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Q: We’re very excited to be speaking today with acclaimed composer Andrew Gordon Macpherson; greetings and salutations Andrew and thanks for carving time out of a busy schedule to spend some time with us and our readers here at Vents Magazine! Before we dive down the Q&A rabbit hole, how is the latter-half of 2025 finding you and yours?
Thanks for having me! I’m grateful — it’s been a busy year between Dark Side of the Ring Season 6, Piñata Smashlings (A Cartoon for Nelvana/ITV) and now designing the sound of the first season of Into the Void, which I’m incredibly excited about and proud of. I’m now trying to get caught up on all the stuff I’ve missed for the last few months in music, TV, movies, Video games, music production tools and pedals and get inspired for the next round. Maybe take up a new instrument…Musical saw?
Q: Major kudos and accolades on your stellar score for the out-of-this-world new Hulu docuseries Into the Void! Starting at the top, and for anyone not in the know, can you explain what Into the Void is about and what attracted you to this specific production as a composer?
Into the Void dives into the tragedies and triumphs of heavy metal — It’s not your run-of-the-mill music channel profile series/history lesson; it’s about honing in on the human stories inside this larger-than-life world. It’s a similar approach that Jason Eisener and Evan Husney (and I) took with Pro Wrestling on the Dark Side of the Ring series so as a lifelong fan of the genre of Heavy Metal, I didn’t need much convincing to be involved. We’ve been brainstorming about it for years and the chance to bring that vision to life is literally a dream come true.
Q: What was it like collaborating with the creators of Into the Void, Jason Eisener and Evan Husney? Did they have very specific ideas as far as the score for the series went?
Jason and Evan fare fantastic collaborators and created a strong template for the tone with Dark Side of the Ring — we tried to translate the spirit of wrestling and now heavy metal with the prestige of great cinematic storytelling. They gave me freedom to experiment, but they also had sharp instincts about when a cue needed to lean heavier, or scale back to let silence do the talking. It was very much a dialogue, and I think that’s why the score feels so integrated with the style. It’s almost like cinematic ambient metal but there are plenty of easter eggs for the dedicated fans.
Q: In a docuseries production which, by virtue of its very subject, is peppered with so much amazing source music, was it easy or difficult to determine the beats which would lend itself to more traditional score?
As a writer, you wouldn’t want to compete with the music of Pantera or Judas Priest— that music is untouchable. The score had to be the connective tissue: filling the spaces in between, guiding deep and complex emotional nuance where the source music shouldn’t and couldn’t.
Q: Personally, what does the genre of Heavy Metal mean to you both in a professional and in a personal sense? Were you an admirer of Heavy Metal prior to signing on for Into the Void?
Absolutely. It’s been in the bloodstream since I was a teenager — I picked up a guitar when I was 12 and wanted to play music like the Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden (who were at their peak) and probably via Guitar World articles, they pointed me back to Black Sabbath. I grew up in the 90’s in Nova Scotia before you could get music on the internet readily, so I bought Paranoid on the strength,(it was also the only Sabbath album I could find locally at the time) and it blew my mind. It’s maybe an understatement to say Tony Iommi wrote AlLL10 of the 10 best riffs ever written, and the rhythmic “pocket” of Geezer and Bill Ward is one I always aspire to get into. The Leslie speaker on Ozzy’s voice in Planet Caravan (like the guitar on Black Hole Sun) is a sound I still reach for constantly when I’m producing. As years went on, I discovered Pantera (covering one wall in my room with posters of them from Guitar World and Hit Parader), and Deftones were also on constant rotation. I briefly played guitar in a metal band whose singer had a brother in the death metal band Cephalectomy. Their first tape was such a cool initiation into DIY and the heavier subgenres and I played one show with them as a side project called “Dead By Dawn.” That whole period I absorbed so much about horror films and bands like At the Gates, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Kataclysm and more. Professionally, there is so much I’ve absorbed over the years that goes into my production from guitar tones to mixing tricks, but I think the biggest influence are those Sabbath riffs, that melodic/rhythmic hook that is undeniably tough.
Q: What’s the VH1-Behind the Music origin story on how you became involved in the music industry?
I played guitar in some scrappy garage bands which led me to getting a 4 track. Being able to sync up sound design to my songs and “produce records” consumed my imagination and high school years until I discovered some of the American indie filmmakers and decided to do film school (where I thought I’d kind of be able to do both). I was the only guy at college interested in sound most of the time and got my feet wet scoring and doing sound design but honestly never believed that would be my job because my music was so primitive and limited. I thought I’d be an editor or a cameraman and make music for fun at night. My big break came when I reconnected with film school classmate Jason Eisener, first as his assistant editor, but we got so close creatively, I ended up developing some music for Dark Side of the Ring before it got greenlit. That opened the door to 75+ documentaries, more than a dozen films and video games and eventually to Into the Void.
Q: You’ve tackled two very distinct worlds in your work as a composer, both in Dark Side of the Ring (wrestling) and with Into the Void (music). What similarities do you feel these two professions have? And do these professions being so character-driven allow you to experiment in certain ways with your score in a manner you typically wouldn’t with another subject?
Metal and Wrestling are both are about spectacle, pushing extremes, larger-than-life characters. Both shows deal with how life imitates art and vice versa, which has some extreme consequences. With characters and stories this bold, the music can be bolder too — and with varied characters, the music can be more stylized between episodes than a regular cast so we try to give every episode a bit of it’s own identity while also tipping our hat to what’s established.
Q: Have you been surprised by how warmly both critics and audiences have embraced Into the Void?
Not surprised (I think the films are awesome) but grateful. You never really know how something will land, but I think the combination of great filmmaking by Jason and Evan and team and a subject matter that means so much to so many people created a winning formula, and an awesome gig to get as a composer.
Q: Can you give readers a hint or three as to what projects you have coming up in the near future?
I can’t say too much yet, but I’ll soon be working on another documentary series, and an interactive project. And of course, I’ve got some personal music projects simmering in the background like records I’ve produced for Brendan Philip (Desert in My Head) and Sixtoo (30).
Q: At the end of the day, what do you hope folks walk away with after checking out Into the Void?
I hope people feel the humanity behind the stories and the love and care we tried to bring to the filmmaking — beyond the riffs these were artists that poured their lives into something fantastic and beautiful. I hope fans hear the score as a love letter to the genre, that amplifies and honours these stories.
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