SPN20 Music Extravaganza: Splitting the Score - Two Composers, One Iconic Soundtrack

Welcome to the ultimate SPN music nerd-out! This Denim-wrapped Nightmares and In Defense of Fandom crossover dives deep into the sonic world of Supernatural with the dynamic duo behind the show's iconic score: composers Christopher Lennertz and Jay Gruska.

Chris and Jay split scoring duties for all 15 years (yes, really—they alternated episodes like the world's most functional musical marriage), and they spill all the secrets: from creating the beloved "Americana" family theme to writing horror music that could pivot to comedy faster than Dean Winchester can inhale a slice of pie.

Discover how these fraternity brothers-turned-collaborators blended classic rock vibes with creepy cellos, why Jay nearly got canceled by fans for using the family theme with the wrong character (oops), and what it was like scoring everything from black-and-white monster homages to full-blown musicals. Plus: behind-the-scenes stories about schmuckbait, temp scores, and why sometimes you just have to let the tuba impulses go.

Whether you're here for the technical talk or just want to know how they made 327 episodes feel like coming home, this episode is a love letter to the unsung heroes who made sure we felt every Winchester moment—even when we didn't consciously notice the music at all.

Special thanks to Rob Benedict and Louden Swain for allowing us to feature a couple of their tracks, which, thematically, are also songs from Supernatural episodes. Find music and more at https://www.loudenswain.com/.

Catchup on Supernatural Music Extravaganza episodes below:

1. Meet your co-hosts | https://www.buzzsprout.com/2076426/episodes/18168976
2. More than Background Music - Creating the Convention Experience | https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/spn20-music-extravaganza-more-than-background-music/id1674695211?i=1000737194995

Transcript

LA: 0:04

Welcome back to the Denim Wrapped Nightmares and in Defense of Fandom Podcast Crossover. Supernatural music extra gum. That's a mouthful, y'all. Yeah, but tell your friends. In case you forgot, I'm LA. And in this collaboration series, we're looking at music in the show, music inspired by the show, and music created by actors, cast, and groups. Today we're tackling music in the show, specifically music composer of Force Supernatural and how that set the tone for all 15 years. Chris Leonard is a composer of television, film, and video games, with more credits to his name than we can list. Besides splitting the scoring of Supernatural for all 15 years, Chris is best known for his work on The Boys, Pitch Perfect 3, The Rebooted Lost in Space, and Sausage Party. He's won multiple Emmys and other musical awards. In fact, Burley kicked off our conversation with Chris asking just which of his many awards he's most proud of.

Berly: 1:06

What is your favorite brag sheet item when you introduce yourself to somebody, your elevator pitch? Do you like to tell them, well, I was a BMI icon award representing? Or do you like to tell them about your multiple Emmy nominations? Um better than us. Come on.

Christopher Lennertz: 1:26

Oh, usually, honestly, I don't usually talk awards. I would probably talk shows because people, you know, I would usually like, because that's the what people know. I mean, nobody knows what a BMI thing is anyway. And then Emmys, I mean, kind of fine, but like I would just be like, oh, I did. I usually try to find right away what they what they watch that I might have done. And it's usually honestly, the it's you know, the the ones that everybody knows are like the boys and supernatural. Like those little ones everybody knows.

Berly: 1:58

He's better than me. I would tell everyone I won an icon award. I don't care who gave it to me.

Christopher Lennertz: 2:02

Well, it also makes me feel old, so I don't want to really, you know, like like ooh, the icon award, that sounds like an old person award who's done. An old person whose career is over. We don't want that.

Berly: 2:13

So that's lifetime achievement.

Sadie Witkowski: 2:16

Yeah.

Christopher Lennertz: 2:16

There you go. Okay, cool. I'll take that.

Sadie Witkowski: 2:19

Um, so I wanted to know how you first kind of developed the themes. We're gonna we're gonna talk about supernatural for now. I'll geek about the boys later. Um, how you thought about developing the themes for Supernatural? Like how were there inspirations? Were there specific topics that you or like melodies that you really wanted to introduce?

Christopher Lennertz: 2:37

I mean, a lot of it, you know, so much of it really comes from Kripke, comes from Eric, you know, at the very beginning of both shows, actually, but definitely with Supernatural, you know, this was sort of his first, you know, what he would probably consider to be his first show that was his. I mean, he did Tarzan before that, but but really it was it was this was the show that was so his his vibe with like you know the fact that it was sort of Midwestern and and sort of like you know, all these, you know, cool demon history and and and ghost stories and all that stuff. So I mean it's it's very much his vibe. So I you know, the first thing when he called me and said, Oh my god, this show got picked up and and and I want you to do it, you know, I was like, Well, who okay, who are the Winchesters? Who, you know, who's who's all characters? What do they listen? You know, uh the first thing I was like, okay, what do they listen to? He's like, all right, Dean's a classic rock guy, and you know, and then and then we started to just go down that road of like what what music would be jingling around in their heads, you know what I mean, as characters. And then the big thing that came up very very much from the beginning, um, is you know, Eric said right away, he's like, yeah, it's a horror show, but it's really a show about family. And that's what you have to get right first. So, you know, the first things we were writing, you know, the first things I dove into were like using the cello to, you know, to represent, you know, their relationship with dad. Um, and then using, you know, getting Dean and and and uh and Sam's brother's theme, you know, the the first time that happens when they're you know, you know, they're outside of the car, and you know, and it's like, all right, well, what does that's gotta come from the world of where Dean's, you know, Dean's the older brother, he's the one who's you know, who's sort of like setting the tone. So that that theme was in the pilot too. And so, you know, really what I did was I I asked Eric, like, who are these people and how do they feel about each other? And that's the first thing. I'm like, that's what the music has to do first, and then I can worry about things that are scary or jump scares or you know, fake outs and things like that. But that stuff's honestly easy compared to the the family relationship and and and the the attitude.

Sadie Witkowski: 4:55

I so I've never written music. I played in like the middle school band Trumbone, so I remember very little. But when you were thinking about putting this together, you're starting with these like emotions and these core relationships, and then are you making playlists on Apple Music of like this is this is the vibe, and then let that marinate in the back of your head, or does it actually distract you to listen to other music because it's it's giving you it's planting too many seeds that are like like oh I know this right if I'm actually just stealing from you know Metallica or whatever?

Christopher Lennertz: 5:21

Yeah, well, I mean I think I think more than anything, like what I try to do is if if some if I do too much listening of the same thing or the or the um or or specifically I try not to listen to scores as much, but I'll listen to like again, I'll listen, I'll be like, well, what would Dean listen to? And then I'll just listen to like that, but I'll listen very you know far a few, you know, I'll be like, yeah, it'll be like one, I'll you'll see the playlist and there won't be more than one song from each band. There'll be like, you know, one ACDC song and one Metallica song and one Kansas song. What it was like all thing, and then I put them all in this blender and just sort of like live with them in my head, and then hopefully that ever all of the elements are in there, but nothing's like so it's not weighted so heavily towards you know one particular band or one particular song, um, or or even one particular instrument, you know. I think that's one of the other things that was important um with uh with supernatural was you had a you know a show where Dean's pop music, you know, the rock music that Dean would listen to, and also the source music that was playing in all the bars and whatever that is very much classic rock. Um, but then classic rock doesn't do scary super well. Um, and so we had this tradition of, you know, uh a tradition of um orchestral, scary, you know, dissonant horror music, um, creepy piano, um, all of these kind of things. And the question was, well, how does that blend in the score? You know, how do we make it feel like they work together? And it's not like, oh, well, here's a scary piece and here's a here's a guitar piece. Because the problem with that is that will that will then be so obvious to a viewer, they'll be like, oh, I hear a cello, that means it's gonna be scary. Oh, I hear a guitar, that means it's gonna be funny, you know, and and so we really tried to then blend. Well, like, how can how can the the low sound of a of a distorted guitar, how can that blend with a low cello, or how can like the creepy piano turn into something that's more emotional? So when like the acoustic guitar comes in underneath it, it can go into a thing where you know Sam and Dean are having an emotional conversation. Um, but it could have been the creepy piano, could have gone the other direction and go towards the yellow-eyed demon. You know what I mean? And I think that was one of the big things for us was making sure that you know Eric's a big fan, both in Supernatural and also in the boys, he's a big fan of misdirects and fake outs. So you think that, you know, you think that something's good gonna happen good's gonna happen, and all of a sudden instead someone's head explodes, you know, or vice versa. You think that, like, oh my god, oh my god, it's so scary, it's so scary, and then it's just gonna be like Cass, you know, and he's gonna be like, ha, it's just me, I'm delivering a pizza. You know what I mean? So, like, there's a lot of those kind of things in all of in all of Eric's work. And so we had to make sure that the music and the instrumentation and the styles could sort of like weave back and forth so we don't give away too much of that, you know, direction.

