X-Men ’97 Composers The Newton Brothers On Making The ‘90s Modern Again

Marvel Studios Animation has revitalized a classic with X-Men ’97. Despite being accessible for new viewers, the show picks up where the five-season X-Men: The Animated Series left off (in 1997) and features many cast members from that original iteration. The series was created by Beau DeMayo, who previously wrote on The Witcher, Moon Knight, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Few aspects of X-Men: The Animated Series are as iconic to fans of the show as its theme music, written by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers composer Ron Wasserman. That theme is present in X-Men ’97 but is incorporated into a brand-new score by John Andrew Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart, otherwise known as The Newton Brothers. Well-known for their horror film and television scores, The Newton Brothers also scored The Fall of the House of Usher and will lend their musical mastery to Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.

Screen Rant interviewed The Newton Brothers about their work on X-Men ’97. The Newton Brothers discussed their love of X-Men: The Animated Series, incorporating that show’s classic theme, and more.

The Newton Brothers Discuss Their Relationship With X-Men & Each Other

Screen Rant: How did you both find your way to this, and did you have a relationship with the ‘90s series?

Taylor Newton Stewart: I actually ran into the show, which led me into the comics. A lot of people had the comics first, but I was a fan of the show. Every time that theme song would come on, I would always get pumped up. That’s how I got into it.

Andy Grush: I was the reverse, actually. I got into it through the comics. I was super pumped when it came out because, before that, I was just doing straight comics.

I had a paper route when I was a kid—it was a seventh and eighth grade. I would ride my bike to the bookstore. There’s no way my parents would buy comics for me because they were more adult-themed, so it felt like my little secret that I would go there and read comics, and I could pay for them with the money that I was making from that. When the series came out, I was a little bit older, but not much. It was great because there are so many storylines, and they’re so interesting, and you wonder where they go.

How do you two work together? Is it a lot of divide and conquer, or are you together a lot of the time?

Andy Grush: It kind of starts as divide and conquer, and we use that as an advantage early on. We’re then coming at it from two different perspectives. Even if one person gives us the same directive, sometimes we go down exactly the same path, but most of the time, we have varying points of view. So, what we’ll do is we’ll go off, not talk too much about anything, Taylor will do his thing, I’ll do my thing, and then we’ll bring ideas together. Then, we’ll sort of germinate the ideas—I’ll take Taylor’s ideas, he’ll take mine, we’ll infuse them, we’ll have comments, and we’ll go back and forth.

It’s a really helpful process because it gives you good perspective, not only [in] listening to other ideas before we’re playing them for the team, but also to reflect on, like, “Taylor used this—I didn’t even think about that. That’s a great idea.” That’s kind of how we go. And our systems are syncing all the time, so we don’t have to bug each other. We can just grab things and turn and burn, which is helpful because things get pretty wild. We have it kind of locked down and in a good way, but there still are times when—like in life—we just have no idea what the answer is, and you’re just going for it. That’s actually when it’s the most fun. It’s the most stressful, but it’s the most fun.

The Newton Brothers Tried Everything To Blend Old & New

This show’s opening sequence is the same as X-Men: The Animated Series, and the theme pops up throughout the episodes a lot. What were your rules with when to place it and where to use it?

Taylor Newton Stewart: When we would spot it, we’d go between the executives and Beau, the showrunner, and Jake (Castorena). We all sat down and decided, like, “Hey, let’s put this here. Let’s try this.” There’s a lot of, “Let’s see how this goes,” and “Try this, and see what we feel.” I think it’s one of those things where you want to evoke the emotion at the right time.

But how do we reuse the theme in a way that’s slower or faster, where it gets the audience pumped up? If Beau wasn’t feeling it, that obviously was the wrong thing. Or if Brad (Winderbaum) wasn’t feeling it, or Jake, or Dana (Vasquez-Eberhardt), or all the all the team, then that wasn’t the right thing. At the end of the day, it was like, “Does that make you feel something?” with the original theme.

Andy Grush: That was one hundred percent the approach. In the original, it would be fun when it would come up—it would come up when they’re kicking ass. Then, it would come up in subtle ways and mellow ways. What Ron (Wasserman) did… not only is the theme legendary, but the way he incorporated it throughout the original series is awesome. We tried to use that sort of gas pedal appropriately, like, “Let’s not overuse it, but let’s definitely try to be in the world of what’s happening in the original.”

The show is so interesting because it has a lot of the same cast members and the same art style. It’s a new show, but it’s so nostalgic. How do you go about putting your own new musical ideas into something like that?

Taylor Newton Stewart: It’s a dance. It’s a fine line. And what we do with all projects, given time, is we do mini themes, motifs, suites, and ideas prior to ever receiving picture. That helps us gauge, for this, how much sprinkling in of the ‘90s and of this certain sound and vibe we’re going to do. I think having that early time to work and get a gauge on it really, really helped, because we saw how everyone responded to how we wanted to do it. Each episode sort of had different sprinklings, and I think we had to find that groove and that line.

I think it helps, being a fan. And, of course, what you remember of the show, strangely enough… When you see it, the new one, and you’re working on it, it’s funny—It’s not quite exactly what you thought. It’s a little different. But it was fun to whip out some of those old those old synthesizers from the ‘90s.

