You all met each other on the Batman: The Animated Series in the ’90s. When did you realise you were working on something special and not just some random superhero show?

Michael McCuistion: Oh my god, how could we ever know what it would become? I think we were working at the time with Shirley Walker, who was the supervising composer on this series, and she was trying out a lot of different people. We were among those. It was my first job as a composer professionally. And I mean, that's just luck, right?

I just knew that the stories were really great, and I really cared about the characters in each episode. Because the animators cared so much about the show, to begin with, and the drawings were moody and the style was just off the charts, for me the music just was so naturally already there. That really spoiled me in a way, because when your first project is something that has so much quality in it, I kind of thought that's how it would be with everything. Every project has something about it that's special, for sure. But with this project, everything was special. So I don't think any of us knew that it was going to become the sensation that it became, but we all just wanted to do a great job because everybody else had done such a great job before we started writing the music.

Lolita Ritmanis: I would just add that when you're a kid, you remember your first love. All the firsts are really big deals as you grow into adulthood. For this show to be the first show that I got a screen credit for composing music…I'm so proud that it's this. I think it sets a tone for how I wanted to live my life and how I want to also pay it forward to other composers based on how Shirley treated all of us.

What was something that was immediately apparent to you about each other, and what was something that became clearer over time?

Kristopher Carter: I actually came onto the team last. I was watching the show in college when it began. So I think that what was immediately clear to me when I came on to this team under Shirley with Michael and Lolita was actually a sense of all this quality. All these composers were such quality writers and orchestrators and storytellers through music. I think that what Shirley was looking for in all of the composers that she brought into our team were people that knew how to use the orchestra and knew how to tell a story with the music. What we all noticed about each other is that we all love Shirley so much and we respected her so much because she was such a powerhouse.

Ritmanis: I would just add that in that time period we were also working on other projects, not just Batman: The Animated Series. We were also working in various capacities, like orchestrating or programming. And working with other composers on big features. It was such an exciting time in the city with all the recording stages busy and having orchestras in every room. It was right before the big explosion of technology. Now we love technology so much, but back then it was a little bit daunting for me. I definitely had to kind of go kicking and screaming into the world of technology or retire in my late 30’s! Those tools that we gained, working at that capacity, orchestrating on big features, writing our own music, having an orchestra every few weeks…those tools are something that we still call upon. All those early seeds were planted then.

Lolita, I love the original theme you wrote for Justice League. It feels so mythical. Had you seen the visuals before you started composing?

Ritmanis: There was some concept of the visuals there, but the final visuals weren't done. I have to give credit to Shaun McLaughlin, the line producer at that time. We were transitioning from having the big, big orchestras to having to do most of it electronically. But Sean went to bat for having half an orchestra play for that theme. So that was also a very exciting thing to know that that was going to happen. And you never know how these things are gonna play out. I think it's definitely something that people recognize. The three of us each have at least one theme – Kris with his Batman Beyond theme, Michael with his Justice League Unlimited theme – and when we go to some of these conventions and the themes are played the fans go nuts. 

Michael – How excited were you to switch up the theme a bit with Justice League Unlimited?

McCuistion: In my case, it was a little bit different. There were no visuals when we were talking about the Justice League Unlimited theme. But the producer Bruce Timm, who's brilliant, had this lifelong love of the band Queen. He was thinking “Justice League was epic. How are we going to plus this?” And his idea was, well, I think we need to bring in a whole big mess of electric guitars and add it to the orchestra. So that's what we ended up doing. I thought was a great idea, and I love Queen too!

Earlier you asked what we thought when we met each other and what we liked about each other when we first got to know each other, and I was super impressed with the range of knowledge that Lolita had and that Kris had that was outside my very focused education and career at that point. They really helped me broaden my love for all different kinds of music. One of my transitions away from classical music was Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody has such a great bridge from opera to rock. So I already had this special place in my heart for that way of expressing music, and it was really, really cool to be able to collaborate and make a theme that sort of had that same kind of epic feeling.

In The Once and Future Thing, there’s a really cool Western rendition of the Justice League theme…

Carter: I had a great time doing that. Whenever there are these opportunities to do something kind of out of the box and kind of have fun with it, even if it's a wink...I love that. When we’re writing on the episodes, we all switch around our thematic materials. It just happened that they wanted to more or less do a visual parody of the Justice League opening, in the Western sense. So I'm like we have to do The Magnificent Seven theme in that way! It was just really, really fun to do something unexpected.

One of the things I love about the DC Animated Universe is the amazing cast. The voice acting on these shows is superb. How much do you pull from the performances as you’re composing?