Sadie Witkowski: 8:42

Almost like you had to be like a master of like quick turns, because it's not just this is only a spooky show, it's just American horror story or something. You need to be able to kind of thread that needle of all the transitions of the emotional beats, but also without like preceding the emotional beat and giving it away, essentially.

Christopher Lennertz: 8:57

Absolutely. I think that's exactly right. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

Sadie Witkowski: 9:01

Okay, yeah, because I it's so interesting. I think that so much audio design, we think of about it as being secondary, but it actually sets so much of the bass tone and can also be a spoiler in a lot of ways. Like it's really noticeable when you get it wrong. And if you get it right, you're like, I didn't even notice it. You're like, that's that's kind of the point.

Christopher Lennertz: 9:18

It's kind of it's right, it's it's really like there's been a couple times where I've watched where I've gone, you know, I've done a lot of movies too, and I'll I remember sitting in my a couple of my movies. Um, actually, it wasn't even my movie. I think it was uh trying to remember what movie it might have been. It might have been some like you know, beautiful, beautiful like Spielberg movie with a John Williams score, right? And I remember sitting next to my mom, and and I'm like, you know, it's it's like three hours long. It was like it was literally like saving private Ryan or something like amazing, right? I remember being like, oh my god, mom, isn't that wasn't that music amazing? And she looks, she's like, what music? Yeah, and I'm like, oh my god, that's it. That's it. You didn't notice, and and it, and you loved the movie and it worked. So, you know, that's our job, is is just yeah, make make them it doesn't matter if they notice the music, it's like just make them feel what they're supposed to feel and make them think what they're you know, make them live with the characters for the trip and for the ret adventure. And and that's my job. If the music, if you notice the music, that's extra. Actually, probably a bad thing a lot of the time.

Sadie Witkowski: 10:24

So right. If you're pulling it out, then maybe I should be worried. Like you've noticed too much.

Christopher Lennertz: 10:29

Exactly. Exactly.

Sadie Witkowski: 10:31

So well, what do you think about the so I know that you were doing all the composing work with Jay, but what do you think about the needle drops in the show and and the use of those like actual, you know, licensed music?

Christopher Lennertz: 10:42

I mean, there's I mean, so I'm I'm uh I'm gonna give away my my age and show a little bit of my oldness. But so I grew up in the 80s, set late 70s, 80s, in uh eastern Pennsylvania. I was born north of Boston, and I grew up most of the time from when I was about four, all the way through high school, and I was a guitar player. I, you know, I I when I was 12, I heard Hotford teacher, and I was like, I gotta learn how to play guitar like Eddie Van Halen. And so I that was all I did, you know. So Eric was in Ohio and I was in Pennsylvania. We didn't know each other, but like we were basically growing up in the same kind of place, and it's very much the same kind of place that Sam and Dean grew up, which is like I had my jean jacket and I had my shitty car and I had my crappy cheap guitar, and all weekend long we would I would get together with my friends and we would learn how to play ACDC and we would learn how to play Boston and we would learn how to play, you know, uh Bon Jovi or Metallica or whatever. And um, you know, and and so that is that's where it all came from. And so when I found out from Eric, he's like, no, no, that's that's gonna be the pop, the rock music of the show. That's gonna be the sound, that's gonna be what Dean listens to, that's gonna be what everyone, you know, when when the Reaper comes, you're gonna hear Don't Fear the Reaper, and it's like like that's all part of it, you know. And so for me, I was like, oh my God, this is basically my entire you know junior high and high school wrapped up in this thing. And I was, you know, to be to be completely honest, I was probably a a a combination of Dean and Sam, because I was kind of like uh, you know, a theater emo nerdy guy, a little bit like Sam would be, but like I was on the weekends, like I was all rock, and I was like, you know, I was just like turning it up as loud as possible. I'd turn up my guitar amps and my parents would yell at me and turn it down, you know, and it was like that was where I came from. So it was really, it was fun because I it kind of felt like I was writing, I was I had gotten a job to like write like for me, you know, and for my my upbringing, you know, which was really cool. And then and then so yeah, when I heard the, you know, I think it was was an episode one that was ACDC, I think, right? I think it was back and black. Um, you know, and that was the first time I was like, oh, I mean, when the when the when baby comes out and you're like, oh, that's it. That's I know that kid from high school, I remember those guys, you know, and and instead of like going to the football game, they're going to like kill a demon. That's how cool is that?

Sadie Witkowski: 13:20

It's it's like the perfect, yeah, young, young dude road tripping across middle America, like the perfect sounds soundscape for that, I would say.

Christopher Lennertz: 13:30

Right? Absolutely.

Sadie Witkowski: 13:31

How did you feel about the kind of changes that thing because the show went on for 15 years? Like they they were not uh young men by the end, as as handsome as they are. So, how did you think about changing those themes across 15 years and kind of developing because there were other elements that kind of were brought in later, I feel that are very different than the the kind of core first five years, I'd say.

Christopher Lennertz: 13:52

Yeah, so I'm gonna uh it's interesting. I'm gonna so this is a really good conversation, and it's so timely for me because my my son is 17, so he's going into senior year of high school, and he's totally from California, theater kid, goes to theater school, like, but loves legends and horror and mythology and all this stuff, and so he had surgery at the beginning of or no, the end of July, and he's they're like, Okay, don't do anything, you gotta hang, you know, two weeks, you have to hang out. And so literally, he started Supernatural episode one the day after surgery, and we binged, I sat and watched a lot of other, so we binged all the way through basically episode 10 or uh through season 10 we got to before like the recovery was over and we had to go on a family trip. And it was really it, I did I really didn't remember it changing so drastically so many times. And the one thing that I noticed about it, and the reason I think it the reason I think it worked, and there are a couple of reasons I think it worked, um, but I think it was because they the changes always were driven by the story, and it was all and and by additions of characters, so like when it did start opening up and becoming quite a bit funnier and campier, um, because there were always elements of that in in I'm sorry, I'm gonna close this one other door, whatever. But like it's like you could tell, like every time there was another step up, like when Bobby came into the picture, right? All of a sudden, now you have a little more twang and you have a little more humor, and he starts saying igits, and then there's Joe, and then there's the the the roadhouse, and and and slowly that happens, and then all of a sudden you get you know, then when you get cast, there's this whole other thing happening, and then when you get to you know to to the crazy you know, you get to Metatron and all the other like as yeah, Gar. I mean, right, yeah, and and and you know, and and and uh you know and Trickster and when Chuck comes in, it's like there's all these other things, and and what I think they did so well, and there's really there's not a lot of shows, and I I will attribute as much as I will attribute the success of Supernatural to the brilliance of Eric Kripke and and his vision, I think he would also agree with me that there was a lot of lightning in the bottle when it comes to casting and charisma and relationships with characters that sometimes just doesn't happen. And I think a lot of it is it is a lot of his luck, a lot of it's great casting too. But like the reason that you know on a show, and I and I and I will really put supernatural in a in the conversation with these kind of things, but the reason on shows like Cheers and MASH and these crazy like successful shows where you have uh big main additions to cast. Sometimes Cass that you love goes away. Sometimes you have a whole nother character that's like not just a guest star, but like literally joins and is equal the way Cass was, the way so many people, and it only that only works if there's that magic, if there's that thing. And it started with honestly, it's the guys just have a great character. I'm correct. I'm like Sam and Dean, like it is perfect, and I'm not sure anybody would have known that until it happened. I'm not sure, even in, I don't know, I wasn't in obviously the casting rooms, but like it just ha it just worked, and then you know, all these other people, so so I think the magic of the way these characters related to each other gave us permission in things like music and writing and the tenor of the song of the shows, the the tone of the shows. You know, if it wasn't literally Jared and Dent Jensen and what they created in their characters with Eric, like you couldn't go from a show where literally you thought someone was going the someone you love was going to hell, and literally and then the next show they just have really bad luck and fall off the sides of you know of a curb. Like, how it's so hard to be able to have a show that can handle those tonal differences. And watching 10 seasons in two weeks with my kid, I was like, that's amazing that this works. Because on paper, it shouldn't. It you should be like, what are you talking about? That you know, that that they're you know, they're in black and white, and then wait a second, what do you mean they're in Scooby-Doo? Like, none of that should actually work. That's totally crazy. But because of the show, because of who they are and their relationships, and because Eric did such an amazing job in the first, specifically the first two, three years of making you fall in love with those characters like they were in your own family. Like Sam and Dean were your brothers, like dad and mom were your dad. Like, if it wasn't for that, if if that wasn't so strong and didn't feel so real to an audience, you couldn't go off on these crazy tangents that happened later on. Um, but much like you know, like you both said, you know, it really what I think it did was is it gave it's like it's like when you go to a restaurant and they give you the palate cleanser, or they give you like the little surprise thing at the end where you're like all of a sudden it's like mango sorbet after this really heavy steak dinner. And it's like there's a reason for that because the other shit's really heavy, and whether it's really heavy because it's scary, or it's really heavy because you know mom and dad are gone forever, or like whatever that is, like there's something really effective about being like, oh, you know what? The the next episode, let's just take it down for a second and let's really make it funny. And then the uh I mean that's the other thing, you know. I mean, I'm gonna, you know, pump these guys up so much, but a comedy's hard. And as a musician, too, I'll say, as you know, I know we're talking about music, like I write a lot of comedy music, and it's not that the music's funny, but I write a lot of music for comedies in my feature career, you know, horrible bosses and bad moms, and you know, Shaustage Party. Like, I I that is what I'm known for in movie theaters, and it's I will go down on, I will die on the hill and plant my flag that comedy is the hardest thing to do, whether it's music or acting or writing. And that's the reason that you've got people like you know, it's the reason that Tom Hanks and Jim Carrey and um Robin Williams became these amazing Oscar-winning actors, because if you can do comedy, you can do anything. I'm absolutely positive of that because the timing is so precise and the craft is so meticulous and precise, but then looks effortless. And there's nothing the deadpan looks between Sam and Dean during the funny episodes, and then and then like with Cass, like you know, when Cass is watching porn, like that is the like the the the deadpan faces, there's no like there's those little looks that and like Jared does his thing with his you know his eyebrow and then and it's like that is so golden that like because they had such great comedy and and they could do that, it would have been a shame to try to make the whole show just scary and dark. And and I really feel like that after watching you know it's all over again after not seeing it for you know, I never watched the episodes after I I scored them. I mean, I I I was done, I was moving on because we had another episode to do. So like I hadn't seen season one, season two, season four since they happened. So to go back and watch and see like, oh my god, this really holds up, and it's and it's keeping the interest of my 17-year-old who literally doesn't watch anything that's over four minutes long on. And and there they are watching their 10th episode in one day. They haven't moved from the couch. And I'm like, this is crazy that this is so good.

