Randy Edelman page

'Writing music is a very lonely profession, a very insecure one. When you finally perform this music, you're really performing it for an audience who really knows nothing about music, that's the producer and director.'

Personal quote

Not many people are fond of Randy Edelman's music in general, because he doesn't favor a more orchestral approach, say a light representative of Hans Zimmer's style. But name two scores who people all love and those will be Dragonheart and Gettysburg. Especially Dragonheart offers more orchestral grandeur then everything else and Gettysburg remains the attractive and highly respected theme score, with his main theme being used whenever you can imagine it. His career is still far from over and Edelman has become a wide and frequently asked composer. His music has also been used for many trailers and this makes him popular, for at least the fans who respect him the most. He's a frequent collaborator with director Rob Cohen and due to the various projects, Edelman has got the chance to expand and variate his different ideas in all sorts of genres.

Biography

Randy Edelman was born on the 10th of June, 1947 in Patterson New Jersey. Originally trained to be a doctor, Randy soon discovered the love for music and started his musical career as an arranger and songwriter for James Brown, Barry Manilow and The Carpenters. His first musical projects included Television assignments and the popular series MacGyver (I believe every one knows the main theme). In 1988 it all started to transform, his career became slightly full of movie projects and Randy Edelman soon became a master of combining the orchestral sound with the electronic mix. Twins was his first real film score and soon other titles followed. Especially Ghostbusters 2 remains one of Edelman's finest attempts but sadly wasn't released on soundtrack. Other assignments include Kindergarten Cop, Come See the Paradise (successful with movie trailers), My Cousin Vinny, Beethoven, The last of the Mohicans (his first and only Golden Globe nomination where he replaced Trevor Jones in rather rocky circumstances), Gettysburg (one of the best thematic scores of Randy Edelman), The Mask, While You Were Sleeping, Daylight and his highly impressive Dragonheart. Edelman remains a extremely busy artist and scored Anaconda, Six Days Seven Nights, Ed Tv, The Hunley, The Skulls and Shanghai Noon in several years time. XXX was successful with the fans while he co wrote several pieces for Frizzell's Gods and Generals. Shanghai Knights (cool score in the movie) and National Security stirred up more the action comedy efforts. Some comedy with Son of the Mask isn't exactly new a interesting affair. The 10 Commandments, The Last Time, Disney's Underdog, Balls of Fury and the upcoming The Mummy 3 are his most recent works.

December, 1996

Obviously, the film dictated what you created, but it's nice that the music can have a life of its own, and certainly that's happened with my scores, [and even] from films that weren't necessarily successful at the box office.
(on successful trailer pieces)

December, 1996

As far as the success of these pictures go, I try not to think about it and I really have no idea. I thought Diabolique was going to be very successful, and it was like, "Hello!" I would never have thought something like While You Were Sleeping would be this big, all-over-the-world commercial success. It was a nice cute movie. I thought Indian in the Cupboard was wonderful, and it would be very successful. You just don't know..
(on success or bomb movies)

May, 2000

I love Diabolique, for example, and I was really freaked out when that picture just went nowhere. I thought that one was going to happen. The music goes the same way as the picture, which is why it's nice to have the soundtrack.
(overall impression)

May, 2000

The most incredible thing I've gotten away with is the opening of The Whole Nine Yards. It's a baritone sax solo while this guy's brushing his teeth. Knowing everything that I know, in a million years, I would have said they wouldn't go with that and it astonishes me that it's still there. Not only that, but they even lowered the sound of the electric toothbrush so you could hear the music better!.
(on The Whole Nine Yards)

May, 2000

I think there's only one cue in that movie where I almost did a Dragon thing, at the beginning when there's a classic train fighting sequence. I almost did a takeoff of Dragon, like I was sending the character up. It was one of those kind of things where you look to something in the characters to inspire you. Otherwise it's a very different score.
(on Shanghai Noon)