Emmy-award-winning composer Ramin Djawadi has been responsible for shaping the sound of some of the most iconic sci-fi and fantasy franchises of the past fifteen years. You may recognize his work from the powerful rock and roll score from Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim or the haunting renditions of contemporary songs on the Westworld soundtrack. However, Djawadi's biggest body of work lies in the intense, breathtaking score for all eight seasons of HBO's Game of Thrones.

Djawadi is set to return to the Hollywood Bowl for an encore performance of the critically acclaimed Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience. Ahead of the show, on May 13, I sat down with Djawadi to discuss what goes into bringing such an immersive concert to life, what it was like returning for the House of the Dragon Score, how he approaches different genres sonically, which songs are his favorite to perform live, composing instrumental versions of existing songs, which filmmaker he'd love to collaborate with, and getting to incorporate music from Game of Thrones Season 8 into the upcoming encore show.

COLLIDER: I'm so excited to talk to you this morning. What made you want to bring back the Game of Thrones concert experience for this encore show at the Hollywood Bowl?

RAMIN DJAWADI: Well, it's been, what, four years? It's been a couple of years since it's been off-air, and it's been equally a couple of years since we've had our last concert, and I have to admit, I personally miss it. So I thought, well, maybe there are others out there that miss it, as well, and want to come out and relive this fantastic show again.

Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience
Image via Andrés Jiménez

Creating a show like this incorporates so many different elements on top of composing, with the visuals and the pyrotechnics, and even a bit of stunt work. How do you go about creating an experience like this?

DJAWADI: Yeah, it was definitely tricky. When we first set out to do the show, I was like a little kid. I had all these ideas. I always like to give the dragons as an example; I thought, “Oh, let's make this immersive, and if we have dragons, let's do pyro, and if we have White Walkers, let's do snow!” But then, obviously, making it all happen is another thing, and so I had to learn what's actually possible, especially on a traveling show when you have to move from city to city. So, we worked with people that do these tours, and then they guided us through what's possible.

So that was for the visuals, and then the same with the picture, as well, editorial-wise. There was so much footage to go through and to make it a cohesive experience in such a short amount of time, it was really hard because there was way too much music I wanted to perform at first, and it was way too many scenes I wanted to show. And then we somehow had to condense it. There were so many things to figure out, even with like, “Do we go in chronological order? Is it okay to sometimes jump ahead and then go back again a little bit, depending on what themes we play?” And so there was definitely a lot of experimenting until we thought we got it right.

I imagine it must be a bit like killing your darlings with how difficult it must be to pick and choose what makes it into the show. Is there a song that you really wish you had included, or if you had more time is there one you would add?

DJAWADI: I'm sure there is that, too, but even just looking back over the– because we have done three tours, we've done two US tours and one European tour, and when we first set out with the first round of shows, I want to say it ended with Season 6. So Season 7 hadn't even aired yet, I hadn't written it yet. So when we then continued the tour, I was able to add on new pieces and new thematic material. But then by the end of Season 8, even then that just became too long. So then I had to make some decisions and take out some pieces.

For example, on this current show that we don't have, there used to be a whole section with the Wildlings and that whole fight, the Wildlings’ attack. And on this current show, we actually had to take it out. So I wish that's something I could put back in, but it would make the show too long.

You recently came back into the world of Game of Thrones with the House of the Dragon score. How's it been creating that soundtrack and composing something new in a different part of the same world that you had such a significant role in creating the foundation for?

DJAWADI: Yeah, it was definitely an interesting but, of course, exciting experience because we always said the DNA needs to be the same, it needs to be connected, but it's all new characters, the plot’s, obviously, it's a prequel. So it's way before our Game of Thrones setting, and so how do we connect things, and how do we do new things but stay kind of within the same sound of Game of Thrones? The story really kind of guided me on that, like whenever we talk about things that can connect to later in the future, then we would use original themes. Also, the Targaryen theme, or the dragon theme, was set up so I could use those, but otherwise, I want to say 95% of it is all new material that I had to write. So it was almost, I wouldn't say starting over, but definitely, thematically, I started from scratch.

