22. Tarquin Gotch - My Movie DNA

My Movie DNA

In episode 22, Johnny talks to music supervisor, movie producer and music manager Tarquin Gotch.

Tarquin’s career saw him rise to Head of A&R at Arista Records in the 1980s - overseeing acts like The Thompson Twins, Simple Minds, The Stray Cats, and The Beat. He then moved to Warners, transitioning Prince, Madonna and many other American acts into the UK.

Moving into music management he oversaw The Beat, Stephen Duffy, The Dream Academy, Hugh Harris, General Public, XTC, Roger McGuinn from the Byrds and Jon Lord from Deep Purple.

In a chance encounter in 1984, through his actress and model friend Kelly LeBrock, Tarquin met writer-director John Hughes on the set of Weird Science. He went on to become music supervisor on the John Hughes films Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She’s Having A Baby, The Great Outdoors and Uncle Buck.

Running John Hughes’ film company in the 1990s, Tarquin executive produced the films Curly Sue, Dutch, Only The Lonely, and Home Alone.

He has since produced both film and TV including the 1998 film Still Crazy, the TV series Crocodile Shoes with Jimmy Nail, the documentary series Cars That Rock with Brian Johnson, and the return of prison sitcom Porridge for the BBC.

Tarquin currently manages Brian Johnson of AC/DC, and founding members of the Police, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland.

Johnny's talk with Tarquin covers his work curating Life Moves Pretty Fast, a boxset celebrating the music of John Hughes soundtracks, released on Demon Records in 2022.

They discuss Tarquin's time working alongside John Hughes and John Candy, his process of putting songs in front of John Hughes for consideration, and which composer he believes revolutionised the art of film scoring.

This conversation was recorded online at the beginning of February 2024.

Thanks to James Van As who wrote and performed the brilliant music (check out James' ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Loco Looper⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ game) and to Willow Van As who designed the amazing artwork and provided general podcast support.

You can contact My Movie DNA on Twitter/X @mymovieDNA or email [e-mail].