‘Gen V’ composer Matt Bowen on showcasing ‘a new corner of the world’ within ‘The Boys’ universe [Exclusive Video Interview]

“The Boys” media franchise expanded in 2023 with an Amazon Prime Video spin-off titled “Gen V,” which tells the story of young superpowered individuals (aka “supes”) attending Godolkin University. Composer Matt Bowen, who works on both shows with Christopher Lennertz, tells us that the “one million dollar question” was how to differentiate the music between “Gen V” and “The Boys.” “It was a new corner of the world and needed a new identity, but at the same time, we couldn’t depart too far from the sound of the world,” he explains. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

Co-showrunners Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters oversee the project, with cast members including Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau, Lizze Broadway as Little Cricket, Maddie Phillips as Cate Dunlap, and both London Thor and Derek Luh as Jordan Li. (Sadly, Chance Perdomo as Andre Anderson passed away in March.) Craig Rosenberg, Evan Goldberg and Eric Kripke developed the spin-off series for Prime Video, and yes, a second season is on the horizon.

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Bowen continues on, “The quintessential ‘Boys’ sound is something that we’ve have three seasons worth of in our hip pocket.” However, one major difference for the “Gen V” score is the addition of female vocals. “It’s a very female driven cast inherently taking place on a college campus. So we did incorporate some female vocals, and the artist goes by the name Kotomi,” he reveals. “We recorded her and used her voice in a ton of different ways. Sometimes you would hear it and be like, yeah, that’s a voice. And sometimes it would turn into this washy texture, where you might not know that the sound source was a female voice.”

The composer was “thrilled” when he first learned about the spin-off project. “The creative minds behind this are amazing,” he readily admits. “The sort of new perspective was very welcome. And then especially because this was an opportunity for me to co-score. This was the first thing in ‘The Boys’ world that I co-scored a full season of with Chris, and so it was kind of an opportunity to do that sort of thing.”

Also in our exclusive video interview, Bowen talks about the biggest challenges of working on a show that switches tones so regularly, why he submitted the pilot episode (“God U.”) for Emmy consideration, the “pulse-pounding” score where Golden Boy flies up into the air, and how the upcoming fourth season of “The Boys” is his “favorite season yet.”

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