Cinematic Sound Radio’s series of film, TV and video game composer interviews continues as Jason Drury chats with recording engineer legend, Bruce Botnick.
In 2019, film music fans celebrated the 90th anniversary of the birth one of the greatest film composers of all time, Jerry Goldsmith.
To celebrate, Cinematic Sound Radio presents an interview with the man behind the mixing desk of over 100 of the scores composed by Jerry Goldsmith, the legendary music engineer and producer, Bruce Botnick.
Bruce Botnick is an audio engineer and record producer, best known in the music industry for his work with The Doors, Buffalo Springfield and The Beach Boys. He’s also has a credit as one of the “boys in the backroom” on The Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed.
Botnick’s long-running association with Jerry Goldsmith began on 1979’s STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE and from there they worked together on most of Goldsmith’s film projects – numbering well over 100 – from the 1980s right through to Goldsmith’s death in 2004.
Bruce Botnick has also recorded and mixed motion pictures scores for composers such as John Williams, David Newman, Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Joe Kraemer, and Christophe Beck.
Since Goldsmith’s passing, Botnick has been working on remastering past Goldsmith scores, some he originally worked on and some he did not for special deluxe reissues for all the major film soundtrack labels. He has also continued his association with The Doors and Frank Zappa with restoration mixing of long-form videos of their historic concerts.
In August 2019, Jason Drury talked to Bruce Botnick via Skype at his home in Los Angeles.
In the first of a three-part interview, Botnick talks about how he got into the music industry, his work with some of the major bands of the 60s and 70s, his first meeting with Jerry Goldsmith and working with John Williams on two of his iconic scores, E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.
Also during the show, you will hear selections fro, some of the music that Bruce Botnick has been associated with, from bands such as Love, The Doors, The Beach Boys and Buffalo Springfield as well as music from John Willams and Jerry Goldsmith.
An interesting interview, I had no idea that Bruce Botnick had been involved with some of the most iconic albums of the 60’s and 70’s, albums that I have had in my collection for years (lesson one: read the credits) Forever Changes, Pet Sounds and Let It Bleed are classics. I’m looking forward to catching up with Parts 2 & 3 to learn more about his soundtrack work.