While the track was largely an underground dance classic, it caught the ears of several folks in high places and eventually found its way onto the soundtrack for The Matrix.
Not surprisingly, Dougan's work once again found its way into the realm of The Matrix, as his latest hit "Furious Angels" was included in The Matrix: Reloaded, not to mention that he composed and recorded a brand new song, "The Chateau" for one of the pivotal fight sequences in the sequel. And not only that, but two remixed versions of "Clubbed To Death" found their way into the hit game Enter The Matrix and yet another of his songs, "I'm Not Driving Anymore" can be heard in the trailers for The Matrix: Reloaded.
But Dougan is far more than just the sonic poster boy for the Wachowski Brothers visual fantasies. Dougan is an accomplished composer, multi-instrumentalist, and perfectionist inclined sonic alchemist. That's really the only way to describe this musical character, who has spent the better part of the past six years concocting the 15 tracks that inhabit his major label debut, Furious Angels, which is set to hit America shores on June 3, 2003.
Dougan's stylistic convergence melds elements of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, John Barry (this his classic James Bond compositions, especially those with Shirley Bassey), Barry Adamson, and the sprawling opulence of the most memorable film scores imaginable. It's all blended together into an epic wash of captivating soniference that sucks the listener into an imaginary cinematic realm of their own creation.
In this, the first part of our interview with Dougan, Spence D. and Rob discuss how his involvement with The Matrix projects came about.
IGN Music: On your upcoming album you worked with a large orchestra and choir. I heard that it was close to 122 piece orchestra, is that right?
Rob Dougan: It was actually about an 84-piece orchestra and a 40-piece choir, so that was great. You know, that was the kind of direction the record was heading in anyway. For better or for worse, it was quite a sort of big record and I just thought 'Well, let's explore that right to the end 'cause I probably won't do that again for another album. So let's go, as in Spinal Tap they'd say 'Right to 11.'' But it was difficult, 'cause when I first started recording it no one wanted to pay for even a 40-piece string section and I would pay for those string sections myself, which kind of financially crippled me. But as people started to trust me on that, it got easier. But I really had to sort of fund it myself in the beginning. When I first worked with an orchestra it was very nerve-wracking and I had to have two shots of whisky from the bar just to calm myself down. And I thought 'F@#k, if I mess this up, I'll never get a chance to do this again.' But gradually I got more confident.
IGN Music: So did your newfound confidence help you at all when you composed and then eventually recorded "Chateau" for The Matrix: Reloaded?
Rob Dougan:That was great because I was in the 20th Century Fox Newman Scoring Stage where they did Star Wars and all of John Williams work and I just thought 'I'm no longer so worried.' I just remembered the time when I thought 'Christ, I may never get the opportunity to do this again.' But then I thought 'That was a long time ago now and I've done it quite a few times [since then] and it was a bit of a buzz.'
IGN Music: "Clubbed To Death" was used in the first Matrix film and then you composed the music for the Chateau fight sequence specifically for the movie. But when they brought you in to do that, had you already been working with the orchestra for your own album's material?
Rob Dougan: I had on my album, but not on that track. That was something that the Wachowski Brothers and Jason Bentley, who is the music supervisor [on The Matrix films], sent me the scene and said 'Could you try and write something for this?' And it was quite difficult 'cause I'm not used to working to picture. So it was a bit of a learning process in the beginning. And then I just wrote that piece for that. And it was quite a buzz, actually 'cause the other night I was at the premier in London and when we all walked out they were looping that track. It was really nice to hear it. And really exciting 'cause the Chateau scene I find visually great and so it was really exciting to get the chance to do something. And there were moments where I thought--I think it was my second attempt, the one they used, so there were moments where it was a bit, you know, it may not have happened. So it was good to finally get it in there.
IGN Music: Let's backtrack a spell. How did you get involved with The Matrix films to begin with?
Rob Dougan: Jason Bentley. He's an amazing guy, really passionate about music and DJs. I mean I owe my career to Jason Bentley, effectively.
IGN Music: So he contacted you...
Rob Dougan: Yeah.
