Film composer and musician Lyle Workman is the type for whom the cliché “You’ll recognize his work even if you don’t immediately recognize his name,” aptly fits. With composing credits on Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year Old Virgin and Jon Favreau’s Dinner For Five as well as contributions to the soundtracks of In Good Company, Old School and Cat in the Hat, Workman, on a recent stream of solid and satisfying collaborations, lately completed the funk score for Greg Mottola’s Superbad.

“From the get-go we knew what kind of music it had to be, and we were all of like-mind that we need to make this feel as real as possible. It needs to sound like music played by guys who play that kind of music, not just 50-year-old white studio musicians reading notes on a page—not that there’s anything wrong with that. That’s extremely valid,” Workman says laughing. “Just for this music we needed to have a certain flare to it.”

Fittingly, the Superbad Band embraced funk master musicians including Bootsy and Catfish Collins, Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield, all known for their work with James Brown, and Bernie Worrell, keyboardist of Parliament-Funkadelic. “It was a really fun environment, and it pretty much had to be. I can’t see making that kind of music without it stemming from joy,” he says. “ It was really important that the environment in the studio be that of family.”

As Superbad draws near to opening nationwide this Friday, Workman took time to talk about the progression of his work, the freedom of his solo projects and what it’s like to do work he believes in.

SM: Why is it that you go into creating music in the first place?

LW: It was just something I was interested in, just like anything else I guess. I loved music so much, and I wanted to get inside it and make it myself. My dad played guitar and would always play around the house, so I got a guitar. I had a knack for it. I was able to teach myself songs from the radio. That’s going back a few years now. Then as I got older and in college, I started developing an interest in other styles of music besides rock: jazz, classical, country, everything. I’ve always had this insatiable interest in all styles of music, which is a good primer for film music. I had no idea I’d be doing this kind of work.

In the formative years, [it was] just playing in bands, and then I moved to LA about twelve years ago and started making music, working for companies that did jingles and television commercials. Through that connection I was given some jobs to write music on my own. I started getting my feet wet in scoring for picture in that area. My break from there into feature films would have been that one of the record projects I was working on was with an artist John O’Brien and his band on Hollywood records. He grew up here and is friends with Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn. When Jon and Vince were working on (Made), they asked their buddy to do the music. I was brought along by my friend because he needed help…

[When] I was working with Favreau on Made, there was a scene I was working on, John O’Brien and I, and John Favreau wanted to hear a few different pieces of music. I remember we did two or three things, and maybe on the third I was just being really silly. We threw it down, and I knew that he wouldn’t like it because it was just too stupid. Of course, that’s the one he liked. It’s really not knowing until you try things what’s going to work whether the music really needs to accompany the film, or it needs to be unnoticeable, almost invisible.

SM: I’m going to make a guess then from what you just said that you spend a lot of time experimenting.

LW: I usually work pretty fast because I like to go with my gut. I like to go with my initial reaction to something. I find that 90 percent of the time—oh, maybe 80 percent of the time—that works and ended up being what works in the piece. But, [it’s] the other 20 percent, the “Well, that’s not quite it.” Again you’re working with a director, and they’re pretty much calling the shots. They’re the ones approving what you’re doing. A composer can feel like he’s completely got it nailed, and the director will say, “That’s not it.” Then it’s just a matter of finding out what’s missing, what’s wrong. Sometimes coming at it from the standpoint of what’s not working is better. It’s a process of elimination.

SM: In terms of the technical aspects, you said that you work quickly. How long did it take to write the score [for Superbad] itself, go into the process of working with it, rehearsing it and then getting it done?

LW: The lion’s share of the work was done in my own studio at home with the assistance of other musicians that I brought in. So, everything that was recorded was pre-recorded by other groups of people…That process was about four months of just writing the music—some of it being right, some of it not being right and things changing, the director changing his mind or looking for something else. It’s fine-tuning. Fine-tuning almost seems like it takes more time than the actual writing of the cue. But, that went on in my own studio before anybody ever came out to Los Angeles to record— we recorded the Superbad Band for four days at Capitol Records in Los Angeles. Everything was recorded in those four days. There are a few other cues in the movie that are not related to the Superbad Band. It’s more traditional score or something that didn’t require those players. But, 90 percent of it did.

