Interview with ‘Exploding Kittens’ Composers Shirley Song and Jina Hyojin An

Netflix’s newest adult-animated comedy, Exploding Kittens, just landed on Netflix, and recently, we had the pleasure of discussing the score with composers Shirley Song and Jina Hyojin An.

Exploding Kittens is a brand-new adult-animated series and adaptation of the popular tabletop game of the same name. Eddie Rosas directs the series, with Matthew Inman (creator of Exploding Kittens) and Shane Kosakowski as the co-showrunners. Bandera Entertainment animates the series.

God and the Devil clash in a conflict for the ages when the pair are sent to Earth but are forced to take the form of loveable and chunky house cats.

Prior to working on Exploding Kittens, Shirley Song and Jina Hyojin composed the scores for multiple Netflix projects, including A Tourist’s Guide to Love, The Princess Switch 3, The Red Sea Diving Resort, Tales of Arcadia, and XO, Kitty.

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Jacob: How did you first become involved with exploding kittens?

Jina: We have a manager named Steve Nice. He’s the best, and he pitched us for this gig. The showrunners really connected with our reel, and thankfully, they gave us an opportunity to demo. We gave our best because we loved how the animation looked, and the comedy itself. We were cracking up laughing even with the small demo scenes. So, thankfully, they loved it, and we got to be a part of it. The rest is all history and now, it’s crazy to think about how we started.

Jacob: Did you guys get the chance to play the tabletop game at all? If so, was there anything to inspire you?

Shirley: Yes! We’re both huge fans of it actually, I think that’s why we were freaking out a little bit. We’re like, oh, you know, every time I feel like when we pitch for things, sometimes a lot of the time we’re like, “Oh, but you know we probably won’t get it.” We have this terrible mentality sometimes, but deep inside, we really wanted it because we’re such huge fans of the game. It’s such a fun and fast-paced game, and it’s so explosive, and we all knew that it was the show was going to be funny for sure, and it would be fast-paced, so I think that helped dictate our mindset. Then, when we could read the logline, we were like, “Okay, this is going to be epically funny.”

Jina: Our music editor, Erich Stratmann, has all the card collections and expansions, too. It was so funny because we have a group chat, and when we communicate with him, he responds with screenshots of the cards, and they say things like “nope” and “skip.” We would start a new episode and then start writing, and he would send a screenshot of “attack.” Everything about it was just so fun.

Jacob: The game has a recent history, but then you’ve also got this extremely rich history of chaotic cats on the internet, so I imagine there’s quite a lot to draw inspiration from, with references.

Jina: Yeah for sure, bombastic! 

Jacob: What surprised me the most was when Tom Ellis’s voice came through. I was like, “Is that Lucifer!?”

Shirley: Yeah! I was like, that is genius. He did such a great job. I can’t wait for everyone to watch, but he’s a fantastic god slash cat.

Jacob: How would you describe your score for the series?

Shirley: I think, for the most part, it’s very epic. It’s good versus evil. It’s God Cat versus Devil Cat, so there’s a lot of big choral and orchestral scores, but I also think that this is one of those shows that we weaved through so many different genres that we had a bit of eight-bit going on cajun flair and heavy metal. Genre-wise, I think we weaved through a lot.

Jina: So we have the heaven world, where we mainly used a lot of choral and ethereal string harps. Then we have this hell world where Devil Cat’s from, and we used a lot of harpsichord metal guitar chucks to make that satanic feel, and then there’s Earth, where every day is different. It’s a new adventure, and in every episode, Shirley mentioned that these different genres come in because you never know what’s expected of that day. Wherever they’re placed on Earth, we just had to capture that sort of sound, which was cool. I loved it, and it was just a fun challenge.

Jacob: That’s the chaotic nature of an adult animated comedy. Like with your Family Guys or South Parks, you get that blend of genres, so I imagine compared to XO, Kitty, which had K-Pop and a specific theme that ran throughout, whereas with Exploding Kittens, you got that freedom to let loose, right?

Shirley: We definitely let loose! It was so much fun for us because our showrunners Shane Kosakowski and Matthew Inman trusted us, which was great. They had lots of great ideas, and other times they were like, “We’ll let you just go ahead and do it,” and so I think Jina and I just had a lot of fun brainstorming and just going for it, hoping that they would like this!

 Jacob: Having that freedom to experiment!

Jina and Shirley: Yeah!

Jacob: So, what was the biggest challenge you both faced composing the score for the series?

Shirley: The biggest challenge is always the beginning process—even the demoing. When we get two scenes, I think there’s always the question of whether this is the right direction or not, and then I remember when we scored our first episode, and excuse my language, shitting ourselves. We’re never sure if we’ve set the right tone or not. Also, with comedy, even with adult animation, there are so many different types of adult animation, and we knew from the get-go what sort of adult animation this was not going to be. So we couldn’t make the music sitcom-y. I think comedy and humor, whether it’s like the genre in general or whether it’s acting, isn’t straightforward. As an actor, you can’t be like, “Hey, this is funny now, laugh,” you have to play it seriously, and I think music is always like that, too. You have to be able to find that line of how seriously we want to play this so that it is funny.

