{"id":9881,"date":"2026-04-01T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T12:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/daniel-pemberton-wanted-the-project-hail-mary-score-to-do-something-ai-wouldnt-or-couldnt-think-of\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T12:23:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T12:23:00","slug":"daniel-pemberton-wanted-the-project-hail-mary-score-to-do-something-ai-wouldnt-or-couldnt-think-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/daniel-pemberton-wanted-the-project-hail-mary-score-to-do-something-ai-wouldnt-or-couldnt-think-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Pemberton Wanted the \u2018Project Hail Mary\u2019 Score to Do Something AI Wouldn\u2019t (or Couldn\u2019t) Think Of"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/leadPHM_30245_R2.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" alt=\"Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in 'Project Hail Mary,' from Amazon MGM Studios. (Credit: Jonathan Olley \u00a9 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.)\"><figcaption>Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in &#8216;Project Hail Mary,&#8217; from Amazon MGM Studios. (Credit: Jonathan Olley<br \/>\n\u00a9 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On the wall of film composer Daniel Pemberton\u2019s studio in London is a row of stringed instruments: two electric guitars, an electric bass, dobro, and mandolin. A visitor might wonder if they represented the roots of his music, which has made him a highly regarded creator of wildly diverse movie scores, most recently for the massive sci-fi hit <em>Project Hail Mary<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>His earliest musical experiments as a teen were actually in electronica during the 1990s, ultimately leading to his creating music for hundreds of TV shows, and launching a career in film, from 2015\u2019s <em>Steve Jobs<\/em> to last year\u2019s <em>Eddington<\/em>. In fact, he dismisses his own guitar-playing skills, even if he pulled off accompanying Mick Jagger for the growly opening credits of Apple TV\u2019s \u201cSlow Horses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/bruce-springsteen-tour-opener\/\">Bruce Springsteen Preaches Hope, Defiance At Tour Opener<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/weezer-new-single\/\">Weezer\u2019s Back \u2018Again\u2019 With New Single<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/slayyyter-is-the-best-when-shes-at-her-worst\/\">Slayyyter Is the Best When She\u2019s at Her Worst<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"979\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/03540005_Daniel_Pemberton_Credit_Tristan_Bejawn_Composer_Magazine.jpg\" alt=\"Composer Daniel Pemberton. (Credit: Tristan Bejawn, Composer_Magazine)\" class=\"wp-image-657461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/03540005_Daniel_Pemberton_Credit_Tristan_Bejawn_Composer_Magazine.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/03540005_Daniel_Pemberton_Credit_Tristan_Bejawn_Composer_Magazine-340x277.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/03540005_Daniel_Pemberton_Credit_Tristan_Bejawn_Composer_Magazine-768x627.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/03540005_Daniel_Pemberton_Credit_Tristan_Bejawn_Composer_Magazine-498x406.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Composer Daniel Pemberton. (Credit: Tristan Bejawn, <em>Composer_Magazine<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It says something of his extensive range as a music-creator, and why the likes of Ridley Scott, Guy Ritchie, and Aaron Sorkin have each worked with the composer multiple times. Among his other repeat collaborators are Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, directors of <em>Project Hail Mary<\/em>, who recruited Pemberton for its eccentric, emotional score.<\/p>\n<p>The epic science fiction film follows a lone astronaut named Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) into deep space on a mission to save the earth from an alien, parasitic micro-organism. He meets a different alien on a similar mission\u2014a living rock-like creature that Grace nicknames \u201cRocky.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lord and Miller, who worked with Pemberton as producers on the <em>Spider-Verse<\/em> films, turned to the composer for a soundtrack that was deeply dramatic, but also comic and weird. A lot of it was built on percussion and natural sounds: wooden blocks, hand claps, voices. Electronic instruments are also part of the mix, with some symphonic elements, while the dominant textures are mostly organic and obscure, created with glass harmonica, cristal baschet (an instrument made of glass rods and metal), and a squeaky water tap.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s so much crazy stuff we did in this film,\u201d recalls Pemberton, smiling broadly in a video call from London. \u201cIt is the only time I\u2019ve gone into recording sessions where I have really been like, \u2018I\u2019m not sure this is going to work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If all of that was a counter-intuitive choice for a space-faring film, Pemberton welcomed the challenge, while staying focused on the human element at the heart of the story. It\u2019s not an accident, he notes, that <em>Project Hail Mar<\/em>y is the top-grossing film of 2026 so far.