The Keener family discusses the score for Star Wars: Maul - Lord of Shadows

Amy Richau, a writer for StarWars.com, talks to the Keener family about how they managed to get Maul, Devon and Lawson for the new Disney+ animated series Maul - Lord of Shadows.

Kevin Keener began composing music for animated films in the Star Wars universe almost two decades ago, with the feature film Star Wars: The Clone Wars' in 2008. His children, Sean and Diane Keener, began working with their father in 2014 onStar Wars Rebelsand went on to work onStar Wars: The Bad Batchand the live-action seriesAhsoka . When the trio were approached to work onStar Wars:Maulthe Shadow Lord, they knew from the startthat the series would be a little darker than their previous work.

Head writer Matt Michnovec wrote many of the episodes of Maul - Lord of Shadows while listening to metal music from bands such as Iron Maiden, Queensrÿche, Tool and Ratt. Michnovec and production director Brad Rau suggested the Keeners as a good starting point for the series. “They wanted to take it in a new direction,” Dina tells StarWars.com. “They describedMawl, Lord of Shadowsas a“star”version of heavy metal.”

“I first took out all my guitars and started playing with them all,” Kevin recalls, “and I was a complete failure.” Ultimately, the Keeners used various distorted sounds in the soundtrack to help bring Maul's tormented life to the screen.

“I think we’ve come to the conclusion that Maul is constantly tearing things apart,” says Diana. - He is vomiting with anger. His screams are very shrill and reach his very throat. It feels like your soul is being torn apart. And I think that's how we finally found something that really captures the character of Maul."

Distorted synthesizer sounds were used throughout the series' soundtrack, especially under the title sequence and end credits of each episode.“Sometimes it comes down to taking a synth and running it through guitar pedals or amps,” says Sean, “and distorting the sound that way.”

The team had about 100 different distortion tools at their disposal that they could use at different times, including both physical pedals and digital copies of physical pedals.

“ The music ofStar Warsis really complex. It’s incredibly rich,” Kevin notes. “And that goes to the master who created it all, John Williams.”

Sean adds that Williams' original scores for the Star Wars films were rich not only in orchestration, but also in thematic content. “He's constantly churning out musical ideas and shifts. In other styles, you have one musical idea and you can stretch it out over quite a long time. Here you need to come up with something new pretty quickly, something good and interesting.”

Just a few minutes into the first episode of the series, Maul walks down the ramp of his ship and ignites his lightsaber. It's an epic moment that the Keeners spent a long time working on to make it as good as possible. “We hesitated for a long time,” says Dina. — Should we stay true to the animation side of it, what we've been doing since Rebels and The Clone Wars? [Executive producer Athena Portillo] gave us the direction to try and do something in the vein of The Phantom Menaceand see how it was received. And as soon as we did that, we said, “Of course!”

Kevin adds that the music during Maul's appearance in the film helped set the tone for the series and prepare fans for something new, as the chorus from "Duel of the Fates" transitions into more distorted sounds.“The music seems to say: this is the Maul you know, and now this is the Maul this series is about.”

Master and Apprentice

Much of the Keener brothers' early work on Maul -Lord of Shadows was devoted to reintroducing the classic Star Wars villain and creating a catchy theme song for a new character, Jedi Padawan Devon Izara, which would reflect the complexity of her storyline.

In the first season of the series Maul - Lord of Shadows Devon goes from a Jedi Padawan hiding with his master to Maul's apprentice.

“We fell in love with Devon as a character,” Sean recalls, “and realized she needed her own theme. When we discussed what her path would be, we realized that it would have to be very varied because it would take her to some pretty dark places."

In episode 10, when Devon witnesses the death of her mentor Ducky, something breaks in her and she takes half of Maul's lightsaber and teams up with him to fight the Eleventh Brother. Devon's theme and Maul's theme fromStar Wars Rebelsalso play at this point. “We actually hid the second half of Maul's theme in Devon's theme, so when we play them together, they suddenly match because they have a common purpose,” Sean says. “Her theme expresses her discovery, but in a very dark way.”

The full text of the article can be read here. TheStar Wars: Maul of Shadowssoundtrack is available in digital format and includes a selection of original music from the series. It is available wherever you buy digital music, including Amazon.

Watch the full first season of Maul - Lord of Shadows on Disney+ right now.