Sadie Witkowski: 22:43

Anyway, I uh but you know, no, I I love that you have the recent exposure so you can be like, wow, we did do a lot of stuff, didn't we? Well, speaking of writing music for comedy, I'm curious how because you're right, it is such an element of timing and like knowing how to like it's it's all tension and release, right? And have building up that tension without snapping it too soon or having it go too long and then losing the momentum. How do you write music for comedic scenes in your Shelley Supernatural? Are you is it already all filmed and then they show it to you and they're like, okay, do you want to do something funny here or do you want to leave no music so that it kind of like hits differently, right?

Christopher Lennertz: 23:19

Yes, it is all filmed. When I see it, the whole episode is together. It's either completely locked or really close. Um, boys is the same way, and they just are like, here we go. And and a lot of times they'll have temp music in. The great thing about a long-running show like Supernatural and Now of the Boys is that all the temp music is my music from previous episodes. So, you know, it got to the point where like when I would get an episode after season, you know, eight, nine, ten that had like a funny scene in it, it would already have music of mine that was sort of appropriate, and or musical Jays, and um, you know, and and and we kind of know where to start. But one of the things that's really again, like I was talking about the way Eric loves the you know, the the misdirects. One of the other things that that we realized really early on with uh with Supernatural is that like where the music starts and stops is almost as important as what the music is and what is like because there's so many times and both with scares and comedy where you'll you know there'll be music going on and they're talking and Bobby comes in and whatever, and then you won't notice, but the music stops, and then like two seconds later, the joke happens, or the jump scare happens. And and one of our one of our like secret weapons in our you know, whatever our our backpack was was this idea of like, you know, well, you guys probably know the name Phil Segrisha, right? So, so Phil, Uncle Phil, uh, who's one of my favorite people in the whole world, who's with us on the boys now, too, um, he used the word schmuckbait. And uh and schmuckbait was basically a misdirect where I, you know, music or the camera moves or something, the darkness, lights going down, like some, it's basically like misdirecting you and leading you down the wrong path to go. I mean, Ghost Facers was a such a great example of it, where it's like we just watched that episode again, and I was like, oh my god, there's like one after another of all these, like, you know, you you build up and you make it, you make them think it's gonna be a scare and it's a joke, or you make them think it's gonna be a joke and then it's a scare, or you make them think that everything's fine and then you like hit them really fast. And and so much of that, you know, it's definitely Eric's vibe, but like Phil is a big proponent of it. And we started really doing it pretty early on in the show, and it really has to, it kind of doesn't matter somewhat what the music is, as long as it stops one breath before that joke happens, everybody's gonna laugh. And then it comes back in after the joke's done instead of a laugh track. So, like, you know, there's a lot of times where it's like, like, for example, like you'd you I'd stop, Cass would say something, and then you'd see Dean would look at Sam, and then all of a sudden you'd hear the brothers theme come in, doom doom, doo da d and it would come in right on the look. And it's the same as you know, in the 80s when you know, when you'd hear the audience in happy days come on, you know, and it's like it works, and it's and it's and it's making sure the audience gets the gag, you know.

Sadie Witkowski: 26:45

Yeah, kind of, and especially for such a long-running show, it brings them in where they hear that theme like, oh, I get it. Okay, it's the brothers. They might not even consciously know brothers' theme, but they're like, ha, I know what that is referring to.

Christopher Lennertz: 26:56

Absolutely.

Berly: 26:57

By the way, Chris, I love that you keep your secret weapons in your backpack and not your arsenal.

Christopher Lennertz: 27:02

Yeah, I know. I know. Like I said, I'm gonna- No, I love that. Yeah, for Pennsylvania, I don't have an arsenal. I I wish I had that cool trunk with all the like the the the shotguns and shit in it, but um, I just have guitar picks.

Sadie Witkowski: 27:16

Yeah. Well, actually, so speaking to like the use of the brothers' theme, how did the usage of some of those themes change over the years? Because initially it's very like it's very family-centric in a very American nuclear family, right? It's about these two brothers, their relationship with each other, their relationship with their dad, the lack of their mom in their lives. But that changes a lot in the later seasons where they have this kind of you know, found family. You get Bobby, their mom comes back, Cass, Crowley to some degree, you know, Rowena to some degree. Like it's really I didn't get the Rowena too.

Christopher Lennertz: 27:48

I mean, it's like, oh, it's so great. Um, so many great characters. Um, I think that was it's funny. So it I don't know how much you guys know about Eric and my history, but um, Eric and I went to USC together. We were college uh friends, and but more importantly, like we were fraternity brothers. We were in the same fraternity at USC. Um, and we like to we like to call it, it was a fraternity that had been been kicked off of campus long, long ago. And they the the national uh the it's called Pi Kappa Alpha and the national uh people came in and they're like, oh, we're gonna restart a fraternity. So they they kind of went, they said, well, we're gonna ask around campus and find out like who are people that we think would be like really good at, who are people who are like excellent in their departments or in like a club or uh on a sports team, and see if we can be you know get them all to join this one thing and and and and create this organization. And so USC is a famous film school where George Lucas went to school and Robertson Mekis went to school. So, but most of the time, and and you know, you know, the music school is the same way. Um, and so most of the time, music and cinema majors do not join fraternities. Like it's just it's too, it's you know, a lot of times it's mostly like jocks and and and and you know, and and pretty boys and all this stuff. So our fraternity ended up being like the revenge of the nerds of arts, right? So it was like we had right, we had all these. I mean, and it wasn't exclusively that, but we had like all these cinema people and music people, and and and an ante, like you know, our like in our fraternity, like literally our year while Eric and I were there was me, Eric, um, Josh Schwartz, who created OC and Gossip Girl was our president, um, Brad Abelson, who's directing the new Shrek, is an animator for The Simpsons for 20. We were all in this, and we all lived in this house. And so I lived next to Eric and did all his short films. But I think what that experience did for us. Was we were all these goofballs who kind of didn't have a home. A lot of us, too, were you know, USC is in the middle of Los Angeles, and we none of us knew anybody, and and our parents weren't rich and famous. So we were like, all right, well, let's let's all have this little like place that we would go hang out. And so I think it became very found family. And so you had guys like Eric from Ohio and me from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and and and we all sort of like ended up in this place together, and you realize that those do become your family, and they become your brothers and become your friends, and and so I think when when you know Eric's a smart storyteller and he knows you can't, I'm sure he was well aware that 15 years of just two guys, you know, I mean, sure, but like that first of all, it's not real life, but second of all, it's you know, it's not it's not uh compelling enough. And so the fact that that that it came around to adding all these characters, which you needed to do just for fun and story, but it ne but those characters weren't allowed to just be story elements, they had to sort of join the fan. Like Cass couldn't just be the angel who's out there, like he had to become their brother, and you know, and Rowena had to like be like all these people had to come in, and and Bobby had to feel like a father figure, and and I think that's because that's what was so important to Eric's life and how he was raised, how he grew up, and how he how we ended up in college. And so I think that's again, I think that's what made people keep watching the show, and nobody ever could understand it. It was like the funniest thing. I remember hearing, you know, like actually seeing, you know, being in meetings or seeing like memos who are like, you know, they'd be like, season it'd be like season nine, and they're like, wait, the ratings just went up on the net on the network that nobody watches. I don't like they didn't, they like I don't even understand why, like, why would that the ratings would go down, but then they go up and they go even higher than three years before, and no one knew like what like why does that and it's like and then they started realizing the crazy thing was, and my son's an ex-list, like the crazy thing was is they started realizing that people's kids started watching it, so there were all these people who were like giant fans who were probably in their 20s when the first season came out, and all of a sudden, they've got kids who are in their early teens and they're starting from episode one, and so there's all these people now coming to the conventions and going writing fan fiction who literally weren't born when season one start was on, and now they're like 14-year-olds, 13-year-olds writing fan fiction based on, you know, and it's like who would have ever predicted such a crazy thing? But that only happens if the bones and the structure and the elements are compelling, and they were from the very get-go.

