and he was in his last year, making a short movie. He wrote me back. So that was our first collaboration – him as a director and me as a composer. When he graduated the year after, he chose to found ‘A Team Productions’ with his partner and since then we’ve worked on a lot of projects.

They’re more like friends at this point because we’ve worked together so much and also the projects they bring to the table are interesting. They are producers who are willing to take risks. For example, with ‘Torpedo’, as I said, it was never done before in Belgium. All the other producers had said, ‘No, that’s impossible.’ And ‘A Team Productions’ have the balls to say, ‘Yeah, fuck it. Let’s go for it. We’ll get there.’  They are really brave.

ADIL EL ARBI AND BILALL FALLAH WITH WILL SMITH AND MARTIN LAWRENCE DURING THE FILMING OF ‘BAD BOYS FOR LIFE’. ©INSTAGRAM

It sounds like you guys are growing together at the same time.  

Yeah, exactly. Also, I think that’s because we did the first feature of Adil and Bilall. It was not only their first feature but the first also for mostly everyone who worked on it. It was one family that gives everything to the projects so that was really nice.

For example, the DOP, Robrecht Heyvaert, he grew so much. He recently did ‘Bad Boys for Life’ with Adil and Bilall. So it’s nice to see everybody grow. It’s like a small family.

Do you ever get into heated arguments due to creative differences?

Sure. We try to keep it chill. But at the end of the day, the big chief is the director, of course. But, sometimes there are differences in artistic views. Then I try to convince them – sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn’t work. But that’s part of the game.

I’ve never had any director to fight. It’s always respectful. But, of course, when I’m convinced of a certain way the music should be in a certain scene or I’ve made something that I think it’s perfect and they want me to change it, it always hurts a bit. Not personally, but it’s like, ‘Argh!’ [laughs] But, of course, that’s the way it goes. It’s part of the job. You have to leave your ego outside and just think, ‘OK, let’s make something different and let’s also make it work out.’

What about ‘Gangsta’? In recent years, we’ve seen a revival of the 80s electronic sound. How did you guys come up with this direction for this score?

 All credits to Adil and Bilall for giving the first spark of the idea of going 80s. The style of the whole movie and the script is all in that 80s colourful style, with a games vibe. I think the briefing was 80s electronic music, but also games, flashy, over the top. Then I did my first proposals and they loved it. So we continued working on that route.

In ‘Women of the Night’, the score is most of the time tense and it supports the continuous tension throughout the series. How did you come up with the soundscape for this project? 

It involved a lot of talk with the creator of the series. We discussed that there are three worlds: the women, the underworld, but also the family. He wanted to have different things for those three worlds, but at the same time to link them. And I think he wanted it to be not too symphonic. And I felt the same. It needed to be sometimes between music and sound design, slowly evolving, not always in your face.

What I did was write three-four themes for the different worlds which I sent to them and the directors, and they liked them. Actually, I don’t think they didn’t like any demo, which is really rare and I think all those themes were used in the actual series. But for me it was important to link the worlds using the same sounds or the same harmonic language so they can be interlocked. For example, the family theme I’d link with a sound from the women of the night world and it would become something different.

The music is, indeed, not in your face. Was that the intention of the directors as well, for it to take a step back?

Yeah, indeed. And one of the directors, Dries Vos, he’s a big fan of slowly building and building. There’s one track on the soundtrack – I think it’s from the end of episode 3 or 4 – that repeats more or less the same chords, but it’s building and building. That was something he really wanted.

Your most recent project is the documentary ‘De Stig’, about the rehabilitation after an accident of the cyclist Stig Broeckx. What attracted you to the project?

It’s almost fiction. He had an accident and all the doctors said, ‘Yeah, he’s going to be in a coma for the rest of his life.’ or ‘He’s never going to be able to walk again.’ And through some miracle, he wakes up but he can’t do a lot. He’s a professional sportsman and he has the power to do all those exercises. He grows and keeps on rebuilding himself. At the end, he can ride a bike again.

I wanted to make music for that because it’s such an amazing story, it’s crazy. Also because I’m not a big cycling fan – it’s not like I stay at home on Sunday to watch cycling – but the story goes further than that world. It’s so universal and he is such a wonderful and inspiring person.

You created the score together with Illuminine (Kevin Imbrechts). How did you manage to collaborate well and merge your own individual styles for this score?

It was an interesting collaboration. I’m a pianist and he’s more guitar-oriented. But also, there are similarities, like making atmospheres. What we did was, sometimes he added guitar things to pieces I’d written, and vice versa.

I didn’t know him before, but he’s such a nice guy and we get along so well. It was a good collaboration because I’m not a guitarist and you come up with different sounds and different results than you’d do on your own.

ILLUMININE (KEVIN IMBRECHTS). ©DESIREE ROUSSEAU

Did you guys have any disagreements in terms of the musical direction?

 No, not at all. Kevin’s so easy going. He’s one of the nicest and calmest persons I’ve ever met. We made the music in January. On the 7^th January, I became a dad for the first time, so it was a hectic period. For the music, we divided the pieces and sent them to each other. And then we enhanced them. So there were no fights.

The director of the documentary asked for us to meet because he had heard Kevin’s music and he thought, ‘Ah, that would be a nice sound to have in my documentary.’ He asked me, ‘Is it OK? Do you want to collaborate?’ And I said, ‘Of course.’

I had done movies and documentaries before so I had the experience. It’s something different to making music for like a CD. It was good for Kevin to have someone who had experience with that. I could guide him a bit with all the technical stuff and how to name things. You need the same system otherwise you get lost. In the beginning, he sent me files but with no timecode or some name. In the beginning, he didn’t even insert the movie in his project so I said, ‘No, no, you have to watch the movie before.’ [laughs]

But it was a wonderful collaboration and I’m really proud of the results. That’s the most important thing. I think we made something special and it will always be linked with my baby girl. It was in between the diapers that I was making the music [laughs].

You’ve worked on a bunch of fantastic projects and I’m sure you’ve enjoyed all of them but is there a particular one that you’re most proud of so far?

That’s hard. It’s like choosing between your children. It’s really hard also because they are so different. ‘Torpedo’ was something that I’m really proud of for the reason’s I’ve mentioned. I think I’m also really happy with ‘Black’. I was really happy when we mixed it. It’s difficult to choose because every project is so nice.

‘Image’ is maybe not on the top of my list, but I enjoyed working on it and it was the first movie. A lot of things could’ve been better but it’s a learning experience and if I hadn’t had that I wouldn’t have made the things that came [afterwards] in a certain way, so it was a learning school.

Any exciting upcoming projects?

Yes! I’m currently working on Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s newest project called ‘Rebel’. It will be released in 2022.

I will also start working on the sequel to  ‘Immenhof – Das Abenteuer eines Sommers’, titled ‘Immenhof – Das Grosse Versprechen’.

‘The Racer’ is another project I’ve worked on that will premiere in Belgian theatres on 9 September.