Fallout has been a phenomenal success since it premiered on Prime Video this spring. It has received rave reviews and became one of Prime’s most-watched shows. Based on the successful video game, it boasts excellent performances from Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Aaron Moten and a state of the art production (all crafts are top notch).
The series has been nominated for 16 Emmy awards, including Trygge Toven for Outstanding Music Supervision. Toven is at the top of his field with over 90 credits in movies and TV, including Loki, Westworld, and Dolemite Is My Name. Toven recently caught up with Immersive via Zoom.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length]
How did you get involved with this project and was the game Fallout something that you were already familiar with?
I got involved with this project mainly because I worked with the same team on Westworld, for the last couple of seasons. Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan brought me on for Westworld, so it was great to just jump back in. That’s basically how I got started. I was a gamer growing up. I played Counterstrike and Doom and a bunch of games like that. I knew about Fallout and I was familiar with the world and the tone and everything by the time that I got the call for the show.
What’s it like working with Jonathan and Lisa again?
I think there’s definitely a shorthand, which is great, especially with the editors as well. I think it’s a matter of understanding how important music is to the team and knowing that it’s taken very seriously. I think at Westworld early on, I jumped in a little bit late into my first season.
I understood how thoughtful the team was on music in general, and trying to think of how it’s moving the story forward, how it can speak to the entire show as well as foreshadowing any sort of, I kind of always say that the song has to work on four levels, which is an amazing challenge for me.
Let’s talk about some of these songs. It certainly creates a vibe, a mood when you’re watching it. You get a feeling for these iconic songs playing against retro-futuristic images, but the songs themselves emote simpler times. Talk a little bit about doing some of the initial selects.
I think the music helped with the retro part of the retro-futuristic for sure to pull you into at least our version of that time era. It’s a period where there are several versions of lots of the songs. I had a lot of fun diving in really deep because there are plenty of hits that some of us still remember and then there are a thousand other amazing songs that didn’t necessarily rise to the surface over 80 years. The idea was there are iconic songs (several by The Ink Spots) that everyone knows from the game, so you’re going to do a disservice to the fans for the original game if you don’t include that somewhere.
Diving in deep into the world of all this amazing mid-century music, it’s very interesting because they’re romantic, but almost post-apocalyptic because of this post-World War II era where it’s tragic, but they’re still love songs. The songs have an interesting dual meaning that fits the show, especially if you’re a vault dweller and you have a romantic version of what the world is and it connects back to the tragedy of why they’re in the vault in the first place.
Some of the songs you’re like, wow, this sounds like I know this song, but this sounds even better or this sounds different. So how did you zero in on which version of each song we want to use?
I think most of the stuff, I just have the list in front of me. Most of the stuff is the main iconic version. “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire” by The Ink Spots is probably the most famous song from the game. They used a bunch of The Ink Spots songs in the game.
I think we have three or four songs from them, there’s “We’ll Meet Again,” there’s a bunch of different versions of that. I don’t think The Ink Spots one is the most famous version of that song. The Ink Spots version is sweet and tragic at the same time. All of the songs have that sort of feeling, which I think is the sound of Fallout, then finding other artists that could fit within that.
What was a favorite of yours? Like, “Wow, this is good. I’m glad I got this in there.”
Well, it’s funny because there’s this Jack Shaindlin song, “Let’s Go Sunning.” It has a really big featured spot. It is this amazing old original real record and it’s accessible but trying to figure out who owns 10% or where all these and it’s different estates for a song that is over 60 years old. I’m trying to think of just some lesser-known songs, “Keep That Coffee Hot” by Scatman Crothers, I’m glad we got in there.
Scatman Crothers is amazing, not enough people know about his recording career. Amazing actor, voice artist, and musician, he got the nickname Scatman because of his amazing scat singing ability.
That was such a fun one. That one was pretty easy to clear because you’re not dealing with people fighting over the most popular song, and the music’s amazing. That’s so fun to shine a light on some of those lesser-known tracks from that era. It’s crazy to be able to find stuff still available that old too.
Let’s say music stopped right now, you could go to the end of the time just discovering all the stuff that is already out there. It’s uncanny.
Look at what you have to go through to get a hit song and now it’s accessible and it’s still hard going through all of it. I can’t imagine what it was like 70 years ago to get through everything it took to get to the only way was the radio. The interesting part is it was so expensive to record back then too, so if it got made at all, it’s kind of amazing.
What was the budget or did they start you off at a certain level? And how did it work with budgeting the music?
I usually have a budget, the only problem with music budgets is you just don’t know necessarily. Part of my job is saying, you’re probably going to have a song here and here and here, so we can help with finding the budget ahead of time, but you just don’t know if one episode’s going to be completely the first episode’s full of songs. I think the last episode maybe has three or four. You don’t know that until you are in the edit.
These are old songs and they’re expensive, and just because they’ve lasted that long and are still iconic, they’re going to come with the price tag. Once you’ve got some of those tracks you’re like, okay, let’s find something cool and different here. Then that’s where a lot of those unknown artists come in or lesser-known songs. And then, it’s cool because a discovery part to that. You have to be more creative within the constraints of the budget. It’s fun.
What kind of music do you personally like? And are there songs that you’re like, I’m going to try and get this one in here?
I love everything. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so I grew up in the Grunge era. It was the nineties so I was into Grunge, Gangster Rap, Trance, and House. I also grew up listening to classical music and my dad always had classical playing in the house. So it’s kind of everything. That connects me to kind of film music as well, the classical side. I think having the Herb Alpert version of “Ladyfingers” ending up in the show was really fun, I’ve always loved that record.
Looking back now at Fallout season one was a success by all measures, what was it like being part of that?
I think we knew it was a great show, but you never know how it’s going to connect. It’s fun to see it appeal to so many different audiences, you have something for everybody, it’s a deep emotional story but it also is irreverent and fun at the same time. There’s a lot in thee. It spoke to the time and what a lot of people are thinking, worrying about, and whatever else. It’s exciting for me because I’ve done bigger projects before that were successful projects, but to the level of this one and how excited people are about it, it’s been amazing.
Fallout is available to stream on Prime Video.
