For anyone that doesn't know, Joel Goldsmith was a prolific film/television and video game composer, probably best known for being the son of the late Oscar winning composer Jerry Goldsmith and for his work on the television show Stargate SG-1 and it's 2 spin-offs. He was a highly respected composer in his own right with an extremely loyal fan base. He received 3 Emmy nominations for his work on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. I had the honor of working with him on both series.
Joel wasn't always the most public of figures. He preferred to spend time with family and friends over the spotlight but to know him was to love him. He was a big guy but his personality was larger than life. As much as he might have come across as reclusive at times, he was extremely generous with his time and gave as much to his fans as he could.
I first met Joel in February of 1998, just before he began work on season 3 of Stargate SG-1. I was 24 and had recently decided to pursue my dream to become a composer myself. He was moving his studio from Sun Valley to Encino and I was working at the time delivering and setting up music equipment for composers and musicians including Joel's long time friend Nick Vidar who was a synth programmer for Marc Shaiman, Jerry Goldsmith and Joel. Joel had us move his studio and Nick suggested I stay on as an intern and help with the transition to the new studio. The first thing I ever said to Joel was something about the fact that I had been watching Stargate SG-1 and enjoyed the music which was true. I have always enjoyed the sci-fi genre since being an avid Star Wars fan as a kid. Years later Joel bought me a pricey replica Millennium Falcon as a holiday bonus that I proudly display in my studio.
The first question he ever asked me, which was pretty much my interview for the job as assistant, was "Do you understand signal flow?" I did not, at least not to the extent he meant, but lied and said I did anyways. I was pretty good at figuring stuff out but was by no means a tech whiz. I broke stuff as often as I fixed it but still Joel kept me around. What I lacked in technical knowledge, I tried to make up for in my knack for aesthetics. I spent a ridiculous amount of time making fancy labels for the mixing board and patch bay in photoshop and making a dub log generating program in Filemaker Pro. We joked that for the amount of hours I spent making the Filemaker template look as fancy as possible (it spoke too) that he could have commissioned a software developer to make a real one so he could make his money back. While I felt at the time like I was doing whatever I could to stick around and continue to soak up all the knowledge I could, years later Joel would tell future assistants, most of whom are still friends of mine, "You should be more like Neal, he really went the extra mile with those labels". He always had a way of making you feel like a million bucks when he wanted to. He made sure I was involved in finding some awesome assistants like Tim Joy and Greg Ripes and though I can't take credit, George Gallegos and James Baxter were also long time friends. Nobody was closer on the job than music editor Rick Chadock.
Working for Joel could at times be a bit of a roller coaster, especially when I used to work at his studio in Encino. Music production for television can be a pretty fast paced, high stakes job that would occasionally feel like the front line in a war but next thing you know, the entire staff of 4-5 would be playing Halo (on the clock) at various stations around the property. I wasn't too shabby of a player but Joel kicked my ass on many occasions. There aren't too many jobs that pay you to play video games. On another occasion, after having a projector, screen and top notch 5.1 home theater speakers installed in the studio, he made me watch (for the first time) The Sound of Music, West Side Story and a few other musicals at volumes that gave me headaches for days but I'll never forget that. All of this "on the clock". On September 11th, 2001 we spent the day together watching the news on that projector, He had been up al night and had seen the first plane hit in real time.
Over the next few years Joel taught me just about everything I know about the craft of composing for film and television, mixing, the logistics of running a studio and everything in between. I was his assistant, tech, his secretary for a brief time and eventually began to work from home as a co-composer on Stargate SG-1. In 1999 he pretty much handed me my first feature film, Militia (Dean Cain, Stacy Keach) that he wrote the main theme for. This led to about 20 more films I did on my own through director Jim Wynorski I met on that film. I helped score Witchblade, the mini-series Helen of Troy and many other projects. I didn't realize it at the time but writing dozens of hours of fully produced and mixed television music, often at an accelerated pace was the perfect way to learn the craft, especially having Joel's experience and wisdom to draw from on a weekly basis. He pushed me to use a volume pedal which I find an invaluable tool for creating realistic sounding orchestral mockups to this day. It was hard to adapt from drawing in midi volume at first but I can't imagine any other way. Musically there are so many things I find myself doing that I got from him. To this day I'm always afraid I've mixed the wood block too loud (I used to have a problem with that).
Joel always wanted to be a drummer and it showed in his music with his love for huge, driving rhythms. Though he asked for a drum set early on, his dad made sure he had piano lessons first. He later had a drum kit in his studio that I used to catch him banging on.
Joel's influence on me spilled over into my personal life right from the start and soon came to be like a father or even a cool older brother to me. He was undeniably frank and relentlessly inquisitive. He enjoyed breaking through my shy persona and getting me to admit details of my personal life while being disarmingly candid about his own. He got me to open up a lot and leave my shell behind. He was the first person to admit that he was far from perfect but was so willing to share his mistakes so that I could avoid them. He became one of the first people I would call when a major event happened in my life. The good ones and the bad. I spent some of my darker moments with him on the other end of the phone, listening patiently then always saying exactly what I needed to hear.
I had the honor of witnessing his interaction with his dad, a man that so many of us composers admired. Joel was no exception. He grew up listening to Jerry's soundtracks and attending his sessions so it was only natural that he would follow in his footsteps. He admired Jerry as a composer as much as the rest of us and though he may in some peoples opinion have been in Jerry's shadow through most of his career, he made his own impact and always stayed true to himself. Joel was very candid with me about his relationship with his dad. Though it was never perfect, I got to see them become friends. Sadly, Jerry's life was cut short by cancer right as they were really starting to get to know each other.
Jerry could be intimidating to talk to at times because he usually didn't offer up much but Joel, knowing I was a fan of his, always made sure I was sitting next to him at family functions and brought me to his house on more than one occasion simply because he knew I'd get a kick out of it. After an unforgettably awkward self introduction, Jerry would eventually come to be pretty friendly towards me, something I'll cherish forever being the fan of his that I am. One time I was trying to figure out what a particular sound was on the Alien soundtrack for a score I was doing. Joel called up Jerry on speakerphone and asked right there on the spot. Turns out it was a didgeridoo being played into a bucket of water. It was the Jerry hotline and I saw it used more than once (and no, it wasn't red but it should have been). How cool is that? Another time at Jerry's studio Joel brought up James Horner and their supposed rivalry. If I hadn't been there I would have killed to have been hiding in a corner listening. It was a priceless afternoon. I even got to work on the Diamonds sessions that Jerry conducted. I was very incompetently running the click track (hey, I never said I could!). Diamond was Joel's dramatic masterpiece.
Over the last year or so, I found my own career and personal life to be so all-encompasing that I didn't see nearly as much of Joel as I now wish I had. I helped out on a couple of episodes of Stargate Universe but being that for the first time in years it was the only show on Joel's plate, he was able to focus on it himself and create some of the coolest music I've heard on tv in a long time. I saw him more inspired than ever and even though I saw less of him, I was excited to hear all the music. We worked together finishing a film called War of the Dead and though ironically it had been started a couple years prior but was put on hold, it would be the last thing we would work on together.
You usually don't know when you are speaking to someone whether it's the last time you ever will or not. I knew he was sick and though I tried to see him sooner, I'll always wish I knew that the last time I talked to him was the last time. He told me he loved me like he did every time we talked. I said I loved him too. I have no doubt he will stay with me always. Even before Jerry died I used to joke with myself that I should get a WWJD bracelet so any time I was stuck musically I could look at it and say "What would Jerry do?". Now I will definitely get one and ask, as often as possible, "What would Joel do?"
- N
