Ego Plum Interview - Composing for The Cuphead Show
From the moment that Cuphead was unveiled to the world, gamers have been in love with its cartoon aesthetic and 30s’ jazz soundtrack. When Netflix revealed The Cuphead Show, a new cartoon loosely based on the game, gamers were curious and a bit apprehensive. Would the art style be as bold? Would the music be as memorable?
Well, I’m happy to say yes to both of these questions as I’ve been afforded the unique opportunity of an advance press screening for the entire show (12 episodes in all). The loveable antics of Cuphead and Mugman are sure to capture your heart, and the soundtrack is sure to capture your attention. In this interview, the show’s composer, Ego Plum, explains his influences and his creative process for developing the show’s iconic music.
How did you become involved with The Cuphead Show?
I’d known showrunner Dave Wasson since our days together on Amy Winfrey’s Making Fiends back in 2008. About four years ago, he came up with some hilarious lyrics for the Devil character and asked me to try my hand at coming up with some music. I wrote the Devil song, and that was like an informal audition which ultimately got me the job on the show. My original demo is almost identical to the finished version you hear in the series, except it has a few more bells and whistles in it. Not to mention, Oingo Boingo guitarist Steve Bartek doing his best Django Reinhardt impression.
Were you familiar with the video game before you started working on the show?
I was introduced to the game by my bandmate Steven Sarmiento about a year before I was hired by Netflix to work on the series. Quite frankly, it blew my mind; I’d never seen a game like that before. It was clearly a labor of love, and the amount of care and attention to detail was obvious. I’m not much of a gamer, unfortunately, but I wish I was! I simply don’t have the time as of late. My Nintendo Switch only has Cuphead, Animal Crossing, and the Untitled Goose Game on it!
What was your impression of Kristofer Maddigan's score?
Kris is brilliant. He did an amazing job on the game’s soundtrack, but he’s done something even grander for music in general. For one, the very fact that his soundtrack became #1 on the Jazz Billboard charts is a tremendous achievement. Secondly, he’s brought an amazing genre of music to a new generation of fans around the world. Thirdly, he (along with the Moldenhauer Brothers) insisted on real musicians for their scores in an age where music has become more and more electronic-based. I don’t think 1930s jazz has been celebrated like this since…the 1930’s? I credit that to Cuphead. The success of the game and its soundtrack means more for music and entertainment than anyone even realizes.
Did you have any reservations about working on The Cuphead Show?
No, and I say that while admitting I’d never written anything resembling 1930’s jazz before taking this job. But, being such a fan of music of that era, especially the music of the Raymond Scott Quintette, I knew that I would find my voice if given the chance. I think composers make their best work when they are outside of our comfort zones.
What inspirations did you draw from to create the soundtrack?
As far as 1930’s inspiration, I’d have to say Leroy Shield was a big one. He composed music for Laurel & Hardy and Our Gang (The Little Rascals). His music has an innocence and childlike playfulness that lends itself perfectly to the world of Cuphead and Mugman. Raymond Scott, who I previously mentioned, was a massive influence as well. His eccentric jazz always seemed ahead of its time and out of place in the 1930’s, being so irreverent and strange. He was a brilliant composer whose cheeky music almost seemed to make fun of jazz, but it was so well-written and performed, it seems beyond critique to me. He did have a good share of haters/critics at the time; anything new and good usually does.
As lofty as it sounds, my goal was to write timeless melodies and phrases that people would remember beyond the show. I don’t make complex music; I aim for simplicity. How does one compose the next “Pop Goes The Weasel,” or “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?” It’s almost impossible. It happened in the last century with commercial jingles like “Roto-Rooter,” “Slinky,” or “Oscar Mayer Bologna.” I see commercial jingles as culturally significant music. In the last 30 years, maybe the closest we’ve come is the works of composer Koji Kondo, whose video game music is as ubiquitous to gamers as the music of Carl Stalling was to the generation that grew up on Looney Tunes. I would put his “Overworld Themes” from Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World or Yoshi’s Island “Athletic Theme” right up against anything Scott Joplin ever wrote.
The Cuphead Show draws influence from many eras of animation. Did you similarly draw influence from many eras of music?