Andy Grush: That’s a really good point. When they brought us on board, there were many people that said this to us: “Hey, guys. Just so you know, the way you remember it in your head is not actually how it translates sometimes. So just be aware of that.” And we found that out real quick. We had what we thought something might be and then we’d execute it and then listen to what we did, and then it was like, “Oh, wait. That’s wrong.”

From there, like Taylor said, it was very much a dance. Like, “Let’s put guitars in here. Wait, no, the guitars don’t work. But they do work here.” And then, there are synth sounds that Taylor and I love, but a lot of times they’re sounds where it’s like, “I can never use this sound except when I’m just riffing in the studio.” With this show, it was like, “Let’s pull it out. Let’s try things,” and that was really fun.

The Newton Brothers Share Their Favorite Themes & Characters

Do you two have a favorite new theme you were able to write for this?

Andy Grush: So many. We had so much fun with this. There’s a Storm thing happening that’s pretty epic in episode two. That was a super fun one.

Taylor Newton Stewart: Magneto is one of my favorites.

Andy Grush: Oh, yeah. We’ve got a Magneto thing happening that that we’re really pumped on. There’s all kinds of stuff. I want to say a few things, but I can’t because it’ll kind of give away some things. There are definitely some themes we’re really pumped on that are coming up, but we just want to say too much.

Do you have favorite characters that you were especially excited to write for?

Taylor Newton-Stewart: I would say the answer that is yes, but oddly enough, I found that it changes. You’re like, “Oh my God, I’m so excited to write for Storm. This is the moment. This is it,” and then there’s a scene with Magneto that just guts you. I find that my love for characters changed, too. You’re rooting for bad guys, and you shouldn’t be, and it’s because the writing is so good. These guys have just completely screwed us, but we’re like, “Why do I love this character so much? I shouldn’t. He’s horrible.” If you look at all my nerdy little toys, I have a majority of the bad people—that’s not a good sign. But even when X-Cutioner showed up, it was just like, “Yeah!”

X-Men ’97 Episode 5 “Shocked” Taylor Newton Stewart

This will come out after the fourth episode. I know you can’t talk actual spoilers, but is there anything you’re especially excited about in the back half of the season?

Taylor Newton Stewart: When I saw what happens going into this area you’re talking about—for me, more [in episode] five—I was definitely shocked. I didn’t see it coming. It was definitely one of those moments you’re like, “Oh my God. What did I just see?”

Andy Grush: Which is kind of every episode, right? Every episode has some crazy—

Taylor Newton Stewart: Yeah, but that one really did that. But yeah—in the original, [there’s always] a cliffhanger. There’s so much that happens in every episode in the original and in the new one. You have to pay attention—there’s so much going on.

And the payoff of what happens later, after what happens in [episode] five, is pretty spectacular. The whole timeline is structured in a way, I feel, where it honors the original, but at the same time it’s almost invoking a film, in a way. I think that’s pretty awesome.

On Scoring Horror Films & Their Influences For X-Men ’97 Episode 3

You two are known for a range of horror and thriller projects. Did episode 3 feel more like your wheelhouse than the rest of the season? It was so creepy.

Taylor Newton Stewart: Yeah. When you’ve done a lot of certain genres and styles, you know the tropes and things you don’t want to do, or at least you’re aware of maybe what you shouldn’t do. But having the ‘90s spin to it, we were inspired by things from Michael Jackson’s Thriller to The Thing. It was a different kind of horror/thriller because we’re doing [things like] Doctor Sleep and all this super-duper dark stuff. It was just a different take, and so it was real fun to play in that sandbox.

In looking at what you two have done, especially in the horror/thriller world, your work has been for all audiences. You’ve done like The Fall of the House of Usher, Goosebumps, and The Walking Dead. When you are going for tension and suspense, how much are you thinking about how much an audience of a specific show can handle, or what is appropriate for that show?

Andy Grush: We kind of just go for it based on what the creative team tells us. We always want to go for it and make it as tense or scary as possible. A lot of that revolves around the reverse engineering of it. If we want you to be really scared in this moment, [it’s about] what’s happening before and after, and how we get there. That’s how we go about crafting it.

Goosebumps is a good example. At first, we thought we should go a little lighter with it, and Rob (Letterman) was like, “Don’t hold back. Treat this like the scariest project you’ve worked on.” And every project has a bit of a different sound, so finding that line is the bigger challenge. [It’s] like, “Within what sandbox are we playing?” and then, “Okay now. With those shovels and pails, how are we going to decapitate people,” I guess, “or let them decapitate us?”

The Status Of Five Nights At Freddy’s 2

Is there anything you can say about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2? Are you thinking much about it right now?

Taylor Newton-Stewart: We know that they’re working on it. We haven’t seen a script yet. The director (Emma Tammi) works really hard from the ground up to develop everything, and she’s very detail oriented. I know that she’s probably already deep delved into everything. And I know Scott (Cawthon) is super pumped about it as well and very excited.

We knew that the fan base was so excited to see it, but I don’t think anyone could have anticipated how far it went. I feel like the internet blew up when that came out. Just the amount of emails, texts, and things people were sending us—it was wild. I’m sure they are going to jack up the levels and make everybody super happy with changes and stuff. I’m excited.

About X-Men ‘97

X-Men ’97 revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.

Check out our other X-Men ’97 interviews:

• Brad Winderbaum
• Jake Castorena