MUSIC SUPE ANDREA VON FOERSTER

As the music supervisor on the hit Paramount+ series Yellowstone, Andrea von Foerster— “Avon” to her friends and colleagues—has attracted considerable attention. She’s done this by tailoring her approach, quite thoughtfully, to the show’s story and characters. Her championing of Zach Bryan, for one, contributed strongly to the Warner artist’s breakout. English-born and raised in the U.K., Indiana and Orange County, Calif., Foerster spent the early part of her career working on such soundtracks as (500) Days of Summer. She now heads her own company, Firestarter, which has overseen supervision not only on Yellowstone but 1883, Mayor of Kingstown and other films and series. After a conversation with our own Todd Hensley, she probably wishes she’d made more use of the mute button.

When did you decide music supervision was your path?
After working in the soundtrack department at Disney’s Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group for live-action features, I went to work for Kevin Edelman on Roswell, V.I.P., Popular and Providence. Then I worked for another music supervisor, Charles Raggio, where we did the indie film Cherish and a documentary about Rodney Bingenheimer from KROQ called The Mayor of Sunset Strip.

Alex Patsavas had shared some shows with Kevin while I worked for him. So when I was working on a music video in the same building as Alex and she asked if I’d like to come on board, it was an instant “Yes.” We worked on Fastlane, The O.C., Grey’s Anatomy and other shows. I left after about two and a half years because I wanted to go out on my own.

How did you get connected to Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan?
I already knew [Weinstein Company music department head] Richard Glasser as we’d been on panels together. He knew I loved horror and helped me get Scream: The TV Series.

When Scream was ending, he told me about Yellowstone and that he thought it was the right fit for me. So he had me meet associate producer Tim Pedegana. We got along great, and I was recommended to Taylor. He and I spoke on the phone, and I instantly knew he was someone I wanted to work for. He’s a rare breed, with talent, drive and heart, and it helps that we have similar taste in music.

What music have you found fits the show best?
We’re using this relatively un-synced genre, Red Dirt country, which a lot of people don’t even know about. We tend to find a lot of artists from Texas specifically.

Were you familiar with the genre before?
I was an alt-country fan. I followed the Old 97’s up and down the West Coast. I loved Wilco—I love folk and Americana and bluegrass. I’m on the Americana Music Association board. But I love all kinds of music. I like delving into the musical styles of anywhere I go, even if I’m just visiting. For me, personally, there’s no stone unturned when it comes to genre.

How do you find the music?
I go down deep, deep holes on the Internet. Taylor’s such a music fan as well, and he lives in Texas, so he’ll hear about people, too. Whiskey Myers was him; Shane Smith and the Saints was him; Zach Bryan was me. Sometimes we find things before they’re even recorded. We like sparse—voice and guitar. It can be challenging to find people who are willing to give us the bare bones of their songs. But I’ve reached out to some artists to see if they could just do an acoustic version and they’ve done it. We also look for who could fit our show for on-camera.

We are hunters. I have to track down an artist and get them to sign a piece of paper so we can use their song. Many of the people we find have day jobs. They’re not necessarily trying to be famous; they just love making music. The work ethic that many of these artists have, you can hear it in their music, and it feels right for the show because that’s how our characters work.

Has Nashville been supportive?
Between seasons one and two, I went to Nashville and met with a bunch of people. Most didn’t know what Yellowstone was yet. The Paramount Network was new—people didn’t know where to find it—but we still managed to have great ratings. I met with all the publishers and labels I could, but most didn’t have the sparse, storytelling music we were looking for, music not as produced-sounding as what makes it to Country radio. As most hadn’t seen the show, they didn’t really get what I was saying.

But some people really did get it; Warner Chappell was great—they even put on a songwriter round for me. WME was the one that got it the most, though; they presented Lainey Wilson to me. I played her for Taylor and ended up using the song “Workin’ Overtime” in a bar scene. Then she sort of grew with us. Now she’s a cast member for season 5.

How do you approach the episodes?
Sometimes as I’m reading the scripts, it’ll feel like a song should go into a scene. As we’re shooting, all those dailies go to the editors. Sometimes they say it feels like something needs to be there and I send music over. It takes a village. Sometimes we want score instead of a song or vice versa. Sometimes we like to play things dry. Sometimes we’re not sure until we see the scenes in the edit.

What’s the tone of the show and the music?
There is a lot of space in Montana and our music tends to have a lot of space as well. And a sense of timelessness. We only use more-contemporary-sounding music when characters are in the cities. We do want some levity, something that’s more about tempo and fun. It’s challenging finding enough uptempo songs as so many are midtempo or slower these days. For roping and rodeo scenes, we’ll have more uptempo music. We tend not to have beer-drinking songs, more whiskey-drinking songs. Even when people are happy, they’re still trying to numb the pain. They’re just laughing at the same time.

How do the characters influence the music?
The character of John Dutton [Kevin Costner] doesn’t tend to have music in his environment. If we have music over him, it’s at the end of the episode, a song that’s more a statement about what’s happening versus his mindset. I don’t think there is music in him—it’s just not a part of him he accesses because that’s a little more vulnerable. For Jamie [Wes Bentley], we have no music. He’s so closed off, so afraid of everything. He can never let himself enjoy anything.

For Kayce [Luke Grimes], the only time we ever have music is when he’s with Monica [Kelsey Asbille], and Monica doesn’t tend to have music unless she’s with Kayce. When they’re together, you hear music, and you feel music. It’s usually over turmoil or a sex scene. With Rip [Cole Hauser], the only time we have music is if he’s in a rodeo/roping or wrangling scene in the arena with the other guys, which is not about him; it’s about what’s happening. The only time we really have music for him is when he’s with Beth. That’s also about the only time we have romantic songs—we don’t have a lot of songs about love.

