After the incredible success of the The Legend of Vox Machina animated series adapting the first campaign of the Critical Role webseries, it didn’t come as a surprise for fans that Prime Video greenlit another series based on the second campaign, The Mighty Nein. Set twenty years after the events of Vox Machina, The Mighty Nein follows a group of fugitives and outcasts that must learn to work together to save the realm and stop reality itself from unraveling. Just like Vox Machina, The Mighty Nein series features original songs from Critical Role founding cast member Sam Riegel and musician Peter Habib, who incidentally happen to be brother-in-laws.
The Beat recently had the pleasure of chatting with Riegel and Habib about collaborating once more to compose songs for The Mighty Nein.
Taimur Dar: This is a real treat. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam as part of the press junket for the first season of The Mighty Nein last year. So getting to talk specifically about the songwriting is both new and exciting for me. Obviously, fans are well acquainted with your songwriting collaborations. Was your process for The Mighty Nein differ in any way from Vox Machina?
Sam Riegel: We have composed a lot of songs for the other show we work on, The Legend of Vox Machina. For The Mighty Nein, it was pretty much the same process. We had only composed a couple of songs for Mighty Nein. Neal Acree does the score and we just do the songs that are sung in these shows. We looked at the script for episode 2 of The Mighty Nein which may have had the title of the song in it.
Peter Habib: I think originally it was, “Who Do You Want to Be?”
Sam Riegel: Which doesn’t sing very well. I talked to Peter about some of the themes that were present in the episode because I was there for the writing of the episode and Peter wasn’t. The theme of the episode was rediscovering yourself and finding out who you wanted to be if you could start fresh. Do you want to be a scoundrel or a hero? Despite your past, if you could remake yourself into any form what would it be? That’s sort of the theme for the entire season of The Mighty Nein. Peter took those themes and went back and started constructing a song and bounced some ideas off of me. I chimed in and by the end we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted it to be.
Peter Habib: Sam had a bunch of lyric ideas from the get-go. I believe this was back in August 2023, so going on three years. Whenever we do this, it’s quite different than Neal and the score because we have to worry about lip flapping. We come up with a lot of the concepts and material before even the animatiacs sometimes, just based off of the scripts. Once the animatics are in place, we line that up and the animators need to get the lip flap right. So all of this stuff was done pre-score. Hence why this was started in 2023. This was a pleasure and a unique assignment given that this is a fantasy world. At first Sam said, “We’re looking for a burlesque number but it can’t just be a standard American burlesque because it takes place in this fantasy court city called Nicodranas. And of course the singer, Marion Lavorre, is a famous courtesan so there was going to be a sexy and little naughty element to it. I think it was a little bit of a challenge soncially to hit the mark. I know we iterated and the first thing I said to Sam, “I don’t know, it’s a little too on the nose and straight ahead burlesque.”
I went in with some of the instrumentation. We swapped out a baby grand for a saloon tack piano. We added accordion. I had a trumpet in there but I swapped that out for another ethnic wind instrument. I actually created a new instrument for this song where I took this plastic blow tube that’s normally used on drums and I attached it to a wooden tambourine and just hummed through it. I blew across the membrane on the tambourine and sang along the other instruments. I kind of sound like a trombone but not. [It’s] a little grittier. Just to get something a little bit…je ne said quoi…a little different. It’s in that world but a little outside of that world. It was a lot of fun. I think we finished that around October and recorded in February 2024 with Anika Noni Rose who’s an outstanding vocalist. Sam was there so he knows.
Taimur Dar: I’m glad you mentioned Anika Noni Rose because that leads perfectly into my next question. A few years ago, I was reading actress Jodi Benson’s memoir where she revealed that the key direction she got from Howard Ashman when performing the song “Part of Your World” was to not to belt it out but keep the tone quiet and vulnerable. I’m curious how you directed Rose when you recorded the “Who Will You Be?” song?
