Successful Musicians Podcast – Episode #46:  Matt Novack’s Notes on Networking and Overcoming Rejection

Successful Musicians Podcast Episode 46

Interviewee: Matt Novack

Interviewer: Jason Tonioli

Hey, this is Jason Tonioli. I’m a piano player that grew up believing it wasn’t possible to earn a living and support a family with music. I’ve proven that idea was wrong and I’ve met hundreds of other people who have found success with their music. This podcast features stories of musicians who have found their own personal version of success and fulfillment in both music and life. This podcast is meant to inspire musicians and help them believe in their abilities and motivate them to share their talents with others. This is the Successful Musicians Podcast. 

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Jason: Welcome to the podcast. Today our special guest is a longtime and very successful composer, especially in the TV and film space, Matt Novack. So, Matt, I’m excited to chat with you. I was doing a little bit of research and just seeing some of the projects you’ve done. You’ve done some very fun ones. I think what impressed me most is you’re a guy that’s been doing TV series as a composer, and those are not easy. For our guests, I think we definitely would love to kind of find out how you end up getting into that world, and then how in the world do you survive the tight deadlines that some of these TV series have for music? I’m sure you’ve never had a late night working on music, right?

Matt: Oh, yeah, never at all. No, it happens from time to time. First of all, before I get into tangent, it’s great to be with you and it’s great to meet you, and this will be fun.

Jason: It’s going to be fun. Let’s kind of rewind back, just explain how you got here. I know you went to USC. You’ve worked in several jobs, but when you were a kid, were you one of those kids that loved to play piano, or did you have a mean mom that made you practice? How did you stand up in music at college?

Matt: I had wonderful parents who were really into music and they’re very supportive. I was a drummer, percussionist. My dad even bought me my first drum set without telling my mom. He just showed up at the drum set one day and was like, this is for Matt. He’s going to play drums, he’s going to make a lot of noise, and we’re going to support him. Those are the kinds of parents I have. They’re just very supportive. I didn’t know at the time that that’s what I wanted to do for a living. I was always interested in the film course. When other kids were listening to pop music, (my brother was way into punk rock at the time), I was listening to film soundtracks, and I also listened to heavy metal, too. I was a huge Metallica fan when I was in high school.

Jason: Well, Metallica is about as good as a film score, you put that and mix it with a little punk, you want to talk drummers. If you’re a drummer, I’m sure you’ve heard of Pennywise or heard some of their stuff, right?

Matt: Yeah. Nice. That’s how I started and then I was an okay student. We talked about this before we started recording, but I was really into planes. I considered going into aerospace engineering, but then the music bug hit me, and I really like music. I like film music. So, I ended up applying for college. I got into a good percussion program at Northern Illinois University. They also have a fantastic jazz program, but I am not jazzier. I also studied composition as a secondary. I eventually pivoted to composition fully, got my bachelor’s degree in composition and then went to USC and did their film and TV screen program, which led to me getting work right out of graduating that. They actually helped me get my first job, which was fantastic. That’s the very short version of how I got started.

Jason: When did you start writing music? Was it in college or were you already coming up with stuff when you were with your drums when you were in a band as a kid? Probably?

Matt: Yeah, I was in a band. I started writing in high school. I wrote a piece for Vibrant Bone, another piece for percussion and timpani that I am hesitant to look at to pull those compositions up these days because that was a long time ago and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was like playing around and figuring things out and writing came out of that. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I think at the time when I started college, I figured I was a good percussionist. That seemed more the appropriate music route. Long story short, I was studying both percussion and composition in college and undergrad. Long story short, I actually developed problems with my wrists, so I had to at least take a break from my profession for a while. That’s when I kind of decided to pivot to composition. I’d always planned to maybe do composition as like a graduate program, like a master’s degree or something but that just kind of forced me to pivot to composition fully so I could do that, finish my classes, finish my degree. It’s when I really started studying it with some great professors and really digging into music theory that I started loving it. It dawned on me that this was the appropriate path for me. As much as I miss playing percussion, I still play a little bit. I used to try to play small percussion on some scores. I try to, but yeah, I kind of found my way into composition. Like, I always knew it, but that’s kind of the circuitous route I took.

