RH: Were there any guides and assistants along the way, or were you travelling solo once you reached the jungle?

AL: I had one main guide who helped me plan the trip.  He in turn hired a few other people along the way who were experts in the language of the tribe we were visiting.  A wondered before we left if our entourage was getting too big, but I was so grateful once I was there to have 3 or 4 people to keep tabs on me, particularly in some of the more tenuous situations we found ourselves in the odd time.

MRH: You also took along an HD camcorder and taped some material.

AL: I didn’t want to do that. I was being so careful of my backpack weight ratio because I knew I would have to carry everything I had. I was gone for three weeks and was taking water and some food, and just a lot of safety things because the chances of us getting stuck somewhere and not finding food was pretty good.  I already knew I was going to stand out and attract some unwanted attention and the last thing I wanted to do was flash around some expensive video camera when I'd been told to try to fit in as much as possible.

When the director said to me, ‘Can you take the camcorder? You gotta film this whole thing,’ I thought ‘Oh, that’s the last thing that I want to do.’ What I ended up doing is during some of the recording sessions I would just set the camcorder up, and tape some of what we were doing, and some of the journey - like taking the boat along crocodile infested waters up a very treacherous river. It was actually very interesting, and I’m glad I did it.

Similar to what you were saying about the music, there’s a lot of things that I filmed that I can never show anybody because there are things that are very sacred or religious, but it was good to do, and it’s a good way to remember the trip, and it only endangered our lives a few times….(I'm half kidding)

MRH: Is there a chance some of the footage of your journey might be included on the DVD / Blu-ray edition?

AL: Yes.  I think so.  I had about 8 hours of film to go through but handed the highlights (and the things that were approved by the tribes to show) over to the Special Features team at Warner Brothers.  I've also been approached by a few documentary companies about doing a documentary on my trip.  That's something I hope we have time to explore this spring.

MRH: It’s kind of like a religious pilgrimage in a sense, where it’s good for a composer, at least once, to go to a unique culture, whether it’s remote or in a completely different physical environment, and expose themselves to that because it’s something that’s so vastly different from having a sound library or samples or local musicians who may have been influenced by Western techniques, and perhaps find something that’s a lot more pure.

AL: Composers all have their own sound, and often when you think about doing a different project, it’s ‘How can I incorporate my sound into these instruments or these sonic sounds or literal library of sounds?’ What I find is really interesting is essentially getting inside the heads of how people think of music, not only the purpose of that music.

For example, in Western music, we sub-divide music into meters. We say this is 3/4 or 4/4; we figured out ways to break it down in our heads that make it easier for us to both appreciate and perform, and different cultures do that in very different ways. It’s actually really interesting to learn how other people think of music, both playing it and appreciating it, and try to incorporate that into what you’re doing. That’s what I really enjoyed, and I think you’re right – I think it ends up being a bit of a pilgrimage; just looking at your craft from the outside and from a distance, and re-evaluating it a little bit.

MRH: From composers that I’ve spoken to who’ve made those kinds of trips or completely immersed themselves in a different culture, the whole experience was very rewarding, and I’m sure it influenced the way they regard other sounds or at least the use of those sounds in more diverse forms of their ongoing work.

AL: I was classically trained on piano as a kid, and that’s where all of my writing began. I remember the experience I would have when my mother would re-arrange the furniture and move the piano from one side of the room to another. I would have this entirely new creative feeling just based on how the piano sounded in a different place in the room, and also based on the view - looking at a different window. Creatively, it unlocked this whole other dimension every time that happened.  When I was in my teens I got my first guitar and started writing music on it.  It was a whole new approach to composing to go at it through a different door.  I found myself immediately inspired by the new perspective and have always searched for other ways to experience that 2nd wind.  My time in Papua New Guinea was just an evolution of that.

These are little gifts that you get as a composer; they’re eureka moments of seeing a different perspective of what you do, and you can take that knowledge and apply it in a very literal way. It makes it fun, makes it rewarding and most importantly, it makes for better storytelling.

MRH: One last question: Is that really The Rock singing “What a Wonderful World”? He’s pretty good!