PostHaste Music Vol. 13, Grand and Heroic: Interview with Mark Petrie
PostHaste Music recently released a thirteenth volume, Grand and Heroic.
Majestic and vibrant, Grand and Heroic is a trailer album that offers ten epic/drama/adventure cues, all composed by Mark Petrie.
Read our short interview with Mark Petrie to find out more about Grand and Heroic, and Mark’s future projects!
Trailer Music News: Tell us a bit about your cooperation with PostHaste Music. What was the creative process behind this new album, focusing on epic and heroic music?
Mark Petrie: I’ve been working with PostHaste for quite a while – they were actually the first company I ever worked with that specialized in music for trailers. It’s been about 6 years, and between my wife (Gina Brigida) and I, we’ve written over over 140 tracks for them! For this latest album, PostHaste would give me a few rounds of revisions, but it was mostly small structural tweaks to make sure the music was as ‘trailer friendly’ as possible. Musically, I had a good idea of what they were looking for, having worked with them for so long now. The goal was to make a well-rounded epic and heroic album – with some hybrid tracks, traditional ones, some dark and suspenseful ones, others triumphant and uplifting.
TMN: Did you have particular sources of inspiration?
MP: Firstly, I’m always trying to visualize the type of movie that would use one of these tracks, how it might work up against picture. I might watch a few trailers to refresh my memory – that’s a guaranteed source of inspiration! That also helps keep me focused on how the music needs to be structured; how it will work within a trailer. I’m a keyboard player and my skill set always leaned towards improvisation, so I’ve learned to let my fingers wander across the keys, looking for little melodic or rhythmic nuggets to build upon. Sometimes an element as simple as a really cool sound or sample, or something run through an effects plugin, will open a creative door for me that takes me in a new direction, production-wise. It’s these little ideas – musical motifs and sonic ‘ear candy’ – that I try to seize on to and use as a building block for an entire track.
TMN: What are your next projects? More albums with PostHaste?
MP: I’ve actually been writing for PostHaste steadily for most of the year, taking just a short break during the summer to work on a film. They’ll be releasing the latest epic music in the coming months. The tracks I’m just wrapping up now are sonically a departure from what I’ve done in the past – largely because I’ve been collaborating with other composers on a lot of them. It’s been a really fun experience that I hope to do more of in the future, and pushed me in directions I wouldn’t have gone by myself. I co-wrote quite a few tracks with a very talented young composer and producer Andrew Prahlow, who creates these amazingly rich, evocative guitar washes.
Other than that, I have a few film, advertising and TV projects coming up later this year and into the beginning of next year. I love writing epic, heroic trailer music, so hopefully it won’t be very long before I have more epic tracks coming out!
Grand and Heroic is currently not available to the public for purchase. For licensing information, visit SourceAudio or contact PostHaste Music. The entire album can be previewed on SourceAudio.