Carter: The voice work is actually the only thing that we have when we're scoring because the voices are recorded first. Then they create the animation to fit the voices, and then all of the other sounds are added. We're creating the music at the same time as the sound design is being created. So the voice is a hugely important part of how we work from scene to scene: When an actor is speaking in a certain way there may be a rhythm that they already have in their delivery, and if you feel the music kind of keys in on that pulse the music's going to work with it. So we are cognizant of what musical range the voice actor is using and try not to do anything that would be conflicting with that.

Something about Kevin Conroy which is really remarkable that I remember was one scene in an episode where he was in his Bruce Wayne persona, in the Batcave. And then a call comes in, and he switches voices. There’s a very noticeable shift – when he's being Batman, he has a lot more bass to the sound, and when he's being Bruce Wayne he speaks a little bit higher. There's a conscious decision from these actors to pitch their voices in a certain range, and they're very consistent with that. We have to be cognizant of that.

Ritmanis: Kris, I remember we were at a session and listening to Khary Payton for Young Justice, and we were recording a song. If there's some sort of a song that's going to be in the episode then we have to be involved when the actors are singing to help produce. Sometimes I forget that I'm supposed to be there in an official capacity and I am just sitting on the edge of my chair, watching and listening to these magnificent performances. I just get goosebumps. We know these voices so intimately, and they have a musicality to them. When the writing is so good and there's a scene that is so powerful you often don't need music, sometimes you're just sitting there talking yourself out of even thinking about covering up something so brilliant. So it's a wonderful dance actually, between where the music should start in those dramatic moments of if it should even be there. And if it is there, what's the purpose of it.

Carter: And one more shout out to the versatility of a truly great voice actor. Khary was there to do some song that was actually really wacky and funny and light. But the dialogue that he was recording apart from the song was a father filled with regret for causing his son grave injury. Just listening to him speak…the tears were just coming down from what he was able to communicate just with his voice. It was remarkable.

Are there any other musical moments or episodes that really stick out to you?

McCuistion: One of my personal most special moments was when I recorded the score to Be a Clown for Batman: The Animated Series because that was the first time that I had done a whole episode on my own. And it was on the Warner Brothers scoring stage with musicians who were just incredible. For me, it was a moment when I felt okay, everything that I've been doing and learning has led me to this moment. I thought okay, now I'm a professional. Now I can call myself a film composer.

Carter: Mine actually has tremendous personal meaning, but not so much for the fans! It was this terrible episode of Superman: The Animated Series called Little Big Head Man. I took Mr. Mxyzptlk – which is an eight-letter name of almost nonsense letters – and I found a way to turn that into an eight tone row. And then I added the other four remaining tones rows so you have a 12 tone Dodecaphonic row out of this name. The entire score is done in a serial fashion, with a big band doing a futuristic Esquivel-like 60’s cocktail. There’s jazz, electric bass, and glissandos…it is the weirdest thing ever. From a personal standpoint, being able to put that 12 tone technique that we learned in college to use in an actual scoring project meant a lot to me.

People have been asking for a Justice League reboot for years. It hasn’t happened yet, but the Justice League: The Fatal Five movie very much felt like a sequel to the series.

Ritmanis: It was incredible. We haven't talked too much about samples and whatnot. This was a show where we made incredible use of the technology we had to have this epic sound. For Fatal Five, it was Michael's idea to add 12 French horns to our epic sound and make it even bigger. So we are so thrilled that we have the soundtrack that's out now. We got such a nice shout-out from Bruce Timm about the score. He is a tough person to work with because he is so skilled at what he does, and he knows what he wants. So when we hit a home run he lets us know, and it feels great.

McCuistion: If that was the test market for, you know, a reboot of a series. We're totally on board. He had so much fun on that project.

If you could give your 90’s selves one piece of advice today, what would it be?

Carter: I would tell my 90’s self to get rid of the ponytail sooner!

Ritmanis: I would say just to stop comparing yourself to others so much. And just be comfortable in your own skin and know that it's going to work out the way it's supposed to. Because the biggest lesson I've learned at this young age of mine currently is that once you embrace who you truly are and your own voice, it doesn't mean everyone has to like you. That's okay. People can like you or not like you. But if you spend time worrying so much about what other people think and not being true to yourself, then that is just a wasted part of your life.

McCuistion: I would tell my '90s self is to be incredibly present every day and enjoy what I'm doing every single day. Because in the ’90s, we were so fortunate to have eight years of scoring with live orchestras every other week. All these episodes were done with live musicians on the scoring stage in these legendary places where film music is created. We were part of that process that changed quite a bit at the end of the ’90s, and I think I thought it was gonna go on forever. To have had that many years of doing that, and then switch over so drastically at the beginning of the year 2000 was kind of whiplash, and I have so many wonderful memories from that time.