From Native American surf rock to the Rolling Stones: How ‘Reservation Dogs’ got its DIY sound
Tiffany Anders began picking songs for movies at age 15, when she advised her mom, filmmaker Allison Anders, to use a track by indie rockers Dinosaur Jr. on her 1992 breakout feature, “Gas Food Lodging.” Young Anders then pursued a career as a singer-songwriter, and after releasing an album produced by British provocateur PJ Harvey, she officially segued into music supervision for TV and film. More recently, she has emerged as a go-to song picker for edgy TV comedies, including “PEN15,” “You’re the Worst” and “Beef.” But until a couple years ago, Anders had never curated needle drops for a Native American story.
Then came “Reservation Dogs.”
The critically acclaimed FX on Hulu dramedy follows four teenage misfits in rural Oklahoma as they struggle, often hilariously, to reckon with the untimely death of their friend, their heritage and navigate uncertain futures. Co-creator and showrunner Sterlin Harjo enlisted Anders shortly after seeing her post about the Native American documentary “Rumble” on Instagram. “He messaged me, and we started talking,” she recalls. “Sterlin said, ‘I’ve got this show coming up, and I’d love you to be a part of it.’ So that’s where it started.”
Longtime indie filmmakers Danis Goulet and Blackhorse Lowe discuss their work on “Reservation Dogs” and how the series bolstered Native American representation onscreen and behind the camera.
The first season of “Reservation Dogs” kicked off in 2021 with a teen heist underscored by the Stooges’ raucous punk anthem “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” followed in later episodes with numbers by hip-hop grand masters Wu-Tang Clan, country singer Sturgill Simpson and everything in between. The common thread? “Sterlin’s first point of direction to me was, ‘Everything has got to sound DIY,’” says Anders. “I immediately knew what he meant: The music had to have heart and soul, it had to be honest, it had to be full of integrity. It can be huge, it can be old, it can be new, as long as it carried that kind of feel.”
For the third and final season of “Reservation Dogs” (it concludes Sept. 27), Anders licensed music from gifted but often obscure artists whose songs sound as if they were purpose-built for the scene at hand. Speaking from her Altadena home, Anders de-constructed Season 3’s music cues, reflecting her fondness for “loner folk dudes,” Native American surf rock and hippie-era psychedelia. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
This show’s packed with songs that most people probably haven’t heard before. In Episode 2 [of Season 3], for example, Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) wanders the barren Oklahoma plains, where he meets a reclusive old man named Maximus. At the end of his journey, Bear’s all alone, staring into space as this melancholy ballad plays. What’s the tune?
That’s “Early Blue” by F.J. McMahon. In my 20s, I lived in New York and got kind of obsessed with confessional, introspective records made by what I call loner folk dudes. This used record store loaned me a bootleg copy of his album “Spirit of the Lonely Juice,” which had “Early Blue” on it. I just thought the song fit the DIY vibe, for one. And two, it has this isolated, self-reflective quality that fits Bear’s moment of being on his own. He’s the lost loner guy there.
Episode 3 centers on Deer Lady [Kaniehtiio Horn], and it flashes back to her days at the type of nightmarish boarding school that most Native American kids were forced to attend. You feature three pieces of moody music by Mali Obomsawin to express Deer Lady’s inner world. How did you learn about this artist?
Sterlin told me about Mali before they started shooting this season, and I was blown away. Her music is experimental, and it’s got these jazzy elements but it’s also heartfelt. Not to sound all witchy lady, but I feel like Mali’s music and [composer] Mato’s [Wayuhi] score were made to be together, but it just happened by chance.
Mali’s a Native American, right?
Yes. Sterlin went into this season very keen on using a lot of current Native American musicians.
Which brings us to a soulful track in Episode 4 by the late Native American musician Jesse Ed Davis. He was known for his guitar playing with artists like Bob Dylan and John Lennon, but here he’s singing, “I was born on the banks of the Washita River.”
One of the bonding moments for me and Sterlin is that we both love Jesse Ed Davis. We had to use him, and “Washita Love Child” was perfect for this scene. Our editor Varun Viswanath kept asking for old rock songs to kind of emulate these four characters being “the reservoir dogs,” and I was like, “Jesse Davis is our dog.” The song’s sweet, it has a groove and I really like that Jesse’s telling a story about his culture.
The “Dazed and Confused” homage in Episode 6 happens back in 1976 when the rez dog elders were just teenagers acting wild on the last day of school. It’s packed with rock tracks from that period, which must have been fun to organize.
