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Q: I'd like to know what your viewpoint is on the significance music brings to TV shows.

A: I have been - I can't watch television now without hearing the score. It's kind of corrupted me forever from just - I can't divorce the two. It makes so much difference. I learned this early on with my son, when movies were frightening to him I literally would just mute the television and then nothing impacted you. If you just see the visual nothing - at least for most people it just doesn't impact you.

In a weird way music and of course dialogue are the things that strike you emotionally. Without them the visual is somehow separate; it's removed; it can't affect you, so I think music is extremely important. I love working with directors and show runners and creators that are passionate about that and recognize that as well. Then they have strong opinions on what they want and what they're looking for and when a scene works for them and I respect that because I come to it with the same passion. We don't always agree but we both care and we both recognize that the music can have a huge impact in how a scene plays.

Q: I'm also wondering, how is it working within a creative team on the show? Do you also have kind of like a music team you're working with?

A: I do. I have two partners who deserve absolutely as much credit as I do for the music. I really felt more comfortable with that because I'd never scored before and I didn't want to take on the responsibility of a show without people that were more experienced than I was. I still work with Evan. I couldn't possibly do my cues alone. I write them and then I need him to help me polish them.

We get into our little tiffs where we think the emphasis should be. I think just the other day there was a crying scene where I really got bejiggety without him because I'm like, "You don't understand what it's like when a woman's about to pop." We went over it again and again and again until I felt like the intensity mirrored my own feelings when I'm about like burst into tears. It's fun. I find it to be really rewarding when you get the music that supports a well written scene and it comes together and you watch it. It's kind of like a little bit of magic.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about what goes into being the composer for "In Plain Sight"?

A: Well, we all meet up with people who are doing, I don't even know what you call them. They're people who make sure the door sounds sound like doors and that the dialogue can be heard over the ambient noises of the wind or the traffic where they've shot. You have the director and the editor and John McNamara there and a bunch of other people that are music supervisors making sure everything is coming together.

That's when you really go through the whole show scene by scene with the mostly last cut and you discuss and you point out where you want - they temp in music, maybe I'm obviously going too much in depth and that's not really what you're asking.

Anyway you all meet, you communicate about what they want and you have a temp track that gives you a basic idea and then you go home and I sit and write on my computer while it plays, either on keyboard or on guitar and I write my cues and then I go in with my partners and we create them and add instrumentation and little notes to emphasize certain moments. Then turn them in and either they love it or they send them back and then you fix it and then everyone is happy.

Q: Now if you had to pick one of your songs to represent the onscreen relationship between Mary and Marshall, which song would you choose and why?

A: I'd probably have to pick - Oh my God! Well, that's a little harsh, but I wrote this song when I was -- it's not - I think you could find it somewhere on the internet, but it was from Girly Sound which was my original incarnation. I used to write these long songs where I would sort of do a he said, she said thing. Then he said, and then she said, and there was this one that went like, "He came over to my house, didn't even knock, he just walked inside and when I didn't want to talk he said, oh yes what a lot of bulltish , don't be so in love with yourself, don't be so -" It kind of went back and forth and then he said, "Why she was so in love with herself."

They just have this great game that goes between them that I find, even in the smallest moments, like little looks when they're sitting in the car, that kind of speak volumes. That's fun for me to watch. When you score you really get micro-focused on that stuff and it's actually there, written in there and performed In Plain Sight and I respect that.

Q: We asked actually some of our readers what they wanted to find out from you and one of them said that he loves the way you write your Atlantic Monthly article, your New York Times review, and he heard mention that you're working on a novel and wanted to know when we could expect to see more written work from you in the future?

A: Well, it's so funny, it's sitting right in front of me and I got an intervention from one of my scoring partners. I just sort of handed him like a chapter here and there and he really likes it but it taking me forever to finish. He literally staged an intervention. I'll leave out the swear words but he's like, "Just finish it. I'm so tired of hearing like, it'll be done in eight weeks. Just finish it." My hair is dirty, I'm in sweats, and when I'm not working on scoring I'm trying to finish this darn thing.

Q: They also want to know if you're going to go on the road any time soon?

A: I hope so. I really have just started to feel really like I want to get out there and play some more. I think maybe like end of summer, early fall, sounds nice to me.

