How music supervisor Trygge Toven captured ‘Fallout’s’ different tones through vintage songs [Exclusive Video Interview]
Music supervisor Trygge Toven received his first Emmy nomination for his work on “Fallout” and he found out about it in a very cliched way. “”I’ve been working with a PR film … and they gave me a call. I got the fun call right in the morning that the actors talk about,” Toven tells Gold Derby (watch the exclusive video interview above). “I love the show, but you just never know what to expect when awards go, so it’s pretty exciting,”
“Fallout” was a “Westworld” reunion for Toven as executive producer Jonathan Nolan, composer Ramin Djawadi and a majority of the edit team worked on both. “It’s definitely a shorthand. There’s a little less setup,” Toven explains. “This was different than ‘Westworld’ because of the way we used music. Ramin would actually do covers of the songs in ‘Westworld,’ so that was a different process. It was a little bit more of a handoff in this show.”
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Just like in the video game on which “Fallout” is based, needle drops are a major part of the post-apocalyptic drama. Toven included some iconic ones that were also used in the game, like The Ink Spots‘ “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” and Nat King Cole‘s “Orange Colored Sky,” but he took a deep dive into ’40s and ’50s music to curate a soundtrack for the show’s distinct worlds. Down in the Vault, Toven deployed post-World War II tunes by Cole, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como and more to ironic effect, playing up the na?veté and impossibly optimistic outlook of Lucy (Ella Purnell) and her fellow vault dwellers who are completely unaware of the destruction aboveground.
“In the Vaults, they’re kind of stuck in this world of before the war and that’s why the music kind of reflects that. It’s very lighthearted, very utopian, sort of like, ‘Everything is going to be OK’ — that kind of attitude. And that’s kind of supporting that,” Toven says. “A bit naive and definitely don’t know the reality of the rest of the world. They think they’re just continuing America on and the way we need to do things. So I think that’s kind of how we speak to that.”
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For the irradiated wasteland, Toven stuck to the same time period but aimed for a harsher feel, creating a darkly humorous tone against the music of the Vaults. “What was cool about that was the Johnny Cash, kind of outlaw country vibes of the wasteland. It’s from the same era, but it has a more gritty, realistic nature to the tone of the songs and the lyrics and everything,” Toven continues. “I think that was really cool because you could keep it in the same world but it’s different tones. It’s kind of like the curtain’s been pulled back once you’re out of the Vault.”
As Lucy ventures through the wasteland throughout the season, her na?veté gets chipped away, which is reflected in the music as well. By the end of the season, when she learns the shocking truth about her father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), she’s practically in a catatonic state. “She’s the one who has the biggest trajectory and the biggest change. I think a lot of characters go through a lot. But it was start with basically being very naive in the beginning about what her reality is and just using the songs to — like when she’s in the mart and really when she has to shoot someone — the songs are still in that vein, but they’re just speaking to it just a little bit more throughout. And as she becomes more entangled with Maximus [Aaron Moten] and the wasteland, we’re using more wasteland-like songs but we’re still pulling through that.”
“Fallout” has been renewed for a second season, but Toven has no idea what’s in store and hasn’t started working on anything yet. However, there are “tons” of songs he through of for Season 1 but didn’t get to use for whatever reason. “There are certain scenes where we tried 50 songs, but it ends up being score because that worked the best, so a lot of those ideas. There’s a lot of really good music waiting already ready to go, so we’ll see.”
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