When describing the HBO show Industry to potential converts, I find myself using words like “visceral,” “immersive,” and “intense” to portray the all-consuming nature of the series about a group of young, hot bankers working in London. This season, I would compare the anxiety of watching Harper Stern (Myha’la Herrold) chase down Jesse Bloom (Mark Duplass) and execute sales over the phone to experiencing the last 30 minutes of Uncut Gems for the first time over and over again.
As was the case with that stress-inducing Adam Sandler film, Industry’s electronic score, composed by Canadian DJ Nathan Micay, is essential to capturing the urgency of the characters’ cutthroat work environment and bleak personal lives, placing you directly on the trade floor at Pierpoint & Co. or inside Harper’s flat, where someone’s always snorting coke.
As Micay tells The Daily Beast, the musical choices in Season 2 stand out even more than in Season 1, which he credits to a more efficient collaboration process that allowed him and the rest of the music department to take more chances this time around. Viewers will spot, for instance, new-wave and disco tracks like “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” by Talking Heads, “Damaged Goods” by Gang of Four, and Donna Summers’ “State of Independence” as unique contrasts to the show’s tense atmosphere, along with other surprises.
Similarly, Industry’s music supervisor, Oliver White, described Season 2 as demanding more “oomph” and “muscle” to represent certain characters’ growth, particularly Harper and fellow junior banker Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela), who both find themselves in unexpected positions of power over their domineering bosses. The result is an electrifying, nostalgic, and synth-heavy soundtrack, which Micay had just put the finishing touches on when we spoke a few weeks ago. (While no release date for the album has been announced, he says it should be available on streaming and possibly vinyl before the season is over.)
In a conversation over Zoom, Micay and White talked to The Daily Beast about working with the show’s creators, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, on Season 2’s score and experimenting outside of the typical Industry soundscape.
What was the collaboration process like with Konrad Kay and Mickey Down this time around? Was there more freedom this time?
White: In Season 1, we collaborated with them on the music the whole time. They’ve got impeccable music taste and love music, which is really, really helpful for me, particularly working with writers and creators that love music and get excited by it. So the collaboration process starts when they’re writing scripts. I have a communal Spotify playlist where they send songs that they really love. And I send songs that I also really love and what we think works for the show—and also themes that they’re writing about, characters, settings, things like that. And then obviously, as we get into the editing, some stuff that we think was going to work pretty well ends up not working. But it’s a really early start.
Micay: I think one thing in Season 1 that was really different was that I felt very much that we were the music department. It was all me and Dan Elms, who was our music editor. And we typically were speaking to the directors, and we’d speak to Mickey and Konrad in the spotting sessions. But it was only toward the end of Season 1 that we started a WhatsApp group to quickly talk about influences and talk about ideas. And from the beginning of Season 2, it was just a much faster process of sending something on WhatsApp, or even just an idea. And then it could be like, “Yes,” “No,” “What about this?,” “We’ve been watching this,” “This is great.” And that was so helpful for Olly and definitely myself. I could be like, “Oh, I can really push it,” because I often felt a little scared to really push it in Season 1 because I thought it would have been a longer process to reach Mickey and Konrad.
Were there any sounds or genres of music that you guys wanted to incorporate this season that you didn’t in Season 1?
Micay: This season, we really had the ability and the confidence to push it. There’s a lot of faster synth arpeggios, if that’s even possible, and a lot more bold sound choices. And then I didn’t shy away from sort of cinematic drums. In the first season, there was one time I got to sort of whip out a few cinematic drums, and I think that was quite unique in the first season. That was quite a drumless score. But in this season, for instance, in episode three, in the big ending trade, there’s these big, earth-crashing drums. And I don’t think I would have had the confidence to do that in the first season. I don’t know if it would have suited the first season.
White: Season 2 seemed initially, to us, like a different show, as there was a huge progression in the characters. So in Season 1, a big focus for the music was trying to represent the innocence and naivety of the grads. They’re coming into this working world for the first time and have no idea what they’re getting themselves in. They get used as kind of political puppets for their mentors to make progress. And Season 2, it’s changed. They’re no longer so young and naive anymore. They’ve got their own ambitions. They want to make advancements in Pierpoint. And I think musically, we had to move with that timing.
We had a little bit more freedom to use music that contrasts against the sound world of Industry, like Donna Summer and Talking Heads. They’re not typical for our style in the show. And those contrasts, they stand out.
I felt aware of the show’s score during the first season. But I definitely noticed more music cues in pivotal scenes, particularly toward the end credits.
White: I think we put a big focus on the end credits selections. Instead of leaving the audience with a cliffhanger—which means, “Oh, we need to watch the next one”—we try to use music as a way to do that. So [we’ll] have a song that everyone’s going to go, “Oh, wow. It’s this track.” “Haven’t heard this for ages.” Or, “What is this song?” “Wow, I have to watch the next episode now.” So the ambition with the end credits music is that it’s going to connect with people emotionally so much that they’re going to go, “We’re watching the next episode immediately.” Or, “We’re going to have to wait a week, but I’ll be there at 9 p.m. when it comes out.”
Is there an episode that sticks out to you or that you had the most fun working on?
Micay: Episode 6 is a very unique sound world unto itself. It has flourishes of Industry music, I guess, but it really is a very unique sound. It’s gritty as hell and has a club influence to it and [takes] a lot of influence from U.K. music as well. But I also tried to add that cinematic Industry synth world on top. And that was so fun to be able to work on that. I kind of look at that whole episode as one cue because it kind of started with one idea at the first opening scene and then just expands and expands until it eventually gets to the climax, which is like, “Here we go.” And then we have this big explosion at the end.
White: Basically, we took a piece of score at the beginning of a song—and Nathan wrote this insane song. And it just matches the vibe and adrenaline of the episode perfectly. And then we dismantled the song, and we built over the course of the episode—we built to this big moment where the song is heard in its entirety. And it just worked really well for the last three episodes. It might be something that we carry on doing for Season 3, if that gets the green light.
I’m curious for you, Nathan, as a professional DJ thrust into the prestige television world, if you’ve become more interested in scoring TV shows and films throughout this process?
Micay: I mean, in all honesty, when the pandemic hit, I was in Australia on tour. I’d been touring three, four gigs a month consistently for a couple of years, but that year was different continents. I was exhausted. And the pandemic hit, and I just started having that [feeling], like, “I’m getting too old for this.” I was exhausted. And before Industry, I’d worked on a few indie productions in Canada for Canadian companies. My goal had been to do an HBO show by the time I was 35. And it just so happened to come when I was 29. It was like a dream come true. I was so happy to do it.
And I realized during the pandemic that sitting and writing music all day is so much more fulfilling for me than going out on the road, DJing three cities or two cities a weekend, which I still get a lot of joy from. But I’ve definitely realized that it’s about balance. I’m much happier just writing music than perhaps playing consistently. And when you DJ that often, a lot of the magic does go out of it.
Since Industry, I’ve done another show for Netflix. I did a children’s sci-fi romp, a British children’s show. But I’m definitely full-on into the composing stuff because it really felt natural. I like to organize things and be able to have spreadsheets. The way we work in the scoring stuff is exactly how I work with my own albums. And it just makes me so happy.