IGN Music: But now "Clubbed To Death" was already done and recorded by the time they put it into The Matrix.
Rob Dougan: Absolutely. That track was already done. I think about six people bought that upon release and Jason Bentley was one of those six people [laughs]. The second film came about because the Wachowskis and Jason gave me a call to work on The Final Flight of the Osiris, which is one of the anime and I flew to Los Angeles to meet with the Wachowskis and Don Davis, who did the score.
And they said 'Can you collaborate with him?' And I said 'How are we gonna do that?' And Don said 'Well, maybe if you do some beats I can write some orchestral music over the top.' And I said 'Surely you've got drummers in LA [laughs]. Surely, just get a drummer and they'll do a great beat.' So we didn't end up doing that, which is a shame actually because I really admire Don Davis. But, thankfully, Jason and the Wachowskis kept on giving me chance upon chance, which was very kind of them. And we eventually got something done.
IGN Music: You mentioned that you'd never scored music to images before writing "Chateau." So did they send you a clip of the fight scene and then did you just hole yourself up in the studio and write the piece?
Rob Dougan: Well I sat at home just on a laptop. I wrote the whole piece on a laptop. And I didn't have any means to sync the picture with the music, so with my foot I'd press play on the DVD and with my hand I'd press play on the computer [laughs]. So you can see by that, that I was not really the most advanced sort of technician in that respect.
IGN Music: But it worked.
Rob Dougan: Yeah, it worked. I mean I approached it with a lot of enthusiasm. I always do music and I think 'This is only gotta please one person and that's me.' I just have to be excited by it, I have to get really excited by it and think it's great and it works for me and then if other people do [that's great]. You know, the only test is if it works for you as an audience yourself. And I was blown away by that scene. I think it's one of the most sort of formal scenes. It kind of reminds me of Kubrick sometimes. You know, it's formal. [At the time I composed the piece] I hadn't seen the rest of the film; I'd only seen that scene. I didn't know it was like vampires and stuff, it was just an amazing looking fight scene.
IGN Music: That's easily one of the best fight sequences in the film.
Rob Dougan: Yeah. I mean I thought they could have turned the music up, but I really enjoyed it. I saw the film, as I said, and I actually really like it. I actually really enjoyed it. I'd read some reviews [slagging the film], but I actually really liked it. It's quite mind-blowing, the whole world of The Matrix, that whole idea that all of life is an artificial construct and you're not really alive. And I think sometimes the media, with advertising and, what do they call it? Spin. Everything's being spun these days. A new artist is being marketed, a new war happens, a new product comes out and everything is kind of spun. And it's very easy to start to feel like you exist purely to fund massive corporation.
IGN Music: That you exist merely to be spun.
Rob Dougan: Yeah! You exist merely to be spun and just to make corporations money, to be part of a demographic, to be part of a listenership for a radio station. You know, in The Matrix they're batteries, people are a just simply a source of [energy]. And I think sometimes in life that's how you're viewed by corporations, you're just sort of funds. To break out of that, I think that's what you try to do with music is you try and do something that actually isn't a part of that and hopefully it can reach people.
IGN Music: That said, though, you're kind of like The Matrix sonic poster boy. I mean your music is used in both films, they use another song in the trailer, plus they use your music in the Enter The Matrix game.
Rob Dougan: Absolutely. There's two tracks in the game. Yeah, I know, to be quite honest because the Wachowski Brothers are kind of stubborn as hell and basically went from being just two writers [to being directors] and refused to compromise along the way and had a real vision of what they wanted to do, I'm kind of quite proud to be contributing to that whole thing. Mostly just 'cause of their attitude. That they had something they wanted to say. Imagine all that pressure and they resisted it so well. And I think they care absolutely so deeply about everything to do with The Matrix from the posters to the games, you know, for the company that's a marketing thing, but I think for the Wachowski Brothers that's something they really actually care about. They invested so much time and energy making everything perfect that it's a pleasure to be associated with those guys, really.
IGN Music: How do you cope with that, the fact that they're bringing you in to work on their vision. Sure, "Chateau" is your musical vision, but it's influenced by their vision, I mean it was a piece for hire as opposed to a piece you wrote for yourself.
