Siddhartha Khosla
Appearances
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
What did it mean for me to really be in a band? How could I really do that with all of it too? And so then I called Dan back and I was like, okay, I'll do it. And he was so psyched. And then we ended up doing that show together. And then the show got canceled the year I worked on it.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I think what it was, and it's funny, because some of the things that I learned in that process, I still do to this day, and it all comes from fear of being fired off the job, not being good enough for the job. And I remember why- That's how I approach my acting. I watched season one of that show, The Neighbors, and I just went and did what I could, only thing I knew how to do was write music.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I just wrote, not to any picture. I just wrote wild pieces that were like six, seven minutes long. And I'm riffing on like melodies and themes that felt like the show made me feel something. And I just recorded all this stuff. It was also orchestral. And I'd never really dabbled in orchestra before.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And so we have software that allows us to like find a violin or in the most lay way to say, you know, the MIDI software that I can play an orchestra with my hands basically, right? And I would send these pieces into Dan and the director of that show, main director of that show was Chris Koch, right? And Chris Koch was also the composer of the show season one.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Chris Koch composed the score for The Neighbors season one. Wow. Chris Koch, for anyone that doesn't know, directed some of the seminal This Is Us episodes.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yeah. It was me sending music to Koch and to Dan for approval. Koch had set a palette already and had some themes and I was just integrating them into the show because they were good. I was like, I'll do my own thing in places, but that's how that all started. And then I had so much fear that I couldn't score the picture. I had never done it before.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And Dan was always like, he would like the melodies I would write. And he would say, bring that melody back here, bring that melody back here. And he'd point to the areas to do it. And he taught me to write thematically, Dan. In that process, Dan was like, it's okay to have a singular theme, a singular melody that you just go back to over and over and over again. It's okay.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I mean, that's the John Williams approach. That's Spielberg. That's how they worked their whole career.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He has feel. What Dan offers and what he's done, what he did phenomenally well on this show and others, but this one particularly ours, this is us, is that he's got great feel, great emotional feel. He knows if something moves him in a certain spot, it's going to move him. millions of other people too. He has that thing in him, that's the magic.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Which is why when you're watching End of the Pilot, This Is Us or anything, your hair raises and you're like, oh, holy shit, what just happened? He experiences these things himself when he's watching and working in the edit bay. And when something hits him, he knows it's going to hit other people. It's a very cool thing. And so it's like, he's got great feel. But even back then, He had great feel.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Always had it. So we worked on that show together.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Okay, continue. And then I'm like, all right, see, I'm not supposed to be doing this.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And so I went back and started making another record. called Aerogram, which is about my family. That's about my whole family journey, my parents' journey from India to the United States in the late 70s, their experience as immigrants. I wrote an entire concept album about that. And that was my band Goldspot. So I went back to doing a little bit of that. And then in that time,
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I started getting offers to score other people's things.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Probably because they're like, you work with Dan Fogelman, you must know what you're doing. That's kind of what would happen.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It was like, even though I had done the show, and it was his first show, The Neighbors, and it got canceled, there was some cred that was earned by just being in the world that someone of his caliber had decided to hire me, not knowing that it was really nepotism. that brought us together. So what else did you do in between? I just did some indie films.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I ended up doing this show called The Royals with Elizabeth Hurley on E. It's like a soapy drama. Did you feel like you had a groove at this point in time or are you still sort of honing a groove? Honing a groove. Honing a groove. Because I still didn't know, even to this day, I still don't know what I'm doing when I get on a project. I always feel like I'm... just flying by the seat of my pants.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It always feels that way to me. It did on this show a lot. And I think that's sort of the, you know, I don't feel like I'm ever at that point where I know exactly what I'm doing until I'm multiple seasons into something. But I had these gigs and I was doing these other shows and then Dan would call me to do his pilots and new shows that would come up.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yeah, I was gonna ask. And we kept on working together in that capacity.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yeah, beginning of 2016. Like in February?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I think it was probably February or March he called me and he goes, I have this new show. It's called The Untitled Fogelman Project or whatever. He's like, I'm just going to send you the script. And he's like, let me know what you think of it. And he's like, we have my directors from Crazy Stupid Love, Glenn and John, are coming on board.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And Dan's like, they have people that they've worked with before in terms of composers. And they've worked with people that I love, too. And Dan's like, just see what you think. read it. And I read the script and blown away. I just remember being like, there's some magic to this. This is really special.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So at that time, and I've told this story before, my wife and I were living with our daughter, Nevi. We were living in Jersey City in Jersey. And I was composing everything at that point. People thought, like I had a friend of mine who lived in Brooklyn, like another music composer that sometimes I'd go to his studio to work out of.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I started telling people that I worked from Brooklyn, because it just sounded cooler. And so anyone I talked to here, like, oh, yeah, Sid's in Brooklyn. Hey, that sounds cooler than saying, like, Jersey City, right? And it sounds way cooler than where I really was working was my parents' basement in Jersey. Yeah.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So I, so my parents live in New Jersey and I needed to find some, this place a little bit more space. So I'd go into their basement and I set up a little desk. It was just like, it was this wooden table and I had a laptop on it and I set it up in the corner of the basement and I would just work from there. And I never told anybody that I worked from my parents' basement.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And when I got the pilot, when I got that pilot episode, I was blown away by that script. Dan told me, this is not your gig basically right now. Like it's, I'm not, you're just not gonna, can't just give it to you basically. You just have to, you have to talk to Glen and John, see how they feel about you, because they're doing the pilot and you know, the directors of pilots are huge.