Sadie Witkowski: 33:12

Yeah, they were compelling and they grew in organic and compelling ways that kept people attached enough that they were like, Hey, my kid is finally old enough they can see season one, even though it's got some of the scarier episodes. Like, they'll be fine.

Christopher Lennertz: 33:24

Absolutely, I totally agree.

Sadie Witkowski: 33:27

Um, well, I have I'm gonna let Burley take a chance to ask some questions too. But the last question that I really wanted to ask about was, and this is maybe a little technical, did you keep writing music for every single episode through all 15 years? Or by by season 13, were you like, uh, I need to like write a new iteration of this piece, but I don't, I don't actually need to start from scratch? Like when when did it become more tinkering and less full-throated writing, I guess?

Christopher Lennertz: 33:51

Um, oh, I mean, I would say, you know, it it as you go, it's you know the first five years were like pretty solid, like a lot of new material. Um, then after that, there's a lot of variation. And that's really, I mean, the good the good news is if if the original material is good, you want that. Um, but it does help. It does help us get, you know, get the shows done. Um, but it was always it was always tailored to fit the scenes, but you when you when you want the brothers theme, you actually do want the brothers theme. You know, you don't want to write a brand new thing. Luckily, the new characters kept coming in, so that kept giving us an ability to to bring in new things. And and that's why Jay and I both loved whenever we had the special episodes, whether it's you know, Scooby or Time After Time, or um uh, you know, or or uh obviously the musical episode, the 200th, was like one of our favorites. It's like we loved that because we did get to be like, all right, let's wipe the slate clean and do something crazy, um, which was really fun. But, you know, I I saw uh on the plane, I saw the um the James Bond movie where Sean Connery came back called Never Say Never Again, and he came back a lot, it was like 10 years after he had retired, and they did the movie because it wasn't part of the original deal with MGM, so a different studio did it. And part of the problem was they couldn't use the James Bond theme. And if you watch the movie, you're like something doesn't work because it doesn't sound like James Bond. And I know that's Sean Connery, and I know there's a spy, and he keeps saying, Oh, you know, Bond James, but it just doesn't, and and you're like, this isn't good, and it doesn't feel right, and you're like, oh, I know why, because I need to hear that theme, I need to hear that music and that twangy guitar, and none of it was there. And and I do feel like when you get, I mean, it's just like whether it be Star Wars or The Godfather or you know, in television, something like, you know, whether even MASH is a great, you know, or cheer, like you want to hear the music that makes you feel like I've shut down my life, I've sat on the couch, and I am now entering this world. I'm entering this story with these people who I have fallen in love with, and I want to watch their latest adventure. And if the music doesn't feel like them, it's not gonna, it's not gonna be great. And and so I do, you know, I I love the boys is you know very similar now, where it's like, you know, when Homelander goes crazy, you want to hear the violin. Like it's just it's what you it's what your brain wants, it's what your heart wants. Um, so yeah, we do we do variations on it, but it definitely as you develop and and go on, um, you know, you're able to move that in different directions, which is a really great thing. Um and sometimes it's the other thing, it's really fun trying to do weird new variations of things. Um, I'm trying to think of the some of the funniest things we did on Supernatural. I think there was a time where we did, and nobody really noticed it, where we did the brothers theme, but like half as fast, and we did it with like low, creepy piano. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun and nobody, but it was like super, so we try to a lot of times we try to throw in like little Easter egg weirdnesses, um, you know, and and yeah, it's just it's kind of fun to do that. But everyone I've ever met that had anything to do with Supernatural has been like the nicest person who's be who's like ended up becoming like either a friend or a collaborator or whatever, and and it's just it's just special. It's just I never would have predicted it, but yeah, it's so amazing.

Berly: 37:56

I noticed in seasons one through five there were several more needle drops, licensed music, etc. Uh, and then season six, not so much, but like you've already said, you did so much of the groundwork in seasons one through five. Did your workload or the way you approached things need to shift at all in order to match that shift away from so much licensed music?

Christopher Lennertz: 38:23

Um it it didn't need to shift that much. I mean, I definitely, I mean, I got I gotta give out a shout out to my team. Um, so as I got further along in the show and as I started doing um other shows a lot with Eric, um, I definitely needed needed help. So I had uh Tim Wynn, who actually did the most recent. He's my my partner in the studio. He's also in the fraternity with me and Eric. Uh, he just did uh um the latest uh Final Destination movie. So like he's one of my dear, you know, he's he was my best man at my wedding. So he he helped out on a lot of the music. Phillip White also became uh a big, a big uh collaborator on a lot of the music with me as we got further along, who ended up he ended up going on to do Winchesters with Jay. Um and uh you know, and and so I definitely there became like more score. Um so I definitely had some help. And I was also doing Revolution for Eric at the time, uh, and then and then even starting the boys. So uh um, so I wanted to make sure that I could always you know deliver everything. But I also think that like there was I'm sure I'm gonna say like I'm sure I don't know for a fact, but I'm 99% sure that the move away from source music was budget related. I'm sure. Uh I can be pretty sure of that, that they just were like, well, we've got a hit show, let's save a little bit of money. Um that said, they used it when they needed it. Um and and I think one of the things that it did was it made them special. Uh, so when they did have a giant, I know I remember at one point I think we got the stones uh towards you know, towards the back half of the series. And then obviously, like they always went, they went and got the rights for us to redo Wayward Sun for like the 200th for the musical and things like that. So they would spend the money where they knew it was gonna have the most bang for the buck. Um, and I think that was important, but I missed some, I'm not gonna lie, I missed all of that uh great source music. Um, and we still had a lot of cool stuff, but I I think part of it, a lot of it was just money related. Um, but it did give us more opportunity to score a lot more things. Um, but yeah, I missed it. I'm not gonna lie. They should have kept spending, they should have kept spending the money.

Berly: 40:48

Right, right. Well, just to your credit, uh, I think the only reason I've personally noticed is that I use licensed music to promote new episodes of our podcast coming up. So I just noticed, oh, I don't have as many options as I did once upon a time. Honestly, though, I don't know that I would have noticed that much otherwise, Chris. Just because you did build that world so well in season five. That, like you said, whether it's conscious or unconscious, that music is what your music is what lets me know I'm in supernatural. Oh, thank you. You are an icon, after all.

