If you want to concisely capture the musical atmosphere of HBO’s Industry in a few words, its composer, Nathan Micay, suggests “music to make grown men cry”– a phrase coined by the show’s creators, writer/showrunners (and former investment bankers) Konrad Kay and Mickey Down.
“It’s very heart-on-the-sleeve, emotional music through synths,” says Micay. “I try to use the synths in a way that most people would try to write for an orchestra, which sort of differentiates it from a lot of synth music.
“In the second season they let me get away with more orchestral elements, there’s a lot of flutes. The [third season] is the first time they’ve really allowed me to use percussion and drums in a big way. One of my favourite films of all time is the animé Ikura, and if you’ve watched the third season of Industry, it’s a pretty obvious reference to the drums in that film score.”
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Industry official HBO soundtrack
Micay, a former dance/electronic DJ and musician, whose early influences include bluegrass, banjo, and country music, got his first break as a screen composer in 2016.
“It was one of those things where it starts slow, and then it happens all at once,” he says. “I got approached by a good friend of mine in Toronto, Alex Ordanis, who’d been part of a production that got nominated for an Oscar. As a result, he got some funding. So, he came to me and said, ‘Hey, we’re doing this very small budget short, and one feature film. Very low paying, very low budget. But would you like to do it?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely!’
“It was my dream to do this. I did about four projects with him over two years. They were my first steps in understanding how a cue sheet works, and the entire workflow. It was really my first time working in a full team with people. How to manage five opinions, when they’re all different? I’ve worked with record labels, and of course A&R has its opinions about the music you’re making, but it’s a different thing when you’re part of someone else’s project, and you have to adhere to their vision.”
Industry follows young, ambitious bankers and traders in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Micay was hired as its composer after receiving an e-mail from HBO in early 2020.
“I think I got hired because I had all this extra experience through Canadian indie films,” he says. “They seemed to already be convinced by the existing music I had on my albums, but they wanted to know that I understood the workflow and [was] not some crazy DJ that they [were] going to take a huge chance on.”
“We kind of have a little 10-minute therapy session in regards to the characters”
Micay gets around two weeks per episode to score (compose original music) and source (find already existing tracks and/or sounds).
“I’ve worked on TV shows where I’d say it’s like 60/40 [percent] compose/score, 50/50,” he says. “Industry is unique, in the sense of there’s a lot of score, but there’s also quite a lot of source. Actually, in Season Three, there’s certain episodes that are [only] 30 percent score. One of the defining features of Industry is that each season has a Christmas episode – it’s a lot of Christmas music – and those are light loads for me. I’ve worked on other shows that had no source music at all, and were purely score.”
Scoring and sourcing begins with taking the temperature of each episode. “So, say we’re watching a scene where there clearly needs to be music, we’ll stop it and we’ll discuss what kind of music it is,” says Micay. “How long? Does it change from happy to sad? Who are these characters? What are they feeling? We kind of have a little 10-minute therapy session in regards to the characters. And then we put it down on what we call a cue sheet. It starts off as a work in progress, but eventually it’s actually what’s submitted to SOCAN for royalties.”
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Nathan Micay song “It’s Recess Everywhere”
But the process is never cut-and-dried. Sometimes, even after an episode is wrapped, the creation of further episodes can cause an entire re-vamping of what came before. As Micay explains, “It could be that four months down the line, when we’re on Episode Seven, they’re, like, ‘You know, the stuff you’ve done for Episode Seven is so good, find a way to apply it to Episode One.’ That often happens, because you’ve been getting more comfortable and more immersed in the sound world you’re creating, and it gets better and better as you go.”
Today, Micay continues to enjoy creating for Industry, while also entertaining new, upcoming projects. He recently scored an ad campaign for the Ultimate Fighting Champion; a short film by Oscar-nominated director Laura Checkoway, Alt Shift Life; the HBO documentary feature film Time Bomb Y2K; the feature film Reality; and a new Paramount+ series, SexyBeast.
If he has one piece of advice for those wanting to advance in the business, it’s this: leave the solo mindset behind. “Try to remember that everyone’s doing their best,” he says. “You’re part of a team, and you’re a valued member of that team.”