Christian Wibe is a musician turned film and television composer who created the horrifically fun soundscape for Dead Snow, the comedic tunes of Hellfjord, and takes over scoring for the WWE-produced The Marine series with The Marine 6: Close Quarters.
Popaxiom borrowed some of Christian’s time to talk about his career in music and what it’s like going from horror to comedy to action and back around again.
Opening Notes
Christian didn’t come from a musical family. His parents were fans of music “They listened to a lot of music. The Beatles … Michael Jackson was a big part of it.” From those early influences “I got into hard rock … Metallica, Pantera, that kind of stuff.”
The mid-30s musician and new father doesn’t know a world without music “It’s been a big part of my life since I can remember. It’s been something I’ve cared about my whole life. It’s a big passion for me.”
From The Beatles to Michael Jackson to hard rock, the road formed ahead for Christian “I had been playing music for a while but getting into Metallica and the like … I picked up the guitar. Eventually, I formed a band called Animal Alpha and we had relatively good success with that. Through the band, I met director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow), and he asked me if I would do a film score.”
For Christian “It was the perfect opportunity to try something new.”
Trying New Stuff
The composer hasn’t stopped trying this new thing since. Before The Marine 6, Christian worked on a comedy. So, how is that different from action projects like Dead Snow? “Hellfjord is a softer approach … more of an underscore.”
But the zombie action flick “Dead Snow is more about a driving score because it’s an action movie.”
What more is there to say about Dead Snow than “They are so much fun to be a part of.”
Christian’s work is everywhere, and his collaboration with Tommy Wirkola continues in What Happened to Monday on Netflix. About the sci-fi, dystopian film “It was a lot of fun to work on. Such an interesting world.”
The Marine 6: Close Quarters
The new film in The Marine movie franchise stars WWE superstar “The Miz” and according to Christian the score “… is a big action score, and it’s very tied to the picture.”
Working on The Marine 6 was a bit of an action movie in itself “I didn’t have a lot of time. I had six weeks to work on the score.”
However, even during the time crunch, Christian did some homework to find sonic inspiration “I did watch the previous one, Marine 5.”
The Marine films have no central musical theme that carries from one to the next “I took notice of that, and I felt free to do my own thing. Marine 6 is very different from the previous one, and so there were a lot of directions.”
What’s in Christian’s action music making DNA that subconsciously inspired The Marine 6? “Coming from the hard rock world, I really love driving and energetic scores. Particularly when it comes to the action stuff. So, scores like Mad Max, Sicario, some of the Bourne scores. A lot of percussion and driving strings. The Dark Knight I liked a lot.”
As we know, there are slight variations of the same movie as the production comes to a close. Each new version often means updating the music “It’s definitely a time-thief to conform and rewrite music to new edits. But it’s part of the process, it’s fun.”
Wrapping Up
All life is a cliffhanger “I’m currently working on a sci-fi/action project, but it’s a little too early to talk about it. A few other projects but nothing that I’m able to talk about.”
The future is clear for Christian “I love composing. I want to do film scores.”
Thanks to Christian Wibe and Impact24 PR for making this interview possible.