Rob Dougan: Well that was really interesting because when I walked into the first meeting about that particular track they said 'We want you to work with these people and do it this way' and I said 'Well, I don't want to do that.' [laughs] And it was real loggerheads in the sense that they said 'It's our film and you're gonna do what we say', you know? And they said 'Is that clear?' It was really two sort of stubborn sides bashing heads. I said 'Okay, fine, I'll do what you say,' thinking 'Christ, the bastards have got me out in LA and now I'm stuck.' In the end I did actually do it the way I wanted to, but I really respected the fact that they're tough guys in the sense that they know what they want and they're kind of brutal, they'll get it.
I was just lucky that I actually did the track in the end with all the people I wanted to do it with, but it was more by fortune than design. But I had to do it in LA and I was a bit of a fish out of water there, 'cause I knew no one in LA. So even just to change the light bulb, you know, it became like the most difficult thing, you know, because you know no one. I didn't know studios, so I just booked a studio that I'd never worked at before, it was really hard actually. It was actually like something out of Apocalypse Now where you think 'I'm going down this kind of mad route here and getting deeper and deeper into the madness. But in the end it worked out.
IGN Music: Wow, so you were working in a studio you were unfamiliar with and with musicians you had never worked with before.
Rob Dougan: And I worked with an arranger who I don't think had arranged a pop record, an orchestra for pop [before]. I just asked someone who was a mate and hanging around the studio 'Do you know any arrangers?' He went 'Yeah, there's a guy I know who's pretty good.' But this guy had never done a film of that size and he'd never done a pop record. When I say pop record, he'd never arranged an orchestra on record. So it was quite a laugh 'cause he was the guy who ended up orchestrating the whole thing. It was a laugh for him and a bit nerve-wracking for me [laughs].
IGN Music: That's crazy, man. I was under the impression that you had composed the piece and then recorded it all in London with an orchestra you had worked with before.
Rob Dougan: Yeah, I think they appreciated it. And they said 'We really want Don Davis to arrange everything on it.' And I thought 'That's great.' He's like the John Williams...or he will become the John Williams of our time. And I thought, 'That's really gonna compromise the integrity of the music 'cause he has such a distinctive style.' And I just worked for a week with this guy who I'd never heard of, this guy called Mark Killington. And I said to him 'They'll probably take all this back and you'll end up getting no credit and not being involved. But hopefully we'll fight for you and we'll try and get you through on this.' And it was great to see him get out there and conduct the whole piece. It was a real laugh. I mean he's a young guy and it's probably the biggest orchestral session he had done ever in his life [laugh].
IGN Music: You have a couple of songs used in Enter The Matrix, the video game. Can you elaborate more on that?
Rob Dougan: Actually yeah. That was something where I wasn't so involved in the sense that there's a great band called Hybrid, they're an interesting band from the UK and they'd done a remix of "Clubbed To Death" and they used that. Plus [they used] another version of "Clubbed To Death" which was kind of a lot more abstract. I suppose it's to tie into the feeling of the first film. I mean I would have loved to have done some new pieces for that, as well. But it was a busy time and they didn't want me to, so, and also I couldn't. [laughs] Although I would have found a way. I hear the game's really good and the credit on the game is that the Wachowskis directed it, you know? And they even filmed footage for it. I think that's the direction video games are going in, that they're becoming more like film and probably to the point where in about 10 years they'll be 3-D and you'll actually feel like you're in that world. The film itself, I mean The Matrix is kind of like a computer construct, it is like a video game in a way. You know, The Matrix is a computer program, isn't it, that artificially recreates life. SO it's kind of appropriate that the film at times appears--when he's fighting 100 Agents Smiths it appears a bit like [a video game]. Considering that it's The Matrix and it is an artificial construct and it's supposed to convince you that it's reality, it is like a video game almost.
*Editor's Note: For those of you wondering about Dougan's musical involvement in The Matrix: Revolutions, we did ask him about it. It's still up in the air as the film is in post-production, but it's probably a safe bet that he'll have some piece of music included in the final installment of the Wachowski's series.