The Railway Men has been receiving praises for various reasons. The four-episode thrilling drama stars R. Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon, Divyenndu Sharma, and Babil Khan in the lead. While the performances have got everyone talking, the background score and music have also caught everyone’s attention. Director Shiv Rawail roped in two-time Grammy-winning composer, sound designer, and music producer, Sam Slater. Slated has worked on acclaimed international titles like Chernobyl and Joker. Following the success of The Railway Men, Sam sat down for a candid conversation with News18 Showsha to talk about the series and his upcoming work, Joker 2.
The Yash Raj Films and Netflix series, which has ranked #3 on Netflix’s Global Non-English TV list and is trending across 36 countries, marked the musician’s first mainstream Indian project. The musician revealed it all began with an email from the director. “I work with an agent, a friend in the United States and she received a mail from Shiv. They mentioned a few sound ideas they were interested in and (the friend) contacted me. (The friend said) ‘I think you should read the script, I think it could be right up your alley and maybe, you’ll get along with Shiv.’ Who doesn’t get along with Shiv? Shiv is so lovely! So we connected, exchanged ideas and soon, the ball started rolling,” he said.
Sam shared that he worked on the series for close to nine months last year and one of his biggest challenges was to create 50 minutes worth music for four episodes. “It’s also challenging to not to give in and do the easy or obvious thing. You have to constantly be aware of whether you are being cliched or not.”
“We were talking together from about March last year and finished working in November 2022, so that’s eight months. It did not take eight months to write all of the music, we did a big heavy patch of music writing in the end. We spent three and a half months on that, I guess. It’s a lot of music but I liked it,” he added.
Although Sam worked on a series that is based on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the musician confessed he has never visited the city yet. “I would love it. I would really, really love to. I think next time I’m in Mumbai, I’ll give Shiv a call and see if we can make a trip because I think I would love to see this place in person. I would imagine it would be a very heavy place, I would also imagine that there is a lot of normal people doing normal things as well. I think places that have had great sadness happened in their history don’t only present those (memories). I live in Berlin and Germany. It has not had the easiest of histories as well and there are reminders of that around the place but it’s not what you see everyday. It is also just a city full of people going to school and falling love and doing all of the normal things and I am sure Bhopal is the same as well,” he said.
Besides visiting Bhopal, Sam also said that he would like to showcase his work through shows in India. “I’d love to play some shows in India, I’ve never performed there so that is something worth thinking about. So that’s on my bucket list,” he said, adding that he also hopes that there are more collaborations with Indian filmmakers in the future.
While The Railway Men has put Sam Slater in the spotlight this year, we are excited to see him return to the limelight next year with Joker 2. The musician has confirmed he is a part of the Todd Phillips directorial which stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga as Joker and Harley Quinn. The film is slated to release on October 4, 2024. Sam revealed that his work on Joker 2 is mostly done. “That’s done, I think. I think I can say that, yeah it is done,” he said.
Given that Joker 2 has a musical name associated to it in the form of Lady Gaga, we asked him if Gaga is involved in the musical process or even sang a song or two in the movie, Sam said, “You will just have to wait and see. But they’ve done a great job, they’ve done a really good job, that’s all I can say.”