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things that is exciting about how well this film\u2019s gone down,\u201d he says, \u201cis I think there is a real desire for people to embrace science, competence, friendship, loyalty, knowledge, wonder\u2014all kinds of words that feel like they\u2019ve been sucked out of our own universes recently through social media and other things. This film reconnects them with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_61960-61962_RCC.jpg\" alt=\"Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace and Sandra H\u00fcller as Eva Stratt in Project Hail Mary, from Amazon MGM Studios.\n(Credit: Jonathan Olley \u00a9 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)\" class=\"wp-image-657463\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_61960-61962_RCC.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_61960-61962_RCC-340x227.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_61960-61962_RCC-240x160.jpg 240w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_61960-61962_RCC-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_61960-61962_RCC-498x332.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace and Sandra H\u00fcller as Eva Stratt in <em>Project Hail Mary<\/em>, from Amazon MGM Studios.<br \/>(Credit: Jonathan Olley \u00a9 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>This isn\u2019t the first time you worked with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. What do you find compelling about them as filmmakers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>They don\u2019t want to settle for the status quo. They don\u2019t want to just do what\u2019s been done before. They want to try every avenue and they want to push a film as far as it can go. And they\u2019ll put so much detail into everything and so much care that it\u2019s always exciting to work with them. I mean, it\u2019s very tough and it\u2019s a very long process. That can get quite exhausting, but everyone has a different way of making a movie and the end result turns out great.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rocky is not a normal creature, so the music must make an even bigger difference in making him relatable.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I remember taking this movie on and saying, \u201cI\u2019m doing a movie that has Ryan Gosling on his own in a spaceship for two hours talking to a puppet, which is a rock with no facial features.\u201d [laughs] You have extra weight on your shoulders in that. The performances are fantastic, but you\u2019ve got to add subtext and different emotional moments in what is quite an unusual cinematic scenario.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>You seem very comfortable working with a diverse range of sounds, from the electronic to the organic.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I sort of went from doing weird electronic music to start scoring TV shows. I did every single TV thing in the U.K. for a while, anything I could do, and I never knew what I was doing. So it taught me a lot by just pretending I could do things, and then I\u2019m just constantly thrown in the deep end. I learned so much through that.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/Project-Hail-Mary-Score-Art.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-657466\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/Project-Hail-Mary-Score-Art.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/Project-Hail-Mary-Score-Art-340x340.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/Project-Hail-Mary-Score-Art-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/Project-Hail-Mary-Score-Art-498x498.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>A lot of composers would have approached a film like this heavily with electronics, and this is obviously mostly organic.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a lot of electronics in it, but I\u2019m always trying to approach things like, \u201cHow do you make this different?\u201d So while there are a lot of electronics in the score, they are electronics that are basically sample engines we are using to manipulate organic material. My favorite sampled instrument in this entire film is a squeaky tap. My friend has a big house in the countryside where I stayed over once. Because it\u2019s an old house, it has really old piping, and I went to brush my teeth one evening, and the tap just made this horrendous noise. And I was like, \u201cOh my God, what is <em>this<\/em>? This is great.\u201d So I pulled out my iPhone and recorded it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019ve been some epic science fiction film scores over the last 50-plus years. Was there anything in the past that you had in mind or that you played against when you were approaching this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a lot of fantastic sci-fi scores, and I\u2019m conscious of that, but I\u2019m also conscious of trying to ignore them. I\u2019m conscious of not repeating what people have heard before, if I can. I always want to make experiences that are unexpected and surprising. The key to great cinema is giving people something new. If you think about all these great moments in <em>2001<\/em> to <em>Close Encounters<\/em> to <em>Solaris<\/em>, they were all surprising at the time, and then they get repeated and they lose their potency. It\u2019s easy to repeat. It\u2019s harder to create new\u2014and it\u2019s a lot more time consuming and challenging. You don\u2019t always get it right. But that\u2019s what we were all trying to do on this movie. If there\u2019s a sincerity behind what you\u2019re doing, then people hopefully connect with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_209_InsideTheScore_B-Roll_ProResHQ06726_R.jpg\" alt=\"Composer Daniel Pemberton during the scoring session for Project Hail Mary, from Amazon MGM Studios.