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yeah, they have a lot of influence. Absolutely. They set the tone, as you know, and it's, and the tone of our show really was established in that pilot in a beautiful way. Obviously, it evolved. Ken took it in a whole other place. That was gorgeous in its own way. But it started with Glenn and John in the pilot. I was coming out to LA for a meeting or something, and I wrote this piece of music.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I didn't wanna show it to Dan. I was like, I wrote this six minute piece of score off the pilot. And this is how I would think and how I still think to this day. And I'd start writing. And I came to LA and I extended my trip for a few days and I spent three days in a recording studio here in LA, like a real recording studio with a friend of mine.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And we recorded this piece of music and that's what I turned into Glenn and John and Dan, like after I spent like so much time on it. And Glenn and John and Dan were like, that's it right there, that's the sound.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It became... I turned this piece of music into them. And it was like, it became... You'll hear for the first time in like the first couple episodes when Chrissy is in that Weight Watchers class. That's the theme that plays there. That's the very first thing I ever wrote for the show. In my mind, I was like, this is a dramatic piece. This could end an episode.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I was like, this has this sort of weight to, it's got a melody. I was like, and Glenn and John were like, no, we're going to use it. And Dan was like, we're going to use it over a comedic sequence. You know how some of those Weight Watchers scenes early on were like, they were funny. There was so much banter there between you, Chrissy, the meetings, all that.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And in my mind, this is a funny comedic scene. I would get picture back and they would drop that theme over there. And I remember being like, why are we, this is a dramatic piece of score. Why are we putting over something funny? Wow. And that's when Glenn and John and Dan hit on something in the pilot. And they were like, we're never going to touch the comedy in the show.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
You're not scoring comedy ever, which would be also be kind of hokey in some ways to do that. Cause it's, it's already grounded in real. It's funny, but we're going to score the subtext of why these people are here. And that's what they would do. And then it became like, okay, now we're starting to understand
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That was the language of the show in terms of why we use music, when we use music, what it sounds like. And the other piece of it too was Dan told me when he gave me the script, he's like, we're thinking of using Sufjan Stevens. His song to play in the opening of the whole series. I heard and I love Sufjan. I heard it and I was like, okay, this is organic, acoustic based.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
This is what they're already responding to. Then that piece that I wrote, felt like it could have been maybe like a B-side of like a sitcom. But it had that feeling a little bit. And so anyway, but that was a huge moment because that got me the job for the show. And it also taught me that moment that like, I can bring in my own artistry from my band world just by reading a script.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I don't have to pay attention to the picture right now. I can read a script and feel the emotion in it and write something to it and turn it in, and it can become something. And I can feel free to mess around with sounds and ideas and not feel confined to anything.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Because then it also, the challenge as a composer is, and I had this conversation with a lot of other composers in this business, is that oftentimes composers don't get involved until later in life. The edit. So you film the episode, editor gets in, does their cut of the episode. They'll put in what's called temp score. Yeah.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
They'll find score from other soundtracks, other things that they want their show or film to feel like. Right. And then as a composer, you come in later on and then you're chasing temp.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's all that it's, and it's, so it's A, it's a lot of ego there. And B, it's also nerves of having to chase something. It skips a bunch of emotional steps.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Similar thing. And also, if we want to create something original and something beautiful in our minds, sometimes you have to sort of allow for... you know, the artistry to come through. And you have to sort of allow a place for, I mean, had we not done it this way, I don't think the score would have been what it was. It would have been a different thing.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It may have been still its own, it could have been great in its own way, but like, it would have been a different thing, inevitably.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yes. Right where you want. And then I started seeing the pilot episode. And I think in the pilot, when they were working on the pilot, they probably had temp music that I never got to see.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Because they were deep in, when I finally got to see, the first thing they sent me was a completed director's cut. Like Dan was already working in there. And Dan was like, Sid, can you just write score for these scenes here?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I would start writing score for the scenes. And normally an editor always will kind of, to present their cut. They will find music from somewhere. And so on this particular show, they would just send me dry picture and I would just write.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then that became, and so I think Dan also, which is the strength of Dan, and you probably experienced this as actors and directors and working on the show, is he's so collaborative. He wants you to bring your best version of yourself to these projects. And it's not, honestly, it's so rare. that that happens in our industry.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yeah, I mean. I'm Indian, so. I'm Indian, yeah. That's right. Next question. I'm kidding.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Right, right. So a bouzouki is a Greek instrument, but I'm using it and the acoustic guitar, you're right. There's a lot of sort of Indian influence in the music. And- Back to sort of like my story, when my parents came here in the late 70s, I was born soon after they got here. And at that time, I think they brought like $8 with them to the U.S. Are you serious?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That's all they had coming to this country. There was no foreign currency reserve at the time. It's pre-Reagan. Whole other thing, but no foreign currency reserve. And so there was only like a finite amount of rupees you could exchange for dollars before coming to the U.S. Wow. So they came here with $8 on scholarships. I was born.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
They sent me back to India to be raised by my grandparents for the first few years of my life. Oh, wow. A couple years, two, three years. And so I grew up listening to like old Hindi music. that my grandparents would play for me. That's all I listened to. Then my mom would send, and this will move into this other thing later, but my mom would send cassette tapes
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
with her voice on it to me in India for me to hear her voice, for her to sing me lullabies, tell me she loved me, she missed me, all that, right? Because it was $24 a minute to make a long distance phone call.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That's what it was. And if you talked, it'd be like, hello, hello, hello, hello. You'd hear like an echo go on forever. It was the worst phone calls. So I was, I had my mom singing me These old little lullabies, old Hindi lullabies on these cassette tapes. And I would hear all this stuff. And so my...