Jason: You ended up coming out of school and you said you had a job right away. I know there’s lots of people that will go to school, and they think they want to do film or TV, things like that. What advice would you have for that student or somebody that’s kind of going through school now and hoping they can somehow have that happen? What are some things that they should be doing? Or the advice you’d give if you were giving yourself advice going backwards?

Matt: 07:07 I think meet as many people as you can. Networking is so key. It’s one thing I’m actually trying to be better at it this year. I mean, I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years, and I still need to get better at networking. That first job out of school, it kind of just occurred to me that that was my first recommendation. A composer reached out to one of my professors, like, hey, I’m looking for an assistant. Do you know anyone? He’s like, you should talk to Matt. That’s how I get most of my jobs, like, hey, I’m looking for a composer. Do you know anyone? Yes. Call Matt. Anyway, going back to the advice, 08:00 meet as many people as you can. I recommend working for a composer, being a composer assistant. The USC program is fantastic. I think it’s still a one-year program, and they throw a lot. It’s like a boot camp for film composing. They get you started; they teach you everything you know to at least get started in the industry. I also feel like I learned more by actually working for a composer. I worked as an assistant on a show, a film, and so I actually see a composer working through it. The UFC program is fantastic. I think any program like that has different goals, but it’s not until you can’t just sit there and watch someone learn how to score an entire film, that would be the entire program. Just one thing. If you can get a little bit of everything, that’s what I’m sure other film programs do with that program.

Jason: Does that mean that the program has several dozen people going through it at the same time? Is it a really small group? A really tight group?

Matt: It’s a pretty small group. Our group was about 20 people. We’re all friends still to this day, I should say. I think it’s hit or miss, and people are different, but you would think that because we go to this program, we’re all trying to be composers, that’d be some competition, but we all got to be really close, really good friends, and we cheer each other on. Some of my classmates are doing really well, actually. Two of my classmates just got nominated for Emmys this year. So, it’s like, good job.

Jason: Awesome.

Matt: Yeah, I was just at a thing last night for the Emmys. One of them was there. I think it’s been really nice because sometimes we work together, sometimes a lot of the times we work on our own things, but just being really kind of happy and proud for my classmates and my friends. I have other composer friends that I didn’t go to school with, but just really seeing them succeed and grow great.

Jason: I don’t think a lot of people appreciate what goes into TV. Just the music that goes into TV series. I’d love to just hear your take on what’s kind of that process. So, if somebody’s thinking, okay, I think I want to do this, or what is it like to score a TV series?

Matt: It depends. It can be really tight. The schedules can be very tight, but it’s fun. The tightness, tight deadlines really kind of force you to make decisions. Sometimes it is kind of nice to have a deadline looming, like, okay, I got to get this done, get this idea out. There’s a saying, first idea, best idea. It’s like, okay, I have this idea. It’s great, put it down, move on. Sometimes that works, sometimes I do that. Then I look back like, oh, I could have done something different. Yeah, it depends. I’ve dealt with the extremes. I did the show Murderville, which came out two years ago. We were working on two episodes a week for three weeks. Six episodes. That was pretty tight. It did get pushed a little bit, so we got a little bit more breathing room, but that was when, okay, I got an idea.

Jason: You typically would have time to kind of put together some ideas and put the palette and the recipes for, okay, we’re going to use these instruments, so you knew at least the general direction ahead of time. Then when it does come time, you get the video portions or clips sent to you. Are those directors really tough to work with sometimes? Not just with you. I’m just wondering, as you’ve talked to others in the industry, what can a composer do to make that as pleasant as possible?