Christopher Lennertz: 41:30

And and and it's gonna be it's interesting. So I know you guys are talking to Jay, but I think we'll have him in like an hour. But I think the interest like it's interesting. I I think you should, you know, probably uh chat with Jay about the same thing because we, you know, uh I I just have to give such a shout out because I think that that this experiment that experiment could have gone massively wrong had it not worked out, and had Jay not been the kind of person he was, and vice hopefully vice versa. But like we we didn't know each other at all, and we sat down and and had lunch, and basically we knew so Bob Singer always used Jay, and Eric always used me, and so they basically came to us, and we both had the same agent at the same time, and they basically came and they said, Look, here's there's there's two ways this can go. One is Bob and I can fight, Bob and Eric will fight, and one of us will win, and that person will get this show, and the other person will get nothing, and then it'll be weird. Or what if you guys did it together and and flip-flopped every other episode? Would you consider it? And so I was doing like some really big video games at the time and and and and trying to really get into movies, and Jay had charmed, and I think Lois and Clark might have still been on at the time. So he had other shows, and we're like, we're really busy, that might actually work. Let's see if we like each other. And so I remember we went out and we had um, I think we had dim sum, and we're sitting there, we'd never met before, and very quickly we realized that we're super different, but we love a lot of the same stuff, you know. So Jay's, you know, the fat the grandfather to Jay's kids, if you guys don't know, is John Williams. Like, I don't know if you know that whole thing. So Jay's ex-wife was John Williams' daughter. Jay's kids, the Gruskas, all you know, his kids with his first wife, are all John Williams's kids. So bar, you know, Barbara Ethan, like they're all massively, and I'm a giant John Williams fan. But what I didn't know was that Jay was like a giant classic rock like songwriter and pop song, you know, he was in Three Dog Night and all this other stuff. And like I came from Pennsylvania. We like that's what we like. I said, we played that in our garage. And so then he finds out, I think he thought I was like a uh, you know, uh just a composer who like wrote notes and like was really into you know classical music, and then he finds out, oh, well, you're a guitar player too, okay. And so we just by the end of the the meal, we were like, okay, I think this could work. And by the way, we have a lot in common, but we have a lot that that's different. Um, and so one of the things that I noticed watching the first 10 episodes turn or 10 years again, were like, you can tell which episodes each one of us did. Like, I don't think our music sounded the same, but it sounded very connected. And as the show went on, you can hear which parts of my shit Jay ripped off and which parts of Jay's shit that I would rip off. Because I would watch his show and I'd be like, oh, dude, that was amazing how you did that. And then I'd be like, oh, next time they do this funny thing with Cass, I'm gonna do my version of that. And then Jay would be like, Oh, I heard this thing you did with the cello, I'm gonna do that next time they see dad. And we would just we would do our own variations of the other person's thing from like eight shows before. And it really, it really was fun because it helped us first of all, again, it gave us somewhere to start, which wasn't from scratch, but it also allowed so it was interesting to hear two very different people with totally different musical sort of backgrounds, and all of a sudden, like our shit started mixing in a blender. So by the time we did get to like season five, six, seven, eight, like it it felt like they weren't as different. It felt like because we had kind of appropriated our fate, I had appropriated my favorite Jay stuff, and he had appropriated his favorite me stuff. And so by the time we were in that world, we're like, oh my god, this is what a cool like musical experiment experiment that was. Um, and like I there's so many great things that I would like hear on a Jay episode and be like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my version of that. Um, and and it was really fun to be able to do that. And uh, you know, we still we still chat uh you know a couple times a year, and and he's just such a lovely human. And um, yeah, I feel very grateful that we were, you know, and we were able to do the crazy thing, which no one television can do, which is if I got a movie or if he got the opportunity to do you know some live concert in Europe, like he would call me and be like, Hey, can you do three in a row? And then I'll do three after that. And we would just shift episodes around. So we had the kind of ability to continue some of our other like passion projects without losing a step on the show. And and that, you know, uh that I don't think we could have done 15 years without it. So um, yeah, so he's he's one of the most hilarious, lovely people. And you can uh you could you could also tell we used to always talk because Jay came from like 70s and he's still kind of he's like when he gets excited, he'll be like, Man, that's heavy, that's far out. And uh, oh dude, that's far out. And we would always be like, oh, Jay loves it. So I love him.

LA: 47:14

And as Chris mentioned, he wasn't the sole composer for supernatural, and we managed to nab the second half of this dynamic duo. Jay Greska is a composer and songwriter with credits for television, movies, and albums that are frankly jaw-dropping. IMDB claims his best-known composing credits are for Supernatural Commando, Adventures in Babysitting, and Little Shop of Horrors. He also worked on the prequel spin-off series, The Winchesters. We were lucky enough to speak with him right after our conversation with Chris. Here's that conversation now.

Jay Gruska: 47:50

As I was telling your esteemed colleague, I hope I remember one-tenth of the details of questions you're gonna ask me. I mean, you know, it's been they've all rolled into one giant 15-year, you know, glob in my brain. So forge ahead, we'll see how we do.

Berly: 48:12

All right, sounds great. So, first and foremost, I was curious how did you meet Robert Singer? Was Lois and Clark your introduction to each other?

Jay Gruska: 48:22

Exactly right. So I auditioned to do the score to the pilot for the previous um executive producer creator of the show, Deborah Joy Levine. And, you know, it was one of those sort of Hollywood cattle calls where lists go from 10 down to 5, down to 3, down to 2. And I was fortunate that I got it. And I think that Bob, who I had never met, came on very early in the first season to take over the show. I think within the first, I want to say within the first four or five episodes, that he was the new boss. And, you know, as as Hollywood goes, I had no idea what that would what that would mean for me. Um, you know, that the the the pilot went great and the next few episodes went great. I might be wrong. He might have come come in even shortly after the pilot. It's possible. So it was very early, and um that's when we met. And I have to say that pretty much on everything he ever did from then on, I was fortunate enough to get the call. And that will segue into, and I don't know if you covered this with Chris, but the way that I got on Supernatural, because as you guys probably know, Chris and Eric were college buds, Eric Kripke. And so when Eric got this show early started, Chris was the obvious choice to do the the show. And then when because Chris, uh because Eric was a relatively new um, you know, executive producer, show creator, showrunner at that point. What are we talking? 2005, I think?

Berly: 50:26

Yeah, that was when the pilot aired, yeah. Yeah, almost 20 years ago in September. 20 years ago.

Jay Gruska: 50:33

Well put, well put. Um uh so um uh I'm I'm segueing for you uh with intention, which is that the way that, because uh until that point, Bob was always the sole showrunner, and I would get a call. Bob asked me to do this show, this pilot, this little short-lived series, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and two of the shows that I worked on for him, I got Emmy nominated for. So those were, you know, he was just a good luck charm as well as a wonderful human. Um he and Eric had a conversation when Bob got brought on to the project, which is, you know, going over sort of the whole global view of the thing. Then when it came to music, Eric said, Well, I've got my guy. I mean, you know, Chris's gonna do the the music. And then Bob said, um, I'm I'm paraphrasing, um, having not been there, but I'm paraphrasing, Bob said, Um, you know, well, I've I've got my guy, so you know what how do you how do you want to work this? And I th the what they decided fairly was that Chris would do the pilot, and then I would do the next episode. What was it called?

Berly: 51:58

Wendigo.

Jay Gruska: 51:59

Wendigo, exactly. Um uh and then they would sort of determine who felt right. This was unbeknownst to us, and that would be the composer of the show, and of course, the the punchline is that they liked us both, and we alternated episodes for the next 15 years.

Berly: 52:24

I mean, I can't blame them because the pilot set the tone of the entire world that was going to be built out for us so well. But then you came in with Wendigo, where we don't see the monster for a big part of that episode, if you recall. So your score was incredibly important for that story, not just the episode overall, but really telling the story. Uh pick between the two of you based off of those. They made the right call.

Jay Gruska: 52:51

Y'all both we were lucky on every level, and I say this sincerely, having worked on 500 plus hours of aired television series and and movies of the week and so on, that supernatural was this rare bird where everybody liked each other for the most part. That was my experience. That was my experience, you know. The producers were wonderful. Chris and I immediately had a wonderful, um, relaxed communication. You know, we only had a couple of conversations, like musically, um, like let's stay away from this kind of idea. Let's, you know, the the point being that we were each to be ourselves, but following a basic sort of guideline. And um it was just wonderful in that regard. And so it made life really great because normally when a show starts out as a composer, certainly, you're looking over your shoulder every day, going, is that producer gonna like it? Is that producer gonna like it? Does the director like it? Um, this producer whispered, do this in this scene, when this producer whispered, do this in that same scene, and they might not be the same thing. And so our job as composers is to try to please everybody, do what's right for the story, and lastly, please ourselves. That's kind of the pecking order of working on a you know, a TV series, uh, and then eventually it becomes please the audience. Which yeah. Um, so I'm being long-winded without you even asking anything. So there you go.

Berly: 54:46

Hey, this is great material. Uh keep it, keep it going. So, how did you develop uh the themes uh that were included throughout the show? Did you have any specific inspiration for that?

Jay Gruska: 54:59

That's a good question because initially the sort of marching orders from Eric and company was that there wouldn't really be a continuing theme because the first few seasons, as you both professionally recall, um were a little movie unto itself. Demon of the week, completely different geographical location. That's what made it so fantastic and wonderful for all of us, especially for music, because music, you weren't just reinventing the wheel, at least the first several seasons, um, because we were in a new place and and and so on. So to answer your question, there I didn't really think thematically. I think until okay, you guys will know this. When when was the first time I used this the the thing that we now have come to known as Americana or the or the family theme? I think the name of the show. I have to look it up.

Berly: 56:12

I was going to say it could probably help you if you remember the scene.

Jay Gruska: 56:16

Well, it's the it was the last. What was the last what was the last episode of season one? And what was the last episode of season five? Because it was one of those two.