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Musical DNA was sort of being formulated at that time between old Hindi music and people, and my parents who are now in the West, I'm in the East, reversed, sending their music to me and me learning that way. So In My Blood is this... It's there, that Indian music.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
When I got back to the States, I started singing when I got back to the States more. But as a kid, I was exposed to all this music. And I don't... And in my band, there's hints of the sort of Indian influence in the music. Because then I grew up in the U.S. And then I loved R.E.M. and The Beatles and The Police and The Cure and The Smiths and Depeche Mode and, you know, and.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then I also had this love for Indian music. And I grew up singing Indian music. My mom would be like, every Sunday we'd go to temple. And on the night before, she would write these lyrics out. And she's like, you're going to sing this song in front of 100 aunties and uncles in temple tomorrow.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So I was an Indian singer and singing Indian music, and then I also loved all this other Western music. So all that stuff became part of the way I wrote music with my band, somewhere in between, sat somewhere between. And in my scores, it never entered my scores, ever. It was always like I kept it very separate. I didn't want to be known to be like, just because I'm Indian, that's all I know.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So I never did that. But then on this show... The first episode was not very Indian. Second episode wasn't very Indian, but it was episode 13. Season one, episode 13, the one that you guys just aired.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Okay, yeah. In that episode, our editor sent me the sequence of Jack's funeral. And it starts off with Chrissy- on the sticks in that weight loss canvas. And she's going, just banging those sticks. And all of a sudden you cut to this minute and a half, minute and 45 second sequence, back and forth of her playing the sticks Her as a kid, she's looking at the size of her sweater. Yeah.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
You see Jack doing, like, Vogue stuff with her. That's right. You cut back to Chrissy on the sticks. Yep. And then as that scene is getting more and more sort of, like, involved, like, what's happening, what's happening, what's happening, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we flash to Jack's funeral.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And what I'm getting also has no sound. It's just silent. Not even dialogue except for, you know, the Vogue stuff.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So we cut to the funeral, and it's just... Nothing, just like that. And all of a sudden, you see the teens at the funeral. You see Jack's picture. You see the urn.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
You're in this silence for like the next minute. And you're like, holy shit, this is what I just saw. This is like, it's haunting. It's the most haunting scene to date of the show. And then it comes back to Chrissy just screaming her head off.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That guttural scream, which was just so beautiful. And her performance was unreal in that. And Koch calls me and he says, I think, Sid, you can do something with Chrissy's voice.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
beat her percussion like of those sticks that she's hitting in that weight loss camp let that be a guide for you in some way maybe work off that maybe feel find a way to use the rhythms in it or figure something out and in that moment i picked up my guitar i watched the scene and i started playing yep Sterling's our engineer right here. I love it. I got you. You like that positioning?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And this is basically like, This, that whole thing is a drone.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I'm not changing chords. Like in Indian music, stuff sits on the tonic, which is sort of like a starting point. And it's almost like, it's what you return to in music. You don't hear like Indian music You don't hear big changes in the music. You just hear like loops of like a drone. So in my mind, okay, this is like an Indian drone. And I started singing.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then there's a change I made in the melody, which is the most Indian thing you could do. It's like deep and classical. So... It's that. And then as I'm just jamming to this funeral, in my studio, you didn't hear it on the final recording as much, but I was like, this is so Indian, so Desi. So I was like, I started doing stuff like that, like riffing.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I was like, why am I going into this Indian place all of a sudden out of nowhere? And so then the final melody, I started pulling some of the Indian stuff out because this is an NBC show and I'm like, this is going to be just too weird on TV. So I went. It became the theme. And I saved that high sort of part for the moment we see the funeral. Until then, it's just, she's, She's on the sticks.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then I'm like, Koch told me, find a way to get the rhythm of the sticks into it. And I'm like, this is just sticks hitting a wooden floor. I have a wooden table I'm recording on. And I start going. it almost became like tablas. Indian tablas go . That's how a tabla player plays. And I did that. So that became this pulse underneath, as if I was a tabla player, but playing it on my wooden table.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Because I didn't want it to get too Indian. I was like, we're not going to use tablas, we're going to use the table. And I recorded this thing. I remember that moment. It was like, there's times where you feel like you write something. There's times I've done this with, and I'm sure Taylor, you have felt that way with your own music.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
You guys are like, is that when you write something that you think that you know in your heart is special, like you want to listen to it over and over again sometimes. There's like the ego kicks in a little bit. And I remember when I wrote this, I was just like, this is different. I feel really, really good about this. And I sent it to Dan, to the picture and to our editor.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I was like, what do you think of this? And Dan was like, he wrote back and he goes, that was, what do you say? He goes, that was transcendental or something. And he writes something like that to me. And he goes, that's, he's like, that's, he was like, you just knocked it out of the park. That's it. And I was like, I remember asking, I was like, is this too Indian?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And he goes, no, it's perfect. And I was like, even though I know this is on NBC playing, you know, like, it's like a, we're not as, because this is like, do I have the liberty to explore like this and go there? And Dan's like, don't touch a thing. He goes from, and I remember him saying, he goes, what you did in this episode, from that point on, it changed the sound of the show.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Because it was like, before then, most of the score was like, I can't remember what it was. It was like, a lot of it was very Joni Mitchell-esque.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It was that vibe. But then all of a sudden it became, you know, And it became this other thing. And we found the sort of voice. Like I was able to then be the most artistic version of myself in the score. And it was Dan just being like, no, keep, that's it. It became the emotional anchor.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Of the show. Yeah. That. And then, yeah.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I appreciate you saying that. I think for me, too, when you talked, you said before about you see things dry in the show when you watch stuff dry and it's not working, maybe to you. But I saw that scene dry. And I got to tell you, even... with no music, I was already feeling it. It was already there for me. And so it also allowed me to write something that wasn't trying to manufacture emotion.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Like I wasn't like, oh, funeral, could come sad music. And almost like this music is almost not even sad. It's almost heroic or something. It's triumphant.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I was like trying to figure out like, What it was, and Dan and I, I talk about this about what inspires me on the show. And it goes back to what I learned from Glen, John and Dan on the pilot, which is scoring to the subtext of why these characters are here. And then this moment made me realize like, well, why is this show even here?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I remember Dan lost his mom much, much younger than he ever should have. And I realized in that moment that I was like, he is trying to pay... respect to his mother in some way in the show. And I'd never felt that before.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And for some reason, and I was like, and all of a sudden I was like, am I writing this score for these characters or am I writing the score to also like, to like help my friend heal in some way? It started going in that place for me. And it was like the most meta experience I've ever had working on anything. And that sort of became the sort of vibe of the show for me.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