Matt: I think communication and collaboration. Thankfully, in Murderville, the production was one of my recurring clients. It’s the same production company that did Children’s Hospital and Medical Police. I had already had a relationship with them. The head writer/showrunner, Christopher Johnson, and I are friends so I could say, he knew the schedule is tight, so he would have loved to give notes and play around with ideas, but there was just no time. So thankfully he was really respectful of that. That was one of the things. Like the first day, I came up with a main theme and a kind of general idea approach and tone for the score. We did go through some revisions for the main theme, but then once that was set, we just kind of just hit the ground running. Thankfully, I have a little bit of a team.

I have another composer that helped me with that. His name is Greg Martin. He and I have been working together a lot for the past few years. He also worked on Miracle Workers, End Times. Speaking of that, that was the opposite. They baked into the schedule for the first couple of months, working on themes, working on approaches, styles, the palette and then, when we started scoring, then even that was like practically two episodes a week. We had already baked in everything. We’d already started scoring early before things. We weren’t kind by the end of the season, then we started kind of hitting deadlines. That was really nice but it’s just so different. It was more like a film. You usually typically not always, you get a little bit more breathing room and you do have a little more time to kind of play around, try different ideas. I think over the years, especially lately, regardless of the deadline, just try to work every day. I try to work Monday through Friday, nine to five, like typical normal person work hours. Try to write every day or at least plan out what I’m about to write, planning out a score, planning out a queue every day. That helps too. That helps with deadlines because the interesting thing with Miracle Workers is that we started, and I knew our first mixed deadline was like three months away from when we started and then it was going to be fast and furious when that started. I had to kind of work backwards and figure out my own schedule and writing schedule and make sure I hit my own deadlines so I’m not running into a bottleneck at the end. Every project is different.

Jason: The name of this podcast is a successful musician. I’m curious now that you’ve been doing this for a long time, when you think of the word successful, what would you consider a successful musician? If you’re sitting in front of that college class at USC to explain that to these up-and-coming kids now coming through, what would you call successful as a musician?

Matt: Wow. I think it depends. Again, like every answer, it depends. I would say I’m on this podcast. Am I a successful musician? I mean, I guess I am. I’m here.

Jason: You’re living the dream for some people, right?

Matt: Thank you. I still have some career goals I’d like to achieve earlier. Again, not, you know, before we started recording, we talked about games. I’m also a big Sci-Fi fan. I would love to do a big Sci-Fi epic adventure or something, or a dramatic Sci-Fi, like hard Sci-Fi. I have personal goals that I still haven’t achieved. So that’s why I’m like, okay. On the other hand, I do make a living as a composer, so that is a success. I recently got out of credit card debt and it’s just like that because it’s like that’s another thing. Like being a composer, it can be an expensive undertaking.

Jason: A lot of times you have to do stuff up front, and you hope that somebody’s going to like it because a lot of times they’ll decide, oh, they don’t like it, and you just spent two, three months working on it.

Matt: Exactly. Yeah, there’s that. Buying gear, buying computers, sample libraries, instruments. It all adds up. That was a lot of credit card debt. That was another form of period of success. I finally felt like I was going to say, I’m very lucky that I am married, and my wife is very successful herself in the corporate area, so she has a normal job. Having that support was really helpful. I’m getting sidetracked, but finally feeling financially stable.

Jason: Which often isn’t the case. I know for a lot of musicians; they just expect that they’re going to be a poor musician that just barely scrapes by. I think that’s a mentality that in a lot of ways holds a lot of us in the music world back, that you just don’t think that it’s even possible to make a living and so they throw away their dreams and corporate dreams.

Matt: I completely agree. 20:18 I went through that phase and just like, debt piling up and just kind of feeling, how am I going to get out of this? Do I need to think about changing careers or taking drastic action? I got lucky. I won’t try to sugarcoat it, but I kept grinding, and it’s like one of those things like I don’t know what else I would do for a job. I’m sure I’d find something, but this is what I want to do.