Jina: I think the writing is so brilliant, and we tried hard not to overstep but subtly support and enhance as all music composers do. As we mentioned earlier, the score and sound from every episode were challenging with the different genres and staying coherent with the sound of Exploding Kittens as a whole. It was challenging, but it was also nice to have these different palettes to draw from.

Jacob: Music can be very subtle sometimes, or it can be very in your face, but often, it can be the difference between getting a chuckle out of somebody or rip-roaring laughter. What always gets me, as I’m an absolute sucker for it, is classical music in comedic situations; just the contrast between the drama and silliness gets me every time.

Jina: Actually, for the epic battle scene, there was a classic score, and they [the showrunners] just love the seriousness of it and made sure it was serious epic.

Jacob: So it sounds like the showrunners and director were good at giving feedback on what they wanted from the score?

Shirley: Oh yeah! It was the funniest zooms and spotting sessions for us. I think they were all just so brilliant, and they’re such funny human beings, great people, but I think they just had such great ideas, and some came out of left field for us. Sometimes, we’re just like, “Woah! What?! Okay, let’s give it a go.” And we’ll write and try something that they suggested, and we’re like, “Holy crap, this is brilliant, like this is hilarious.” I remember the both of us we’ll be giggling while writing.

Jina: Shirley and I, when we watch each other’s cues and send them back and forth, we’re already laughing at each other’s stuff. When the preview sessions come, we’re watching everything back, and it’s funny because, on Zoom, we’re all muted, but we can see everybody’s faces, and you can see them laughing. But we were never disappointed to get notes; we were more like, “Oh, we never thought about it that way!” We also had Brian, who has just so much experience, years and years of it, as one of the legendary animation guys, and Matt and Shane, who just had great ideas, as Shirley said, and sometimes bizarre but mostly clever. We watch back the footage, and they’ll be like, “Yeah! That’s exactly it!” or “Oh, that’s really funny, but maybe not.” Great sessions all around.

Shirley: It’s a really great team.

Jina: Yeah, for sure.

Jacob: And that was the case as well working with Bandaera Entertainment? The animators?

Shirley: We mostly dealt with Shane, Matt, and Brian, as they were our main point of contact. But, just in general, I think the entire team and everyone we’ve interacted with, we couldn’t have asked for a better team. They’re just great people, absolutely great people, and I think everyone understood that they were part of a team, and we didn’t feel any ego. It was just super supportive. Laughter all around, for sure.

Jina: This was another reminder of why we do what we do. All collaborations should be like this, where we honor everyone’s input. We could tell there was so much respect for each other even though we laughed and giggled. We took it to heart, and I feel like that’s just a dream team to have.

Jacob: I certainly am now if I wasn’t already excited to watch the series. It sounds awesome.

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Jacob: So, how does Clifford feel about cats?

Shirley: Clifford passed away last year.

Jacob: I’m really sorry to hear that. 

Shirley: No, it’s okay! He was such a funny little bugger and such a coward. If he saw a cat, he would just yap and yap, and if you let him off the leash, he may chase them, but the moment the cat hits him back, he’s running in the opposite direction, howling all the way back. He was all bark and nothing to back it up but no he was a great pup, and it was unfortunate he got so sick.

Jacob: I’m sorry for your loss. He sounded great.

Shirley: Yeah, he was a funny one. We joked because he was so ball-obsessed that if he was in the middle of eating and we threw a ball, he would ditch the food for the ball. That’s how obsessive he was with toys. Every one of our friends, whoever came on, was never like, “Hey, pat me!” he was always like, “Hey, here’s my ball! Throw it! Throw it!” That was him.

Jina: He was our mascot. He looked like a devil cat!

Shirley: Yes! I would always joke because it’s funny. As Jina always said, “Oh my god, God Cat is so adorable; he’s so cute,” and I would say, “I love devil cat!” And I think a lot of that was because he reminded me physically that I was like, “Oh, they are like Cliff!” even though he’s a dog. But yeah, thanks for asking. It’s nice talking about Clifford.

Jacob: So, filming for the second season of XO, Kitty recently wrapped. What can fans expect from the score for season 2?

Jina: Oh man, the first season ended with such a cliffhanger. For me, as a team, even though we’re working on this show, we’re also such huge fans of the To All the Boys universe, so we’re just super excited to be part of it and to see what’s next for these characters. It is weird working on this show and also being a fan, so you know it’s just a lot of excitement all around.

Shirley: I wish we could discuss it more, but yeah, all I can say is that we’re excited, and we can’t wait for fans to watch season two.

Jacob: So, what are you guys working on next after XO, Kitty?

Jina: I’m ready to chill the heck out, man. I got sick last week! I’m just like, “Bruh! I can’t do this anymore!” But yeah, Shirley has some exciting stuff coming up.

Shirley: Yeah, I have a film directed by a great friend of mine, Amy Wang, and she has a film Ma Vista, called Slanted. It’s got a cool story, so that’s what’s up next, but yeah, other than that, I’m ready to chill. I can’t believe it’s july already, this year has flown by so fast, and I’m like “Is it Christmas yet?!”

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Are you going to be watching Exploding Kittens on Netflix? Let us know in the comments below!