on all the themes as we move forward i was like you know this is dan this is dan sort of paying like jack and in that moment i was like jack is his mom to him yeah but what you find out later on is you know the real hero is the mom at the end of all of it which is brilliant brilliance of dan all along but yeah so for me
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
this moment made me realize that I could score to why Dan even put these characters here in the first place. And so it allowed it to be deep in that way. And it was such a, and I can't tell you, like, I've never worked on anything in my life like this where, I just, I woke up in the morning and I would like live and breathe the show. And I'm like, I miss it so much.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
But it was like this sort of ability to connect to you guys, to Dan in this way, just magical. Never, it's so meta to be able to like feel that connection.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yeah, I mean, it was in the pilot. I remember Dan asked me, we talked about this before a little bit. Dan has these requests sometimes. And at the time, you're like, is this a futile thing? Am I wasting my time? Why am I doing this right now? And he's got a purpose behind some of this stuff. It's like when you would go into the writer's room. I'd go in the writer's room.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
You guys obviously must have been in the writer's room multiple times. I remember going in, I went in once and they interviewed me and they wanted to talk to me about my story and we just talked. There were index cards everywhere or post-its everywhere of just the map of the whole series. The timeline, yeah. You're like, oh my gosh, is this a mystery? What is this?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
There's clues everywhere and that's what the show in many ways was.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's a mystery, which is the haunting part about the whole show. I remember in the pilot, Dan asking me to replace the Sufjan Stevens song. And he was like, we have this Sufjan Stevens song. Remember I told you, he was like, we're gonna use Sufjan Stevens, that song, Death With Dignity. And he's like, can you replace it? Can you write something there?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I wrote like an eight minute piece of music, which is so long, like a long, because the song was like doubled up. It was a long sequence. And then Glen and John were like, oh, we're gonna stick to the song. And I was just like, oh, my gosh. Oh, man. And I was like, I just spent like two days, three days, whatever I wrote on it.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then that ended up becoming the very final piece of music in series.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Over the very final sequence and the final episode.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And it was used just twice in series. It was used in Kevin's painting and then used again at the very end. That was it, the theme. But I had done the leg work back in the pilot days.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then I remember watching the finale with Julie, our editor. We were working on it. And we both said at that moment, what if we brought the Kevin painting theme about how we're all connected back in for the ending of that. So that was the hardest piece I ever had to write because it was so long. And then it wasn't used. And I was like, oh, man. What am I going to do with this?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It was a waste of time. Yeah, and then Dan had it all mapped out.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Same thing with the main theme in the ending credits. Yeah.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It may not have been there in the pilot. It might have been starting episode two. I can't remember how we end. Oh, the pilot had the, oh my God, that Labi Safri song. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
But the thing is, I like to think there was a plan all along that one day it would become this. And I don't know what Dan had envisioned, if he knew. I think Dan had a lot of the series mapped out early on.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
But I don't think in that moment, when he's writing the pilot script, he's like, okay.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
The reverse engineering of itself is magic. And that's what's the magic of the show is that we allowed sort of these ideas, whatever they may be, like Dan allows the creativity to sort of like to blossom in its own sort of way. Do your thing, do your thing, do your thing. And we will find ways to, they will have a purpose later on in some way. They work out in their own sort of way.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's just there's so much trust involved in the whole process. And then it was an organic thing that built over time. So I remember first in how I wrote that theme. Amy and I, my wife Amy, we'd gone away on a trip. I forgot where we were. Mexico or somewhere. Okay. And I brought my guitar with me. This is back in the day when I would actually bring my guitar on vacation with me. Not anymore?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Not anymore. With the kids, it just stops. Absolutely. So much stuff stops. And this is right when the show got picked up to series. I was sitting on the beach and I played this thing over and over again. With this guitar? With this guitar.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Right before this got picked up to series, I was in Vermont. My wife is from Vermont. And we went into some antique store.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Got some syrup. At the cash register. Yeah, at the cash register. Keep it all.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
different grade options that's right dark light dark light yeah yeah I'm just I always would look for instruments at any of these places because inevitably somebody leaves something that they think is like crappy and or it probably is and and and it's for sale and I see this guitar the one I'm holding right now it's a silver tone and it was on sale for like 25 bucks yeah is it 25 or 50 somewhere around there
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I think it was actually, no, sorry, I think it was 50. And it was like beaten up. And if you look, if I turn this around, if you see there's a crack on the back. Okay. There's a crack here. Straight up the back. And this is not, it's not in good shape. And I started playing it and I was like, this has got a vibe and I like the vibe of it. And I was like, okay.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I'm just going to keep this and I get it. It's like a cheap guitar. And this ended up becoming the guitar for the entire show, for the score. Because it just had these dead strings that had not been changed for 10 years. And I still haven't changed these strings. These strings are the original strings from when I bought the guitar. No way. So now they're probably like 16, 17 years old.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That dead sound, the strings, is coming from those same strings. I've not changed these strings once. Wow. So I brought this with me on a trip to Mexico.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I remember as a joke, I was always like, I grew up on those 80s theme songs.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I remember just sitting there as a joke and be like, the first thing that came to me was...