With Beth [Kelly Reilly], music is very environmental. For instance, Beth goes to some bar to have a drink with somebody she’d like to annihilate. When she goes into Helena or Bozeman to someplace swanky, we’ll have music that fits into that world. She can sort of shape-shift. When she’s with Rip, she’s actually vulnerable and the music reflects that. When she says to Walker [Ryan Bingham], “Can you play me a song? I need to cry,” she’s using the music as a conduit to her feelings; if there’s a song playing, it’s okay to cry, but crying on her own isn’t okay.

Many of the songs express feelings the characters can’t, but if you pay attention to who these people are, you can see that the heart is there. It’s just a matter of finding it. Sometimes these sparse songs of voice and guitar are quietly epic, almost the diary of these people, the thoughts they’d never say out loud. They provide an insight into their being.

Music is a character in the show as much as anything else, so we treat it with the same respect.

Tell me more about Zach Bryan.
I happened upon his music as part of the ongoing search. I live on Twitter and YouTube. I found his videos and could see the passion and the joy he has for making music. He was still in the military. I couldn’t even tell if he wanted to be an artist or if he was just doing it as an outlet. But he was so good. I sent Taylor the “Condemned” and “Hell or High Water” videos. He agreed: “This guy’s great.”

So I reached out to Zach directly on Twitter. I told him I’m the supervisor on the show and that I really liked his music. We talked a bit about the recordings and who had the rights and he put me in touch with his manager. I think the recordings were done in an Airbnb, so the sound quality wasn’t amazing for the show. I told him if he could get to Nashville, I’d love to pair him up with a producer to rerecord these songs for the show. But he’d have to get himself there. And he did.

[Eight-time Grammy -winning producer] Dave Cobb had already been looking at Zach’s music online and agreed to work with him. They recorded “Hell or High Water” and “Condemned.” Dave did a great, beautiful signature production, with the string arrangements and everything else. We ended up using “Condemned” but only the guitar in the vocal stems as it was at the end of the show; we didn’t have time to get into the string arrangement. We still haven’t used “Hell.” I want to but haven’t found the spot yet.

The placement of Cody Johnson’s “Dear Rodeo” was particularly powerful, too.
I’d pitched it for a couple spots but it never quite fit. But Taylor and I are both fans and figured, we’ll find a spot. Finally, it fit! Sometimes you’ll find something that happens to fit what you’re doing right away. Other times, you have the perfect song for the show; you just don’t have the storyline. So you sit on it and wait. Sometimes it’s just waiting for that moment to arrive, and sometimes it never does. But with “Dear Rodeo,” it did.

There’s also a wait because we have a long lead time—we started shooting in May and won’t air until November. We’ve used things that by the time the show aired, people have been on tour, they’ve gotten bigger, and people know them.

Did you expect the show to be this popular?
I can’t speak for Taylor, but I didn’t—I didn’t think it was going to be gigantic. I just knew that when I read the scripts, they were some of the best I’d ever read.

How did that affect your job?
In addition to writing all the episodes for the series, Taylor directed the episodes in season one, so everything that was on the page came to the screen. After I read that script, I knew exactly what I was getting. Often, you’ll read a script and what ends up on-screen is very different, especially in a film. It’s just unusual to have it be that dead on. Once season one happened, every time I read a script, I knew how the whole show would play out in my head. Exactly. I got the aesthetic quickly.

Why do you think so many people are attracted to the show?
It’s for the most part an unexplored theme in modern television. I’ve had people come up to me at events and share how their grandparents lost their ranch to eminent domain. So many people feel represented by this show because these are things that are really happening to their families. And you just wouldn’t hear about it otherwise. I’ve heard of land being taken for eminent domain, but I didn’t know so many ranches were. I’ve learned a lot just about that way of life.

What is the best thing about being on this project?
Getting to be part of an artist’s story is the best feeling. Many people have the talent, but they don’t know how to get there; some have the talent and are on their way to getting there. Either way, it’s fun to be able to give them some exposure and money when they fit our show. We’ve all been raised up together; it’s been fun watching what happened with Lainey, Zach, Whiskey Myers and others.

I also love being able to contribute to an environment—I call it “the Taylorverse.” I’m part of this family, a lot of great people, including our amazing composers, Bryan Tyler and Breton Vivian, and our killer music editor, Kyle Clausen—Kyle elevates us all. We’re one hell of a team, making something I really love.

And when you work as a supervisor, you work on a lot of things people may never see. You feel like something is amazing and then no one cares. It’s fun that so many people have seen what I do because of this show. During the pandemic, more people had time to watch it. It went from being everybody’s parents’ favorite show to their kids’. Seeing certain demographics knowing about it, the coasts—all my friends have actually seen the show! It’s been fun to see it grow.

Do you like it when people pitch music?
I love it! Like I said, it takes a village. Between Taylor and me, we do find a lot on our own, but I want people to always pitch me the latest stuff. If I hadn’t gone to Nashville, I might not have known about Lainey Wilson until now. And between us finding and people pitching, I still need people to license it. It’s a community; no one person does everything.

What can we expect music-wise in season five?
As I mentioned, we have Lainey as a character, Abby. There are some other on-cameras I can’t talk about yet, but they’ve been in the works for a year. I will say that in the first seven episodes, there’s a lot going on musically speaking. Mostly, we’re just proud to continue to make music part of the identity of the show.