Sadie Witkowski: 56:26

Swan song and um five, yeah, mining trap that you have.

Jay Gruska: 56:34

Swan song was when I wrote that little theme, and I just remembered that it had this little Americana kind of feel to it in the in the in in the show. And then do you guys know what a temp score is? Uh well, I'll I'll uh you know I've I've I've said this before in other supernatural interviews, but I'm happy to share it with you in terms of our process, so and then I'll come back to what why the temp score mattered. We get, Chris and I, or any composer gets a rough cut of a show to watch that doesn't have sound effects, doesn't have visual effects, uh, sometimes has uh you know an airplane flying overhead during a scene, so they have to, you know, overdub, which is called looping the voices to keep it quiet and all that. An attempt score is what the combination of the director of that episode and the editor, and sometimes often in supernatural, the producers said, let's use this type of music, or I love this cue, a cue in a in a movie's a piece of music is called a cue in a movie, C U E. Um uh let's use this, you know, as an example of what we like so that when the composer hears it, they'll know the ballpark vibe of what we're looking for in the scene. So that's what a temp score is. It stands for temporary score.

Berly: 58:21

Okay.

Jay Gruska: 58:22

Okay? Um and in most cases, it's really a drag for us, for composers. Because it's either something that's like either doesn't fit for us, or they've used a hundred-piece orchestra that somebody took six weeks to write, and we've got a week to write with a handful of players. So that is just a that's just reality in uh you know in TV world. That's not always the case with, I mean, it was rarely the case with Supernatural. They were just so musically sensitive. From everyone on down, Eric, Bob, Phil Segrisha, everyone on down had musical awareness, sensitivity, and all that. So, but I digress. So in the temp score, what was the show again that I'm talking that we're talking about?

Berly: 59:14

The episode you were talking, you were talking about Americana.

Jay Gruska: 59:16

Swansong, Swan Song, Swan Song. Sorry.

Berly: 59:20

Don't apologize, you're good.

Jay Gruska: 59:22

300 and some titles later, you guys are gonna have more retention than I. Um, in the temp score was a I forget what the piece was, but it was just some little orchestral, you know, heartfelt American piece. And that sort of catapulted me into it, along with the introduction of this notion of the boys with their father and this whole family notion. I didn't even know that I was heading there when I when I wrote it, but then within at least uh A time or two in the following season, it became an obvious choice to use again. And I never repeated it exactly the same way. I always tried to have different uh instrumentation, and I always tried to make sure that when I used it, because there's not very many examples of long, long-standing thematic material, because so many shows had their own inner themes having to do with what was going on in that episode. But that one was one that I used literally from the end of that first season right up until the last cue of the last episode of Supernatural was the electrified version with a really power strong rock guitar playing the melody as opposed to what I'd used before: flutes, violin, cello, piano, you know, various instruments. So there's not a long list of thematic material that was a through line, but that's an example of one that sort of not only, you know, asked, oh, use me here, but sort of asked for it there because similar kind of moments. And then after a few years, I started noticing that the audience was reacting to it and commenting about it. I left social media a couple years ago. Too much hate for me going on in these last few years, and I didn't have time to filter it out. But when I was on it, a combination of um Twitter and uh and and a little bit Instagram, it was mostly Twitter for a decade. Um I really started to see wonderful response to that. So I was um careful to use it when it was appropriate, and the one time I used it where it wasn't, it might have been a combination of some slight laziness on my part, and that I thought, and I forgot the name of the character. Shit. I I thought of him as family, even though he wasn't. Who was who was their brother that are you talking about Adam or the other one? Castell, who they like treated as okay, no, I used it once with Castille in the context of a scene. I caught so much shit from fans about it, and I said, Ah you're right. I'm sorry, I was wrong. So I have huge respect for the fandom of supernatural that knows far more than I do about what's appropriate and what isn't.

Sadie Witkowski: 1:02:44

Is it respect or fear?

Jay Gruska: 1:02:47

Oh, a healthy combination of both. A healthy combination of both. But anyway, so it that's another long-winded answer to that there weren't a lot of themes that went through the whole thing. But if I answered you specifically about like an episode that had a theme that happened a few times within it, that's always story-driven and image-driven. I'm pointing up there because that's where my monitor is. Um you know, uh the picture uh tells you, and the and the pacing of a scene and the quality of the acting and the and the lighting and all those things, and the storyline are what informs writing a particular theme or a particular sound combination. Um and that's why after the first few episodes, and other than the musical, that episode, what was it, episode 200 was the musical. What was that called?

Sadie Witkowski: 1:03:51

Fan fiction, right? I only know the name of a few episodes, but I really know them.

Jay Gruska: 1:03:57

Okay, well, I I've I've I've prepared to ask you only the ones you know about. Uh no, uh, like with fan fiction, you know, I read the script because there had to be pre-records for that. We had to write the songs before they were even the show was even shot, because they were obviously going to be lip-syncing when they were doing it. But short of that, I never read another script because when you read a script before you're gonna score it, you're making your own movie. Right. And too many wrong choices could be made. And so with Supernatural, and with many other projects I worked on, it was always about oh, let me see what does it look like? What is the pacing of the thing? What is the lighting? What is the quality of the acting or the pace of the acting? And you know, the overall story is going to be told to me there instead of my mind going into some wonderful or not wonderful place when I read something on the page.

Berly: 1:05:03

So you actually answered another question that I already had further down on the list. So keep it coming. You're doing great.

Jay Gruska: 1:05:10

What was the other question?

Berly: 1:05:12

Uh, how did usage of the themes like the family theme change over 15 years?

Jay Gruska: 1:05:18

Oh, okay, there you go. Okay, so the nutshell answer was just reinstrumenting it. Reinstrumenting it. And then, you know, once in a while I would re-harmonize it. I always kept the melody the same. But do you know what I mean by re-harmonize it? Maybe changing some of the chords underneath it. But that was very rare. I mostly um stayed true to what the composition was with different instrumentation uh playing it, depending on what the scene asked for.

Berly: 1:05:50

So, speaking of what the scene asked for or the episode asked for, how did you tackle the challenge of supernatural's genre mashup, especially when it occurred in a single episode between horror, comedy, all of that?

Jay Gruska: 1:06:05

Yeah, I mean, it became, first of all, there are some supernatural episodes that are as funny as any other TV TV show that's trying to be funny that I've ever seen. One that um one that Chris did is the funniest episode ever, French Mistake.

Sadie Witkowski: 1:06:25

It's like it's so good.

Jay Gruska: 1:06:27

I mean, it's just absolutely just breaking of the fourth wall and and and it just, I mean, it's just riotously funny. So to answer your question, my process was um because we never, I mean, occasionally I crossed the good taste line into bad taste, but we never wanted to be wah wah wah funny. But occasionally I think I did cross that line. And you know, the bottom line is that if the producers are not gonna like it, and by the way, the distinction in television versus movies, in feature films, the director is king. Here's what I want, here's how it should be, I like that piece of music, I don't like that piece of music. In television, it's the producers. Once in a while, there's a little collaborative moment where the director will give his input and the producers agree, and that of course that's a thing. But in terms of the buck stops marching orders for composers, it's the producers. Fortunately, you know, like I said before, they were all super musical when it and it was we didn't have to decipher what they meant. What was the question again?

Berly: 1:07:45

The genre mashup, balancing the comedy with the horror, with the drama.

Jay Gruska: 1:07:49

Thank you. I think I mean I I I I I only remember maybe initially when it first started to be like every time, you know, Dean ate. I had to hold myself back from using tubas and womp, womp, you know, just goofy shit. You know what I mean? I had to hold myself back from it. So I I don't know the the complete answer to that, other than that it it all the all the directions musically were informed by a combination of what was on the screen, what the temp music that was used was, and by the way, regarding that, they were always great if we didn't agree with it. I'm sure Chris had the same experience. There might be a piece of temp, and you know, I would go, that doesn't feel right, guys. You know, uh uh oh, I'm digressing again, but to explain to you what the process was for us. So we get that we get that um video video that we watch, and then we go to what's called a spotting session. And a spotting session is where the composer, the producers, sometimes the director is in the room also, the sound effects supervisor, hugely important for supernatural, and also the visual effects people, because remember, we're not seeing it finished, we're seeing it, you know, shot, but many things still have to be done, not just the music. And everybody sits in a room, or almost all of that group I mentioned sits in a room, and you literally decide, you know, there's time code going along on the screen, and you literally decide everything then. Okay, here at one minute and 22 seconds, let's start the music and let's end it when he reaches for the doorknob two minutes and 29 seconds later. And so the music editor, who's also in the room there, is taking notes of everything that's discussed, and then the composer gets those notes, hopefully the same day, but usually the next day, um, which is because we only have about a week to write these scores.

