Forest Hill jingle writers never want the music to end
Jingle writer. Music composer. Musician. They all describe the work performed on a daily basis by Forest Hill duo Jeff Lurie and Chris Reineck.
On a late April day, Lurie seats himself in a cosy nook of Gabby’s, at Sherbourne and Isabella, to chat about the last five years, and plans for expansion into film. Reineck is on the disabled list, due to a rough bout with vertigo.
They are the leads to Take Note Films, and they dub themselves the Forest Hill Charlie Harpers, a moniker taken from similarities with Charlie Sheen’s character in the long-running Two and A Half Men TV sitcom.
Lurie assures the nickname refers to the vocation of the fictional Charlie Harper, and not the character’s alcoholism or womanizing shenanigans.
They write jingles for a living. Among the works they’ve produced is the theme for Bialik Hebrew Day School at Bathurst and Guildwood. They also produce music for artists like Ryan Malcolm (a good friend of Lurie’s). Now they’re focusing their attention on Take Note Films, a production studio that allows them more room for creativity.
“We wanted our own content to write to,” Lurie says. “In some cases, we wanted to do it for ourselves and we figured it would be a great tool to show what we do best.
“We are literally trying to do everything we can to write music for as many things as we possibly can.”
Currently on tap is a short documentary, Eight Deadly Limbs, which they filmed with director Mikka Gia, and a doc on artist Tosh Jeffrey with director Rouzbeh Heydari.
How they got to the point of composing scores for films like The Nigerian and advertising music is through their musical proclivities in university.
Their path to music writing can be traced back to their days at the University of Western Ontario. Reineck (drums) and Lurie (guitars) were in a band with Lurie’s high school friend, Toronto actor Jonathan Malen, and Dave Clark (bassist) and Jonathan McCain.
The quintet eventually disbanded and the members went their separate ways, but Lurie and Reineck didn’t want the music to end.
“When the band broke up, Chris and I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa’,” Lurie says, with a look of caution taped to his face. “We didn’t want to promote ourselves to have our girlfriend’s girlfriends’ friends come see us, so we said we’re going to try this seriously.”
Five years later, with an impressive resume of major corporate ad campaigns and work in the local movie scene, Take Note Films, as well as their production company Bobby Racket, is expanding.
“I think we want to keep pushing ourselves, and figuring out ways we can do what we do best,” he says, adding they don’t want to set their goal on just winning a Grammy or an Oscar. “We want to push the boundaries of what we do, and we want to get bigger and better, whatever that means, and it’s not in a fame sense.”
As the interview came to its coda, Lurie admits there’s one downfall to being a jingle writer: They can’t enjoy anything without deconstructing how the music is put together.
“[It’s] ruined forever,” he says, with a laugh. “There’s never a moment … maybe you can try really hard to get into it but there’s never going to be anything you’re going to watch or listen to without you going, ‘What’s going on there?'”