Photo by @ohbrynne on Instagram
Emmy nominated songwriter Doug Rockwell remembers falling in love with music at eight years old when he watched a Green Day music video on MTV for the first time. That was the moment he knew he wanted music to be his career.
After being signed to a label with a rock band and touring for a couple of years, he realized touring wasn’t his passion and switched gears to writing for other artists alongside his mentor Bill Grainer. He made the move out to LA to pursue songwriting and producing, but found writing for other artists very repetitive.
He began to work for TV with his songwriting partner Tova Litvin and booked the Marvel Rising franchise with Disney. They loved writing music to guide the story along with different characters and experimenting with various genres.
“I grew up right outside of NYC. I was very close to Broadway. My mom was involved in community theater and my dad played in a jazz band when he was younger. There’s a lot of different influences within my musical palette,” he said.
Through the Marvel Rising project, Rockwell and Litvin worked with Navia Robinson, Sofia Wylie and Dove Cameron. He recalls Cameron was a pleasure to work with during a quick recording session. She was filming Descendants at the same time.
“We got to really sit with Sofia and get to know her. We actually wrote with her outside of Marvel as well. This was right before she got the gig on High School Musical so we formed a bond with her and her parents. They’re wonderful people,” he said.
Doug Rockwell, Sofia Wylie, and Tova Litvin in the studio. // @dougrockwell on Instagram.
When writing “Born to be Brave” for High School Musical the Musical the Series with Litvin, Rockwell said the intention behind the song was about being proud, staying true to yourself, and not caring what other people think. They knew about the scene where Seb and Carlos share a dance at Homecoming.
“It’s one of those things where you never realize what you have until it’s there in front of you. We had no clue what it was going to look like visually. We thought it was beautiful but when we got to see it really come to life, everything just lined up,” he said.
He also produced Joshua Basset and Matt Cornett’s cover of “Little Saint Nick '' for the Disney + Christmas Special. The entire song was recorded through Zoom sessions due to the pandemic. They set up a whole system in the studio where he was able to hear exactly what they were singing into the mics.
“It’s the Beach Boys so I hope I did it justice. The only challenge is that you don’t hear things as well as if you were in the studio. Luckily they’re pros and they nailed it,” he said.
Although Rockwell couldn’t go into much detail since the episode has not yet been released, he mentioned that he and Litvin wrote a song for Season 2.
The song “Flesh and Bone” from Zombies 2 began like any other songwriting session with the duo singing melodies in their studio. To Rockwell, the melodies come before lyrics. Their biggest challenge with that particular pop anthem was getting the message across of not backing down, and standing up for a cause. He admits that when writing for a scripted scene, there are certain points and lyrics to carefully highlight with a limited time frame.
Once the musical scene, choreographed by Jennifer Weber, was released on Disney’s YouTube channel it had a couple of million views within the first 24 hours and trended at #2. Now, it has a total of 172 million YouTube views.
“When it came out we weren’t expecting it to be the breakthrough song of the movie. It was pretty crazy to see it blow up like that,” he said.
The two were contacted to write for Netflix’s Julie and the Phantoms directed by Kenny Ortega. The songwriting teams were each given the same scenes to write for not knowing whose songs would be selected for the musical moments of the show.
Rockwell and Litvin scored two major moments with “Now or Never” and “Other Side of Hollywood”. The soundtrack would go on to surpass Hamilton as #1 on the iTunes and Apple Music charts.
During the studio sessions of “Now Or Never,” the opening song for the punk rock band Sunset Curve, Doug remembers Charlie Gillespie, Jeremy Shada, and Owen Joyner’s dynamic.
“They really did come together like a band. They’re really passionate about what they do.”
Writing that track was special to him because his music career started by being in rock bands like Sunset Curve.
“I got to go back and be in a band again which was such a big part of my life. We got to write a song that’s something that I probably would’ve written for a band I played in years ago," he said
While creating the “Other Side of Hollywood” they flew to the Vancouver film set and wrote for Caleb, the villain of the show played by Cheyenne Jackson. Rockwell noted that the original version was more EDM/electro-pop and evolved into a classic swing big band number. He credits Kenny Ortega for the inspiration and motivation to always bring out the best of his collaborators.
Photo: Doug Rockwell, Cheyenne Jackson, and Tova Litvin. //@dougrockwell on Instagram.
“It wouldn’t be the same without Cheyenne’s voice and his energy. It wouldn’t be the same without Kenny’s direction and his charisma. We’re all kids. Kenny had that too. We’re all just kids playing in the playground saying what kind of sandcastle can we make?” he said.
Photo: Tova Litvin, Kenny Ortega, and Doug Rockwell in the studio. // @dougrockwell on Instagram.
Writing for Julie and the Phantoms has been their heaviest workload so far because of how big the project was and the amount of people working on the show, but it was also very rewarding. Tova and Rockwell were nominated for the 2021 Daytime Emmy Awards Best Original Song category with the “Other Side of Hollywood”.
“For Julie and the Phantoms we were more involved in the whole process from the ground up. It made us feel like we really were part of the family. We made great relationships and great friends. It was really great to see the fans flock and become really dedicated to it,” he said.
He also writes music for Nickelodeon’s Loud House alongside Michelle Lewis. In fact, he was surprised with his own cartoon role for the musical episode. The writers created two music industry characters who judged a songwriting competition Luna Loud was entering. Coincidently, their names were Michelle and Doug.
Once they read the script, they were asked to audition for themselves and of course, booked the part! It’s still a bit surreal to Doug to see himself immortalized as a cartoon character.
Before all the success, Doug remembers moments of hardship after he first moved out to LA when he didn’t have a place to live and struggled to find a job. Through it all, he kept going, asking questions, and trying to learn as much as he possibly could about producing and songwriting.
“No one knows how many songs we’ve written in our lifetime that haven’t seen the light of day. Those are just as important because we got better with each song we wrote. Persistence is key,” Rockwell said.
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