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Sid hasn't worked his magic yet. I don't agree with that. And the reason why is that what makes the show as emotional as it is, I know you guys say it's the score oftentimes. I am seeing, I remember my experience on the show
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I would do this as a joke, and Amy would be like, shut up.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And I was like, as a joke, I'd be like, can you imagine if this is like, we go straight up, like, you know, and all of a sudden it's like, you see you guys at freeze frame.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So it actually started off as a joke. I was just sitting and I was like, this had, also I tuned this guitar in a way, this is not standard tuning. This is not your normal sort of E-A-D-G, whatever, B-E. But this is in a Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell-ish tuning.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So that's why... It has this like ring that is like, the voicings are different than you would normally hear. And because in my mind, I was also trying to think about Joni Mitchell. I was thinking about Nick Drake, Sufjan Stevens, all these artists were- For any musical people listening, what is the tuning? I don't even know. Great. Yeah. So take that, musical people listening. I don't even know.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That's all it was. Here are the notes. Somebody wants to steal them, go. That's it. Beautiful.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
This is when I was on the beach. This is us. So I kept it over and over again for like three days. And I was like, and I've recorded it on my phone. I remember thinking this was something and I sent it to Dan, but not with the, this is us. Sure, sure, sure, sure. You kept that off. I kept that off because I was like, he's going to be like, what are you doing? And he's like, that's great.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He goes, that's something. I don't know what it is, but he's like, just go finish it. And then I finished it. I added some piano to it. There was a cellist that came and played the... And then that became our ending credits theme, season one. And then, I don't know what it is, but Dan... His whole film, as a filmmaker and music, he's so good with the two.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
um the very very first and we can get into like more of the granular details of like what happened early on and how it started but my experience on the show time and time again was seeing picture that already moved me and i had to sort of like i had to find that balance between just like giving just enough sort of push to maybe open up the tear ducts a hair more.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He's so good with the feel of music against picture, always. And so he would sometimes say to me, he's like, hey, that theme for the end credits, what if you tried doing a version of that here when Randall is...
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
at the driving range playing golf yeah then didn't that happen with young randall at one point and with you yeah and i was like okay and i wouldn't question it i wouldn't be like well why but i was like okay well this is one of the themes that is becoming sort of a central connecting theme for the show one of them and so we'd start just folding it in different places and then year after year it found its use in another spot and in another spot just
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
You know, then the kids are putting, when Jack is putting the car seats in the car. Yeah. It becomes the music for the montage of that.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So it's like this connective theme for the family all of a sudden.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then you're like, oh yeah, this is, and then you do it enough. This is us. If you do it enough, yes. That, it becomes the connective theme for the family over and over again. So then cut all the way to season six. Dan says to me, well- There's a history of how we got there first before, so let's go back. But your question was on the original songs, and we'll get to season six.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
In season one, the Memphis episode comes up. Golly. And Dan calls me, Dan, Glenn, and John, direct that episode, one of the best episodes, series. I still think it's just incredible filmmaking to this day in that episode. And Dan says, can you write, or Glenn and John actually call me that, can you write a Stax Records B-side series like a soul tune, Otis Redding-esque thing for us.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And it was probably because I know there must have been other people they were thinking of because we had not touched original songs yet for the show. And I think at one point there might have been a conversation of John Legend possibly coming in and writing the song or people like that they wanted to reach out to who were probably the right people to write the song.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
because they're incredible songwriters and would understand soul in a different way.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's all about authenticity. I remember the call to me. I was just like, I can't write a Stax Records beat. This is not my wheelhouse. But I knew that I could find I knew I could write a melody, and I knew I could get some ideas across. And I remember just putting myself in that place of like, doors are closed in my studio. And I'm just like, you know. We can always come back to this.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I started doing stuff like that in my studio, just by myself. Yeah. Embarrassingly. Yes. Thinking of this idea of me pretending I was some soul singer and going that place. And it sounded terrible, like it probably just did. And it wasn't right. And then I called my friend Chris Pearce. who is an incredible singer-songwriter. I mean, the guy sounds like Otis Redding. Okay. And did you meet?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
You must have met Chris in that process. Big guy, right? Because Chris filmed.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He's on stage. So Chris and I got together, and I said, Chris, I have this idea. And the basic idea was like, Mother, don't you cry.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
we're gonna be all right when you get there tonight you're not alone i'm always here with you with just a little line melody and then chris and i sat together and within like an hour we just mapped out the song and chris sang it and when he sang it it was like i mean he sounds like otis redding when he sings i mean like it was just gorgeous
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And it was, cause it was already there. I'm telling you, it was already there. It was shot beautifully. It was performed beautifully. It was written beautifully. So I never felt like I had to cover up anything that wasn't there. And that's what the magic of all that together is what made the show, I think, great, is all of that.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
