Stitching the Sounds of House of Hearts with Pink and Pezzner
Hark! The sound of trumpets draws the hearts of the lonely and the loved together to one stage. House of Hearts is here, dear dukes, dames, and franklins, and her music can be heard as clear as day. It’s classical, be sure. But, oh–what’s that? Some jazz? A bit of blues? A rendition of “What’s New Pussycat?” guaranteed to be stuck in your head for weeks to come? Aye.
Enter: Pink and Pezzner, Can Can’s melody magicians and the brains behind the music of House of Hearts. We beckon their creative ingenious and ask, “What inspires ye?”
Be not fortune’s fool, and join us as we peer into the musical threads of Can Can’s first show of the new year. Huzzah!
THECANCAN.COM: How would you describe House of Hearts’ aesthetic of sound?
Chris Pink: Its origins are really in classical music, along the lines of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. We started off the whole shebang by having a classical pianist, Judith Cohen, break down the orchestral arrangement into piano versions for a whole slew of various songs. Judy is a Steinway artist, world-touring pianist, and founder of the Governors Chamber Music Series. Her album Prokofiev: Five Melodies actually ties in well with our direction for the show. Working with her was an amazing experience. She's just absolutely amazing. We essentially took all of the numbers that we were interested in, grabbed bits and pieces, and had her play them. We got mini versions of the pieces, we got recorded versions, versions where we took out the piano and put in a string, and all the variations thereof live in all of the music of House of Hearts.
Dave Pezzner: It was a fun process. We came into Judy’s studio, and, like Chris was saying, she played out these pieces. She handpicked some really cool numbers from the various Romeo and Juliets that are out there. She just knew what to pull out, and she played them for us on her piano–which we also had hooked up via MIDI to my laptop. So, I was able to pull the score as she was playing it, which made it very easy to transcribe it into something completely new. We were able to take themes from these piano parts and turn them into horn sections and violins; we could rebuild straight off of just what she was playing. It was a lot of fun.
Pink: Over the years, we used that as the foundation for a lot of the music and implemented some music theater and some pop music elements. But, its origins are truly in classical music.
Pezzner: I think there's a bit of a whimsical vibe in here. We've got medieval themes, with knights and kings and queens. There's a lot of royalty in it. But there's also this other spin in here that brings in jazz. We folded in some blues pieces. For instance, our spin on “Montagues and Capulets” has a Tom Jones vibe, if you will.
Pink: There are also cute, romantic moments, there are tango moments; there's a plethora of different genres and styles.
Pezzner: And everything is laced with heavy bass and electronic elements. It's all brought up into this current vibe that we like to wrap around everything. We like the subwoofers that shake up the room. We like things to be punchy and dancey and for the rhythms to be strong. You’ll find that all throughout with these other themes all weaved together. Medieval techno! Dave laughs.
Pink: It’s a new genre! Medieval house music! Chris laughs. Get out your gauntlet!
THECANCAN.COM: In your opinion, what makes a damn good lovesong?
Pink: In my opinion, every perfect love song includes part of Pachelbel's Canon. Chris and Dave laugh. “I Can't Help Falling in Love” is one example, and it’s in the show as well. You hear those melodies in almost every sad Christmas song, you hear it in Sia's “Snowman,” you hear it in our version of Taco Bell’s Canon (despite the working title, it is a heartfelt “longing for your lost love” holiday song). It's everywhere, but I think it’s the essence of a major/minor scale mix with some sort of romantic optimism. Chris laughs.
Pezzner: What does it for me is the tug and pull between intensities in the music. I think of it analytically, as far as swells of emotion. We have lows and then we have highs, and it’s the low points of the song that make the high emotions even that much higher. We have to sway back and forth.
And, of course, I think another key component is the emotion of the person who is actually performing the song. They have to be believable. You have to believe that they're feeling those emotions in order for you to feel that yourself. That's something that I see come through at the Can Can all the time. We'll be sitting in rehearsals and I'll be choking up a little bit. And this is immediately following a comedy piece. You know what I mean? They're that good.
Pink: It has to come from the heart. And luckily with the type of singers we generally work with, they're also actors. Sometimes, even actors first and then singers. They have a unique ability to have a direct connection with the heart. They can connect emotionally to not only themselves but also to large groups of people in the audience. That's a talent in itself.
THECANCAN.COM: What were some primary inspirations for the musical tapestry of House of Hearts?
Pink: The primary idea for House of Hearts–I coined it “Fakespeare.” It’s this idea of having the show so ridiculously over the top and comedically dramatic, as to not take ourselves too seriously. From the music perspective, Romeo and Juliet was, in my mind, the biggest influence. We evaluated three or four different versions of Romeo and Juliet, the Baz Luhrmann version, the opera, and the orchestral.
Pezzner: A lot of my inspirations come from the cues I get from Chris. He'll say like, “We're going to do a twist on this song, or we need a piece that has this specific feel.” And, as we’re building the core vibe of the show, I'm looking for ways to spin our version. For instance, “Tainted Love.” It’s a great example because there are so many different versions of the tune already out there. It started out with a female Motown vocalist and a very high pace. And I try to fold it into the overall sound of the show while it's still carrying the main theme. It’s recognizable, but it's also not recognizable.
Like a lot of things, my angle is pretty analytical. I'm looking at the ties between sounds and emotions. We have the “Queen's Crusade” song that is very heavy and big and bluesy, with lots of big, bombastic horns. How am I going to take that vibe and tie it into a version of “What's New Pussycat?” and make them live in the same universe? I'm looking at ways to draw parallels stylistically.
Pink: Weaving everything together is a difficult process. You've got Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love,” Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” Bell Biv DeVoe, you've got Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights,” and “Imagine” by John Lennon. You've got different genres, different years, different artists, different styles, different everything. And then to tie that fabric together, that’s where Dave really shines. He's a Dreamweaver. Chris and Dave laugh.
Pezzner: We've been doing this for a while, and we know what works sonically in the room. We’re looking at our shared Spotify playlist like it’s a Pinterest Board but for music. We're looking at it from an analytical perspective, like, “What is the common thread between everything that we're seeing here? How can we make it work with this narrative that we're drawing in the show so that it all flows together?” The inspirations are all over the place.
THECANCAN.COM: Here’s the nearly impossible question, again–what’s your favorite tune from House of Hearts, and why?
Pink: Let’s see here. Hmm.
Pezzner: Hmm…
[Long pause]
Pink: I love “The Queen’s Crusade” because it has such a unique context to it. It's taken so far out of its origin that, at the end of the day, it only has one melody from the original song that still exists. The rest of it turns into this jazzy burlesque-ish number, which I just love.
Pezzner: It's common to take little bits and pieces from classical music and put a spin on it, and that one has been spun so hard that it really is in its own world. That's why it’s one of my favorite pieces, as well. It's such a big, crazy piece and such a big, theatrical part of the show. It's loud, it's bombastic, there are lots of horns. I had a lot of fun working on that one.