To create the X-Men ‘97 score, Andy Grush and Taylor Stewart had to work through their nostalgia and create new sounds from the future.
X-Men ‘97 might not have come together had Marvel Studios not been able to secure the rights to X-Men: The Animated Series’ theme song — a synth-heavy banger so iconic that you can probably hear it in your head now even if your memories of the show itself are a little fuzzy. As fans of the original cartoon, X-Men ‘97 composers Andy Grush and Taylor Stewart knew that updating the theme was going to be a tricky exercise in balancing nostalgia with a sonic freshness reflective of the new series’ modernity.
But when I recently spoke with Grush and Stewart — known together as the Newton Brothers — the duo explained that it took them some time to realize that letting go of the past would ultimately be the key to making X-Men ‘97 sound like an evolutionary next step for Marvel’s animated mutants.
Along with giving longtime comics readers a new way to experience some of Marvel’s most thrilling storylines, X-Men: The Animated Series also gave its characters a signature sound that became an indelible part of their larger cultural presence. On the page, Wolverine always had his “snikts” and Nightcrawler, his “bamfs.” But each episode of The Animated Series featured a rich tapestry of sounds led by an exhilarating, guitar riff-driven theme song that made you want to charge into battle just like the heroes and villains on-screen.
Like most people who watched The Animated Series during its original run, the Newton Brothers remembered it as feeling pointedly futuristic. But when they went back to revisit the original show to prep, it quickly became clear that their memories of The Animated Series’ sonic palette didn’t quite sync up with what they were hearing. “We hadn’t seen the original series in a while, but as we were watching we realized that our memories about the show’s sound were very different from what the show actually was,” Stewart said.
The Newton Brothers recalled the pulsing, driving energy that made the theme song so great and a perfect scene-setter for the cartoon’s explosive action. But X-Men: The Animated Series was also a soap opera digging into the human dramas that made characters like Jean Grey and Wolverine interesting people as well as superheroes. The Newton Brothers were keen on crafting X-Men ‘97’s score in a way that would capture the broad spectrum of emotions they felt represented the X-Men.
They also wanted to honor The Animated Series, which is why they experimented with electronic instruments used during that show’s production. But while the pair were able to create rough tracks that sounded authentic to the original series, there was an immediate datedness to them that felt at odds with Marvel’s vision for X-Men ‘97 as a progression rather than just a continuation.
“Synthesizer sounds and remixing techniques can become time stamped in a way that makes it impossible not to know exactly when they were used,” Stewart explained. “We whipped out a bunch of these Roland synths that were used in the original series, and they were great, but in a lot of cases, songs would just sound too old — almost as if they came purely out of that era.”
Marvel was still in the process of securing the rights to use The Animated Series’ theme when Grush and Stewart first signed on to X-Men ‘97, but it was obvious that doing the original song justice was going to be one of the more important parts of the gig. Along with being beloved in its own right, the melody is also one of the bigger ways Marvel has been teasing the arrival of mutants to its cinematic universe. And while the Newton Brothers wanted to try new things with X-Men ‘97, they knew that opening with a straightforward version of the original theme would be the best way to immediately hook viewers.
“The overall rule was to keep it true to the original, so the nostalgic feeling upon watching the opening credits still resonates,” Grush said. “On a more technical note that involved adjustments to the orchestra, choir, and a couple of modern synths.”
Early into their creative process, Grush and Stewart sat down with former showrunner Beau DeMayo to discuss what kinds of feelings X-Men ‘97’s score needed to evoke. It dawned on them that gradually modernizing the show’s music episode by episode could be a novel way to convey how the series is moving through time.
The Newton Brothers began experimenting with their respective ideas for songs separately, but they both identified “wanting to be seen or heard” as the common emotional thread running through the lives of X-Men ‘97’s characters. It was around that thread that the duo first wrote musical suites meant to establish who the characters are and what motivates them to spring into action before they wind up reflecting on what’s just happened as the credits begin to roll. Those suites, Grush recalled, helped them figure out which unique sounds they wanted to use as calling cards for specific characters — especially in moments when their superhuman powers are on display.
“With Storm, we used a lot of woodwinds to allude to the wind aspect of her powers, and her signature sound also incorporates a lot of choir singing and chanting that almost sounds like an instrument,” Stewart added. “For Magneto, we did a lot of bowing of metals, and other weird kinds of metallic sounds with waterphones.”
By creating those signature sounds for each character and building them into the show’s larger score, the Newton Brothers gave themselves a way of making sure that X-Men ‘97 always sounded like a story unfolding organically rather than a series of segments fashioned into a half-hour show.
The process involved quite a bit of throwing things against the wall to see what would stick. And Grush likened going back and forth with Marvel on revisions to trying on countless new outfits until they found the one that fit just right. Grush and Stewart’s idea of “right” wasn’t always exactly the same, and there were times when they couldn’t tell whether they were getting too stuck in their heads. But it was in moments of doubt when it helped to have the rest of the show’s creative team chime in.
“Sometimes you need people who can tell you ‘hey guys, this is corny, and doesn’t sound right,’” Grush said. “Or ‘this is really corny and sentimental, and sounds great.’”