Berly: 1:10:15

Right.

Jay Gruska: 1:10:16

With the caveat being, you know, when we have to write songs before that. Um, so that's I just wanted you to be aware of of the of the process.

Berly: 1:10:25

Um I love learning how stuff works, so feel free to go into that.

Jay Gruska: 1:10:29

Yeah, I just I think that I think that people that aren't in it find it fascinating that that's you know, that that's how it works. It doesn't just magically, they don't just put a camera up and then three days later there's music there. And yeah, I mean, it's there's a big long process and decision making, lots and lots of decision making. So, anyway, um to go back to your original question about you know how to how to distinguish between the dramatic, the scary, the funny, it was just basically informed by a combination of what was on the screen, what was the temp score, and what was discussed at the spotting session. That was hugely informative for all for composers. Because, you know, you might have um you might have the a producer say about a piece of music um that was used in the temp score for a scene, going, I hate that. So immediately our wheels are doing the opposite of that, right? Or it might prompt a question from composer-producer, either yes, I agree with you, or if you feel comfortable enough, and within a very short period, Chris and I both did because everybody was smart and musically and creatively so savvy, um, you could dispute it. Why do you hate that? You know, here's why, here's what works about that for me, or the opposite. Why do you, you know, I I realize that you love that, and I'll try to incorporate aspects of it, but here's why, what do you think about this idea? What if we took this whole other approach? Instead of a big giant piece of music there, what about if it was here a pin drop small, or vice versa? So um those uh mainly three things the picture itself and how it played, the the quality of the temp music, and most importantly, I think the conversation at the spotting session, that pretty much, you know, got you rolling when it came to the distinguishing between the the horror and the uh and the emotional and the and the goofy.

Berly: 1:12:51

So I had found out earlier on when we were watching the show that there were two composers for this series, which was very unique. The first episode that I found myself googling, okay, which which one composed this? I need to know was Monster Movie. Oh my goodness. Talk to us about that process for that episode, like when you saw it, and this whole process that you've described for us. If can you tell us what you remember from Monster Movie?

Jay Gruska: 1:13:17

I love that you picked that one because that um might not might not be my it's one of my favorite scores that I did for the series, but it's my most fun one to have composed. And you know, that was a lot of music, and it was very much of that sort of 40s, 50s black and white, uh, you know, classic, you know, not not not a pop sensibility at all. And I just went down the rabbit hole, and um, I think my wife like put food under the door for a week, you know what I mean? I I basically didn't look up. I probably slept 20 hours that week. You know what I mean? It was just, I was just so into it. And as I recall, the temp score had some of those old Frankenstein-y kind of great, sort of what we what we would now call purely melodramatic and over-the-top things. And then when I discussed it with Bob, who directed that episode, Bob Singer directed that episode so wonderfully with in black and white, and I mean, and just the the types of shots were a real study of those older movies. As we were talking, I looked at him and I went, you know what I just realized? I can't be too over the top. No matter how over the top I feel like I'm being, it's probably right. So, um, but it was super fun, super, super fun. I had it, you know, I had a little handful of musicians on it. You know, I remember delivering it, I think, I forget, I might have delivered it, I don't remember even when we aired. We aired like three different nights over those 15 years, maybe even four. I just remember um going to sleep for three days. But anyway, I'm happy that you uh mentioned that one because it was uh a real rabbit hole to go down, and it really was an island uh in every way for supernatural. We never did anything really like it before or since, both musically, visually, concept-wise. And of course it was goofy as hell, too, but um super fun.

Berly: 1:15:46

Yeah, they had had some goofy episodes before that, but like I said, this was the first one where I really took notice of the score in a good way. And as soon as that episode was done, I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta see who who did this one.

Jay Gruska: 1:16:00

Pleases me so much because I I really enjoyed doing that.

Berly: 1:16:05

Did Bob Singer give you any kind of heads up that hey, this one's gonna be way out there, or were you just given the temp score, as you said?

Jay Gruska: 1:16:13

I think he called me uh a week or two. Well, I was given the the the uh you know the the unfinished video to watch before the spotting session. And you know, in the first minute and a half, and I went, whoa, this feels like Frankenstein from 19, whatever, whatever it was, you know. And I got real excited because he just he just let me go. Bob just let me go, and he always did, and that was a beautiful thing. I mean, I had to earn Eric's trust because we were new together, and that happened fairly quickly, and the same thing happened for Chris with Bob, you know, a handful of episodes, and everybody was not looking over their shoulder, you know. But with Bob, you know, because at that point we had already worked together for a decade. Yeah, he just he just said go.

Berly: 1:17:08

So we already talked about monster movie. Is there another episode that comes to mind where you had to shift your typical approach?

Jay Gruska: 1:17:19

Fan fiction. But but not so much because you know the the underscore, but by the way, you know, Chris and I uh I think I wrote two songs and Chris wrote one. I might have written, yeah, I wrote two, and then I arranged one. Um I arranged that, but just did they just wanted it with piano and women's voices, so I did that. So we split it up that way, but then we did the score. There was whatever there was, 15, maybe 18 minutes of dramatic underscore, and we Chris and I split that. But the reason I bring that up is because it was just so, you know, I started as a songwriter. I mean, that's that's that's what I did before I became a film and TV composer. And so it was just so natural and fun to to to go to that place. So that's why it stands out for me. But if I had to think of of another one, I would say just because of the weight and the drama of it, I forget the title, but it was Dean's Death in the last season.

Sadie Witkowski: 1:18:34

Do you remember um the the very final episode? Wasn't it just called Carry On?

Jay Gruska: 1:18:39

He died the did he die in the final or the one before the final?

Sadie Witkowski: 1:18:44

He died in the final. Oh man, we're gonna if any either of us are wrong, we're gonna have to cut this so the fans will come after either of us. I'm like 90% certain he dies in the very because the very final one goes to the first time.

Jay Gruska: 1:18:57

As long as you promise me that you will indeed come if you're wrong. Yeah, we'll we'll fact check, we'll make sure. I think I think um I would I would say that one just because it's not like I wrote anything new or amazing, uh, but I was it was emotional. It was emotional to because it was not only Dean's death, you know, we were all saying goodbye to this to this uh amazing experience we all shared.

Berly: 1:19:26

Um I I have one in mind if you if you want.

Jay Gruska: 1:19:30

Please, please. You might just want some memory here.

Berly: 1:19:33

I believe it's another Bob Singer, uh, Time After Time, where Dean goes back in time and hunts with Elliot Ness. Elliot Ness.

Jay Gruska: 1:19:41

That was fun. That was really fun. I have to say, that was really fun because if I'm not mistaken, was it Bob Singer or was it Phil Segretha?

Berly: 1:19:52

Oh, you're right. It was it was Segretha because he's who brought in that other band.

Jay Gruska: 1:19:57

Exactly. I will I will put that in the top few of really fun and memorable ones to do because it was so unique from that regard. And I'll give you the footnote information about that. When a producer comes to a composer and says, hey, there's this band I want you to use, usually it strikes fear. Because the first question is, are they good musicians? Um, you ask yourself. You know, can they read a little bit of music? Not that that's a giant prerequisite, depending on the style, but you know, well, are they uh can they take direction, or you know, or you know, so uh so the answer was mostly yes to all of that. But um uh when we met them, because Phil had us meet them and rehearse it before the scoring session, which is a very rare thing. You don't have to do that with studio musicians. With studio musicians, you go in a you go in a room, you put a piece of music down, you maybe do one run-through, and they're playing it like they've known it their whole lives. Sometimes they're playing it that way, sight reading it the first time. Um, you know, that's just that skill set that's required from that. So, but these guys were wonderful, uh guys and women, women. The the the my favorite person in the band was the clarinetist, and she was maybe 19 years old. She just fantastic, but anyway, uh so that was that interesting little foreground. And he said, but you know, I want the style of the writing to be from this era. So um, yeah, that was super fun, and most of the score was like that. So thank you for jogging my memory. Because, like I say, it's like that Rolodex is just like one giant page now. It's not, yeah, but that was that was a lot of fun. What season was that?

Berly: 1:21:55

Oh god, it was either season six or seven, because I know it wasn't the crash season.

Jay Gruska: 1:22:00

That sounds right. That sounds right.

Berly: 1:22:02

Um they did a little special on it.

Jay Gruska: 1:22:04

I'll see if I can you know that was the only other example besides fan fiction where Chris and I split an episode.

Berly: 1:22:13

Oh, okay.

