Interview with Danny Jacob composer for Disney's 'Milo Murphy's Law'

“Disney called me kind of magically.”

Although his dream was to be a rock star, Danny Jacob’s reality has panned out quite differently. As the three-time Emmy nominated composer for shows like Phineas and Ferb, Lilo and Stitch and Sonny with a Chance, Jacob has had the opportunity to arrange theme songs and scores for some of the most popular children’s programming to come out in the past decade.

Now, Jacob is taking on a new challenge as the composer for Disney’s newest animated series Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo Murphy’s Law centers around Milo Murphy, a descendant of Edward A. Murphy, who coined the famed “Murphy’s Law,” which states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Danny Jacob spoke with TheCelebrityCafe.com’s Jorie Goins to describe how to create the right music for a show where everything goes wrong.

TCC: First of all you can just start by telling us about your most recent project, which is Milo Murphy's Law– I watched the first couple of episodes and you can just talk to us about that and how you've been composing music for that and we can just start with that.

DJ: Okay, well I'd love to. Milo Murphy's Law is the creation of Dan Povenmire and Swampy Marsh, who created Phineas and Ferb and I did everything on Phineas and Ferb for the last eight years. So it's like we are keeping the band together and this is their next show and we're all really excited about it. It stars Weird Al Yankovic and it's got some really amazing cast members, some famous people like Christian Slater and a lot of cameo appearances and as far as the music goes it's a little bit of a departure from Phineas and Ferb it's a little – I think a little older audience in a way -- but still it's still got all the depth of characters and all the stuff that people love from Phineas and Ferb. So I produce songs that are written by the show creators and directors and I do all the underscore, which is what I used to do on Phineas and Ferb too. So in other words I write all the music and all the themes and when you hear these songs I sort of produce them like records. Just like I did on Phineas.

TCC: Okay. So, I did hear one of the songs, the song at the football game where they start telling Milo to cheer for the opposing team so they...

DJ: "Rootin' for the Enemy!"

TCC: Absolutely. It's funny. I am 22 years old and I haven't enjoyed a cartoon that much in a while. It was actually very, very funny.

DJ: Really? Well, I'm glad to hear you say that because I have a soon-to-be 22-year-old son, who I ask his opinion – he actually works for me, you'll hear his voice on the show quite a bit, his name is Aaron Daniel Jacob -- I always ask him, what he thinks and usually take his advice. That's great that a young adult likes the show, that means a lot to me.

TCC: How do you go about writing a song for a children's show, because you don't want it to be pedantic and condescending, but you also want it to be for kids so how do you write a song for a children's show.

DJ: Well, first of all, I want to make sure that we understand that I don't write songs. The songs are written by the creators of the show – but I could probably answer that question. They'll be sitting in a room and they'll be storyboarding and thinking about different aspects of the plot and the humor and they kick around with guitars and they'll come up with a phrase like "Rootin' for the Enemy," and that ends up being the title of the episode and they'll knock out a song on an acoustic guitar or a piano and it'll sound really silly and fun and simple, and then they'll give it to me and then basically I did what you hear.

So I want to make sure that we understand that I don't write the songs I make them sound good, I make them sound like records and they'll tell me, "we want this to sound kinda hip and funky," or "we want this to sound really silly and comical." And I think on that case although the lyrics are wacky and we know Milo's purposely – since everything goes wrong, they've figured out a way for the team to win by rooting for the enemy. And you saw it so you remember. So I think in that case if you listen to the music they wanted it to be really serious and gritty, with a hip-hop kind of groove. But the lyrics tell the story.

TCC: Okay so you said there's a slight difference in the music for Phineas and Ferb as opposed to Milo Murphy's Law, what's the difference? Is it in the instrumentation? Is it in the speed? Where are the differences?

DJ: I would say that they're related but I would call the music a little more cinematic, a little more connected and a little less comical.

TCC: In Milo Murphy's Law?

DJ: Yeah. Although there's tons of jokes but I take –I just treat it very seriously like a movie.

TCC: And what's the reason for that? Is that what you were told to do? Or is it from what you got from the show or is there a reason why you're taking this a bit more seriously than Phineas and Ferb?

DJ: Well, I took that equally as seriously. I think that these characters–Milo Murphy, the basic–I guess let me backtrack. So it's called Milo Murphy's Law and he's the great-grandson of Murphy of Murphy's Law and as you know Murphy's Law means everything that can go wrong will go wrong. So every episode has long action-adventure, disaster, death-defying crazy stuff. Sometimes it's funny and other times it's – you know it's not really scary, but it's exciting and suspenseful. We could be talking about an RV that goes off track and goes into a river and then there's a waterfall and every episode has long – so it gives me the opportunity to score a long piece of music – with Phineas, it had some of that too by the way but less. So Phineas would be a lot more stopping and starting so I guess that probably would be the best way to describe it.