voice and I recorded, I filmed Chris singing on guitar and I sent that to Glen and John and Dan and they were just like, oh my gosh. Talk about authenticity too and why it's important in any of the work we do is just because I was handed the gig to write the song and may have written some pieces of it, it didn't make it right just yet.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I needed Chris to come in, co-write it with me, and make it right. He brought the authenticity that he needed. He's a soul singer. It had to be real because this song took place in Memphis. What year were we probably? Seventy? Something like that. Yeah, that sounds right. This was something that was being performed on stage by the amazing Brian Tyree. That's right.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That's when the song took off because then Brian came in and sang it. So Brian came in, jammed with me and Chris in our studio, in my home studio. He came over and we started teaching Brian the song and Brian just like, ignored some of the, like the ideas that we had and he just started singing it the way that he was feeling it.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And it was like, oh my gosh, he sounded like, I don't know if you listened to like Teddy Pendergrass. Brian sounds like Teddy Pendergrass. And it was like, it became even cooler. It was like, I couldn't, I was like, I was like, this is, that's an even a more interesting choice than an Otis Redding type of sound. I was like, cause it's deeper in that. It's a deeper cut in Teddy Pendergrass.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's not an artist that we may have heard of him, but not many people have the same appreciation. That became its own beautiful thing because we went into a recording studio then to record the song. Because when you're performing this stuff in the scene, sometimes you have to play the track. There's another bands not actually playing in the scene. Brian may not actually be singing.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That was the thought when we went in. But Dan and I talked about it and we said, let's have Brian really sing it live on set because there's just something visceral about his voice. And the guy's such a, he's such an incredible artist. Let his artistry shine. We went into the recording studio to prerecord it and we recorded it to keep it pure. We recorded it to tape.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
We didn't record it to computer. We recorded it to actual old reel. Mixed it to an old, like half inch tape. Just so it had that stamp of like an old tune. And at that point, I was like, this is awesome. The studio's giving us the... Because the studio was like, Sid, you can just record this at home on your... And I was like, no, we're going to make a Stax record B-side.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Let's do it to tape, live in the room, band in the room. Let's record it like they would have recorded. And that started this whole trend in the original songs for the show. Because then that episode was such a great episode. Brian was incredible in that episode. You were incredible in that episode. I mean, it was just magic. Ron, oh my gosh.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And at the season one party for This Is Us, my band was performing some of these songs. And Chris, I think, may have gone up and performed that song. And afterwards, I see Mandy by the bar next to Taylor Goldsmith. And I went up to him and I was like, hey, I'm your biggest fan. Because Dawes is honestly one of my favorite bands of the last, I don't know, 15 years, easily.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I was listening to Dawes when we were in Jersey City, in my parents' basement. Brooklyn. Sorry, sorry, Brooklyn. And so I was just such a fan. And then he said something to me. He goes, hey, man, if you ever want to collaborate on anything at some point, let me know. And I couldn't believe that this guy asked me that. Because I think Taylor is one of the best songwriters of our generation.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I don't say that easily. He's a lyrically gifted musician. His playing, his writing, everything is just incredible. It connects on a very cool, for me, it hits me in a place. And then... As we got into the future seasons, what was the next one? No, it was Invisible Ink.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Yeah. So Mandy's character, Rebecca was going to, why don't you set up what your character was doing?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Oh, Memorized. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With Taylor again. So Taylor and I wrote that song together. And it just started this beautiful collaboration between me and Taylor.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He did three. We did that, we did Memorized.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Young Jack, your son Jack. Yeah. His song, he was a pop star. That's right. And we needed to write a song that he performs on stage. Which they recorded at the Greek Theater? We recorded at the Greek Theater in the middle of a Chicago show.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Chicago gave us a break for 15 minutes. And we got up there, and we pumped the song, after we recorded it, into the speakers in front of, whatever, 5,000, 6,000 people. How many people does that hold? A lot of people.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
By the second chorus, they were singing along with it. No way! Never heard it before. I mean, they were like, you know, lighters lit, everything. So we actually recorded that song at a massive concert and got that footage. So what you're seeing is actually,
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Right. Going back to Taylor for a second too, on the very first song we wrote together, I remember Dan called and said, can you write this song, Joni Mitchell type of song. I was like, okay, then I can just get on. I had some melodic ideas, some general idea of what it could be, but just very, very nothing.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So right away, knowing what the story was and this was going to be Rebecca and her journey, I remember thinking, in my head, I was like, Taylor Goldsmith said he wants to work with me at some point. And I called Taylor, and I was like, can we do this? Because also in my mind, too, I thought he's also seen at home with you the progression of your character. Oh, yeah. You working on the character.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He's seen the life of the character. So he knows not just you, but he also knows Rebecca Pearson in an interesting way through you. And I think that perspective, lyrically, would have been pretty powerful.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He would read lines. He would be Jack and you would be Rebecca.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
But that became this start of this very special relationship between me and Taylor. And then we wrote, memorized together. And then for season six, when we bring the This Is Us song into Rebecca Pearson's performance, Dan then said to me, Dan's like, can you take that end title theme and make that into a song now? And I was like, you want me to put words to it?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
