Although you might not immediately recognize his name, you surely know his work. From the “Yahoo!” jingle to the Columbia Pictures logo that precedes many movies, New York-born music composer Jonathan Elias is a staple of music in pop culture. One piece of his music even became an iconic standard in the homes of millions of people through the 1980s – the MTV “moon man” station ID clip! Since establishing his own company, Elias Arts in 1980, he has built a formidable empire of commercial and film trailer music.

He had also been nominated for a Grammy for his hybridized neo-classical / world / new age music project, American River. Elias spends whatever time allows to another passion, the creation of his Prayer Cycle music series, which culls notable musicians and celebrities from around the globe in a passionate musical and spoken word experience.

But there is another side to Elias…a darker side. In 1984, the man who had helped make MTV a household name struck fear into the hearts of moviegoers, when he created the musical landscape for the Stephen King thriller Children of the Corn. The combination of choirs, gentle synthesizers, and the unassuming visuals of a cornfield made pulses race, and caused people to think twice before stepping onto a farm, in much the same fashion that John Williams and Steven Spielberg gave people Thalassophobia (fear of the sea and oceans) a mere decade before.

Walk behind the rows with us, as we peel the layers of husk and explore music-making with Jonathan Elias.

Your most recent film score was a remake of your most famous piece of film music, Children of the Corn. How was it to go back to the well to revisit the music? Did you want to start fresh or just freshen up what you had previously done?

I was hired with the understanding that they wanted to freshen it up – to use the old themes but in a fresh light. The producer/director Donald [Borchers] is an old friend of mine. He was actually the producer of the first one. So it was understood what I was walking in to. And part of the fun was that I got to have my daughter involved, singing on the score. She is one of the Children of the Corn choir singers.

When the original film was released in 1984, horror was pretty popular at the time. It seemed like a horror movie was being released every week, not to mention the prevalence of Stephen King’s name being tossed around. Were you actually limited by any budget constraints, or did the popularity of horror give you a bit of free reign?

I think everyone was using the Stephen King name. Obviously this was based on a short story. But yeah, we didn’t have any money – we had a really, really low budget on both of these, actually. So I had to do something in an interesting way and do things as good as I could for as little as I could. I used a small orchestra, some synthesizers to back it up, a few singers, did a lot of multi-tracking, and sort of walked that fine line between Carmina Burana, Holst, and a children’s choir.

Did you want to use a children’s choir from the onset? It really set the tone for the whole movie and shrouded the whole experience with a feeling of dread.

Yes, it was the first thing that I really wanted to do. And they said, “Okay, here’s $20.000 to do the whole score. Spend it however you want!” I don’t know if that was the exact number, but it was around there. I did my own copying and my own copying – and that goes to show there wasn’t a lot of money then. I’ve always been inclined to work with choirs, even in my classical-crossover work, like The Prayer Cycle and the new Prayer.

That’s something I wanted to touch on. Looking at your credits on IMDB, it doesn’t look like you spend a lot of your time scoring movies, but when you scoot over to Wikipedia and look at your list of credits there, it seems like you don’t have enough hours in the day!

You know, I don’t do that many scores. I might do one a year – I’ll be doing two this year. But I’ve got a lot of album work that I do, plus I have a very big commercial music company, and I’m producing a couple movie projects, where I’m not composing. I live in Hollywood and try to take advantage of doing a lot of things here.

How did Elias Arts come about?

That started in 1980, when I did the original Alien trailer, and then I did a lot of Madison Ave. stuff, because I lived in New York at the time. So I kinda parlayed the movie trailer and effects into Madison Ave. and started doing a lot of ads, too. Then I opened one up here in LA, too. I now have offices on both coasts.

How did you come into working with John Barry?

I met John when I was 22 at some cocktail party I was at. He was picking up some glass off of the floor, and somebody said, “John, with your hands, you shouldn’t be picking that up!” And I said, “Why, what’s wrong with his hands? Why shouldn’t he pick it up?” And they said, “Because that’s John Barry, the composer!”

So I went over and introduced myself, and he was mildly interested, but his wife was very kind to me. She set up a dinner between John and I, and I went out to their house, and we became very close. John, by far has been my strongest mentor I’ve ever had in this business. I look back very fondly at the time I spent with him – he was an amazing, amazing mentor. He actually got on the phone and told the movie studio that I should be the guy to do Children of the Corn.

