Interview with P. Andrew Willis, Producer and Composer for ‘Uncle Nick’

I recently had the opportunity to interview film and television composer, producer, and musician P. Andrew Willis. Andrew has been composing original pieces of music for the film industry for over two decades, with much of his resume being focused on the horror/thriller genre. P. Andrew Willis’s music has been showcased in a plethora of films and tv shows. Not only is Andrew a talented composer, but he is also an instrumentalist and has toured the country for different projects. Andrew recently produced and composed the original score for Uncle Nick, which is a dark holiday comedy starring Brian Posehn, directed by Chris Kasick, and executive produced by Oscar-winner Errol Morris. The soundtrack is now available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. The film follows the escapades of a drunken uncle- who unintentionally destroys his family’s traditional, ‘cookie-cutter’ Christmas. Learn details about his career, more insight on Uncle Nick, his favorite horror films, and more!

PopHorror – Hi Andrew, how has 2021 treated you so far?

P. Andrew Willis – Hey there! 2021 has been quite a ride so far. It started off with a bang as I was finishing up a fairly major project – a feature-length doc about L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which aired in the spring. Shortly after that, I released the soundtrack album for Scott Philip Goergens’ body horror film, 29 Needles to coincide with its release by Unearthed Films. I scored a scripted short about loss during Covid in the summer which is in final edit now, then I just released my soundtrack for Uncle Nick.

PopHorror – Wow, you’ve been very busy! How did you get involved in the film industry?

P. Andrew Willis – I moved to Boston from Louisville, Ky to study film scoring at Berklee College of Music. After being there for a year, I met a working composer in the Boston area. He was doing the final music mixes for Errol Morris’ film, Mr. Death at the time and we hit it off, so I didn’t go back to Berklee because I was starting to work with him and thought it was as good or a better experience than music school would be at that point.

PopHorror – That’s awesome. You’re a composer, producer, and musician. How long have you had a love for music?

P. Andrew Willis – My dad was a super music fan when I was a kid and he passed that on to me. I didn’t really start playing music myself until middle school when I got a guitar and started wearing out Ozzy and Van Halen albums attempting to learn them. I started studying music and learning about recording more seriously as I started college.

PopHorror – Much of your work centers around the horror/thriller genre. Do you have a favorite horror film?

P. Andrew Willis – Not exactly a horror film, but I’d say the original Planet of the Apes is one of my all-time faves – story, sets, costumes, and the score by Jerry Goldsmith are all incredible. Lately, I’ve been revisiting all the Hammer Films I can find on the streaming channels. John Carpenter’s The Thing is an old favorite. The Exorcist might be the first time I realized how terrifying sound can make a film – those tape recordings! I loved the music and sound in Robert Eggers’ The Witch and The Lighthouse. It’s really hard to narrow this down!

PopHorror – It’s a very hard question, but I love asking it, haha. All of those are excellent choices. Can you tell us about Uncle Nick, one of the recent films you worked on?

P. Andrew Willis – Uncle Nick is a dark holiday comedy starring Brian Posehn. I got involved through my association with some of director Errol Morris’ projects. Uncle Nick’s director, Chris Kasick had worked with Errol on First Person, Tabloid, and some commercials Morris directed, many of which I also happened to work on with my composer buddy. Chris and I started talking about the Uncle Nick film and how he envisioned the music would work and he asked me to take a stab at a couple of cues. He loved what I did, so things moved forward from there. Errol came onboard as an executive producer later in the process, so all those connections started making even more sense. Dark Sky Films ended up releasing it.

PopHorror – Awesome I can’t wait to check it out! What was your vision for the score for this film?

P. Andrew Willis – It’s a dark comedy, so the range of music had to be fairly broad. There were more traditional comedic cues that centered around the dialog and on-screen actions – hitting jokes, etc, but the music had to go in a pretty dark direction as the story unfolded and the characters started coming unglued – verging on horror scoring in spots. I had just seen Goblin play the original Suspiria score live which was amazing, so that was definitely an influence on a few of the cues that were trending towards horror later in the film. And with the score in general, there was an obvious nod to Errol as Chris and I were both greatly influenced by working on his projects.

PopHorror – Sounds fantastic! How do you know what sound will work best for each film? Music is so important in a film and especially a horror film.

P. Andrew Willis – Great question. I start most projects by having a conversation with the filmmaker to see if they have any thoughts about the score and overall mood or sound of the film. Sometimes they have some music in mind as a point of reference or have put some temp music in the film that gives me an idea of what they like or think works. I usually watch through a couple of times, whether it’s a full cut or just separate scenes, and have a synth or guitar close by so I can play around with motifs or sounds that I can start to build a thematic and sonic/instrumental palette from. It’s really a different process for each score as far as coming up with a signature sound. Sometimes the story and visuals can give me ideas for what kind of instrumentation or textures might be interesting. In 29 Needles, for instance, a lot of the film centered around pain – self-inflicted and otherwise – which got me thinking about objects that could cause pain like glass, scissors, bits of metal, and wire, which I could use as elements of the music to build up some of the density and prickly intensity in the score.

PopHorror – That’s cool. Thanks for the insight on that. What’s next for you?

P. Andrew Willis – I’m slated to score another short by a New England-based filmmaker in November, then over the winter, I hope to finish up a couple of albums I’ve been working on forever with my psychedelic, noise, free improv project, Crappy Nightmareville. Also, there’re a few other potential scores floating around out there that haven’t been solidified yet. We’ll see!

PopHorror – As I mentioned before, you keep super busy and we appreciate all the work you do in the industry. Thanks for chatting with PopHorror and good luck with all your upcoming projects!