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De Wolfe Music: Production Music Library
Interview with Warren de Wolfe by John Mansell © 2008Warren De Wolfe is Managing Director of De Wolfe Ltd.
Additional material from Struan Robertson - De Wolfe Music
John Mansell: What made De Wolfe decide to release a series of film music/library cues on its own label and make them commercially available?
Warren de Wolfe: We’ve always had interest in our soundtracks library and in the past we’ve licensed out various tracks for compilations – after the success of things like DAWN OF THE DEAD and BITE HARD we thought we’d do it more seriously. We simply didn’t have the time or resources to do it ourselves until now.
John Mansell: WITCHFINDER GENERAL is a much requested film score and one that you will be issuing soon. Why have De Wolfe waited so long to release this score, I know that a number of record labels have approached you for this soundtrack. Was there any reason why De Wolfe were reluctant to licence it?
Warren de Wolfe: Well, no specific reason really, except perhaps that the technology available to us today allows us to re-master and edit lengthy and complex soundtracks fairly easily in-house, where only a few years ago it would not have been cost effective, given the limited number that we’re planning to press – it’s a pretty ‘niche’ market, as you know.
John Mansell: De Wolfe is a well respected name within the music industry, approx: how many pieces of music do you have within your library?
Warren de Wolfe: Roughly 90,000. One of the biggest, if not the biggest independent library in the world. Most of them are searchable from dewolfemusic where production professionals can audition and download whatever tracks they need.
John Mansell: Going back to WITCHFINDER GENERAL, we are told that Paul Ferris composed this music initially for the De Wolfe library. Is this the case or did the composer write the score for the movie and then De Wolfe have the publishing rights?
Warren de Wolfe: We were actually approached by the producers behind WITCHFINDER GENERAL to specially compose the music - Paul Ferris was working with us at the time as a composer and so the soundtrack was born. We subsequently used tracks from the film in our production library, as we owned the rights from the very beginning.
John Mansell: There are a number of Paul Ferris compositions at De Wolfe. Are you thinking of releasing any of these - I am thinking of his score for THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR?
Warren de Wolfe: Unfortunately BLOOD BEAST TERROR is unlikely to get released in the near future. Some masters have faired better than others over time and the work it would take to remaster some of them to a sufficient level is a little beyond our capabilities at the moment. But, in the future… who knows? We plan to release many more soundtracks before that specific one anyway.
John Mansell: Another soundtrack that is owned by De Wolfe is THE CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR by composer Peter Knight, in fact this was issued on a Library LP record as the B side to WITCHFINDER GENERAL. Is there any possibility of this being issued?
Warren de Wolfe: …and that’s one that we will be releasing, yes. Again, we’re looking at a fairly significant time period allowing us to get it prepared – the series is really a side project to our main production music business, so I’m afraid the commercial masters tend to get left to down time. But, bear with us, and it will appear!
John Mansell: How many CDs are there or will there be in the De Wolfe series?
Warren de Wolfe: It’s very hard to say – we’ll keep doing them as long as there is an interest and our costs and time are covered. I’d like to say there’ll be many, as we have the tracks available. We are setting up various communication channels and websites for us to assess future releases – as long as chatter stays up the releases will keep on coming.
John Mansell: I understand you have had problems getting a distributor - was this just in the UK or worldwide?
Warren de Wolfe: Yes, our previous distribution company went into receivership while our stock of BITE HARDER – the first release in the series - was still at the warehouse! Luckily they were kind enough to get them sent to us here at the office. A lot of people weren’t that lucky. And yes, it did effect distribution but only for UK and Europe – we don’t have anything set up in the US as yet. I believe a lot of the Europe-bound copies of BITE HARDER actually went out, so hopefully there are some copies over there in record shops!
While it was a bit of a shocker in the short run, and it meant that a lot of our back orders were delayed, it all seems to be back on track now having just re-signed to a different company. So, apologies to all those people waiting for their copies – they are on the way!
In between the two contracts we’ve been attempting small-scale distribution ourselves, which wouldn’t have been possible without our friends at www.moviegrooves.com who are selling ‘Bite Harder’s for us until we get distribution sorted out.
Warren de Wolfe: Unfortunately Ivor’s work for Hammer is not owned by us but we do have a huge amount of his work for TV shows and films from the late fifties, sixties and seventies. We will probably put together a compilation of his more famous tracks including things like cues from THE DOUBLE DECKERS and some of his other horror film scores.
John Mansell: Do you carry out all the restoration and re-mastering in house at De Wolfe?
Warren de Wolfe: We do indeed.
John Mansell: How long is the score for WITCHFINDER GENERAL - I know that the LP was quite short, but when I watched the movie and looked at the cue sheets from PRS there seems to be about 45 minutes of music. I also am told that some cues were the work of Kenneth V. Jones - will these be included on the compact disc alongside the Ferris score?
Warren de Wolfe: We don’t have the rights to the Kenneth V. Jones pieces I’m afraid, only the Paul Ferris ones, so the release may be bundled with another, more obscure horror soundtrack, as I think the Witchfinder soundtrack itself isn’t even up to 40 minutes. We are still deciding how to do that one.
John Mansell: Can you tell us what other scores might be up for release on De Wolfe?
Warren de Wolfe: EMMANUELLE is definitely one we’d like to do in the future, after Lily Allen helped raised it’s profile a bit by sampling the piano from it in her recent single ‘The Littlest Things’.
We’re currently putting the finishing touches to the ‘Monty Python Flying Circus’ compilation, and we also expect to do a separate dedicated release for ‘Knights of the Holy Grail’ as well in the future.
There’s obviously ‘Kung Fu Supersounds’ coming up after ‘Bite Harder’. That’s got 43 tracks of cues and themes from DIRTY HO (1979), THE FOUR ASSASSINS (1975), SHAOLIN MANTIS (1978), RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER (1980), and lots of other classic Shaw Brothers films. It’s going to be an epic album!
We will be setting up a website for information of future releases, and hopefully a newsletter - but if anyone would like further info in the meantime, please send us an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we’ll stick you on our brand new mailing list.
