Cliff Martinez

“Electronic music just has a wider palette of sounds than an orchestra.”

“I never really thought about being a composer. It just kind of happened.”

“You want to create a sound that is the musical equivalent of the film's visual style.”

“My approach to scoring is to find a world of sound that's unique to the film.”

“I'm always trying to do something new, something that I haven't heard before.”

“A lot of my music is about creating a mood, an atmosphere, a feeling.”

“I think the music for 'Drive' was so successful because it was a character in the film.”

“A lot of composers I know hate temp music, and I understand why, but I don't.”

“I'm not a big fan of melody. I'm a big fan of texture and atmosphere.”

“Simplicity is very difficult. It's easy to be complex; it's very hard to be simple.”

“I think the job of a film composer is to be a storyteller and to be a good collaborator.”

“For me, the darker the film, the more fun it is to score.”

“My job is to be the emotional glue of the film.”

“I think the best scores are the ones that are kind of invisible.”

“I just try to write what I think the film is telling me to write.”

“I try to make music that's ambitious, and I think that's all I can do.”

“Music is the last thing to happen in a film, so you're always under a lot of pressure.”

“I came to the conclusion that I'm not a very good rock-and-roll drummer.”

“Steven Soderbergh doesn't like to be sentimental, and neither do I.”