Born in an English town, a young Mansell was first inspired by David Bowie’s performance of Starman. Dabbling in music at eight when he began learning the guitar, it was his love for alternative music, however, that would lead him down the professional musician path. “I heard the Ramones and punk rock changed my life,” he says. This kind of music played a “big part” in his identity. The fact that most people didn’t like it hit home for Mansell who often felt he never fit in. “This music had an outsider feel,” he explains, “The voice of the estranged. I gravitated toward that.”
“When I was about 16, this guy came to school who sort of became one of my friends,” Mansell says, “Neither of us could play anything, but we knew another couple of guys. It was 1980 by this point, and England was still into heavy metal and pop. If anyone was punk or alternatively minded, you kind of got to know each other.” That marked the early beginnings of Pop Will Eat Itself.
Clint says the whole experience of playing in a professional band was brilliant. They reached a certain amount of success and toured the world, which he says was the perfect thing to be doing in your 20s. “We got drunk and laughed our way around the world,” he says, “But by the time I was 33, I no longer loved it.” It was at this time, once he’d left the band, that Mansell made the move to New York. This would alter his musical career path profoundly through his introduction to a then unknown Darren Aronofsky.
Mansell had made the USA move for something different. Initially, he thought he might get into electronic records, which could have lead to a potential solo record. The only problem was he couldn’t finish anything. “I didn’t have a central point to what I was doing,” he explains. “I was in a negative space. If you write a song, what’s the point of the second verse if it’s the same as the first verse? They’re the kinds of thoughts I was having.” His girlfriend at the time knew someone who needed music for a film they were trying to make. He met Aronofsky who had no money to pay for music licensing and they discussed what they would like, music-wise. Things progressed naturally and Mansell comments, “It was a fortunate meeting because of all the work we’ve now done.”
As an artist film scoring offered something unique to Mansell, who hadn’t reacted positively to the abundant freedom songwriting for records had posed. “If you write your own music you can do anything you like,” he explains, “With film, there were frameworks and certain demands. That actually was rather liberating, rather than being restrictive.” The recurring blocks he had previously faced were slowly eroding as he began creating track after track. Initially, he had only planned on writing an opening piece for Pi. But he soon realised the power an original score could have on a scene, and began creating more.
Lux Aeterna, the theme to Requiem For A Dream became one of Mansell’s cult classic tracks, which led to its use in popular culture outside the film and a re-orchestration for The Lord of The Rings. He admits, however, that it was a track that lay around for ages. He’d made it as part of a CD sketch for the film, and wasn’t thinking too much about it. “I was living in New Orleans, and Darren came down to go over the music ideas,” he explains, “We were trying different ideas against different scenes and we put it against the scene where Jennifer Connelly is having sex with her psychiatrist. And she’s stumbling out, then the lightning and the thunder strikes…You have this thing when you have a piece of music and images, but when you put them together you’ve got this other third element. It blew our minds. It completely changed our thinking on what the film would be.”
Despite his huge success, Mansell acknowledges he still feels like an outsider. “It may not be based on any reality,” he says, “It’s just a feeling you have. You’re not that comfortable in other people’s company and you gravitate less to crowded things.” Despite this, Mansell is looking forward to his return to Australia, a favourite of his since he first came in 1999. In tow with a nine-piece band, string quartet, two guitars and keyboards, he’s supremely excited.
BY TAMARA VOGL