I've got some stuff going in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for an exhibit they're doing on Midwestern artists and I'm actually going to send my most prized guitar, the one that was on the cover of Liz Phair - Liz Phair. It's like my main guitar which is a huge sacrifice. That means it's going to be gone for like at least a year or a year and a half. That's a big step for me. That will be along with some handwritten lyrics and this fabulous black leather ball gown I had.

Q: Had you of taken a job like this back in 1993 or '94, how would your head space have been different? Do you think you would have been limited in terms of shows as compared to now?

A: Oh, I would have been a monster. I don't think I could have accomplished it. I would have thought I knew everything and I would have thrown hissy fits and not understood what I was doing. I can't even imagine. I wouldn't hire me back then to be honest.

Q: Can you talk about the musical parameters that you have to work within, within the world of the witness protection program?

A: That's interesting. That's a really complex question because I'm not even sure how we do hit the mark. I think we listen to the music that was in there previously and we heard what John said about what he liked and didn't like. Again listening is key. It is absolutely essential. When you talk about doing this when I was young, when you're young you really don't listen to anybody and it's all about listening.

I listen very closely to any little hints or preferences that I hear him talk about or anyone who's speaking about the music. You have to do what you do; you can't be generic. Sometimes I go a little too wild or left of center and I think it's amazing but it just is too - I have to get reined back in. I'm not sure, I think with this show you want to keep the cues fairly spare so that it's not too much orchestration except in intense scenes so that there can be a real division between when the intensity ramps up.

The show itself is split between personal life and personal moments and the struggle within a human being, not just with Mary and Marshall but with the witnesses who are being relocated. It's a huge part of the show to think about dropping most of your life and having to have a rebirth. That's an intense thing. I think this show itself, between real life and death consequences, which tend to be the ones that we really flesh out with a lot of instruments and then the more intimate moments which we try to keep very spare and minimal and evocative emotionally. There is a big difference. It's a very complex thing to score, it really is.

Q: With television being such a strictly constructed form, you've got your teaser, your acts, and your tag, how does that play into what you compose? Also, in terms of light scenes and dark scenes using minor chords for melancholy and that sort of thing, how much scope does this series give you?

A: Oh, a lot. There is a huge range of steps. I find that on any given episode when all three of us, my two partners and I decide who's going to write which cues and who's going to finish them. We all can come to it from a different place depending on what strikes us in an episode. I always start the ones that I really feel connected to. There is a huge range on this show. I don't feel limited at all. Yet, when I'm actually bringing the cues that I've written in to actually put them down and add instrumentation - I'm often, Evan is often having me subtract chords. I'll over write. I'll write too many chords and less is almost always more. I have to continually learn to pare down what I've written into its essence, jus the minimal sort of fluctuation as you said between major/minor, but also in terms of descents and maybe sometimes I think of them in threes or fours where they sort of continue - I see them as rolling. You'll get four chords in a row kind of rolling and how fast - you pace the cue - I'm getting way too in-depth here but you pace the cue to the movement on screen. You're actually picking the temp based on the body movements and what's going on. It's fascinating, kind of.

Q: We loved the show "Swingtown" and we were curious if there is a difference writing for a period piece like that than there is for writing for a show like "In Plain Sight"?

A: Well, I think it really comes down to the creators, the show creators and what they want. Of course, there is a difference. In Swingtown we definitely had some comic moments where we played up the old 70s Funkadelic, we had some fun with that. When it comes to actual character driven emotional cues I think it just depends on what sound they're going for.

I wouldn't say we 70s-ized most of the cues on Swingtown, I think most of the cues on Swingtown were character driven. Certain people had themes, depending on what was happening to them at that time, that's how we tailored the cue. I think as a collective we have started to develop our own sound as well, which when they hire us we also bring to the table. For my part what I've noticed the most is that it's about people; it's about people interacting and helping you, the viewer, feel what they're feeling.

If there are three people in a scene, whose cue is it? Do you need to feel what Marshall is feeling in that moment? Do you need to feel what the witness is feeling? Does it switch halfway through? That is much more important than if it feels - and I think it always should be like stylized to the 70s, or if this is Albuquerque does it have to sound southwest? I think it's much more important to have it ring true to the feelings on screen and what the characters are experiencing.