‘We have a reasonable word-of-mouth reputation as purveyors of miserable music for gut-wrenching films.’
Many City lawyers have outside interests, few combine being at the very top of their profession with another career outlet. But Slaughter and May senior partner Steve Cooke is one such individual. Since 1993 the M&A veteran has worked with cartoonist Russell Taylor – famed for creating the comic strip Alex – to produce soundtracks for over 50 films and documentaries. Among others, they composed the music for Bafta-winning and Bafta-nominated documentaries such as The Lost Girls of South Africa, China’s Stolen Children, Chosen, Orphans of Nkandla, and the recent BBC series about Country Life magazine titled Land of Hope and Glory. Cooke plays and composes on the keyboards and guitar.
Neither of us studied music but we both were in bands at university and have carried on making music together since. As we were recording aimlessly one day, we were asked to do the music for a short film on Channel 4, then someone saw that and asked us for something else. It all ballooned from there.
We get together in the studio to record most Sunday nights. It’s hopeless to try to do it during the week, so Sunday is generally a good night.
We put it in the diary and obviously if something interferes we just leave it for the week. But although it’s nice to be together in the studio, you can actually do stuff separately and ping files to each other remotely.
You’ve either got the bug about music or you haven’t. And if you have, you carry on doing it and love it. But, especially when it turns into a business like it has for us as we got a lot commissioned over the years, you feel compelled to carry on doing it. It’s also a great antidote from your day job.
Sometimes it can get stressful when clients are demanding things of you, but because it’s something completely different from your job, it’s relaxing and gives you peace of mind.
When I was younger, from the time I joined the firm, I played in the Slaughter and May jazz band. We used to rehearse every Monday night and play 20 gigs over the year. That was quite a commitment! You just find outlets to make it work. If you want something doing, ask a busy person.
You have to be flexible about when you [take on projects], because we have pretty demanding day jobs by any standards. The fact that someone is paying for it, as with everything, validates what you’re doing to some extent. With making music, getting outside input sometimes leads you in directions you wouldn’t have otherwise gone.
We’re not exactly Hans Zimmer, so we don’t have the luxury of much choice of projects we get involved in. We are known in the world of documentaries with a human rights angle, so we have a reasonable word-of-mouth reputation as purveyors of miserable music for gut-wrenching films.
The budgets in television are increasingly going down, there is less money available in particular for documentaries, which tends to be what we do music for. Indeed, we got paid for our first serious assignment in TV in about 1994 more than we did for our last production. Frankly, it’s not going to replace my day job if I want to be kept in the style to which I have become accustomed.