Ramin Djawadi on his rock background, writing music for Game of Thrones, and more

(Photo by J. Kempin/Getty Images)

The Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience is entering its closing weeks, and GoT composer Ramin Djawadi is still gamely stopping at local outlets in between performances. He recently spoke to the Phoenix New Times about his unexpected musical background, how long it takes to write the score for a season of television, and the rising popularity of soundtracks. For his part, Djawadi certainly never thought he’d be on tour with his Game of Thrones compositions. “It is amazing that we are even able to do this,” he said. “It’s in high demand. People are really excited seeing and hearing the music from their favorite shows and movies with an orchestra and visuals.”

It goes the other way, too — Djawadi’s on tour and film composer Hans Zimmer is making an appearance at this year’s Coachella. Meanwhile, pop stars like Justin Timberlake are executive producing film music (for Trolls). “[T]hings used to be so categorized that some composers stay in a studio and work with orchestras and don’t perform live, and band artists did not do scores,” he said. “Now, it seems there are no boundaries. Everybody kind of does everything. I think that is really exciting. That is something I really love.”

"Before I went into the film world, I played in bands. I played live quite a lot. When I started my film and TV composition work, I completely stopped performing live, and I miss that quite a bit. I miss connecting with the audience. It’s exciting to me. I carved out time in my schedule for this tour so I could be there myself and conduct, perform, and experience the whole thing."

And in what kind of bands did Djawadi play? “There were some pop-rock bands I played in as a teenager. In the ’80s, I was big into heavy metal and rock. In college, I played in some cover bands and jazz bands. I loved playing live so much. My main instrument was guitar, so I would play it in all these different bands.”

"I can rock out, that’s for sure. In some of the heavier action pieces, you can hear some of that rock influence in there. In the show’s music review meetings, David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] will joke around and say, “Ramin, that string arrangement would probably work really well on the guitar as a rock riff.” They can hear a little bit of that connection and a contemporary spin on orchestral music."

I now have a mental picture of a young Ramin Djawadi with a mohawk and leather pants smashing his guitar onstage. If anybody can find images or video of his young rock days, I will be eternally grateful.

A young Ramin Djawadi performs. (Actually it’s the Sex Pistols, but you get the idea.) (Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns)

After the Live Concert Experience tour has wrapped, Djawadi will presumably get down to the business of writing new music for Game of Thrones season 7. “Normally in television, that schedule is really tight and almost goes all year,” he said when asked how long it takes to write a score for a movie or TV show. “You get about a week and a half to do an episode. With Game Of Thrones, the schedule is more stretched out, but the episodes are also longer with no commercial breaks. For the whole season, I get about three to four months. It is about the same for a movie, too.”

Game of Thrones is basically one long, enormous movie, so that’s no surprise. As for how his writing process, Djawadi usually waits until he has the episodes in front of him, which explains how he could tour while the production filmed the show.

"Normally, I don’t really start until I have the visuals in front of me, even if it’s not the final edit, so I have something to look at and get inspired by. Many projects, Westworld being a good example, I started writing music before I even saw anything. I read the script, and while he was shooting, I started sending him music on set."

With Djawadi’s talent, we’re sure he’ll turn out some great new tunes for season 7. In the meantime, here are the remaining tour dates for the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience, if you have yet to see it:

• 3/23: Los Angeles, CA – The Forum
• 3/25: Las Vegas, NV – MGM Grand Garden Arena
• 3/26: Phoenix, AZ – TalkingStick Resort Arena
• 3/29: San Jose, CA – SAP Center
• 3/31: Seattle, WA – Key Arena
• 4/1: Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
• 4/2: Portland, OR – Moda Center