Ever since Turn on the Bright Lights debuted in the summer of 2002, Interpol frontman Paul Banks has been the epicenter of cool. Trying his hand at a variety of musical projects––from solo albums to instrumental experimentations to, even, collaborations with RZA––he’s never not been trying new things. He now has one more item to add to his resume: film composer, making his OST debut on the 2024 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight hit Sister Midnight. Karan Kandhari’s debut feature, opening in theaters this Friday, follows Radhika Apte as Uma, a wife who finds her own creative ways to rebel in the early days of an arranged marriage.

In Devan Suber’s review of the film, he said, “Sister Midnight unfolds with a particularly deadpan style in both humor and performance. Kandhari favors simple gags, like the aforementioned handshake or a bit where Uma flees from the beach after being stuck between two sobbing people on either side of her. Apte largely rolls with the punches; when she’s not cursing she’s observing, or making sarcastic observations in-between something of a more unhinged behavior. (An overheard bit of dialogue at a different wedding mentions that her marriage was more an act of convenience, with her being a psycho and him being mostly feckless.) Combined with Kandhari’s studied compositions––especially in the dark––it makes for a rather amusing time, a novelty of Indian cinema even as you may start to wonder where exactly it’s going with all this.”

An avid film fan, Banks relished the opportunity to write movie music, and I was lucky enough to talk to him over Zoom about it.

The Film Stage: I remember seeing an interview with you where you remarked that you had a tattoo inspired by the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. From here, I can assume film plays a large role in your life and interests?

Paul Banks: [Laughs] With that film, not so much, but I do try to watch it with some regularity. When I was able to get down to the beach more often, pre-pandemic, I think I’d watch it like once a year near the ocean. Yeah, I love that movie.

Can you remember films at a young age introducing you to new music, or even soundscapes in general? 

I mean, I can think of one in particular from when I was college age, but I’m trying to think about one from when I was younger. Yeah, that’s a really good one. Yeah, I’m just having to jump to college where I would think about David Lynch and Twin Peaks. There was this woman who passed away recently who did some tracks for his movies.

Oh, Julee Cruise?

Yes, Julee Cruise. And Angelo Badalamenti. Another film I often talk about is one called Performance by Nicholas Roeg that has unbelievable sound design and amazing music, some cool one-off Rolling Stones or Mick Jagger stuff. And then, also, that director does really interesting things with sound design, especially in moments where they’re doing a montage or a tense flashback. There’s this sound effect that’s almost like a washing machine meets static from TV. And it’s just this powerful use of sound to evoke a mood. I think Nicolas Roeg had a real gift for that kind of thing. 

I know you’re a big fan of hip-hop, and something that’s an interesting overlap is that a lot of film soundtracks in the ’90s––like Natural Born Killers, or something––would begin to sample dialogue in a way that hip-hop music would. I wonder if you ever saw any kind of overlap between film soundtracks and hip-hop music in a certain way.

It’s interesting because that is a soundtrack that I owned, and I really did enjoy it. And you’re right. I think there’s an interesting scene where Juliette Lewis is hooking up with a gas station guy and I feel like it segues into sexist violence, and I remember also the Bob Dylan song on that soundtrack is just unbelievably good, “You Belong to Me”. But yeah: that’s interesting, the way that they included the dialogue on that soundtrack. 

Where it was big, I feel like, was Abel Ferrara and King of New York, that had some really great music usage. And also around that same time there was King of New York and then there was a sort of slightly lower-brow film, New Jack City, which was not quite King of New York, but was also awesome. And I feel like that had great early-90s hip-hop really front and center, like in the nightlife scenes. Also, a shout-out to Lawrence Fishburne for being one of the greatest henchmen in the history of cinema.

When you made your instrumental mixtape in 2013, Everybody on My Dick Like They Supposed to Be, was that some preparation for making film scores? It was your first thing that was all-instrumental, right?

Yeah, it was music that I had made just after I had gotten sober and was spending a lot of time at home and I was gearing up to make my first solo record. And so I was training myself to use Logic, a software program, and as exercises to learn how to generate the orchestral elements I wanted to use in songs, I taught myself MIDI and Logic. And then those experiments took on a life of their own and became music I just enjoyed making. And that’s what I wound up putting out, that mixtape. And so I definitely think it was preparation, or practice, for doing music that would suit a film. 

It’s funny, you know: that mixtape has shitloads of sample dialogue from film and it kind of parallels with this series of paintings that I did when I first started painting in 2013. It was this case where I painted all these character actors from ’80s and early-90s movies that were very important to me as a child. I think the loose title of it would be The Pantheon of My Subconscious. It would just be Booger from Revenge of the Nerds or Eddie Dane from Miller’s Crossing; Judd Nelson from The Breakfast Club; Miguel Ferrer from RoboCop. I did one called The Wrong Sarah Connor, which was from the first Terminator when he goes through the phone book and he appears at this woman’s house and shoots her. You see, like, the laser dot appear on her forehead. She’s, like, a woman with curly hair. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Of course. I’ve seen The Terminator many times.