It definitely feels fresh while honoring the stuff that you've done already in that universe.

DJAWADI: Right, yeah, exactly. Sonically, I really wanted it to connect so that the cello is still the main instrument because I just feel like it's so fitting for this show, and so that alone, already, I feel connects it really well. So there were sonic elements that I would draw from, but then also, it includes new instruments – if there even are any that I haven't used because there were so many. But there were actually some woodwind instruments that I did not use at all in Game of Thrones that I implemented in House of the Dragon.

Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience
Image via Andrés Jiménez

I love that. That sort of connects to one of my other questions. When you're creating a score, you're evoking so many emotions and really grounding a scene with sound. Do you have certain feelings or emotions that you associate with specific instruments?

DJAWADI: No, not really. Especially with Game of Thrones, sometimes it would be a geographic thing where I would pick a certain instrument. Even then it was not necessarily that we would try to match something that you would geographically match an instrument to where an instrument would be used in the real world. But, we felt like if we are east of Westeros we’re with the Dothraki, so let's be a bit more tribal, and then I would pick my instrument based on that. The challenge would be, then, to evoke different emotions with these instruments, and sometimes its different ways to achieve that. That's where I always find the challenge, but that's where you can be really creative. Certain instruments can play high or low, some can't play fast notes, so that's different things that you have to work with, and you have to just figure it out.

So many of the tracks that you've created for Game of Thrones have become iconic. What would you say is your favorite one to do at this live event?

DJAWADI: Oh boy. Oh, there are so many. I always skip the main title because whenever we hit the main title, that's always just so exciting, obviously. But within the show, I think “Light of the Seven” is one I definitely enjoy, and that's also one where I actually play an instrument myself. That's where I play the piano and the organ. I'm behind an instrument, so that is a different hat for me then, at that moment. So that, I kind of enjoy, because I can also see the audience a little bit better because I can kind of look out, whereas when I'm conducting, I just have my back to the audience most of the time. So that's a fun one to perform.

I imagine being able to see the audience, you can feel the atmosphere and emotion even more.

DJAWADI: Absolutely, that's what's so great about these live shows, that I'm able to connect with all the listeners out there because normally I can't when the show is on air. But that's what's really amazing in these live settings because there is an audience, and this being a music show, obviously, the music is in the foreground. We have either no dialogue at all or when we have dialogue it's just a little snippet here and there. So it's really just the music-only show obviously. That really pushes the emotions a lot, and it's very interesting to see the audience react to certain scenes, even though most of them know what's going to happen when we perform the music to certain scenes, but still, you can see that they kind of relive all these scenes and they react and they scream when they see their favorite character, or when somebody dies, and that makes it really fun.

The cast of Pacific Rim, led by Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

Some of my favorite scores that you've done, I'm a big sci-fi person, so I really love your Pacific Rim score and Person of Interest, and those both have very different sounds because they're more sci-fi than fantasy. How does your approach change per genre? What instruments do you pull when you're doing a completely different genre than you would for Game of Thrones or something else?

DJAWADI: Yeah, that's always the challenge on every project when I start one. The question is always, what's the instrumentation? What could it be to make the show special? And then, of course, it's conversations with my director or my producers, and it's that collaboration that happens.

So on Pacific Rim, for example, it was Guillermo del Toro, actually, that said, “Well, these guys are very rock and roll. Maybe we should do some electric guitars with this,” and I thought, “Oh, cool.” So I ran with that idea because I thought it was a great idea. And so, that's how sometimes these scores come together where, conceptually, we come up just with an instrument that should be the leading part of the score, and then you try to make that work.

You've also done stuff with Westworld where you've composed really stunning instrumental versions of existing songs. How do you approach that process, and are there any songs you would love to compose an instrumental version of that you haven’t yet?

