Runaway Joe, the latest hit podcast from RTÉ's Documentary On One, delves into the unsolved disappearance of alleged murderer Joe Maloney.
It reanimates one of the oldest open cases on the FBI’s books while educating listeners on domestic abuse, the criminal justice system, and the generational impact of violent crime.
But how does a series do all this while transporting listeners from 60s America, to 80s Ireland with a few international pitstops along the way? Expert journalism and incredible storytelling can only do so much without bordering on reportage.
French writer and politician Victor Hugo said, "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."
Music heightens all experiences, it brings our empathy to the surface and connects us to stories in ways that language fails.
The Runaway Joe soundtrack perfectly mirrors the brutal injustice behind the murder of June Maloney, allegedly poisoned by her husband Joe at the age of 26 - listen below:
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The melody dedicated to June begins with a soft, haunting piano tune, but as the series goes on it darkens. In her final epilogue, the delicate song begins in a lower key, and is interrupted by an influx of synthetic sample noises.
The music acts like an audible representation of Joe draining her of life, emotionally readying you for the bitter reality of this tale.
June’s musical characterisation clashes against the more masculine melody of Joe’s theme; synthetic samples and beats, pulsate and build against the piano and strings, soliciting immediate discomfort like a musical incarnation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.
The soundtrack plays such a profound role in the series, that the album is to be dropped as a standalone work, the first original album of music to be released by RTÉ in six years.
An epic combination of piano, strings with a dash of synthesizers and a brief guest appearance from some electric guitars, whether or not you love true crime or Runaway Joe, this album is a masterpiece in its own right.
To mark the occasion here is an interview with the creators of the soundtrack Czech composers and musicians Martin Klusák, and Tomáš Borl.
The pair started working on the soundtrack in November 2023 and somehow constructed all 19 tracks in just a few months.
This interview has been edited for clarity. The Documentary On One team including, Journalist Pavel Parter, producer Tim Desmond and executive producer Liam O’Brien, are referenced throughout.
What inspired you to become a composer and or a musician?
Martin: My father was a pianist, a jazz pianist and a composer, but he died when I was three. I had to find my way towards music. I also wanted to be an architect, like my mother, but then sound and music dragged me. At first, I was a film sound engineer, and film sound designer, and then from that film music composer.
Tomáš: My grandmother was an organist in the local church, and therefore she practiced the piano at home a lot. I was so inspired by the sound coming from the piano that I felt the need to play something too (even though it didn't make much sense back then, as I was only five). Later on, I started to take it more seriously and practiced to become a professional musician. However, after some time, I needed to satisfy my ego a bit more, so instead of just repeating something already written, I started to create my own ideas. Since then, I have known that I want to be a composer.
What was the creative process for making a soundtrack like this so quickly? It sounds stressful!
Martin: You know, it was mostly fun and a little bit of stress. I think Tim, Liam, and Pavel were straightforward as to what they needed. They had a clear idea of what they wanted in a short time.
Despite that, we spent about six versions finding what was needed. And once we found it, all went well from my point of view. The hardest part was in the beginning, finding the correct pace, mood, and themes.
Instrumentation was actually clear – the piano and electronics – it was the team’s (Doc On One) input. I was asked for something cinematic, haunting, a kind of mystical mood based on piano and electronica.
We were searching for the correct pace for some time – we started with something really slow and mysterious, and ended up at a faster pace with more tension.
Tomáš: I think the hardest part was to find common ground with the rest of the team based on their wishes and instructions. I can confirm that Martin and I initially gravitated towards something slow, intimate, and mellow, but shortly after, we were encouraged to compose something a little more intense with a faster pace.
After two or three weeks, the instructions became much clearer and more straightforward. Since then, I have started to enjoy myself so much on this project. The instrumentation (piano, strings, synthesizers) is very close to my heart, and I felt quite happy that this combination resonates perfectly with this project.
What do you do when you are starting a new project? What steps are involved in creating a great score?
Tomáš: When starting a new project, I need to know everything related to the project to nail the theme and emotion as soon as possible. Based on that, I usually start improvising and finding any other connections between the music and media. Sure, there is a lot of development going on throughout the project, and some things end up changing dramatically after all (which the music needs to follow to retain coherence).
This time it was a bit different. I have some experience with composing music for films and video games. In both cases, you have vastly more information to operate with; more impulses that can lead you straight to the point (even though seeing the whole 3D world of a brand-new video game while composing music for it is rather rare). Composing music for a podcast is a very abstract thing, sort of dance with words, where any word leading you in the right direction is equal to gold.
Martin: It was the first podcast experience for me as a music composer, I had quite a lot of experience with short film and animated film composition. In most cases, I could see the image before starting writing. The image leads you, there are nonverbal or visual connections that trigger the way you think and you compose. Well, here it was vice versa, and it was somewhat difficult in the beginning for me because the work was based on keywords that Tim, Pavel, and Liam were sending. They asked for something with tension or something hesitant, these kinds of keywords. What helped me was when Tim sent me his first edit of episode one to hear the voices, hear the protagonists, the pace and the content of the speech. And also, after a bunch of slow and mid-tempo tracks were done, Liam asked for a specific faster pace tempo, which moved the music towards new expressions too. Before that, I felt as if I was blind; I was trying to hit the feelings I had from the description. I tried to imagine and sense how the podcast would sound without actually hearing it nor having its transcription, but knowing the main characters, their personalities and interrelations and basic outline of the story. After all, when I heard the voices and the scenes, even though it was not edited precisely yet, I think there was something that triggered the imagination towards some really new ideas and one of those ideas turned out to be the main tune of the series.