\n(Credit: Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios \u00a9 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)\" class=\"wp-image-657462\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_209_InsideTheScore_B-Roll_ProResHQ06726_R.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_209_InsideTheScore_B-Roll_ProResHQ06726_R-340x191.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_209_InsideTheScore_B-Roll_ProResHQ06726_R-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_209_InsideTheScore_B-Roll_ProResHQ06726_R-498x280.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Composer Daniel Pemberton during the scoring session for <em>Project Hail Mary<\/em>, from Amazon MGM Studios.<br \/>(Credit: Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios \u00a9 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>How did you first hear about this project?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve worked with Phil and Chris a bunch of times before. We worked very closely on the <em>Spider-Vers<\/em>e movies. One of the things we were all very aware of was we had to fly the flag for original filmmaking, and if we fell short, that would\u2019ve been a real shame. And luckily, I don\u2019t think we did. What\u2019s exciting is just seeing how much that\u2019s responded with people who have a desire for something different when they go into cinema. If you\u2019re paying money and taking your time out to go to cinema, you deserve to really have something very unexpected and unique rather than just reheat a thing you\u2019ve seen before. Sometimes it\u2019s great to reheat the meal you\u2019ve had a bunch of times before that you like, but I\u2019m personally not interested in doing that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve described before how the directors initially suggested using wooden blocks for the entire score.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Phil and Chris love crazy ideas. They always try and challenge me, and sometimes I\u2019m like, \u201cOkay, that\u2019s great.\u201d Or, other times, I\u2019m like, \u201cEh, that\u2019s not going to work.\u201d [laughs] But what that did was lay down an idea that we could really push this in quite a far-out direction. And so that initial idea of just woodblocks would never really work for two hours on a film, but it\u2019s like, \u201cWell, how could you make it work? How could you make that idea kind of interesting?\u201d And another big thing of that was human percussion. We wanted to do a lot of stuff for clapping and stomping. And we actually got a whole class of school kids to come in and play loads of percussion with just their feet and their hands and their bodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_43654_R2.jpg\" alt=\"Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace in Project Hail Mary, from Amazon MGM Studios.\n(Credit: Jonathan Olley \u00a9 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)\" class=\"wp-image-657465\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_43654_R2.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_43654_R2-340x227.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_43654_R2-240x160.jpg 240w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_43654_R2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/03\/PHM_43654_R2-498x332.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace in <em>Project Hail Mary<\/em>, from Amazon MGM Studios.<br \/>(Credit: Jonathan Olley \u00a9 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Was the music you created for the film aimed at capturing a particular personality that went with the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s so many different spirits I\u2019m trying to capture with this soundtrack. If you look at the sci-fi films that are seen as these grand benchmarks\u2014whether <em>2001<\/em> or <em>Interstellar<\/em>\u2014they don\u2019t have to do comedy. Whereas I had to put comedy within this framework, and that\u2019s a difficult balance as a composer to try and find a language that can deal with humor and lightness and friendship and intimacy, as well as dealing with awe and the big subjects of why are we here. How do you go from scoring the absolute wonder and majesty of the universe to, I\u2019m having a joke with my friend like five minutes later?<\/p>\n<p>Another thing I\u2019m very conscious of, in this world where AI can sort of do anything, is, let\u2019s do something that AI wouldn\u2019t think of, or ever do. AI reheats things from the past. And what [we] are trying to do is create something new that gives people new experiences. All great art or great moments you have with art are to do with feeling something for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in &#8216;Project Hail Mary,&#8217; from Amazon MGM Studios. (Credit: Jonathan Olley \u00a9 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved) On the wall of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5775,31,3428,5776,24,5777],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daniel-pemberton","category-features","category-movie-soundtracks","category-project-hail-mary","category-pushly","category-ryan-gosling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}