Tim Jones- The Man Behind the Music
Tim Jones is well known to all dedicated Chuck fans as the man behind the music. An important clarification should be made here. Tim did not choose the popular music used throughout Chuck. Those selections were mostly the contributions of co-creator and series producer Josh Schwartz and music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas. Tim composed the original music for the show. All the musical themes and character themes heard throughout all 5 seasons are his. Because the music is so important in Chuck, both the popular songs and all the cues written by Tim.
The following is taken from written, video and podcast interviews done while Chuck was on the air, during the subsequent years and also from a conversation we had with Tim in the past couple of years. For those of you not aware there is a show soundtrack available that has many of the pieces discussed in this article as well as the songs done by Jeffster during the course of the show. The CD is available on Amazon and it can be streamed on the major music platforms.
The theme song for the show, Cake’s Short Skirt and Long Jacket, was first heard in Chuck vs the Tango.
Timothy Stuart Jones was born in 1971 in Mission Viejo, California. He was mostly raised in Arizona. His father was a Top Gun fighter pilot who died when he was young and his step father owns a large agri-business in Yuma, Arizona.
He is 6 ft 4 inches tall and has been married since 1996 to Evelyn Jones and they have two kids born 2002 and 2004. Tim attended University of California San Diego then transferred to Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating in 1994 with a BA and majoring in film scoring. He is an avid cyclist, both outdoor and on his Peloton. Tim is an accomplished musician who plays multiple instruments and played many of those for the Chuck soundtrack.
His first credit was for a video called Kill Shot in 1995. His first big break was scoring the Sony feature, The Forsaken, and met editor Norman Buckley on that job. He also did industrial composing work during his early days. He had multiple film and tv show credits from then until he was chosen to score Chuck. He tells the story of his being hired in an interview with Chuck vs the Podcast hosts Gray Jones, Mel and Liz from Chucktv.net. Norman Buckley was an editor of Chuck who was involved from the inception. After hearing about the show Tim called Buckley, volunteering his services. He continued following up until Buckley gave him the go ahead and he helped with the pilot. They liked what he wrote and he was interviewed and hired for the show. He also knew music supervisor Alex Patsavas from The Forsaken. He was involved from the pilot through the last episode, emphasising that he offered to work for nothing as Chuck appealed to him on a personal level. Tim was a gamer from childhood and played Zork as a kid.
He credits Josh Schwartz with creating the use of music to help tell the story, creating the dramatic arc of the show and of each episode. Schwartz was very hands on with selecting the popular songs used in the show.
During the first season Tim created up to 25 minutes of music for each episode as he was the only composer and was responsible for everything. In an interview he shared that NBC requested almost wall to wall music for the show. In 2010 he was still writing up to 15 minutes of original music per episode in a 5 day period of time.
The scripts were made available and Tim was able to work with other members of the creative team on the vibe that was wanted as well as to decide themes for the early episodes. The editors of the show cut the scenes to music and used other music temporarily.. Tim was brought in for the ‘spotting’ sessions (deciding where in the show the score and sound effects go) and worked with the editor, director and show runner to decide theme and tone. He then had a sense of what was needed and went to work on cues (the pieces of music woven into the soundtrack). He worked from beginning to end and worked on the themes for specific scenes and had to pay special attention to the emotional scenes for their dramatic effect.
He tells the story of writing Chuck and Sarah’s theme (A Question and an Answer) while watching the pizza scene at the end of Wookiee. He was inspired by the emotion of that scene. His main goal is always to serve the scene and not distract from the purpose of the scene.
He interacts with the editors the most during his work on an episode. They get feedback from the creative team and continue work until they finish. Thursday was dubbing day and that was when the final mixing was done. Chuck vs the Ring (season 2 episode 22) final scene is the Intersect 2.0 fight scene. Tim wrote that piece of music in 12 hours in order to get the music done in time for final mixing and dubbing. On the positive side he noted that interacting with the whole cast and crew was a real fun aspect for him.