Did different elements inspire different parts of the soundtrack? For instance, how does the sound for Joe differ from June's sound?
Martin: When I was trying to outline Joe's tune and June's tune, I didn't know how it would be used in the podcast because I had not heard it yet. But Joe's tune, I imagined it much colder and distant and kind of un-personal and rough, you know.
While June was a bit more warmer, feminine and welcoming. I wanted kind of this contrast between rough masculine and warm feminine and this kind of feeling, and the contrast ended up in the podcast, which I find nice.
How does composing for a documentary podcast differ from other forms of composition?
Tomáš: The main difference between composing a concert piece and collaborating with the media is that you are actually the director on your own. You are the person who creates the entire story, the dramaturgy of ideas. It's not like you're following commands or directions and discovering what kind of emotion you should evoke. In concert music, you create these emotions solely through the music and take the listener on a very adventurous musical journey, which crosses these special moments.
The other thing is that I used to work with a traditional score and compose more for orchestras or large ensembles lately (instead of using electronics). For this kind of project (full of keywords, no visuals), you can't afford to re-record something with musicians based just on the feeling that it might click this time (any mistake would be literally expensive). So, in this case, I opted to compose via DAW (music software), which is a much more versatile and flexible way to produce music, allowing for changes and revisions almost instantly.
Martin: I definitely find differences between film music and podcasts, as I mentioned earlier. Film is ordinarily ready, or some version of film is ready before the music composition starts. In this case, we were composing first, and then it was edited in the podcast series. Also, the absence of the visual media was uncommon for me. I did some radio stuff before but in the role of sound designer or sound engineer rather, which is also kind of a different sense of composition when you are composing sound objects and sound design layers to actual notes or a piano or strings, voices.
How would you describe the Runaway Joe Soundtrack?
Martin: I'm quite happy with the consistency of the soundtrack. There is no track that would be crazily out of place or mood. And it all sticks together, although we are two people working on it, and there are different time epochs of the story, so the instrumentation had to kind of follow that as well.
So, there are different genre arrangements. Let's say there is kind of a disco or techno track, there is a 60s psychedelic rock band track, there are these cinematic kinds of film score tracks that are the most frequent mood, but overall, the soundtrack flows.
Do non-musical sources play a role in inspiring your work? If so, did anything help you with the creation of the soundtrack for Runaway Joe?
Martin: In my case, very much, and also in concert composition. Actually my large topic is landscape and environment. I do get inspired by that in every composition, so it is just this sense of ambience, or time, or space, and these kinds of things always get imprinted in my work somehow.
For the Irish track in Runaway Joe Did you have a certain image in mind when you were doing that?
Martin: Yeah, for the introduction, it was probably the sounds of the ocean and the breeze. And for the middle part, we were discussing that with Tim and Pavel quite a lot. It should be this kind of green fields and a person galloping on a horse!
What was the hardest piece to compose for the series?
Tomáš: I will pick two tracks, the first one and the last. The first one, because I felt some uncertainty, wondering if I'm doing a good job and if these guys are not gonna fire me (laughs). But I think I succeeded! My piano tune appeared in a fair amount of scenes in the podcast.
And the final track, because I made an arrangement consisting of themes of mine and Martin's for a string ensemble. You can clearly hear a few musical moments carefully selected from the whole soundtrack and lined up in one long musical phrase (some exposed simultaneously in certain places, like a fugue - that was originally Martin's idea and actually a lot of inspiration came from his 02 Runaway Joe). What was really challenging was to imitate the sound of the strings, to make it realistic, because there was no time to hire real musicians or even an ensemble.
The fun thing is that I ultimately combined both mentioned tracks into one piece (named 01 Opening Theme), kicking off the whole soundtrack.
Martin: Yeah, I remember that happening just a few of days ago, we were improvising together for a final track. We had the idea to combine the two main themes of the podcast. One theme was originally composed by Tomáš and the other one by me, but when we put them together - they work! It is quite a nice thing, so we were intensively discussing that final track Tomáš just described.
How do you feel about the release of the album?
Tomáš: I enjoyed working on it so much, being part of the team and contributing with my ideas. I can’t wait to reveal our soundtrack to you!
Martin: I’m really excited about the project and the production based in Ireland. I’m rather used to only working with Czech productions, Czech Television, Czech Radio, and Czech filmmaking productions, and I kind of feel the outreach of this project is much wider, as it is in English, and more people in the world can listen to it. I am also super excited about the soundtrack album Liam organized. There was indeed a lot of work put into this project and it’s nice people will have the chance to get back to the music as well.
The soundtrack for Runaway Joe is available now - RTÉ Documentary On One gives special thanks to John Bates in RTÉ for all his behind-the-scenes help in getting the album released.
New episodes of Runaway Joe are available every Friday, from wherever you get your podcasts - catch up here.
