I had the opportunity to do a follow-up interview with singer-songwriter d4vd, who recently contributed to the American animated television series Invincible about some of his recent work and influences. You can read the initial interview here.
Q: Last time we spoke about Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul, and Jujutsu Kaisen, and you’ve mentioned that you have a taste for the “high-energy action” series. I wanted to ask: is that the only “genre” that you’re taking inspiration from in regard to anime?
d4vd: Most of it is shounen, action-based anime. That’s what I grew up on. My dad—he showed me Dragon Ball, which was the first anime I ever watched, so I’ve been super into action anime since I started watching anime, but I do like some slice-of-life anime here and there, like Your Lie in April, legendary Studio Ghibli anime like Spirited Away and stuff like that, so it’s definitely going beyond shounen right now.
Q: Have you been getting more into it or are you sticking close to your roots?
d4vd: I like to stick close to my roots. There’s a lot of good shounen anime coming out right now, so I’m still in love with action.
Q: We’ve talked about your influences and how you like Minami and Tricot, and I think it’s interesting to hear how that contrasts between the music that you make that is really anime-inspired and more in your roots with indie.
d4vd: My inspiration kind-of comes from everywhere and me being not so… well-versed in my music taste early on in my life until I was like 13 in middle school and finding all of these bands and then, you know, falling in love with anime and then falling in love with the artists of the soundtracks to those anime. It was kind of interesting to see the styles that came out of my own music listening to them and all the sounds kind of, like, blended into each other, and you can hear the influence from all over—I’ve especially taken a liking to the Japanese pop-and-rock because the cadence they use with their language in Japanese and how to find new ideas and think outside of the box as a writer, lyrically, is probably one of the best things I’ve taken from it.
Q: Do you ever take inspiration from soundtracks, either movies or anime?
d4vd: Of course. Some of them—or, most of them, I should say—are really, like standard soundtracks like Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer, like just fully orchestral and instrumental cinematic soundtracks that I try to take as many notes as I can on because I’m trying to work more with live bands, violins, and cellos; and everything is coming into play now, so I’m trying to figure out how to be an actual “musician” as opposed to just an “artist.”
Q: I noticed when I was listening to “Leave Her” that your songs don’t always focus on ‘you’, so to speak. There’s often an equal power between your voice and the instrumentals, which I think is a common occurrence in movies that Hans Zimmer works on. [Note: Though, this is more a film sound mixing aspect]
d4vd: Right, exactly.
Q: Recently, I think your music has been expanding since the last time we talked. “2016” has a sort-of late-2000s alt-rock vibe.
d4vd: Right.
Q: And “Leave Her” itself also feels a little bit shoegazey, which is kind of similar to I think Tokyo Ghoul [Note: largely referring to TK’s songs], but I don’t think that’s the inspiration behind that.
d4vd: Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, we tried to make sure that the inspirations come across in a way that’s not super noticeable unless you’re a fan of the things that I’m a fan of, which is why I’m glad that you noticed that because “2016” is very 2005. And the thing with my music is [that] when I make those kinds of songs, you can mute the intros of any shounen anime and put my song over it, and it fits perfectly. So that’s my intention with those kinds of rock-bass songs.
Q: You’re taking more from the stylistic beats of these songs and these creators rather than just taking samples or whatnot.
d4vd: Right, exactly.
Q: Recently, you’ve also gained some traction, of course, for your contribution to a rather big animated series—that being Invincible. How does it feel to have made it into ‘mainstream’ animation?
d4vd: It was amazing—like, like something that I’ve been a fan of for such a long time and, you know, and the Invincible soundtrack feels so perfect for me to show my love for animation and my love for singing, because I started out basically writing music to pictures. Like, I wrote “Here With Me” after watching Up, the Disney movie, so it felt [so] in-line with what I do naturally; and then to have the opportunity to actually do it for an actual show was amazing.
Q: Were you a fan of the Invincible comics or show before you worked on it?
d4vd: It’s actually crazy, I had never read a comic before seeing the show. When I saw episode one, I was like “Oh, this is based on a comic series”, and instantly just fell in love with the entire storyline, and I started skipping ahead and spoiling myself by going to the comics to see what happens in the next episode and the next season and all that, so it’s an insane story.
Q: Was the song made specifically for the show?
d4vd: Yeah, I made friends with the supervisor of the music, Gabe Hilfer, and instantly fell in love with this team, and then I went and wrote the song in a day. It was like 45 minutes to an hour in the studio, and we were watching the scene trying to pinpoint every single emotion that we could pull out of Mark flying around with Amber, and then trying to just match that scene as perfectly as possible; and then the main thing for me was to not just soundtrack this theme from a background music perspective, but to also feel like they’re listening to that song in the actual show themselves so that it just felt even more natural.
Thanks to d4vd and his team for the opportunity, it was fun to discuss anime and the influence it has on his work, and hopefully, later in the future, we can talk again.
Credits
d4vd
Interviewer: Sarca
Assistance: Tamara Lazic (AnimeCorner) / Drew Ingall (The Oriel)
Photo of d4vd in featured image: Nick Walker
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