The three albums that made Danny Elfman want to start a band
Danny Elfman is such a peculiar presence in music that you could almost establish a conspiracy theory that he is a Tim Burton character. His work, much like his own disposition, is happy yet macabre, seamlessly melodic and yet wonderfully avant-garde. This singular world comes from a vast array of different influences, from The Beatles to Cab Calloway and Prokofiev.
Relishing in a world of music as a teen, he finally decided to relish in the world at large. He joined a travelling circus theatre group at 18 and picked up his first instrument (violin), and then he decided to go off and explore Africa on a self-guided tour. Upon his return, he took theatre to the streets and reimagined the likes of Duke Ellington and Django Reinhardt in The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.
Throughout this time, as is patently apparent from his influences, he never really belonged to any musical tribe. And then punk happened, and the second chapter in his musical journey began. “At the end of that period,” he says, The Clash’s London Calling arrived. “This is insane,” he recalled. “‘London Calling’ I still think is one of the best single songs of the century.”
He continues: “Of course, everybody is going to have their own version of that, and nobody will ever agree, but for me ‘London Calling’ and [XTC’s Drums and Wires],” are the premiere works of the era, he told Ameoba. For Elfman, these records, brimming with relatable personality but also the performative attraction that had drawn him to the big band greats, fixed his future in place.
“Suddenly, along with Madness’ [One Step Beyond…], it’s like, ‘I want to start a band, a rock band’. So, I just literally started a band thinking a ska band or maybe a nervous a rock band like XTC, which I just love. Unfortunately, I knew I could never be like The Clash, because I said, ‘I’ll never be a punk’. I was already an old man, I was 27 when I made this decision, so I already felt like a senior citizen.” And so, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo simply became Oingo Boingo, and Elfman celebrated the birth of his new-found individualism.
He expanded on this moment, telling Kerrang: “When I was about 27, I realised I wanted to start a rock band. I hadn’t been listening to any contemporary music when I was doing all this big-band jazz kind of stuff. In my mind, I was in Harlem in 1933. Then I heard XTC, The Selecter and The Specials – ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials, ‘Too Much Pressure’ by The Selecter – and after hearing ‘Making Plans For Nigel’ I was suddenly like, ‘Oh, I I want to be in a fucking ska band’.”
Continuing: “And I dropped everything, just like that. That was what killed the Mystic Knights overnight. I thought, ‘Nope, I don’t want to do this musical theatre anymore, I want to be in a rock band’.”
In truth, he could never fully escape musical theatre; that element has been an ever-present in his work. However, discovering punk allowed him to channel that love into something rather more forward-thinking, and his career blossomed from then on.
Three albums that influenced Danny Elfman:
- London Calling (1979) – The Clash
- Drums and Wires (1979) – XTC
- One Step Beyond… (1979) – Madness