He’s also the one who introduced me to Duran Duran for A View to a Kill. He wanted me to take his orchestral stuff and fit it into the song, which I did. I did a lot of these orchestral sequence blasts, and that got noted really well by the band and the record community, and it turned me on to a lot of record projects from just that one little thing. It became a big calling card for me.

Do you feel like some sort of unsung hero in the entertainment industry? You’ve done some really iconic pieces of music, like the MTV theme from the 1980s, the Columbia Pictures fanfare, and the Yahoo! jingle.

Yeah, there’s a lot of iconic work that my company does. Unsung? Well, I get my kudos, and it’s not like I try to make it my goal to do film scores. I really do enjoy doing my art records. You know, the last one, American River (with Johnny Cash on it) got a Grammy nomination, so I’m hoping the new one will be received well, too. It’s got a lot of famous talent involved with it as far as singers and spoken word. That should be coming out next July.

Do you personally coordinate the lineups for those albums?

Yeah, I do.

Is it all pay-to-play, or are they tied to your relationships over the years?

Yeah, for instance, I produced a movie for Sting and Trudie [Styler], so I got them both on my record. And I’ve worked with Robert Downey a lot; I produced his last record, and we’ve been life-long friends. So, he’s on the project. I’ve got Sinead O’Connor on there. There are a lot of different singers on the record that are really, really special.

If you are so invested in making your art music a priority, what pulls you in to do various film score work?

A lot of it is friendships. It just seemed fun to do Children of the Corn. I’ve been friends with the producer/director forever, so I felt I owed him a favor or two, but it was fun – I had a good time. When you’re working with people who let you do what you want (more or less), then it’s a pleasurable experience. Sometimes there are people that hold the work as very precious, it becomes very painful. And every film scorer will tell you that – some are easier than others. That is their livelihood.

It just turned out that my calling was to do commercials. Sure, I’ll do a movie score here and there, but generally its relationships. I’m not immediately a composer that comes to mind when someone needs a film score, because as you and I know, I don’t do that many movies. I had a choice in the mid 1980s, when I was doing a lot of soundtracks, and then I decided to become a record producer. I did Grace Jones, Yes, and Duran Duran, and then kinda got out of it.

I’m glad you mentioned Grace Jones. One of the scores in your brief filmography that I really thought was inventive, if not revolutionary, was Vamp, because you were among the first composers to inject sexiness into a horror setting.

Wow, that’s so funny, because I worked really hard to make that happen, with the sexy feeling. I kinda brought in some of that 80s pop overtone, Duran Duran world. Some of that was in the drum and bass stuff, and some of it was in the shimmering synths. That’s funny that you recognize that, because it’s something we were trying to go for back then.

I don’t know if the comparison is based on my listening experience, but it sounded like it was springboarded from the blending of sexiness and suspense Pino Donaggio brought to Body Double.

That’s funny, because I did the trailer for Body Double, too. I did tons of trailers in those days, oh my God. Everything from Blade Runner to you-name-it.

Now what was the process of doing movie trailers? Did they give you a film clip or a premise and a time limit from which to work?

In those days, they would hire me to do an original piece for them. They would show me some raw footage, kinda like a commercial or a short movie. And I did that. A lot of projects came from my work on trailers.

But, Pathfinder, funny enough is one of the scores I was most proud of.

Yeah, I loved the score for that movie. It was one of those movies that I was really looking forward to seeing, based solely on the trailer, but it was delayed for like a year. Then I saw that the soundtrack CD was coming out on Varese Sarabande, so I snatched it up right away and just consumed it. It’s a great piece of work, because it just grows as the album progresses.

There’s a piece on there with a solo singer that I really like. I really enjoyed that score, but it was a painful process, because the director had one vision, and the studio had another. And I almost ended up doing two basic scores – one for each. But once they realized that the movie wasn’t going to be a big hit, they kinda just let it go. It’s just one of those things that didn’t marry as well as it could have. Marcus [Nispel], the director is a good friend of mine, and I liked the experience of working with him.

Do you have a relationship with Varese Sarabande? It seems like most, if not all of the soundtracks based on your scores are released through them.

No, not at all. I don’t have a relationship there.

Wow, I was wondering, as they just released a 25th Anniversary Edition of Children of the Corn. It was apparently limited to 1000 units, and they sold out of them almost immediately.

Just this year? Oh, I’ll have to get a copy! I don’t keep up much on that stuff anymore. I spend most of my time with my current projects and getting more business. The only reason I like all that stuff is to show my kids. My daughter gets a kick out of it. She’ll say, “Dad, you’re almost famous!”