Samuel Gr Morgan
He is the Composer of Michael Lamberti‘s All That You Love Will be Carried Away Dollar Baby film.
SKSM: Could you start with telling me a little bit about yourself? Who are you and what do you do?
Samuel Gr Morgan: I’m an Irish composer, arranger and producer, I also write and perform songs for my own gratification but in recent times I have found myself mainly motivated as a composer and producer.
SKSM: How did you become involved with All that you love will be carried away?
Samuel Gr Morgan: Well I got introduced to the director Michael through a gentleman called Calob Robinson who I had worked with on two films, and the producer, who is also called Michael, through working on a film of his as well, I got approached to do it, it sounded like a great film and here we are!
SKSM: How did you get started as a composer and what do you do on production?
Samuel Gr Morgan: I initially started musical life as a singer/songwriter, and still am to a certain extent, when I did my first film it was for Calob and I didn’t really know how to score a film at the time so I was really learning as I went and I learnt a lot about how to communicate ideas with directors and how music is crafted for screen by working with Calob who is sometimes annoyingly particular about what he’s after so it really taught me a lot about how directors see their visions coming together and how I can realise that. Sometimes I just compose lightly straight into my production software along to the film but sometimes for proper meaty pieces of music I’ll score all the music out on sheet music before producing it all.
SKSM: How did you get started to wrote the Soundtrack for All that you love will be carried away?
Samuel Gr Morgan: The whole thing stemmed from three chords, a first inversion C minor, a Gsus and a G major chord, played on strings and literally the whole score grew from there. I also manipulated a sample of a gunshot to fit into the score as a rhythmic beat for certain moments since it’s a part of the story.
SKSM: Is this your most challenging audio so far?
Samuel Gr Morgan: No actually, this kind of melancholic thriller genre is something I’ve always loved from a musical perspective, the sort of long slow melancholic string sounds I’ve always experimented with so i actually felt very comfortable and at home with the shape and direction the score took!
SKSM: Was there any funny or special moment when you made the music that you would like to tell me about?
Samuel Gr Morgan: I found it quite amusing when I sent the first draft of the score off to Michael and I expected lists of notes and amendments and he got back saying “naw that’s great!” albeit over time we made changes here and there but I found it funny that he was so happy with my first shot, since it’s the way by and large that finding the musical aesthetic of a film can be a long process, but I was lucky that I managed to just capture what they were wanting from the off!
SKSM: After All that you love will be carried away did you write more music? If so what?
Samuel Gr Morgan: I’ve adapted bits of the main soundtrack to go into the film’s main trailer actually!
SKSM: What are you working nowadays?
Samuel Gr Morgan: As I previously said, I compose and produce and perform my own songs, I do so under the name “Kamino Royale” so I’m always working on material for that avenue, I have a few interesting scoring gigs down the line that will be great fun to get into, then i’m also working on arranging an orchestral suite of songs by artists and bands from my home in Northern Ireland, I’m also working on a few productions with a few recording artists including my good friend Lewis Kelly who’s a fantastic young singer songwriter. I’m always busy!
SKSM: Are you a fan of Stephen King’s work?
Samuel Gr Morgan: I think Stephen King has been unlucky for film adaptions, even a film like The Shining by the marvellous Stanley Kubrick, which actually features music by one of my favourite composers Krzysztof Penderecki, as brilliant a film it is in its own right, it’s not a great Stephen King adaption, but he’s one of the all time great horror writers and I’ll always relish and lap up the opportunity to lend my musical abilities to bringing those stories to life in whatever capacity on whatever platform.
SKSM: What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
Samuel Gr Morgan: I absolutely love Take That.
SKSM: What advice would you give to those people who want to be musicians?
Samuel Gr Morgan: Always put the music first, I know many singers and artists who put the sound or aesthetic or whatever nonsense above the music, but the actual music is the one that takes priority above all, no amount of fancy production or edgy performance can save a weak melody.
SKSM: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Is there anything else you want to say to the fans that read this interview?
Samuel Gr Morgan: You all just lost the game.
SKSM: Do you like something to add?
Samuel Gr Morgan: You can all go back to your lockdown knitting now.