For me, the sweet spot for rock is the ’70s, and when you dig into obscure stuff, it gets even funner and cooler. I’m one of those who can go down the [rabbit] hole forever.
From that rabbit hole, you pulled a trippy song by the short-lived Texas hippie band 13th Floor Elevators called “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” which plays while the teenagers feel LSD kicking in.
I mentioned “You’re Gonna Miss Me” for opening Season 2. We went with [Native American band] Black Belt Eagle Scout instead but we kept the song in our back pocket. Texas is close enough to Oklahoma [laughing], and the track has this Southern psychedelic rock thing — it just made sense.
Young Maximus later encounters a UFO to the tune of a spooky instrumental [“Yeti Talk to Yogi”] by 70s-era avant-garde German band Amon Düül. Why that group?
That moment had to feel other-worldly. When I first went through the script and saw the scene where he sees the UFO, I thought this would be the perfect place to get in some spacey Krautrock, so I immediately went to Amon Düül.
In Episode 6, resident nerd Cheese [Lane Factor] goes fishing in the woods with his uncles. When things get emotional, we hear this oddly uplifting song by a guy named Larry Norman. How did you find “I Wish We’d All Been Ready”?
That track came from Sterlin’s daughter, Portlyn. While we were spotting the episode, going through each scene and talking about what music we wanted, Sterlin showed us a video from a Christian movie of these women singing that song. He’s like, “My daughter turned me onto this weird Christian rock guy from the ’70s,” and I went, “Oh, my God. Let’s fit this into the Cheese episode.” It was perfect because in a way the song sounds very “after-school special.”
In music supervising “Reservation Dogs,” you evaluate each song’s emotional impact, but at the same time, you’re getting editor feedback, you might have licensing issues, you need to make sure the cue supports the scene. It’s a lot.
It is a lot. You’re constantly balancing the budget without wanting to lose the integrity of what the show’s trying to do. [You ask yourself,] “Will this song work instead? It’s cheaper.” If we could use a gazillion Johnny Cash songs or whatever, we’d do that, but I don’t think it would be as interesting.
They say constraints inspire creativity.
Exactly, and I think it’s wonderful because then you can expose viewers to new things and spotlight all these Native American artists too, so that people go, “What is that song?”
Looking back over the first two seasons of “Rez Dogs,” what musical moments stand out for you?
One of my favorites happened in Season 1, where we use a Lee Hazlewood song [1971’s “If It’s Monday Morning”] when Cheese makes the connection with “Grandma,” who’s not really his grandma. They’re sitting out there, and she can’t see, and, you know, she continues to be his grandma through the seasons. I loved that. And I also think of “Come and Get Your Love” at the end of Season 1, with the footage of Redbone playing over the credits.
What can you tell us about music for the show’s final episodes?
For [Episode] 309, we used a Native artist, Ken Pomeroy, who’s a Sterlin find. In 308, we have an amazing experimental Native American artist, Raven Chacon. He made this kind of surf record and sent a song to me. We put it at the end of Episode 8, and then I called Raven and said, “Do you have any more of that surf stuff, because it’s working really well in this episode.”
You’ve also included the Rolling Stones new single “Angry,” which is a huge get, in Episode 8. How did that happen?
Dasmarie Alvino at Universal Music Group mentioned that they had a new Rolling Stones album coming out. I thanked her and said I was very excited to hear the album as I am a lifelong fan. She then sent me a link. I listened to it day in and out when I was in London over the summer. I let Dasmarie know how into the album I was. She got back to me a few days later and said that the Rolling Stones would love to be considered for “Reservation Dogs,” citing the cultural impact and relevance the show has, which blew my mind and Sterlin’s as well! I remember texting him, and I believe his text response was “WHAAAAAA?”
Unlike most of the artists featured in this series, the Rolling Stones are pretty well known, to put it mildly.
The Stones, while massive, still fit the salt of the earth sound of the show, and this album reflects a lot of that mid- to late ’70s gritty rock sound they created. We luckily had this one episode left to complete where we knew the song would work. And it did. We both are still sort of in disbelief that we got a Stones song in the show.
“Reservation Dogs” has attracted a lot of fans for the way it portrays Native American life today. Any final thoughts as the series winds down?
I’m extremely heartbroken that the show’s gonna be over. I’ve learned so many things about modern-day Native American culture and music and everything else. I mean, I would have loved to keep going, because it’s been a dream job.
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