In Tony, A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain (Dominic Sessa) travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life.
From director Matt Johnson (BLACKBERRY, NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE) comes the raucous and electric origin story of one of the most beloved icons of the modern era. Restless, reckless, overconfident, and hungry for something he couldn’t yet name, TONY offers an unexpected glimpse at the culinary legend before the world knew his name—and before Bourdain discovered the passion, purpose, and mentorship that would shape the rest of his life.
As Tony prepares to release in Australian cinemas on August 20, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the films composer and longtime collaborator of Matt Johnson’s, Jay McCarrol, about mirroring the right instrument to the spirit of Anthony Bourdain, and the challenge of not letting muscle memory dictate the music.
Nick: Tony begins his time at The Flagship by washing dishes. He’s low on the food chain, so to say. I’m curious to know what were the jobs you were doing where you had to cut your teeth before working your way into this industry?
Jay McCarrol: You know, I didn’t have particularly normal jobs when I was around that age. Like, I was a tennis instructor at a kids camp! In the winter, I learned how to snowboard pretty well, so I got certified and I would teach people snowboarding. But I was never like a hardcore coach. These were just summer jobs or winter jobs. Then I was a librarian, putting books back in the Dewey decimal system and sitting in complete quiet. I always made little mistakes and had embarrassing moments here and there. And I remember being 19 and having a short fuse, so I feel like I have a lot of empathy for anyone that age. You’re just going through a formative time where you’re still wrestling with inner angst and anger and frustration and whatever your inner demons are.
Nick: Something that I found interesting about Tony’s story at this time in his life was that time almost feels eternal. You’re so young that there is no rush to existence, and you can have all of these formative experiences. And I think music really reminds people of that time. I’m curious to know what you were listening to during that period of your life?
JM: We use this song in Nirvanna The Band The Show by Chicago called ‘Old Days’, and I specifically remember walking to my librarian job and being somewhat okay in that moment because that song really gave me a reminder to take things in before I go into this bleak zone where I’m sitting alone with my thoughts in silence. I was also going to music school at the time – this was in Boston – and most of my reflective times were with me, alone, twiddling away on the piano and being in sort of my meditative zone. I remember at the Berkeley College of Music, they had these practice rooms, like long hallways of upright pianos, that were completely soundproof and private. I remember you would walk down these hallways and hear scales or people practicing, and I would just go in there, not realising at the time that I was meditating. Your hands just go, and all of a sudden you dissociate. Your brain does whatever you dream. Your thoughts start to tumble on themselves. Your question just reminded me of that memory of all the practice rooms, and how I remember working out lots of emotions at that time in my life, in the practice rooms.
Nick: It’s funny you mention hands, because hands was one of the things I found was a strong focus in the film. Tony’s hands are used for creativity, they get hurt, they’re used for smoking and drinking – and Matt’s direction focuses on that. What has your experience been with the understanding of the creative power that your hands can hold?
JM: It’s certainly been my life story that even before I found the piano, my parents saw me really react to music, and they kind of took a chance putting mini keyboards in front of me and I just started figuring it out. I was playing the Superman song, or even like The Young and the Restless theme tune [laughs]. I guess there was something in my young brain that kind of lit up. But the funny thing is, that as special as having that sort of muscle memory and ability to disassociate is, one of the coolest challenges and most rewarding things is that once you’ve passed that “10,000 hours” of practice, is to take the hands out of the equation. I think that a lot of my film scoring skill nowadays is coming from refraining from getting my hands on things, because they’re just going to do what they do best. I don’t want them to do that. I need to deal with the constant challenge of what sounds good musically, and what works for the film, and then finding the balance there. I think that’s what separates a regular musician from a film composer. Film composers really need to put their filmmaking hat on 99% of the time, and then that last 1% is the parachute they have which is making it sound musically good. It’s like designing a statue without looking at a statue. You have to look at the story you’re making. I’m finding that the trick is not letting my hands take me somewhere to polish something that isn’t fundamentally working. It’s being a filmmaker, then a musician. I actually love that you identified that hands are a big part of creativity.
Nick: Was there a certain track on this film where you had to focus harder on that 99% more than other tracks?
JM: I spent months before they even started shooting this movie trying to crack the code of what Tony’s theme would be. Like, what is the North Star, core theme here. Every main title has motifs and musical ideas that are expanded on that influence the rest of the cues. With Tony, whenever we were hearing the score, it was like his own brain that was expanding in these directions. So, when I was reckoning with where my hands wanted to take me, I would put on old Bourdain footage where I would just look at the man. I’m such a huge fan of his, and he means a great deal to me for so many reasons. So I had high expectations of myself to try and at least cover that spirit and marry the music to him. Oftentimes, my hands would take me in the wrong direction, and I would just have to watch that footage and think in silence. That’s a difficult thing to do. When you’re sitting at a piano, it’s like having a gun and not pulling the trigger. It’s instinct. And you have to refrain from that.
Nick: Without this question sounding too pretentious – you spoke about marrying music to a character. When you first found out you were composing the music for a film about Anthony Bourdain, was there a specific instrument that came to mind? Do you match a person or character to a certain instrument before starting to write the music?
JM: Yeah, in this case I knew that I was focusing on a version of Tony who was leaving home for the first time ever. And I knew it was going to be a seaside location, working in a seafood restaurant. So there was a real nautical vibe to his first experiences. I needed to do two things, and the idea that I had right out of the gate was an old wooden piano that was crickety and flawed a bit. I played around with different pianos, accordions, harmoniums, or pump organs. I experimented with all these different types of things, but that wooden piano felt the most organic and distinguished. The only other thing that I didn’t use that I thought maybe could have found a place, but it required a lot more trial and error, was a real baritone saxophone. Just something breathy and sexy, almost. But I don’t think he was at that point of his life yet, you know? So I removed that. I think that piano really put him into the bed of that seaside, and the distant pads of the accordion and harmonium to evoke where he is. Then I just toiled away at very specific, minimal notes and motifs. That was the hard part – just choosing the right notes that we wanted with the instrumentation. But I do feel like it just spoke to me.
Thank you to Jay for his time, and to A24 and Organic Publicity for organising the interview. Tony is in Australian cinemas August 20.