Tim Jones has said that he wants to tell a story with the music. Using both acoustic and electronic instruments, Tim has done that in spades with his score for all five seasons of Chuck. During the early episodes of the show there was a large musical score for most episodes, with up to 25 minutes of score written per week. He was working extra hard to create a vibe and themes, especially action and dramatic themes. Specific themes are written for specific characters and storylines.
On the soundtrack album we find not only Chuck and Sarah’s theme but also the themes used for Bryce Larkin and Daniel Shaw. He stated that he didn’t like Shaw’s theme but Fedak and Schwartz loved it. The theme written for Clyde Decker is an amalgamation of all the bad guy themes. The Action Theme for the show is also on the CD, it was written at the beginning of the first season and was the first piece he wrote. Orion and Mary Bartowski themes were both derived from spy themes, a la Bond.
These themes are very familiar to Chuck fans as they are heard throughout the seasons of the show. For those of you who are anxious to relive many of the moments of the show in music I would highly encourage you to sign up on Soundcloud.com. I will mention just a few of the pieces available on that site but if you join and look up Timothy Stuart Jones you will find 71 pieces of music that he uploaded. His original plan was to release a CD set that would represent all five seasons of the show but we got only the one CD.
He also shared in that interview that Chuck vs the Predator was a challenge because he had a lot of original and dramatic music to write.
One of his personal favorite episodes to write the music for was Chuck vs the Honeymooners. He admits to his status as a Chuck and Sarah shipper so that episode was fun to score. Scoring the last scene in Chuck vs the Three Words was an emotional scene for him and he choked up watching it.
He also enjoyed Chuck vs Phase Three, especially the piece of music he wrote for the Thailand bar scene. The intent was to give it the feel of a Thai version of the Cantina Band.
The following pieces of music can be found on Soundcloud under the following names:
Just Friends– season 1 episode 11: Chuck and Sarah agree to be friends.
Intersect 2.0– Bryce dies and Chuck downloads the new Intersect, fights Fulcrum.
Undercover Lovers– Casey and Ilsa
Bartowski to Walker– version of action theme used for Chuck and Sarah
Mom– Season 4 episode 1: Mary’s theme
Buy More– Sarah walks into the Buy More
Nerd Herd– music for the Nerd Herders
Father and Son Moment– season 2 episode 19: Stephen talks to Chuck about his Dream Job
All About Eve– season 3 episode 17: Eve’s story
Ellie’s Place– Ellie’s music
Dad, the Con Man– Jack Burton’s theme
Only Orion Can Help– Orion’s theme
Sarah’s Assets– season 2 episode 7: Sarah makes an impression with Jill
The Three Words– season 5 episode 13: Chuck says goodbye to Casey and Sarah in Castle.
Bryce Larkin’s Theme, Chuck and Sarah’s Theme, Daniel Shaw’s Theme, and the Action Theme are all found on the official Chuck soundtrack.
Sarah in Thailand, the piece of music written for the bar scene in Thailand, is also on the Soundcloud site but not with the Chuck music. It is in the section with Tim’s digital album of Handcrafted Music for Film and has a hummingbird on the cover.
Do yourself a favor and listen to the many cues that Tim has uploaded to SoundCloud for Chuck. His music is beautifully done and the emotions flood back as you listen to it.
There is also a piece he wrote for his Grandfather’s funeral called Quin’s Theme. Find it and listen to it, you won’t be sorry.
Writing for Jeffster was also a highlight for Tim, and he tells of the challenge of deciding how to handle it.
In episode 58 of Chuck vs the Podcast the process for developing and recording the Jeffster segments were highlighted. Musician Eugene (Gene) Edwards is a guitarist who has known Tim since high school. They worked together on season one and starting with season two he helped with guitar work, including acoustic and electric guitar and bass. He also was the guitarist for the Spanish music in Pink Slip and the hand double for Zac Levi. If you look behind Chuck in that scene you will see Gene as part of the band.