SM: In terms of where you’re coming from when you begin to write, how exactly is it that you begin to write these cues? Are their certain times at which you find yourself working more than others?

LW: My particular schedule: I wake up. I go into my studio. Then I’ll keep working until it’s time to go to bed. Usually what I’ve done working for (Judd Apatow’s) films, he’s very hot about multiple screenings, pre-screenings of the film, to get test audiences in there, focus groups and the like to really get feedback. I always have these deadlines, “Okay, we have a screening coming up in two weeks, and we only have four pieces or five pieces of music that have been approved. We really would like the audience to see more. Let’s try to get these other scenes.” Often, you’re dealing with music that’s been temped in as an idea to spring from, and until the director feels happy with what I’ve done, that temporary music seems to stay there for a while…It’s kind of a slow process. It can be. Over a couple months time, you’re doing that—little bit by little bit replacing music and then finding other things that need to be.

SM: What’s that process like for you then when you do see a final screening with final score?

LW: It’s a huge relief—when you’re working on a project for a long time. I know people that work on projects for a lot longer than that…But, the goal is to get the music right, and so it’s a great feeling when you’ve done that, and everybody’s happy. It’s a great feeling of accomplishment. If the composer’s happy with the music too, that’s good too. (laughing) Luckily for me, I’ve been seeing eye-to-eye with the people I work with, directors I’ve been working with. It really is a great feeling of accomplishment and relief when it’s over.

It’s hard to get back to the initial feeling you had for the movie when you first saw it because you see it so many times. Not only am I scoring the scenes, seeing scenes over, over and over again, but I’m going to all the screenings. So, by the time the final film is done, I’ve seen it 15 times, plus all the minutes of watching the scenes in my studio as I’m scoring, composing, demo-ing and all that.

One thing that’s great about this film is that my initial reaction was very favorable. I was very excited about being part of the film because I just liked it so much. I laughed, and driving home from that very first screening, meeting with the director, seeing the film, I was just pinching myself, “I can’t believe I get to do this.”  A lot of people work, but to be able to work on stuff that you really believe in and you think is really good is amazing and a blessing.

SM: I’ll switch tracks a bit now, and talking about your own work outside of film composing…What I’m really interested in talking about are your albums Tabula Rasa, Purple Passages and the third album that you’re working on right now. How do you come from working within the collaborative nature which is film to backtrack in order to say, “This is what I’m doing for myself now.”

LW: It is very interesting. In my career, it’s the only thing I do where I’m the boss, the captain of the ship. Everything else, I’m working in a team, whether I’m in a band, working for an artist, touring, working on a session for records or composing—it’s all basically teamwork and following the decisions of whoever’s in charge. And, you know what? I like that.

But, I also really enjoy having the freedom to express myself in my own music. That’s the difference—just having that freedom to do whatever you want. So, I have a tendency to use the kitchen sink approach to my own music…—[it’s] instrumental music, often very long pieces, and there’s a good bit of it that highlights my ability as a guitar player. I joke that it’s everything that nobody else lets me do.

We laugh.

It’s kind of true. As important as it is to me, it’s not really my main focus. My main focus is to have a career in music, support my family, do those kinds of things. That’s why it’s taken me five years to do a record—because I’m just whittling away at it when I have free time. If I’m busy working, well then it gets the backseat.

SM: Do you ever find yourself creatively drained, or do you feel as if when you start to create one piece of music that precipitates other ideas, so that you’re working, working, working and spawning ideas off one nascent idea?

LW: It’s a bit like a muscle that you exercise. If you’re doing that a lot, making stuff up, composing music—or, I’m in a studio, I’m working for a group and they want me to make up a guitar part—it’s all the same thing. It’s working the same muscle. Sometimes it’s one rep, and sometimes it’s 100 reps. So, the more that you do it, the more that muscle is in shape…It’s not like I have a certain amount of ideas that will run out. The more that I do it, the more they come, the more receptive I am, the more I’m creating regardless of the genres or fields I’m working in.

For more information visit www.lyleworkman.com.

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