DJAWADI: [Laughs] Oh, there's so many that I would love to do. I can't even think of an example. That was really so great with that show, and this is also a good example where I have to give Jonah Nolan, the showrunner of the show and the creator of the show, credit because it was his idea, actually, to do these cover songs because of the piano player that we see in the first episode in the saloon. And the whole idea is that this park is a theme park, and it's human-controlled, and so he always said, “Well, this is like a jukebox,” so the people controlling the park can basically put their favorite songs on there, and just have it played.

And so we had this idea of taking contemporary songs rather than what you would think timely songs would be for that place, but we would take contemporary songs and then do them either on the player piano or even when it would cut to the more wide shot of the outside, we would just keep it going with orchestral elements. So we used that Rolling Stones song, “Paint it Black,” for the actual action scene itself where the whole scene was kind of set up like that, and it was an incredible thing to do. That's something I actually used to do as a kid for fun. I would take these songs that I liked and would arrange them orchestrally. So it was really fun that I was able to do this on the show actually.

That's amazing, I love that you have been doing this since you were a kid.

DJAWADI: Yeah, absolutely. When Jonah said, “Let's do instrumental versions,” I jumped right on that. That was the coolest thing to do.

You've been a part of so many iconic franchises and moments in pop culture. Is there a piece of media or a franchise that you would love to jump into the world of?

DJAWADI: I don't know. That’s a good question, I'm not sure if I can think of anything in this [moment]. What I love about my job is that every project is so different. Yeah, I can't think of it, I'm blanking right now. I'm open to anything. That's what I like, that projects differ so stylistically. If it's something different that definitely will excite me, but I'm not sure if I have a specific example of something.

Westworld
Image via HBO

Are there any creatives, like you mentioned del Toro and Nolan, that you would like to collaborate with again or for the first time in the future?

DJAWADI: I definitely haven't worked with Guillermo in a while, I know I would love to work with him again. There are so many great filmmakers out there. Clint Eastwood is always somebody that I would love to work with, but he actually writes his own scores, so that's something that will not happen [laughs].

Who are some of the composers that you find yourself inspired by?

DJAWADI: Well, originally what got me into film music was obviously the great John Williams, but also Elmer Bernstein. The Magnificent Seven was actually the score that really got my attention on how powerful themes can be in a film, and that's the score that really got me hooked. And then, of course, Star Wars is the other one.

To bring it back to Game of Thrones, what makes you excited to return to this world each time because you've been here for quite a while?

DJAWADI: I'm just so intrigued by the story. And I have to admit, I did not read the books, so every season I would always think, “Wow, this ended so epic, how can we even expand it from here? Where can this go from here?” And then every season it would elevate it even more and more. So I was just always blown away by the character development, and that's really what pushed me into developing the score the way it would expand, and [it's the] same with House of the Dragon. I'm very curious to see what's next in the second season. Obviously, there was such a great cliffhanger in the first one, so it's very exciting to see what they come up with next.

Absolutely, it sounds like there's a lot of exciting stuff coming up for Season 2 with the dragons and the war of it all.

DJAWADI: Right, yeah exactly. You can tell there's definitely war coming so that'll be exciting to see what they'll do.

With bringing back the live show, is there anything in particular that you're looking forward to with this encore since the last time you performed the show?

DJAWADI: Simply being at the Hollywood Bowl is very special. That's actually where we ended the last show on our last tour, which was in 2019. So now to be back at the Bowl is very special. It's just such an iconic place, and performing there, it's just amazing. I have to say, I'm getting really excited just as I was – obviously, it's been a minute. So as I'm preparing now, and as I'm reviewing the scores, as I said earlier, it's getting me super excited about getting back into that world. So I hope that everybody that comes out will be equally excited. It's just nice because the show carries you through all eight seasons, and you really are able to relive your favorite scenes that way, and it's just nice after it's been a while to bring it back.

Ramin Djawadi will return to the Hollywood Bowl on May 13 for a one-night-only performance of the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience. Tickets are on sale now.