For the Jeffster songs they worked together and listened to the original recording then developed ideas of how Jeffster would perform the song. They then worked up the track and Gene would record a vocal guide for Vic Sahay (Lester) to use for when he sings the lyrics. They record Vic three or four times and have enough recorded to put the song together. They then have a couple days to put it all together for when they shoot the scene on set.
For the record, the Jeffster performance of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girl at Comic Con 2009 in San Diego was performed live and they all worked together to get the song right.
Tim relays the struggle of trying to balance how bad Jeffster should be but still be something we can listen to without cringing. He feels that CCR’s Fortunate Son was the most polished of the Jeffster songs. He walks us through making Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory and it was finished just 10 minutes before they went live on set with the recording of the music video.
With the recording of Styx’ Mr Roboto they mixed Scott Krinky’s voice in with the electronic robot effect to get the sound they wanted.
When Jeff (Scott Krinsky) tries to go solo without Lester, his solo was done using an autotuner (software used to adjust pitch with voices) to get the sound they needed. They used his on set performance and then put it through the autotuner The video interview uses the actual on set sound as well as the autotuned version as examples.
In Chuck vs the Living Dead, Jeffster performs Everly Bros’ Love Hurts. Tim had Vic Sahay record the lower pitched version then he used his voice to create harmony in the higher register to give the song more depth. He called it the Weezer version.
This interview was done after season three had aired and the show had just been picked up for season four. He noted that his work usually begins in January, six to eight weeks after filming begins.
The work done for Take On Me was a blend of his arrangement of the song interspersed with the symphonic arrangement used to highten the tension. Tim used Vic’s vocals for the high notes at the end of the song. That last piece by Jeffster pulls the whole finale together, highlighting the last series of callbacks that lead to Chuck making his last sacrifice for the good of others.
The complete Jeffster song list:
Chuck vs the Best Friend- Africa (Toto)
Chuck vs the Ring- Mr Roboto (Styx)
Fat Bottomed Girl- (Queen) San Diego Comic Con 2009
Chuck vs the Beard- Fortunate Son (CCR)
Chuck vs the Honeymooners- Leaving On A Jet Plane (John Denver)
Chuck vs the Living Dead- Blaze of Glory (Jon Bon Jovi)
Chuck vs the Balcony- Is This Love (Whitesnake)
Chuck vs the Push Mix- Push It (Salt-N-Pepa)
Chuck vs the Masquerade- Send Me On My Way (Rusted Root)
A video done for Comic Con 2011 has Jeffster performing Eye of the Tiger (Survivor) while Morgan trains with Devon to be the Intersect.
Chuck vs the Goodbye- Take On Me ( A-ha)
Tim Jones’ career since Chuck ended in 2012 as been busy. He met Mark Mothersbaugh (DEVO frontman) early in his career. They have worked together on the music for Thor: Ragnarok. He also worked on Cocaine Bear, Holmes and Watson, some additional music for Lego Movie 2 as well as the tv series Human Target at the same time he was working on Chuck. There have been many films, tv shows and documentaries added to his filmography since Chuck with one of the most recent being Waterman, the story of surf legend Duke Kahanamoku. The film Hide and Seek, released in 2021, was made by Zac Levi and Tim’s friend Joel David Moore. The promotional interviews he did for that film provided material for this career overview. It is remarkable that so many people remember Chuck so well that they continue to ask him about it many years later.
In 2023, Tim also worked on the documentary about Gene Wilder (Wilder) and his latest project was the James Cullen Bressack directed Van Damme film, Darkness of Man.
Asked in the flickeringmyth.com interview about a reboot or reunion of Chuck, Tim said this:
I would have exactly two questions. When do we start? And can you tell me temporally speaking when we might commence commencing. The show and the people were amazing. I’d be there in a heartbeat.
That makes a whole bunch of us, Tim!
[…] a complete story about the making of the Jeffster musical interludes see the feature on Tim Jones on this […]
Tim’s music was great and a key component in setting the mood for the show. It’s good to know he is onboard with participating in a reboot / reunion. Let’s hope the movie (or movies) finally gets made!