The musician behind “Joe Pera Talks With You” talks writing music for comedy, anti-irony, and his new album
November 4, 2022 Mike Seigel Features, Joe Pera, Television
A ripe tomato, newly bought from the store, is easy to take for granted. You went to your local supermarket and there, amongst the pile of produce, you picked one out that suited to your liking. Of course the journey that one tomato took to your supermarket involved countless people, from the farmers to the distributors to the vehicle drivers to the supermarket employees.
The same can be applied to a piece of entertainment. What took you 21 minutes to ingest involves hundreds of creative people, and not just those who appear directly onscreen.
One overlooked element of a television show – especially a comedic television show – is the music. Despite this, it can have a major effect on your enjoyment, and an appropriately significant amount of thought is therefore often put into it.
The tomato metaphor is one which Ryan Dann, the musician who makes up Holland Patent Public Library, might appreciate. Dann is best known for writing the music for Joe Pera Talks With You, a comedy series that delights in appreciation of the mundane (as well as tomatoes).
Dann’s own journey to writing the music for a comedy show is interesting. The name Holland Patent Public Library came from his time growing up in Syracuse. When he would watch the television early in the morning to find out about a potential snow day (of which there are many in Syracuse), the neighboring town of Holland Patent would be told their fate just before him. Combined with his appreciation of public libraries, the name Holland Patent Public Library was born.
When Dann eventually moved down to New York City with an interest in pursuing music, Pera was part of similar creative and social circles. Pera, of course, was a comedian. They collaborated on smaller projects throughout the years, developing a strong creative and working relationship. When Pera got his show, he asked Dann to help in making the music.
It’s a bit incredible that these two people could fuse their creativity so well together. The music of the show is unusual, drawing from a variety of influences. These range from Quaker hymns to the work of Brian Eno. And yet the show, which works hard to capture moments of emotions far more complex and mixed than those in your usual “happy, sad, surprised, mad” range, manages to seamlessly combine with the music to feel cohesive.
It’s hard to imagine that the show could feel so emotionally complex without the music. Nor could it be quite as funny.
Writing for another person’s creative vision can be difficult, and Dann managed to find the balance between bringing his own creativity to his music and acting as a conduit to what Pera was going for. The key to any show’s music is to help build up the overarching narrative of a moment or scene without overwhelming the myriad other elements. But how did Dann’s music manage to walk that delicate line while still being funny?
According to Dann, the secret for writing for JPTWY is to not try to be funny at all. Dann felt that part of the humor of the show came from subverting the audience’s expectations on what the show would be cynical about. When an audience might expect a character’s sincerity to be undercut with a joke, the show would surprise them by accepting it wholesale.
The music, therefore, had to match that energy. Occasionally Dann would write something that was meant to sound “funny,” and Pera would push back. Dann came to see that within JPTWY, “the job of the music was to sell the sincerity.” Rather than using the music to undercut a moment for the sake of a laugh, the music kept consistent with the feelings of the scene. This let the music support the humor of the show rather than running away with it.
Dann’s experience shows a side of music’s role in comedies that might not be obvious to a casual viewer. When we think of “comedy music” most of us would think of Al Yankovic, Flight Of The Conchords or Adam Sandler. But for most comedies, the role of the music is to compliment the rest of the show. When Dann is working on making something funny, he is working with several other people to mold music within an existing structure, not the other way around.
We sometimes see hilarious comedians falter when it comes to translating their humor to a bigger project like a television show. The skills behind making people laugh on your own on a stage and making people laugh through a highly produced show are not completely the same. Both rely on you finding a way to communicate something clearly to your viewer. But in a show or a movie, you need to be able to work with other people to make something better than the sum of its parts. You need to find people who aren’t just “funny” but who get where your humor is coming from in a deeper way.
Dann’s success may come from his lack of direct background in comedy. Dann is not and does not aspire to be a professional comedian. He is a musician first and foremost. His new album, Songs to Fall Asleep At the Wheel To, was just released in late October. The album is made up of music that was initially made for JPTWY, and therefore matches the tone of the show well. It showcases Dann’s ability to work within someone else’s creative world. Without the addition of the rest of the show to latch on to, it is made clear through listening just how much of the show’s atmosphere comes from Dann’s music.
Holland Patent Public Library will be coming out with new music in the near to middling future. Doing so will give Dann a chance to bring out music untethered from another person’s wishes, and therefore will be significantly different from what people have grown to expect from him.
“I might have to work on bringing people in from scratch,” Dann says. “But that’s alright.”