In my head, the other words were This Is Us.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Well, the easy thing was there was that... Taylor wrote those words. And so it was like, he just took the theme. I had sort of, I started sketching out on piano, just what like the form of this thing would melodically, what it could be. And then he's like, let me just, let me just write some stuff lyrically.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And cause it also took the pressure off me because I had been living in this theme for so long. It's a very weird thing as a songwriter too. And you've probably experienced this too, right? Like if you have a melody, I always write lyrics last when my band always wrote lyrics last. Unless I had something meaningful I thought I had to say, which was very rare.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And so I would... I always think melodically first. And then I'm trying to put a square peg in a circular hole and trying to get the right lyric to match that melody. And it's frustrating. But here, I was like, Taylor, you handle it. I don't want to deal with the frustration of... And also, the guy's a lyrical genius. So he... He went, he's like, let me just come up with some ideas.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then he gave those lyrics back to me and we sat together and then we amended the melody where it made sense to sing it in the way that his words were. And then obviously Mandy then.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Like I think it had that sort of same feeling at the end of the pilot when that Labi Safri song comes on and like you feel like the rug has been pulled from under you a little bit and the surprises of the show. Even that's like this is like more of like a meta surprise.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
But when you're on piano and you in the break of the song and in the instrumental section, you're you know, your character is playing da da da da ding ding. I remember people reaching out on social media or like fans of the show afterwards saying when that came in, people were like, oh my gosh, we've been hearing this for six seasons at the end of every episode. Oh my God.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Like that had, it had that impact, which is cool. Like, you know.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
As long as you don't think about it enough, it makes sense.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Why would that be in there? But it's to suspend a little disbelief.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And it's tied to that piano, tied to the childhood piano. It's a melody. And in some ways, it's like... And then I think about my relationship to the show, my family story. I felt like my story in the show, in terms of what I was able to bring to it, I felt like I could bring my family story and my own past into the show in such a fun, interesting way.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And even that idea of melodies being passed down generation to generation, my mom singing me things on the cassette tape, those melodies remaining in my head, and I teach them to my kids, or whatever that is, that happened kind of with that melody.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So Dan and I went to college together. It's going to be crazy. Yeah. We were freshman year hallmates.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It was the end of 12th. Oh, wow. I thought it was earlier than that. I think it was 12th. Was that the episode where we see the footage from Jack's camera? The Super 8 footage?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Sterling's our roadie engineer. This is so special.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
That's very sweet. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, I'll do it. Go for it. So the context of the use of where we use this song was in that episode, Rebecca's, she's coming to terms with her being about to be a mom and she doesn't think she'll be a great mom. Remember there's that moment, you're like, am I going to be a good mom?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's nuts. This is you, Penn. This is you, Penn.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And then the end of the episode, we start seeing this footage, Super 8 footage from Jack's camera. I think you have the slightly older versions of the kids, and you're seeing him filming you when you were pregnant. All around that time, you were having these issues, this conflict of, like, am I going to be a good mom?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And so then in the edit, I think Julia Grove, one of our amazing editors, we decided to just put this song in just to see what it did. because this was also the song about the cassette tape that my mom sent to me when I was a kid with her voice on it.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
This is going to give you a sense of our age. We're talking about 1994. Oh, my God. Freshman year.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
My parents always felt, my mom especially, even to this day, regrets sending me back to India because she was like, we came to this country to build a life for ourselves, and in that process sent our newborn child back to India. When you came back from India, you didn't even recognize us. I was mad with my mom when I came back. This song was also me telling my mom it's okay.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
94, we were hallmates. And... And my sort of experience freshman year, like I was known in the hallway, in our hall for singing karaoke into our Iowa stereo system we had. There was like these karaoke sound systems and we would turn the speakers outward from our window into the quad. Wow. And as people would go by, I would just start like heckling people or just singing songs.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I appreciate it. You know that this is true. It means a lot coming from you guys. What else is there to say?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
I'm scoring a show with an Academy nominated actor named Sterling K. Brown.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Look out for that show. Called Paradise.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's phenomenal. It's a cool show. Yeah. Another Dan Fogelman project. Yeah. It's Sterling in a way you've never seen him before. It's pretty. Fully nude from the back. Fully nude. It is a, yeah. It's true.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It's a political thriller. I'm really proud of the work on it, proud of what this guy's doing, proud of the show. Yeah, that. Only Mergers in the Building also. Oh, just that? Season four just came out.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
People would look up. And then Dan would sometimes hang in the room with us. And it was just, we developed this sort of, friendship just through, in the hallway, you kind of see what your other kids you go to college with are doing. And Dan and I just gravitated towards each other. We became really good friends. And then we lived together the following year in a house together.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Dan had an Indian roommate. That was like the only connective thing between us. But we didn't really, I don't know what it is. We have very different interests, right? And I was an acapella dork, like singing in acapella group. And Dan and like our hallmates, people would come to the shows.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