Jay Gruska: 1:22:14

Never any other one, just those two where we went to the spotting session together, and as each um scene came up, you know, one or the other of us would go, I'll take that one. You know what I mean? Because that was that was highly unusual. Usually, when you walked out of a spotting session, you you were single-minded about what you were gonna do, and then on those two, you know, we had a little conversation. Here's, you know, stylistically, this or that, you know, we're using this band with five members that had accordion, percussion, clarinet, trombone, and trumpet, and guitar. Six guy, six people. Um, so we knew what we were writing for, but of course we enhanced it a little bit also, you know, with some some magical things.

Sadie Witkowski: 1:23:08

But um fill it out a little more, yeah.

Jay Gruska: 1:23:10

Exactly. But but it was that was great fun, and they were great. They gave it a lot of personality, they gave the episode a lot of extra personality.

Berly: 1:23:18

That's another standout to me, uh, as far as as music, again in a in a good way.

Jay Gruska: 1:23:23

Thank you for reminding me of it. I'm sure you'll be doing it again soon.

Berly: 1:23:29

Those were the only specific questions that I had, specific episodes that I definitely wanted to chat with you about.

Jay Gruska: 1:23:36

Okay.

Berly: 1:23:36

But speaking of adding your little magic, making your little shifts, using instruments, different instruments, what have you, were you creating new melodies and riffs throughout all 15 seasons?

Jay Gruska: 1:23:47

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, other than those examples where I reused, I can't think of, you know, there were two segments to Americana, the family theme. So, so um I used one much more than the other, but I also used the other in yeah, once or twice. But uh no, each each show was a reinvention for the most part. New demons had, I mean, I'm trying to think. Recurring dem demon characters, didn't no, I didn't give any of them themes. It became like what is this episode requesting? Not here's the here's the boogeyman that we saw 10 episodes ago. I mean, because that rarely happened. I mean, with the with the trickster, was that the name of the character? The trickster? Do you know who I'm talking about? Yeah. Wonderful actor who ended up um directing a bunch of extra.

Berly: 1:24:51

Richard State Jr.

Jay Gruska: 1:24:53

Love. He's my favorite. Love, love, love him, and he's riotously funny in person. I forgot if I gave him a little something. Castiel, I don't think, you know, with him. I I did the very first episode, which I don't remember the name of, that Castel was in when the big wingspan shows, you know, that initial shot with the Against the Wall. And I and I remember thinking, well, if this character comes back, should should I give him a theme? But I never did. I gave him a tone, you know, because Castel was often emotion, had an emotional component with these guys. So I gave him a tone, but not a theme per se. But so the answer to that question is kind of a blank page every new episode, you know, uh, you know, the some survival cheating things that composers do is like if you have an action piece of music with big percussion and um, you know, orchestra blazing lay on top. Maybe depending on how much time I had or not, I might take the percussion element from a previous show, edit it to work in this, and then write a new composition on top of the percussion element.

Berly: 1:26:17

Oh, okay.

Jay Gruska: 1:26:18

Just a way to either save time and just survive and just be able to say, oh, this score is due Thursday and it's Tuesday, so you know, and those are just you know time-saving tricks. But yeah, I would say that pretty much it's a and and this is by mandate also from producers. I mean, you have to you you can't be phoning this stuff in. They would have they would have known, and they would and you would have heard about it. So no. No go, new new stuff each time.

Berly: 1:26:52

Yeah, well, and that was kind of built into the first season that each episode was intended to be like a standalone short horror movie.

Jay Gruska: 1:27:00

Exactly. And of course, you guys know that the last five, however many years, it became a serial thing where we were seeing the same sort of angel demon, you know, stuff. So that changed the rules a little bit, but it was still new dynamics, each each each episode.

Berly: 1:27:21

Yeah, so speaking of changing the rules, uh, in those first five seasons, Eric Kripke had classic rock music as being essential for building the world of supernatural.

Jay Gruska: 1:27:33

But a brilliant, a brilliant move.

Berly: 1:27:36

Loved it. Loved it. It was so essential. He he was right to to really stick to his guns on that. But after Kripke left as showrunner, I couldn't help but notice there wasn't as much uh licensed music, needle drops, etc. Uh, did that change the workload for you?

Jay Gruska: 1:27:55

We never did any of that. That was music supervisor, but with producers uh allowing the budget, whatever the budget was, licensed those songs. Occasionally, Chris or I, in our episodes, they would say, Well, here's here's rock music coming from a jukebox. We don't want to spend five or ten grand on it. So, you know, we would do it. A minute of music that's, you know, you know, coming through a little speaker. And so we would do that. But um, short of the aforementioned songs that I said that you know, I or we wrote.

Berly: 1:28:35

Well, there was also uh an increase in composed music. So did your workload increase once a little bit?

Jay Gruska: 1:28:43

A little bit, yes. Um, but I would say that the that the general idea that that Eric imposed that stayed throughout, but the other consideration besides um was really budgetary. There became you know a uh a reason to not do as many needle drops, but they still did them, but usually might have been you know the last scene or the or the impala driving off over some you know rock tune or something. So they would just became more picky about it, but the the general idea of the use of it that stayed throughout. And and when we did um our version of that kind of music, it was rock, you know. Occasionally, if it was in a country bar, you know, we you know, it would be appropriately a country tune or something like that.

Berly: 1:29:41

And I want to share real quickly with you the same compliment I shared with Chris. Uh, you guys did so well tonally enmeshing the composed music with the classical rock themes that if I were not in a position where when we finish recording a podcast episode, I go back and look at what was the featured music. For each episode. If I wasn't doing that, I honestly don't know that I would have noticed how much fewer there were needle drops after season five.

Jay Gruska: 1:30:09

That's interesting. Yeah, right.

Berly: 1:30:11

Well, your music, like you're talking about, Americana, like the music you guys composed, that's what tells me, oh, I'm in the world of supernatural right now.

Jay Gruska: 1:30:19

Ah, well, that's it's a wonderful compliment to both of us. And yes, it does make sense because you you don't score an episode with all rock tunes. So yeah. But they were iconic in the way they were used. And for me, one of the greatest and funniest devices that went through the whole show was when the boys would present themselves as names of rock stars. You know what I mean? Um, so you know, sometimes half the audience didn't know who they thought they were just made-up names, but it was like, you know, no, these are these are rock stars from the 60s and 70s, you know.

Sadie Witkowski: 1:30:59

And then Castillo does like Beyonce, and they're just like, oh, dude, so close.

Jay Gruska: 1:31:08

Exactly. And that that's that's another testament to the humor. The the show always was willing to uh laugh at itself. And that that really was was great.

Berly: 1:31:20

Like we were saying, yes, there were the standout unique episodes like monster movie, time after time, fan fiction, but still you guys were responsible for taking us tonally from oh, I'm supposed to be scared to oh, I'm supposed to be laughing to oh, I'm supposed to be sad. And I just can't imagine that that was easy to do.

Jay Gruska: 1:31:41

You know, it it maybe I would say to that, it's not as hard as you think. Only because uh, you know, from from this side of it, whereas when you're watching it, you're going, whoa, I was laughing hysterically at this goofy moment three minutes ago, and now I'm scared shitless. It's it's sort of part of the job. And of course, you know, the skill set determines how elegantly one might do that or not be able to. But um, so yeah, I I I mean it just, you know, and with supernatural. After a few seasons, it was really, you started to really, as the composer, you started to really understand the range of what could happen, and that was freeing in a lot of ways. It was really freeing. You did you weren't just locked into this little block of, okay, I'm just doing the same thing this week. It was, you know.

LA: 1:32:42

Before we wrap up today's episode, Sadie Burley and I would like to say congratulations to Chris Leonard. After the recording of this interview, Chris attended the 2025 Creative Arts Emmys, where he took home the award for outstanding original music and lyrics for his song Let's Put the Christ Back in Christmas from the Boys.

Berly: 1:33:03

I bet you feel a little bit more good about the Emmys now, huh, Chris? Now that you got one sitting on your shelf there. And I still stand by what I said. I don't care who awarded it to me. If somebody literally awarded me as an icon, all of y'all are gonna know about it. I'm telling everybody.

LA: 1:33:21

Yeah, I mean, I don't blame you.

Berly: 1:33:28

Now for the show's credits. This season is a co-production between Denim Wrapped Nightmares and In Defense of Fandom. Cover art for In Defense of Fandom was designed by Liz Hand. Cover art for Denim Wrapped Nightmares was designed by Rain Zielman. Music featured in this episode was by Loudoun Swain. See links to their music and more in the show notes.

LA: 1:33:54

If you've enjoyed this collaboration we want to know, send us a message on Instagram or Twitter. We love hearing from you.

Sadie Witkowski: 1:34:01

And while you're at it, make sure you're subscribed to both shows so you never miss an episode.

Berly: 1:34:07

Also, a review on Apple Podcasts wouldn't hurt either. See you next episode. Bye.

Jay Gruska: 1:34:15

One of these days won't be long. You'll call my name. I'll be gone.