Absolutely. Although our target sound is a 1930’s jazz style, I have to draw influence from all types of music as a composer because you can’t tell stories and highlight character development with just big band jazz alone. I take from Bernard Herrmann (composer for Alfred Hitchcock) as much as I take from punk rock. There are as many lessons to be learned from the kinetic hardcore punk of The Bad Brains as there are from the brooding atonal works of Krzysztof Penderecki. An eclectic mental library of musical ideas, styles, and approaches makes your music infinitely more interesting.
In addition to the score, you also wrote the theme song as well as a few other tracks that play during the show. What was your creative process for the theme song?
The theme song was something that already existed as a demo when I was brought on to the show. My job was more of producer/arranger. I figured out what instruments I wanted and how I wanted it to sound. That mostly involved the fat sound of the baritone sax and the soulful growl of local rockabilly queen, Gizzelle (who I introduced to Netflix and they loved her natural retro sound). Here’s a secret: if we had gone with a masculine voice, my choice would have been Ken Page (the voice of Oogie Boogie from A Nightmare Before Christmas).
What was the workflow for you and the other composers?
I was the only composer working from episode to episode, so it was definitely intense. The pandemic also added another factor of difficulty. The workflow starts with a spotting session where I sit down with Dave and Cosmo and discuss all the musical needs of the episode. After which, I sit down and write, write, and write for about a week. We meet again and now we have a big set of revisions, so it’s back to the writing board once again. Once I finish re-writing, those parts go to my assistant Ben Cohn, who starts making charts for the musicians. After that, the team of players self-engineer and record all the material. I’ll have the occasional notes and revisions, but that all happens pretty quickly. Now it’s time to start engineering and mixing all the music together, and somewhere in the middle of all this, we start spotting the next episode. And this process repeats for many months!
Did you have any specific guidance or restrictions when it came to the soundtrack?
There were no real restrictions since those things are unspoken. Obviously, I’m not going to put in a Moog synthesizer in the score or break into a dubstep sequence. I worked closely with Dave and Cosmo to make sure the music met all the needs of the show, but the guidance came from the stories and the characters themselves. Cuphead told me what he needed directly!
I really enjoyed the short title theme pieces that play before each episode. Did you have a favorite title piece?
I love them all! We usually wait until the very end and decide what those should be, based on the various themes and motifs in each particular episode. If I had to pick one, I’d go with, “Bringing Up Baby Bottle.”
What was your favorite part about working on this project?
My favorite part is right now, when I finally get to talk about it, and I get to see and hear people’s reactions to the show that we’ve been working on for almost four years. It’s been an amazing process but also exhausting, so I just want to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Talking to you and others about the show is my new favorite thing about the show!
Cuphead or Mugman?
TEAM CUPHEAD! (Seriously though, I strive to be like Cuphead, although I am secretly Mugman.)
Ego Plum Biography
Known as “The Cartoon Composer,” Mexican American Ego Plum is an award-winning composer, musician, and music producer whose distinctive sound and unique self-taught sensibility have made him the musical king of quirky animation.
Lending his creative talents to numerous animated series, his recent credits include the highly anticipated Netflix animated series The Cuphead Show based on the beloved video game, the Hanna-Barbara series Jellystone for HBO Max, and two projects set in the Spongebob Squarepants universe – the Paramount+ Original Kamp Koral as well as Nickelodeon’s The Patrick Star Show.
Ego first got the attention of Nickelodeon in 2008 with his unabashedly original score for Amy Winfrey’s series Making Fiends, and has since scored other hit animated series including SpongeBob Squarepants, Disney’s Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil, as well as Nickelodeon’s Welcome To The Wayne and Harvey Beaks – for which he assembled Nickelodeon’s first-ever 60-piece orchestra!
His next scoring projects are pair of Richard Elfman movies. The first is a sci-fi comedy titled Hipsters, Gangsters, Aliens, & Geeks, and features Rebecca Forsythe, George Wendt, and Verne Troyer in his final role. The second is the long-awaited sequel to the cult classic, Forbidden Zone. Plum is co-composing the original scores and songs for both movies with Danny Elfman.