TCC: How does the score, I've always been curious about this, how does the score get added to the television show? I've always imagined a bunch of instrumentalists playing along with the episode, but I don't know if that's what happens. I'm so curious about that.

DJ: I think that's a fantastic question. And my answer is that, it used to be, not that I want to give away my age, but what you're talking about used to happen a lot more than it does now where there'd be a lot of people, like a band or an orchestra playing. But it's always, even before, after, first the movie's made or the episode is made and then they'll send it to a composer, even in the old days. The difference now is that – so I'll have a picture with no music on it and this hasn't changed they'll have what's called a temp sometimes and a temp is musical ideas that they like, let's say from different movies. And it's to give me an idea of what they want. So they could temp a scene with Jaws or they could temp a scene from 10 Cloverfield Lane. They could temp a scene from anything they like and that gives me an, "oh, that's the direction you want to go." That hasn't changed. What has changed is with technology, composers can sit in their own studio all by themselves with – and you've probably seen it if you're into music – you've probably been to friend's studios or composers studios where you can do a lot, you have a whole orchestra at your fingertips with very well recorded samples.

You've seen Garageband. I'm just assuming that you know what I'm talking about so, composers have a lot of power to do stuff on their own. But what I do that's different is –I've been a guitar player my whole life and I've played with live musicians my whole life–I played every bar in L.A., every Bar Mitzvah in L.A., every nightclub, I've toured with big acts, big stars through the 90s so I do a combination of both and the most exciting thing on Milo Murphy's Law is I've introduced big band into some of the action scenes with live musicians and it's gone over really well so far.

TCC: So, you've also done work on Sonny with a Chance, which is a live-action show.

DJ: Yeah, I did some of that, yeah.

TCC: So is there a difference between animated shows and live action shows?

DJ: Yeah. Yeah. They feel completely different to me. That was all about the comedy and it was a lot less music. Where you just do little zings into a scene and then lay out sort of like the way –you'd remember–if you remember Seinfeld or any kind of comedy show. There's a lot less music and it's a lot more silly.

TCC: Oh, okay.

DJ: Because it's all about the actors and their bits and with animation it can sometimes be wall-to-wall music.

TCC: So how do you capitalize on those shows or moments when you have less music and less time to make your musical point? How do you capitalize on that?

DJ: You're asking great questions, I'm actually going to have to think about it for a second [laughs] because that's actually more difficult. And even in terms of Phineas and Ferb, which had a lot of music, Milo is closer to a movie because of what I described, the longer scenes so when you don't have a lot of time you have to just get to the point quickly and that point could be – you have to decide what the scene is, the essence of it. And if it's a character that I've written themes for, which I'm doing – which I've done. There's one character that you're going to love called Elliot, the crossing guard and he's played by Christian Slater and I've written a theme for him and he's a real law and order kind of guy. He's got a thing about Milo. He's not really a bad guy but he just, he's overbearing and he's funny, but it turns out that to make extra money he has to sell waffles and they have a 1/2 off special. So he gets pretty frustrated. But I had to decide, "who is this guy?" And I finally listened to old cop shows like Dragnet, I don't know if you've heard of that show.

TCC: Yes, I have.

DJ: So to answer your question, the hardest part is to decide who the person is. Once you know who he is, then you've got his theme and then if you only have five seconds you sting him in with his theme and then go out.

TCC: Wow, so do you have a favorite character theme or even a song that you've arranged the music for? Do you have a favorite piece of music from this show?

DJ: Well, there's a character I'm starting to like the most. Her name is Amanda and I think that she likes Milo and what's amazing about Amanda is that she likes everything to be perfect. [Laughs] And Milo, everything goes wrong so I've written a theme for her and I like that character a lot. What's great about the Amanda theme is it can be played frantically when she freaks out because people that like the sort of obsessive compulsive, they want everything perfect and there is this –Milo's the opposite. So you can play it like a love theme slowly, and you can play it like a frantic theme. So I guess that's my current favorite.

But the thing is, the show's just started and the characters keep developing and more characters come. I've written a theme for Cavendish and Dakota, I don't know if you've seen these two men that mysteriously appear, you may have only seen the pilot so you'll see these two men that appear and they're sort of like, I don't want to give away the plot yet, but they appear and then they disappear and what the hell just happened. And they have an interesting theme it's a little more Simpsons-like, that I'm starting to use a lot.

TCC: So let me backtrack a little because I'm curious, how did you get into writing for children's programming specifically or was that always what you wanted to do?

