In the '90s, comedy was at a very low point, but these days, you've got people like Hannibal Burress, Ron Funches, Maria Bamford - people who can play any club, anywhere.
The places we'd play were full of bikers, brawlers, and drinkers coming off a day of work looking for a good time, and all these guys would be looking at me like Hannibal Lecter looking at his next victim.
Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Plato, and Cicero, just to name a few, all lived in pagan societies. Some of the greatest political and military leaders of all time, such as Alexander the Great, Pericles of Athens, Hannibal of Carthage, and Julius Caesar of Rome, were all pagans, or else living in a pagan society.
With 'Hannibal,' it's almost like the music is part of the furniture, so as a character goes from one room to another room, or we go from one place to another or whatever, the music is just going with it the whole time the same way that the audience is sort of tracking it and following along.
'Hannibal' is not reality; the whole show is not reality. It's heightened reality: they want music the entire time.
With 'Hannibal,' I just really want people to feel something.
I always liked the stress, the real high-stakes, get-the-orders-out line-cook job, as well as the ordering of the produce and everything - it's really similar to making music for a show like 'Hannibal.' It's like cooking; it's just like owning a restaurant.
I've put a lot of records out and a lot of soundtracks, and 'Hannibal' is kind of a special one.
With 'Hannibal,' it's like reactive scoring so I don't get ahead. I don't read a script; I don't want to know what's going to happen until its happening in front of me and I'm able to have an instrument in my hands that I'm playing to make some kind of a map, some sort of tonal map, that I can then build on.
I'm incredibly proud of 'Hannibal' and the cast - I feel like we're doing really good television.