Just the fact that you can instantly picture that woman who’s on-camera for, like, two seconds––how much did she fucking nail that role? I felt very compelled to document these character actors who just did a lot for me. And I think it all ties in with a love for the medium of cinema. I’m way off-track right now, but it just made me think of that because of how much dialogue from film is sampled in that mixtape.

In terms of scoring Sister Midnight, what was the process of doing it like? I know, for example, when Neil Young scored Dead Man, it was essentially improvisation where he just played the guitar while watching scenes from the film. Was your process like that or was it very rigorously planned?

I did a lot of different approaches. I did a lot of work when [Karan Kandhari] was still revising the script. I wrote loads of music just when there were early drafts of the script. Then we discussed kind of not making it like that Dead Man process specifically, although then we got together at one point and I just did some impromptu guitar-playing for him. And he said, “You know, actually let’s go with the electric guitar.” Then once he did have dailies, I did sit there with a guitar and do first reaction cues, and all of it went into a docket. I presented all of these ideas to Karan and basically he whittled it down to the point where, like, nothing that I did for those drafts of script was ever used.

So some of the things that were used were from improvisations, but for the most part he whittled down from lots of ideas that I dig and zoned in on the stuff that’s really just guitar, drums, and bass. So I was really in his hands––I was inspired by the source material to do a bunch––and then the approach to what he wanted evolved as he went about making the movie. And then I just followed his direction.

Is working with a director on a score like being part of a band in a way?

I don’t think so. Being in a band, I think the music is the end. And I think, with scoring, the music is secondary to the picture and the film. I mean, there’s some parallels––like in Interpol, for instance, Daniel [Kessler, guitarist] will bring the chord progression to the song and I’ll write a complementary guitar part. In that case you’re writing something that works well with and attempts to enhance the other contribution of someone else. So the scoring, in that sense, is kind of like: I am just trying to improve the impact of the visual when I write music. I guess it’s like––insofar as working second as a complement to something else––there’s a parallel for me within Interpol and doing the scoring.  But for the most part, I don’t think it’s like being in a band; it’s in service of someone else’s vision.

And I mean: that’s fine. Coming up and always having wanted to do this, a lot of people I talked to would underline the way that your ego gets fucked with because they’ll just tell you they don’t like what you’re doing and you got to change it, but they also don’t have the right words to express what they’re looking for. And I feel like all of these cautions that I’d heard sort of go out the window when you’re working with an artist that you find inspiring because he or she does find the words that express what they’re looking for; you do get on a wavelength with each other and it is very fulfilling. I think one thing I learned from working with Karan is that as long as you work with someone who really inspires you, then everything’s great.

So you did contact other musicians for advice on scoring? Because I know you’ve, for example, worked with the RZA before; he’s done a number of film scores.

I didn’t actually ask his advice. But a lot rubbed off on me from just working with him and seeing his approach. I did have a brief conversation with Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai, and he was one of these people that really emphasized that you’re just there to help the picture; you’re just there to try and enhance the visual. Which is funny, because it seems so obvious. And I feel like I knew that before he told me, but it did stick with me because it felt very wise and I really took it to heart, coming from him.

With Sister Midnight‘s Mumbai setting, were you trying to balance the influences of eastern and western music?

Well, these things were at the suggestion of Karan. I think he had licensed the rock songs that were part of the film before he shot, I believe. So there was an understanding that there would be these teardrops of vintage American rock, from Iggy to Motorhead, and that the film was going to kind of live in that realm. And I just think one of the things that characterizes Karan is, like: it’s very unexpected. Like, everything he does is very unexpected, but very intentional.

So if I had tried to go in directions that would be appropriate to the region that the film was shot in, I think he would’ve pooh-poohed that. I think he wanted a juxtaposition coming from the music, and he had a very clear idea of what kinds of juxtapositions he wanted to use.

With film scores, do you feel like you recognize clichés that pop up in a lot of them? Did you recognize, “These are things I want to avoid when composing music for a film”? 

Oh, that’s interesting. I remember more thinking about things I liked rather than things to avoid. I do think, as an artist, that getting a good long list of shit to avoid is a massive part of developing one’s own style. But I think, while doing this picture, I was more focusing on things that I liked in other people’s work. For instance, Jonny Greenwood did a movie that I was really into called You Were Never Really Here with Joaquin Phoenix. You see that movie? 

Yeah, it was a great movie. 

Yeah, I love that movie. And great soundtrack. Also, the dude from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros did a movie called All Is Lost with Robert Redford that really spoke to me. So I think I was, like, looking at sparse and effective things.

And is there anything you want to do with a film score that maybe you didn’t get to do on this one?

Again: I think I would just love the opportunity to work either with Karan again or with someone else that inspires me. And I think that the way it went for me was that I can generate loads of ideas; as long as the other person knows what they’re really looking for, it doesn’t matter if I miss the mark because we can just narrow it down. I’m quite comfortable working with someone else’s input. Especially, I think, if you look at it from the point of view of: rather than writing the one perfect thing, it’s like, “Write a lot of things that feel authentic to you.” You can garner insight from the director’s reactions to those pieces; that helps you narrow it down to one direction. I just look forward to being inspired by someone else’s film or another one by Karan and then just generating a bunch of ideas.

Sister Midnight opens in theaters on Friday, May 16.