After working with Brian Lazarte and James Lee Hernandez (directors of HBO’s McMillions) on The Big Conn for Apple TV +, they asked me to be the composer for the documentary they produced called The Herricanes, which follows the story of The Houston Herricanes team who were a part of the first women’s full tackle football league in the 1970s. What made the story all the more endearing was that it was told through the eyes of a daughter (Olivia Kuan) of a woman on that very team.
The documentary has heart, hometown charm, and power, so a very dynamic score was called for. I wrote everything from blues to funk to orchestral action music to emotional string moments. I had so much fun playing guitar, bass, and singing, while also recording my good friends violinist Charlie Bisharat (A Man Called Otto, Nope, The Mandalorian, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, La La Land) and cellist Alisha Bauer (Prey, Aquaman, Geostorm, If I Stay).
I attended the premiere at SXSW and could not have been more thrilled with how it all turned out. It was amazing to meet so many of the women of the original Herricanes team and learn that they are just as fun and warm in person as they’re presented in the film. And I was so excited to learn that the film won not one but two awards at SXSW: The Documentary Spotlight Audience Award and the Louis Black Lonestar Award Special Jury Recognition! Congrats to Olivia, the FunMeter fam, Wayfarer, and everyone else who brought this special story to light!