DJ: No, I would say that it came to me. I think that my career is not a straight line. I wanted to be a guitar player when I was really young, I wanted to be a rock star. And I had lots of bands. But I also grew up in L.A. with some of the finest musicians. I went to high school with some of the finest musicians in the world and that really influenced me into becoming a more professional musician, you study it more, you learn how to read. My career, the first half was more of a professional guitar player. Somewhere in the '90s, even before that, I always was good at tearing apart songs and making songs sound good for other people as well as myself. In the '90s I met Hans Zimmer and he had me do that for him and that's where the pivot happened. He was very generous with his time. He's an amazing composer, world renowned and a lot of great composers have come out of his world. It's sort of like whoever he touches learns a lot and goes on – like Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell. They were all there before they were famous and they were all very generous with their time and I learned a lot and that's when the pivot happened I said "wow! I'd like to do this." So I studied the orchestra a little more and Disney called me kind of magically, so I've been with them for 15 years starting with songs, theme songs like –I wrote the song to Lilo and Stitch–you're my son's age so you remember that theme song.

TCC: I remember that. When I saw that I started to hear it because I still remember that theme song very vividly.

DJ: [Sings Lilo and Stitch theme] well that was my first home run with them and, how long ago was that? You probably know better than I do at this point.

TCC: That was about 2004, because I had Lilo and Stitch the movie and I was really excited when the show came out. So that was around 2004.

DJ: So you were–

TCC: Like 10.

DJ: Yeah so it's great that you're my son's age and that you and Aaron grew up with that stuff. He grew up watching me do that and I always had him to  – you're going to hear his voice all over Milo Murphy's Law.

TCC: Who does he voice? Or does he not voice a specific character?

DJ: He sings a lot of the songs, he's not an actor. He sang a lot of the songs on Phineas and Ferb, too.

TCC: Oh wow.

DJ: He is an actor, he's a film student at Chapman. He's an actor and a singer and a filmmaker. But on these shows they love his voice so we use him on a lot of songs that were supposed to not be a cast member's it's just somebody that's singing the song telling the story. The song you heard was sung by the star, Weird Al.

TCC: So when you have music for a television show when it's just getting started is it kind of expected that the music is going to change or are you kind of sticking to a formula?

DJ: No, I'm not sticking to a formula. It evolves. And that's a great question because it evolves for a while because the characters and the plot reveal themselves to me just like it does to the audience. You've got to remember a composer gets an episode way after, they know way more than I know, except I'll go out to lunch with my boss and he'll tell me things – the creator of the show. So it evolves and somewhere by the time the first season is over, you can say that it's realized itself and then you go into the second season where it's been fully realized but I think that if you allow it to continue to evolve, that's a really good thing. You should never be locked into a formula. I guess – it's such a complicated question you ask because it's sort of a yes and no question.

TCC: So, you're primarily a guitarist. Do you play any other instruments or do all of your ideas come through a guitar?

DJ: Well, every composer will have a mini keyboard that triggers all of the samples. So I'll play every instrument. So, if I'm working on a french horn sample you play the register of the instrument. But my main instrument is the guitar so if I feel like the character wants to be a little more rock or a little more funky or something, it's nice to have my friend –my Gibson Les Paul, it's nice to have an instrument to turn to. Yeah, that's the only instrument that I really would say I play. But you know composers these days are pretty flexible, they learn how to do a lot of things but guitar is my main instrument.

TCC: So you've clearly found a passion in doing music for children's programming, children's movies...do you have a favorite type of music?

DJ: Yeah. I have a few favorite types of music but, when you're a composer your job is to understand all music because your bosses, especially if you're doing an animated series because it's going to run the gamut so that's the beauty of my job is that I've grown a lot. I've fallen in love with styles of music from becoming a composer. But I have to say I'm a '70s classic rock lover. I love Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin to me is – that's it and I love funk. I loved Prince and the influences that – influenced Prince like James Brown and then back to Zeppelin they were influenced by Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson and Howlin’ Wolf and all the great blues artists of the '50s and '40s but I've also really fallen in love with–I think most composers know The Planets by heart. If you study The Planets especially Mars it's sort of the basis of so much dramatic action adventure movies. So I love orchestral music from Mahler to Shostakovich to Polz and then the great composers of our day John Williams to Alan Silvestri, Hans Zimmer.

TCC: You seem very aware of the origins of the origins of the origins of music. So do you try to make sure that comes through when you're composing, no matter what type of film or show it's for? Do you try to make sure that everything draws from whatever origins it may have?

DJ: Well, I guess the best way to answer that question is knowledge is power. It's only necessary to make your boss happy and if you didn't study Holst–I started studying some of the great classical composers after I'd gotten Phineas and Ferb. I'd already gotten the job, they already liked something about me, which was probably that I made their songs sound great because Phineas and Ferb is a song-generated show, even more than Milo. So the more I studied, the better I got. So if you like a great artist or a great composer you find out who they were influenced by and you go back, it's only going to help. It's a win-win for you.

TCC: So, just to wrap up, do you have anything else you'd like to say, any other projects on the horizon that you want to talk about, any final thoughts?

DJ: Well, I would say that, I just want to thank TheCelebrityCafe.com for the press and that you've been fantastic and just to really, for all those Phineas and Ferb fans that are starting to like Milo just fasten your seatbelts because you're going to get so many surprises that I can't tell you about right now. You won't be disappointed.