Sam Riegel: Anika is a fabulous actor and singer obviously, so we didn’t have to do much. However, I think that day we started with her dialogue lines to get her into the spirit and feeling of the character. And then we ended the day with the singing. She was already in the frame of the mind of the character and had Marion’s unique accent in her head. I think we did several takes of the song. Peter mainly directed the vocals of the song and I would chime in between takes to remind her of the emotionality of what we were trying to convey with the song. Peter was guiding her through all the technical elements. I think our main direction to her, both me and Peter, was forget about the accent or at least not to worry about it as much as she was. It’s a very strange and unrealistic accent and I think it got in her head. Her last take of the song, which is the one that we used, we just had her forget her accent and sing it as she would if she were on Broadway. It works fantastically. There’s enough of the accent poking through that it’s the same character but she could focus on singing the crap out of the song. That was the process. Starting with dialogue and starting with getting her into the character was important though because it’s a very confident character. And so we wanted to instill her with that sense of confidence and controlling the room. As the Ruby of the Sea, she commands the attention of every eye in the room.
Peter Habib: She’s a consummate professional. She’s a Tony Award winner. I think she’s on Broadway right now in some production. When you’re lucky enough to be able to work with a singer like that, there’s not much that you have to do. “That was amazing. Let’s just try another version to see what comes out.” I think some of the adlibs at the very end were spur of the moment because we had five minutes left in the session. Sometimes there’s going to be a lot more vocal production and direction that I have to do. But on this show in particular, it’s been a pleasure working with these vocalists who have amazing instruments and know no bounds. In the third episode we had Auli’i Cravalho from Moana who has an amazing voice as well. It’s been a treat.
Auli’i Cravalho as Toya
Taimur Dar: It goes without saying that AI is a major issue in the entertainment industry right now. It’s a little disheartening to see so many entertainers suddenly embrace using AI in recent months. I’m fairly certain I don’t have to fear that AI was part of the production of The Mighty Nein. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on AI?
Peter Habib: [Laughs]. In this production there was no AI used. On my side, it is becoming more of a tool utilized by music producers to formulate ideas. I have peers in the business who use it as springboard to get ideas started. It’s interesting to see what comes out like if you get into a moment in the session where you’re a little stuck, it’s almost like a third writer in the room. A lot of the time, the technology is not quite there so what it outputs isn’t quite right. But that might lead you down a path that you might not have normally taken as if it was just another collaborator in the room. I think there’s value to it, but it is scary in how fast the technology is moving and how ultimately it is going to impact the music business which already is, as you said. There are so many tracks being uploaded everyday to Spotify that are AI generated. It’s a good question.
Sam Riegel: I think our opinion is that it’s basically garbage. [Laughs]. There are people and artists who use it like Peter is talking about. But we’re not one of those. It’s so funny because AI was first pitched to the world as a helpful tool that would free you up to do the things that you never have time for and the things human beings want to do like appreciate life and art and be creative. Basically, the things that make a human being a human being. But now it seems like the new pitch from these AI companies is, “AI can do that too. It can create and make poetry and music.” But that’s what makes us human beings and why would we give that away? It’s fine if you want to use AI to help you do coding for a piece of software or whatever. That’s fine with me. But once it starts replacing songwriting and creative writing and art, what’s the point? Art isn’t supposed to be easy. That’s what makes it worthwhile. No AI was used in any of this and we don’t have any intention of using AI in the future.
Taimur Dar: Finally, anything you can tease about the songs in the next season of The Mighty Nein?
Sam Riegel: There will be singing in Season 2 of Mighty Nein. It’s not a music centered show. Vox Machina has music in every season and almost every episode. There’s going to be tons more music The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 and Season 5. For Mighty Nein, not quite as much but there will be moments where music is featured. I think music just makes Exandria, our fantasy realm, more real. In at least one episode of Season 2, music is integral to the plot. You’ll see when it gets released next year or maybe even this year! There’s one epiode where a song is crucial to the main characters figuring out what’s going on in the world.
Peter Habib: Sam said it. That song in particular is woven throughout that episode. It’s pretty heavy in there and comes up multiple times. We won’t say who sings the song. It might be someone fun and different. We’ll leave you with that.