But Dan's strength, and it's still his strength to this day, is that he's able to bring people together from all walks of life who are very different and put them all together in one room and say, you all belong. This is a very Fogelman thing to do without realizing he's doing it. It's just how he, it's in his DNA.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Dan assembled a house of, It was like a motley crew of guys. It was like, you know, Indian acapella dork. Stud. Excuse us. Indian acapella stud dork. Stork. Stork, you said? Stork, yeah. Stork. They were like basketball players, football players. Wow. So it was like all these jocks and then like, you know, some nerdy kids. I was in the nerdy.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
It was at Penn, there were like these, there was off-campus living in these like, in these, in these old, like beaten up, beat up little homes that had like, you know, your room was maybe like 150 square feet. Okay. And so we all, he put this house together and he put all of us together. And then we lived together this sophomore year and had an amazing time, great experiences together.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
But it was like the first, and in, in that sophomore year when we lived together, we would be wasted at like three o'clock in the morning. And I remember these conversations, it was me, Dan, and another one of our friends. And Dan would always say, he's like, Dan's like, I'm talking about himself. Dan's like, I'm going to be a famous writer one day.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And he goes, Sid, you're gonna be a famous musician one day. And our other friend, Chris, he's like, you're gonna be a famous lawyer one day. And we'd get drunk and just talk about our future. Chris is homeless now.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Two out of three ain't bad. Yeah, right, right. Dan and I are not friends with him anymore. Chris ended up becoming assistant U.S. attorney for New York.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Right. But Dan was always like, he had this feeling about all of us that we were going to pursue these careers. And it was just the thing that we'd fantasize about when we'd be after a bunch of drinks and just hang out. And so that was always... It's interesting, from a very early age, Dan saw me performing. He saw me writing music, he saw me singing.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
At this point, we've known each other longer than we haven't. We met when we were 17. And so he knew sort of what I could do musically, even from a young age. So, you know, fast forward several years later, I was in a band, we would tour.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And we played in LA and Dan would be like one of five people coming to the shows. It was like, that was a support always. But he always knew and recognized what I did. He knew where the music came from. And so when it came time to eventually hire me on something, he called me on another show. What was the first thing you guys did together?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So I had just come back from tour and my record came out in London and it totally flopped. And I came back and I was just trying to figure out what my next steps were. Like, I was like, I'm going to be in a band. I was like, I'm going to make records. And, um, and Dan called me and I never called him about it. He just, cause I was like, I didn't want to like, feel like I needed a gig or something.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So I went off, I had been in my band. Dan at this point had written Cars.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He wrote Cars when he was 25. Yeah, he'd written Cars when he was like in his mid, late 20s.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
What a gig. And he crushed that one, huh? And so Cars, and then he wrote Crazy Stupid Love that was directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who did our pilot and several other episodes. So he was a really established screenwriter at this point. Got it. Tangled came in somewhere?
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Tangled was in there by that point. So many. Fred Claus. I mean, he'd done so many films and TV. He loves Fred Claus.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
Fred Claus, yeah. I did that on purpose. The pinnacle, Fred Claus. Fred Claus.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
He's doing great. And Dan had this show called The Neighbors on ABC.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And they were looking for a new composer for their second season. And he called me. Interesting enough, I had just gone to like a pen reunion and I was on a train leaving Philly. And I get a call from Dan and he was like, will you come in and score season two of my show? And I was like, nah, dude. I was like, I don't know how to score for TV and film. I can't do this.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So I said to him, and he was like, he's like, I really want you to do it. And I was like, here's my guitar player's number. because this is what he wants to do. He's been trying to break into this. The band is like, I don't know what we're doing next, just call him. Dan's like, I really want you to think about it. He goes, I really believe that you can do this. He goes, I know your melodies.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
from band world and they connect to me. I feel the emotionality in them. And he's like, I think you can bring that skill here. And I'd never written anything for TV or film. I didn't go to school for any of it. I was in a band. So all my only experience was acapella group and band, right? That was really it. And then, you know, arranging for my acapella group, like writing for the voice part.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So I never really had I didn't have the confidence I could do this, honestly. And Dan was like, I really want you to do this. So I get off the phone with him and I'm on the phone with my manager. And I'm like, Dan Fogelman called me, friend of mine from college. And he wants me to score season two of his show. And I was like, I told him, I was like, I wanna make records. I can't do this.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
And he goes, pick up the phone. This is Dan Fogelman who called you. He goes, you know who that is? I was like, yeah. I was like, we used to get drunk together.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
piss on walls when we were freshmen in college okay um and and can i can say that on this yeah okay so i'm sorry if anything feels like you know please we were like yeah we were 17 um it's gonna get me and dan canceled um yeah that was us hold on we've all pissed off yeah it really is that that was us mandy come on This will really become the That Was Us podcast. We're good. It's fine. Okay.
That Was Us
RE-RELEASE - Siddhartha Khosla and Us | Composer
So he's like, Dan Fogelman called you to do something. He's like, that guy is a beast. And he's like, you should be open to maybe having your career go in a different direction. I think at that point I was just pretty green. I was like, no, I'm going to make another record. This is what I'm going to do. Not thinking about, I don't know, the fact that I was about to get married, future, family.