The Newman show
Ahead of his first ever New Zealand shows, Oscar-winning moviemusic legend and singer-songwriter Randy Newman tells Russell Baillie about joining the “family business”, becoming the sound of Pixar studios and taking the mickey out of politicians.
Ahead of his first New Zealand shows, Oscar-winning movie-music legend and lauded singersongwriter Randy Newman tells Russell Baillie about becoming the sound of Pixar studios and taking the mickey out of politicians.
He’s scored dozens of movies and released just as many albums from his other life as a sardonic, satirical storytelling singer-songwriter. Among two Oscars (from 20 nominations) and seven Grammys, he’s had one non-movie hit – Short People from 1977 album Little Criminals – but plenty of other singers have ridden his songs into the charts since the 1960s.
Randy Newman is best known these days as the sound of the Toy Story movies, although he’s just featured on 5 Year Plan, a highlight from Chance the Rapper’s new album, The Big Day.
He’s also a contradictory figure, a Los Angeles-born artist seemingly destined to be in the movie-music business, like many of his extended family, but he’s also a rock-music cult hero for his solo work and his status as a songwriter’s songwriter.
On his 1992 LA-recorded album, Soft Bomb, The Chills’ Martin Phillipps offered Song for Randy Newman etc, which bracketed him with Brian Wilson and others in the musical tribute (see page 48).
Now, at age 75,
Newman is on his way to play a series of solo shows in New Zealand for the first time.
You haven’t performed here before, but you have visited …
Yes, I ruined some fishing rods that were owned by New Zealanders. And even that time, it was more an attempt at fishing than actual fishing. You have a beautiful country.
Thank you. People keep telling us that …
I know. You get used to it.
We really must tidy it up sometime. You are doing quite a lot of touring in the new year. Why?
Because I haven’t done it. I had some stuff scheduled and got sick [Newman had a knee replacement] and I couldn’t do it. I just did a couple of movies and that took a long time. So, I’m going out.
indie drama Marriage Story. Are the Pixar movies harder because, as cartoons, you have to fill in all the gaps?
I think they’re harder just simply because of the amount of notes that are required. You know when Tom Hanks’ Woody falls out of a drawer in Toy Story? I have to go badum-badum-badum. In one of his own movies, you don’t have to do that.
Given your family’s involvement in the business, was it inevitable you would end up making music for the movies?
Maybe. When I was a kid, I think my father wanted me to do that. It’s what his brothers did and he thought it was great. Then the singer-songwriter thing came up. Songwriter and then singer-songwriter. It delayed it, but maybe it was inevitable for me.
How did creating movie music affect your songwriting?
It’s a different and wider harmonic vocabulary. Rock‘n’roll can sometimes just be three chords, five or six chords and words and it’s all right, too. I’ve written my share of those. I like it. But I like being able to do something else, and then it improves the songwriting a little bit.
Is doing movie music working on a big canvas and songs working in miniature?
In a way, but movie music is a sequence of miniatures. You’re trying to write one minute 14 seconds in one day, if you’re lucky. And it’s detailed. The songwriting,
I went to Disneyland a while back and I’m all over the place. It was a big surprise.