Jason: In listening to you talk through this, I think it’s awesome. It’s really one of those you’ve stuck with it for a long time. I think when we’re in the moment, I think oftentimes we don’t realize that it’s leading to better future doors opening up and good things. Then when you look back, those hard things oftentimes, I think were part of getting the most important thing that got you to where you are today. If it hadn’t been really hard and you hadn’t survived the struggle, I don’t think it would mean as much to you to be doing what you’re doing today. Right?

Matt: No, you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. I look back at those periods as like a learning time, learning period, learning experiences, and it was tough, but I learned from them. Being a musician, being an independent contractor, and just speaking in money (I don’t want to get stuck on money). That’s a class they should have added at USC, how to budget when you’re an independent contractor and you don’t have a constant, reliable income, like every week. How much do you spend on new gear? How much do you save? That was a lot of trial and error. When I was younger, I used to get sucked into Black Friday sales, and it’s like, oh, this new sample library is on sale. It’s like 50% off. Great. Oh my gosh, I have so many string libraries. I just don’t use it.

Jason: I’m in the same boat and I’m still in search of that perfect string library. I’ve got like 15 or 20, I don’t know how many, how many I have but you listen into those demos like, oh, that’s it, that’s the one.

Matt: Yeah, there’s still one I don’t have that I still want to get. I’m like, oh, maybe that is on sale.

Jason: I was doing a little bit of research the other day I ran across. It was the word sacrifice. I think a lot of times people think, oh, you’re this overnight success, or you’ve achieved this big thing that people look at as a success but in order to get there, there’s typically this 10, 20-year period or more in order to get to wherever you’ve been today that oftentimes I don’t think the general public even considers and the sacrifices that happen for years sometimes. I was looking at the origin of that word to sacrifice means to be willing to suffer for. It’s kind of one of those if you think, okay, if I’m willing to do these really hard things and I think with the music, oftentimes we know, hey, this is going to be a hard road. It’s not going to be easy, but if you love it, then you’re willing to suffer through it. Whether it’s music or whether some people would consider kids sometimes – teenagers can sometimes be, we all went into this, okay, I’m going to have kids, but you know it’s going to be some rough times, but you’re willing to make those sacrifices or suffer through it because you know the payoff is going to be awesome at the end.

I think that if you can approach, whether it’s music or anything in life with the desire or willingness to know it’s going to be hard and to work through those, the feeling you’re going to get off and I think it’s this fulfillment factor. What I find interesting with you is that you said you still have goals. A lot of people would consider you a successful person doing these TV series, but I think that’s probably one of my biggest takeaways is 24:52 even though you may have arrived, or people think you’ve arrived, the people who are really successful are going to have more goals and more things that they’ve pointed, okay, I want to get there. I’m sure you’ve got a roadmap or some plan to be able to do a video game series. Well, what is it you’re going to do? You’re going to connect these dots along the way to get there, and you’re able to look back and put together the roadmap that hopefully will get you there. I’m sure there’ll be some curves and things that you don’t expect coming along, but it’ll be enjoyable to get there as you’re working towards those.

Matt: Yeah, I think so. That’s absolutely right. 25:24 You just never stop, keep grinding, as they say. You’re talking about being a teenager and you’re having lofty dreams. I remember when I first started, I was really sucked into fantastical thinking like, oh, I’m going to demo for this thing. I’m going to do an awesome demo. I’m going to get that job because I’m awesome and then you don’t get it and it’s heartbreaking. I remember I applied to be assistant for another composer, which that interview went really well. I was told, I’m not going to say who it was that person is thinking about hiring me. Then at the end, sorry, we went with someone else. It was like soul crushing because I knew air quotes that I had that job, but I learned to like, that’s just part of the business. It’s the same with actors, same with writers. 26:32 You just kind of keep grinding. You’re not going to get every job. You just hope you get a job, and you hope you work with awesome people that then lead to more jobs. It’s like you have a roadmap and it’s just kind of like that realization that disappointment and rejection is part of the job as soul crushing as it is.

