How did you get involved?

The music director at the time, Kathy Nelson for Universal….she told me about this project “Curious George” and that she hired Jack Johnson to do the score and do original songs for the film and I was so envious and I said “I’m such a kid, I eat breakfast cereal at 2am watching cartoons”….that’s a big part of my personality and in explaining my affinity for animation I explained to her it would be a dream come true to be a part of it…She says the next thing that comes on my desk you’re going to be the first person I call and she did and it was “Despicable Me”.

Did they have you read the script first?

When they brought me in they showed me this huge comprehensive breakdown of every character and then they started to show me these black and white mock-ups where the page is flipping really fast and then maybe a week later we had another meeting and they brought me into the animation house…I just scored scene for scene. It happened in fragments. Most of the time when I saw something I would just play what I heard right then and depending on the scene when you test it out it might not work but it would give me a brilliant idea for something else.

Was it challenging scoring your first film?

I had a huge comprehensive team to help me. They would ask me what I thought and then they would challenge me…..I had coaching, I had my hands held, lots of help when I needed it. But the GPS came from me. They looked at me and said you’re the compass; we’re here to assist you.  That made it a great experience.

What was your inspiration for writing the lyrics?

I thought about the movie “Fallen” and this crazy traffic you guys have here in L.A. and I could just imagine anybody getting out of their car with a rocket launcher and then I just started writing the lyrics, “I’m having a bad, bad day” and I thought about it from the perspective of someone sitting in traffic and that’s where Gru’s theme song comes from, except he had a bad day every day.

How was it working with Hans Zimmer?

We are like minded but he’s been doing it for so many years. Like when you listen to the music in “Dark Knight” a lot of it is live samples and but he makes you think he’s standing in front of 22,000 men with rhythm sections ….I want that ability but the music industry doesn’t allow me that opportunity…. We are working on another score situation. I can’t say the title now, it’s a romantic comedy. I am allowed to say that.

What did you learn from this experience that you’d take to some of your own projects?

I had 27 records on my N.E.R.D album and after doing this I was like that ain’t it. This is good, but it’s not good enough and I made a whole new album after having this experience. Knowing like how big and grandiose and diverse music can be. It changed my perspective on how I look at music for sure.