Joe Kraemer has been scoring films since he was 15. That’s when he composed the soundtrack for his high school classmate Scott Storm’s The Chiming Hour, a feature-length film shot on Super 8 in 1986. Eventually, Kraemer would burst onto the Hollywood scene with the score to 2000’s The Way of the Gun (which I adore).

In the 20 years that followed, Kraemer created a ridiculously eclectic career, composing music for everything from The Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting to the fifth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise. He’s also currently providing the music for Pandora on The CW.

Many of Kraemer’s scores – Pandora: Season One, Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation, Jack Reacher, and The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot – are available from the fine folx at La-La Land Records. (Most are also available to stream on Amazon Music, if you’re a subscriber.)

We caught up with Kraemer to chat about his music, his career, and what he’s learned along the way.

Roarbots: I have to ask about The Way of the Gun because I love that movie. It was also, if I’m not mistaken, your first major feature film score. How did that end up being your first major gig?

Joe Kraemer: I got the job scoring The Way of the Gun as a direct result of my relationship with that film’s writer/director [Christopher McQuarrie]. We were very close friends at that time, and we seemed to share a lot of common interests in films and scores. It was a rocky process getting that score approved by the studio, but in the end, everyone involved seemed to be very happy with the work. Like most “big breaks” in show business, it was the result of who I knew.

Roarbots: So much of your music, even for films that are big-budget action movies, feels quite understated. It doesn’t sound as… bombastic as other composers working today. Is that personal preference or just by nature of the projects you’ve done?

Kraemer: I think that is a matter of my personal preference, yes. I’m a child of the 70s and grew up with a certain kind of sound that I felt was “epic.” The big “rock-n-roll” scoring approach of the late 80s and 90s kind of passed me by. It was never really my thing.

While others were grooving on Gladiator, I was studying the score to The Phantom Menace in excruciating detail. So I’ve kind of been out of step with the current “en vogue” for about 20 years now!

Roarbots: What was it like working on Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, since you came into this big franchise with the fifth film?

Kraemer: First and foremost, my goal is to do my best to please both the producer and director of the film. I was encouraged to make a percussive, “retro” score by the producer (Tom Cruise), and the director was excited to bring the franchise back to its roots with the scoring approach taken in the 60s.

I knew that I was stepping into some big shoes to fill, especially as I really enjoyed Michael [Giacchino]’s scores to 3 and 4. I also had some personal goals I set for myself, such as making a score where the [Lalo] Schifrin textures didn’t stick out against the “Kraemer” music. I did my best to make it a seamless score in that regard.

The other thing I faced, which was unique in this series at that time, was the big opera sequence. I spent months in London on set supervising the filming of that sequence, making sure that the filmmakers were getting footage that would look right in terms of the orchestra and the on-screen conductor, and working out the synchronization with the original opera and such.

When it came time to write the score, I wanted the film to feel cohesive, to feel whole, so it was important to me to try and get some element of the opera into the score itself, which is how “Nessun Dorma” became the foundation for Ilsa Foust’s theme in that movie.

Roarbots: Interestingly, you were the fourth composer in five films for the series. Did you feel any pressure to conform to an established sound?

Kraemer: The only sound I felt compelled to honor in my score for the film was Lalo [Schifrin]’s score for the original show… and my own preference for how a Mission: Impossible score should sound.

Roarbots: Close to my own heart, you also work with Big Finish to score some of their Doctor Who audio productions. How does something like that – that’s audio only – differ from working in film?

Kraemer: The best thing about it is the freedom from the “tyranny” of the visual. I can really spread my wings with the music for audio dramas, because the music adds so much life to the soundtrack. For example, in the opening scene of the Missy box set, there’s a thrilling sequence on a rooftop of old London with a chimney sweep. I was free to score this in a somewhat larger-than-life way because the music has to do so much of the visualization for the listener. In a film or TV episode, the score might very well have been dialed back since the visuals would be telling more of the story.

Roarbots: When you’re writing music for TV – such as Pandora – how often are you writing with the intention that the audience should notice it? Versus it just being background music to set a theme, even if only subconsciously.

Kraemer: I think of the score for any project I’m working on as a subliminal commentary track. I don’t actually expect the average viewer to be aware of the music or how it’s working on them while they’re watching the film. Obviously, there are moments, such as the opening studio logos of Mission, or the scene in The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot where Barr is tracking The Bigfoot through the forest, where I know the music will be out front.

But generally, I assume I’ve sort of got control of the audience’s subconscious. With that in mind, I usually figure I spend the first two-thirds of the movie “teaching” the audience the themes and then the last third of the movie using those themes to help tell the story.

Roarbots: After 20 years composing film scores, what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned?

Kraemer: As a composer, I’ve learned that I can usually get away with a lot more than current filmmaking seems to allow. It’s always frustrating to have the music dialed back, not necessarily in volume but in orchestration or thematic content, because filmmakers are so reticent to score films today with more than a drone. One of the things that made Pandora such a pleasure was that the show’s creator, Mark A. Altman, was always encouraging me to be thematic, rather than just drone through scenes.

As a professional in show business, the most important lesson I learned was the value of good working relationships and the folly of mistaking professional relationships for personal ones.

Roarbots: If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing?

Kraemer: I’d likely be teaching music at a high school somewhere. I could be very happy teaching.

Roarbots: If you had to hold up one score of yours that best exemplifies your career or that you’d want everyone to hear, which would it be?

Kraemer: I’m really proud of all the work I’ve done, especially in the past 5 or 6 years. Jack Reacher was a breakthrough for me, as well as Mission. I would love people to hear my score to Sunrise, which was commissioned by the Dallas Chamber Orchestra in 2016 for F.W. Murnau’s 1927 film. It’s pastoral, emotional, and nothing like Reacher or Mission. I think it makes a nice companion to those scores and shows another side of me.

Of course, Pandora has a lot of things I’m very proud of – first and foremost, my collaboration with Penka Kouneva. She really brought some new sounds to the table, especially in terms of some of that 80s and 90s scoring that I wasn’t so versed in. It does delight me to have written a main title for a CW show that’s in 7/8 meter. How many people have done that?!

Roarbots: Who’s the one composer everyone should listen to?

Kraemer: John Williams. Mozart. Beethoven. The Beatles. Brian Wilson. Sorry. That’s five.

Roarbots: From where you’re sitting now, what advice would you give to your 10-year-old self?

Kraemer: Exercise more. Your metabolism is going to slow way down once you hit 40 and you’re going to regret not being more athletic.