The Netflix show Cobra Kai, which offered viewers a chance to return to the ’80s Karate Kid universe, was so well-received by both fans and critics that the men behind the excellent score, Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg, have been performing the show’s music at live events. They recently joined forces with Mick Giacchino, who composed the score for the The Penguin TV series, for a show in Hollywood. We chatted with them about it all…
How do you have to prepare for a live show, given that you’re normally “behind the scenes” score guys?
Zach Robinson: The first thing we had to do was elongate the material itself, because most of our tracks, the original cues, are very short. Most of them are between a minute and two, and the longest one was three minutes. That’s on the long end. Most of these we needed to turn into real songs, instead of just television music. So it actually feels like you’re going to see a band play songs, rather than just the composers playing minute-and-a-half TV music cues. Once we designed all the new songs, we put together a band: It’s me and Leo, we have a keyboardist, a drummer, bassist and another guitarist. I’m playing guitar, Leo is playing keys and the EWI which is an Electronic Wind Instrument. We’re just getting together and rehearsing the tracks.
How did you originally get the Cobra Kai gig?
Leo Birenberg: Honestly, we cold-called, blind pitched for it. We read that it was happening in Variety or one of the industry trades, and then felt that this would be a good fit for our particular aesthetic. Zach and I come from a diverse musical background, though we have a lot of overlap between us, and he is an amazing guitar player, grew up playing in rock bands and loves the ’80s. I am a woodwind player, into ethnic flutes and Japanese music. This seemed like a good collaboration, so we made a reel of what we thought the show sounded like. They called us in for a meeting and we had an awesome bonding experience with the three creators
and got hired.
Was Cobra Kai your first TV show?
LB: I did a show called Son of Zorn on Fox, and I already did a show called Big Time in Hollywood, FL, on Comedy Central, which was small but mighty.
ZR: We come from more of a movie background. We also did a YouTube Red show called Sing It! We worked on Ant-Man, Edge of Tomorrow, Frozen…
LB: We both worked for another composer, Chris Beck, for five or so years.
Are you Karate Kid fans?
LB: Absolutely, in the way that that was one of those movies that was always on if you went over to a friend’s house to hang out in the basement. I always say I’ve seen that movie from a million different start points but almost never from top to bottom in one go.
ZR: When we met with them, we pitched a nostalgic but new approach, and that’s basically what they had decided to do as well.
What do your live sets look like?
LB: Zach has played live concerts like this before. I am very new to this arena. I was in a quasi Dave Matthews cover band in high school and we did win Battle of the Bands 2006.
You don’t see a lot of score composers going out…
LB: I think that film and TV music is having a moment right now, and people are much more interested in the music in general and watching it performed live. But it’s usually on the scale of going to the Hollywood Bowl and watching Raiders of the Lost Ark performed by a live orchestra. It felt like we were doing a show that has a lot of music in it, that people have been really into.
With Cobra Kai now over, has the success of the series in reinvigorating the universe surprised you at all?
LB: One of the most surprising and now integral aspects of the show/franchise is just how strong the fandom is. When we started, we were just excited to be able to release a soundtrack album, and now we have fans all over the globe playing our music. We’ve played concerts, gone to conventions, met countless fans, and it’s all a testament to how passionate people feel about these characters and this story. And rightly so! The series handled the material with incredible care and managed to flawlessly land the plane after 65 episodes, which isn’t so common these days.
Have you heard anything about a possible new series from the Karate Kid universe?
LB: There’s a lot of rumors floating around, but that is all we know! The chance to keep exploring anything in the Miyagi-verse would be an honor.
What made the three of you [Robinson, Birenberg, and Giacchino] want to perform together?
LB: ‘Cause we are all chillers so we knew it would be a fun time! Collaborating with other composers is so fun and doesn’t happen enough. Mick is a peer of ours and his score to The Penguin is terrific, and we just thought the combo with Cobra Kai would be great programming for the audience. And excitingly, Mutant Records has released both scores on vinyl, so this was a unique way to celebrate.
