While San Diego Comic Con focused on The Inhumans and The Defenders they are by no means the only television shows coming from Marvel Television. Marvel’s The Runaways should be kicking up its campaign soon – bringing the teenage superheroes to the screen at last. With a premiere date in November the excitement is quietly building for the first Marvel Television series from Hulu. With an all-star cast of newcomers and industry professionals, Runaways seems poised to tell a story of family and teenage rebellion. While we have yet to see what the characters will look like or how they’ll fit into the Marvel Universe, Marvel is already setting the tone of the story by choosing one hell of a composer – Siddhartha Khosla.
Khosla began his career fronting for the band Goldspot. Their songs have been featured on everything from How I Met Your Mother to The O.C as well as commercials for Target, Google, and Apple. Khosla soon moved into producing music. His current work includes the popular NBC show This Is Us where he uses everything from his own family experiences to making his own sounds on the desk around him to create the evocative sounds that make up the series.
He’s got quite a wealth of family experience to draw on. Born the son of immigrants to the United States, he was sent back to India as a toddler while his parents took night jobs while trying to finish graduate school during the day. International phone calls were prohibitively expensive and Siddhartha’s love of music was fostered as his mother mailed him cassette tapes of her singing.
It’s that sense of family and tradition which makes Khosla a perfect fit for Runaways. It’s the simple things that matter. And with a past that sounds like a mixture of Guardians of the Galaxy and Baby Driver, it makes him the perfect fit for a show about people finding a home and a sense of self.
According to the composer, he gravitates toward the “simple stuff”, citing the Twin Peaks score as a major source of inspiration for the work. His biggest influence for the series is Depeche Mode’s Violator album. The heavy synthetic sounds from Depeche Mode are synonymous with a rebellious sound which translates perfectly to the story of the Runaways themselves. Khosla added that he grew up loving the comics as well as Depeche Mode so putting the two together was, “a dream come true”. He then revealed that the soundtrack made an actress (although he couldn’t reveal her name) think of “Blade Runner”. Sounds like a perfect fit for a teenage drama right?
Rock Band vs. Composing
The difference between composing a score, from This is Us to Runaways however is considerably different from fronting a band. “I come from the singer songwriter world. Working and being in a band for so long, we record a take. We create our own sounds,” Khosla said. With This is Us he had a small team of assistants, but with the Hulu show he had a much bigger team. They all had a clear goal in mind however. Create different thrilling “moments” that will grow with the characters. While we don’t know if the characters will have different or unique themes yet, Khosla has promised themes that will “connect” and grow together.
If you’re looking for a place to catch up to Khosla’s work while you wait for Runaways you can catch his music on the Lionsgate TV drama The Royals as well as Fat Camp premiering this August on BET starring Chris Redd and Vivica A Fox. You can also catch up with This is Us on Netflix and Hulu in time for the second season coming this Fall.
With such a great composer, Runaways looks to be the show to beat this season. Are you excited for how it’s going to sound? Share your feelings in the comments below.