Jason: Soul crushing or humbling, you go into that thing, and you think you got it, and you get humbled really fast. And there’s kind of some similar traits I see in these composers that I’ve chatted with over the years that it’s very rare that I would say that there’s a composer that thinks they’re all that’s been in the business very long. They’re very much humble, willing to listen and learn. I can’t even think of a single person I’ve talked to that’s doing what you’re doing, that it’s my way and they know best. It’s this collaborative effort.

Matt: Yeah!

Jason: Speaking of words, I kind of have these origins of words, but humble, that word I think describes that group, but it actually comes from a Latin word of humus. If you know what humus is, if you’re a farmer or agriculture person, humus is that kind of most fertile soil that exists. That’s where that word comes from. If you think about being successful, especially as a composer or in anything, you need to be humble enough that when the rejection or when the learning opportunities come, that you kind of take in that feedback and be willing to listen to the director, the producer, the music supervisor, whoever it might be, and take that in and learn from it and that’s going to help you to grow and find that success in your career.

Matt: Yeah, that’s amazing. I did not know about the origin of the word humble. That’s absolutely right.

Jason: I know we’re getting short on time here, but as you look at all of the different things that you’ve done. You look back on your career, what are some of the things that I guess you feel most proud of or some of those biggest accomplishments that you look back on and think, man, that felt best to accomplish that thing?

Matt: I still look back fondly of my first show, Children’s Hospital. That was my breakout hit. I called USC a boot camp. That show was also a boot camp, especially in the later seasons. I feel like maybe I’m getting a tangent, but there were a lot of parodies. Every episode was a different parody. I learned a lot from that show. I look back at those, I listen back to those cues, look back at those episodes, and I’m really proud. I could actually see my journey as a composer. Looking at the cues from season one versus season seven. I can weirdly see myself growing as a composer, but I can see where I still need to go.

Jason: Isn’t it interesting as you go through those, like, even in season one at the time, you felt like that was your best work and I’m sure you gave everything you could to make that successful and then multiple seasons later, you look back and you’re like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that one thing I did was you were so proud of at the moment. It’s so fun to look back and see the growth. As a musician, I think one of the key takeaways I also learned from talking to lots of music people is 30:27 just continue writing, continue doing it, whether you’re making money at it. I think the whole success of making money is kind of this thing we make up. You don’t necessarily have to be making money to find happiness and success. It might be just sitting at a piano bench with your daughter who’s six or seven years old and being able to enjoy having her sing a song along with you. I mean, maybe that’s your success. Frankly, those paydays sometimes are way better than any dollar sign, too.

Matt: That’s true.

Jason: Well, Matt, gosh. I want to keep talking with you, but if people want to go check out some of your music, I know you can go out on, like, IMDb and you can see all of your stuff, but where should they go if they want to just check you out or sign up to be on an email list or be part of your world?

Matt: Yeah, definitely go to my website, MattNovack.com, All One Word Novack ends with ack.

Jason: We’re going to put that in the show notes. If you’re listening to the podcast, you can just go and click that and find that. Anything else?

Matt: Go watch Miracle Workers: End Times. It’s currently on TBS as of today. As we’re recording, there are two episodes left of the season. After that, I think it’s going to make its way to Max at some point. That’s what I help out. I do some additional music on Harley Quinn, which is also streaming on Max right now, the latest season. There’s some music on my website.

Jason: You’re doing Harley Quinn, which is super fun for you and I’m sure the next projects are just waiting to happen too.

Matt: I hope so. Well, we’ll see what happens after this strike. I have a feeling there’s a lot waiting to come.

Jason: A lot of pent-up creativity that’s just waiting to come. awesome. That’s going to be exciting. So, Mattnovack.com, thanks so much, and I think we need to do this again soon.

Matt: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you, Jason.

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