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David Arnold
David Arnold: 'Sherlock will do almost anything to get a result.' Photograph: Sarah Lee
David Arnold: 'Sherlock will do almost anything to get a result.' Photograph: Sarah Lee

Bond and Sherlock composer David Arnold: 'He doesn't follow the herd'

This article is more than 10 years old
The writer of the scores for Quantum of Solace, Hot Fuzz and more how he tackles his work – and what John Barry told him

David Arnold, the James Bond composer and musical director of the London Olympics closing ceremony, is talking ghosts. The north London studios where we meet, he tells me, are haunted. Doors slam shut and footsteps are heard in studios that he knows to be empty.

In one part of the building – a former school and church – electrical equipment never works and people report sightings of two spectral schoolchildren dressed in Victorian clothing. "I'm halfway between being a real cynic and totally convinced by it," says Arnold. Our conversation is made more disconcerting by the lights switching off every 15 minutes (an eco-friendly device, not an otherwordly one).

If it sounds like a case for BBC1's Sherlock then that would be entirely appropriate – Arnold is currently working, with Michael Price, on the soundtrack to the third series of the acclaimed drama, which will return later this year. "It's nothing to do with ghosts, it's just the science of energy," reckons Arnold. "A human being is just a bunch of vibrating molecules stuffed together in various degrees of density. That energy never stops so it doesn't surprise me you might get echoes of things." You might even say it was elementary.

It has been quite a 12 months for Arnold, bookended by the Olympics and the new run of Sherlock, with much of his time in between spent working on a musical version of the 2010 film Made in Dagenham, starring Sally Hawkins and Bob Hoskins, which he scored.

Luton-born Arnold is best known for his work on five Bond films, from Tomorrow Never Dies to Quantum of Solace. He landed the job, a dream gig for the childhood 007 fan, after releasing his 1997 album of Bond covers, Shaken and Stirred, featuring Propellerheads, David McAlmont and Pulp.

His big break came 20 years ago when his soundtrack to The Young Americans, starring Harvey Keitel and directed by his then flatmate, Danny Cannon, caught Hollywood's attention. He was flown out to Los Angeles to meet Roland Emmerich, who was about to direct the sci-fi epic Stargate. "I pitched him my idea of the Stargate music, which was basically Star Wars meets Lawrence of Arabia," says Arnold. "Two weeks later they rang me and offered me the job."

Arnold, who had composed the music to The Young Americans on a computer at the end of his bed, found himself scoring a $55m movie. He still composed the music on a computer at the end of his bed, except this time it was in a hotel room in Hollywood. "I didn't really know what I was doing, I had only ever done it like that," he says. "It went from nothing to everything in six months."

Arnold's soundtrack for Emmerich's next project, the $800m-grossing Independence Day, won him a Grammy, and then 007 came calling. It was through Bond that Arnold became involved with Sherlock. Mark Gatiss, who created the modern take on Sherlock Holmes with Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, is a big Bond fan and had struck up a friendship with the composer (who appeared in a League of Gentlemen Christmas special).

Gatiss showed the Sherlock pilot to Arnold, who was immediately keen but was busy on another project, so he asked Price, with whom he had worked before, to combine in a joint effort. Price says Arnold has an uncanny ability to predict a hit film or TV show. "He has an unerring, slightly irritating ability to pick things that are going to be great," Price tells me. "I wish he would stop, quite frankly. He doesn't follow the herd, which is pretty brave. When everyone else is putting more reverb on things, David is taking it off. When people are going big, he will go small."

The pair work on Sherlock separately, playing pieces of music down the phone. "We both have our favourite bits – but we never say who did what," says Arnold. "I tend to be the more earnest and sentimental one," says Price. "If it's sad, bring it on. David has got more of a sense of the big moment."

Analysing a soundtrack is a bit like picking apart a joke – you risk killing it – but Arnold zeroes in on the "dark sadness" of John Watson, as played by Martin Freeman, and Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes who "doesn't appear to understand people at all and will do almost anything to get a result. That's where the interest is, the whirring of those intellectual gears."

As musical director of the Olympics and Paralympics closing ceremonies, Arnold wrote the score and corralled the bands for his Symphony of British Music, featuring more than 50 artists including the Who, Russell Brand and the reformed Spice Girls. It was watched by more than 23 million viewers, and Arnold said at the time: "If [Danny Boyle's] opening ceremony was the wedding, then we're the wedding reception."

But when the athletes took longer to file into the stadium than anticipated, some of the songs had to be played twice. "They were probably enjoying the moment a little bit too much," remembers Arnold. "At that point I realised there's nothing I can do, you've got to hand that to the showrunners. It's an 'SEP' – someone else's problem. I did spend some time in the control room but I thought I might be sick it was so tense. I was just thinking, please, don't let there be a power cut."

Arnold's writing process has changed, from the early days when he would watch a film from the beginning and work his way through. "Now I like to write away from the film, little suites of music, perhaps 10 or 15 minutes, and adapt it to the scenes you've got in front of you."

The original Bond composer John Barry, who was introduced to Arnold by George Martin and recommended him as his successor, told him: "Do whatever you like but never forget: it must always be all about cock." "He might have had a drink and he might have been joking," says Arnold, who was closely involved in a tribute concert to Barry after his death two years ago. "But if you look at the songs you think, perhaps he's right."

Arnold was not involved in the latest Bond film, Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes (who will also direct the next one, the 24th) and scored by his long-time collaborator, Thomas Newman. "I always said after every Bond there's absolutely no guarantee you would get the next one," says Arnold. "I absolutely expected Sam to use Tom. The thing has to move on, otherwise it ends up stagnating. There are still other things I could do with it, things that we started in Quantum of Solace, but that story is kind of gone. Sam's thing is different."

Arnold is now working on the Made in Dagenham musical with Richard Bean, who wrote the much-acclaimed One Man, Two Guvnors, and Richard Thomas of Jerry Springer: the Opera fame. He is hopeful it will open next year, and grateful to be working on a project in which he is dealing with "only four or five people". "A film is only really done from a musical perspective when 300 people say it's done; 295 of those people you will never meet."

He is also mulling a new album which, unlike his Bond covers, would be original material. Arnold is most proud of his collaboration with Damien Rice, his second cousin, whose debut album O he financed after every record company turned it down. It went on to sell millions. But his personal favourite is Play Dead, a single he made with Björk, which features on The Young Americans soundtrack.

You could be forgiven for not recognising it, but Arnold's score for Casino Royale – in the extended, opening chase sequence – features an instrument made out of goat's testicles, brought in by percussionist Pete Lockett. "They cut their bollocks off, dry them out in the sun and put them together on a necklace, like a string," explains Arnold. "It's not a joke, it's an actual thing."

Almost as outlandish – possibly more so – is the "Sherlockophone" he experimented with for Sherlock. "I wanted it to be like a perverted violin," he explains. "It was like a single string thing with a rotating bow and a trumpet or a horn at the end of it. You play it with one hand, a bit like a violin, and turn the rotating handle."

It's perverse and weird, says Arnold, just like Sherlock. "I haven't got there yet. I might try and knock it up this weekend."

David Arnold will be talking about writing music for different media at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival on 24 August. More details at geitf.co.uk

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