I associate colors with music, or music with colors.

I started out on an apprenticeship in Hollywood working as an assistant to Hans Zimmer and another composer Klaus Badelt. That's how I got my foot in the door.

As a film composer, you have to be a good collaborator.

In the case of 'Game Of Thrones,' I've been to set a couple of times, and it's really exciting and inspiring for me to see the set and the actors in action, meet them and talk to them, so it definitely helps. If I can go to set, I will.

What I love about film music is the variety. On one movie, you might be asked to do a completely electronic score, and then another might ask you to do orchestral only.

I wanted to play in bands and get signed by a record label and tour the world and stuff, but that never really worked out.

A lot of people have said, 'Do a Westworld tour!' I definitely have ideas, because we could do a whole concert from just the first season. The player piano plays such a huge role in that one, so it's a must-have as a centerpiece.

What I love with 'Game of Thrones' is, every season, I get to continue to develop the existing themes; every season, I also get to write new themes.

In 'Westworld,' I really got to explore new areas, stylistically. We had the Indian world, we had Shogun world, so I got to play with new instrumentation - and also, a lot of new themes.

With 'Game of Thrones,' the most dominant instrument would definitely be the cello. That's something I just felt really captured the mood of the show very well.

The piano is not really in the language of the 'Game of Thrones' score.

The piano has a huge dynamic range that almost no other instruments have. It can play very low, and it can play very high.

I love performing on my own scores. I do it quite a lot.

What I love is that 'Game of Thrones' is always up for surprises.

I love getting time to write a piece of music that can settle in and set the tone of the show.

What's amazing about 'Game of Thrones' is that it's set in a fantasy world; it's a fantasy story. So I always say that with the score, we're open to do whatever we want.

When I work on my music, I always kind of just try to do my best work.

What I love about 'Game of Thrones' is that the positioning of the music is so well done, because it's not overdone. When the music cuts in, it really has something to say.

I've worked with Jonah Nolan on several projects. I really love collaborating with him.

I'm usually pretty good at remembering the melodies that I wrote.

You could argue that 'Game of Thrones' has been around longer than 'Westworld,' but honestly, either one - I don't have a side or anything - I love them both equally.

When I grew up in the '80s, all of my favorite TV shows always had these great openings, and it always got me excited.

I always have a hard time describing myself.

My task is to tell a story with the music. I always like to have themes in terms of characters or plots, and things that can tell a story always interest me the most.

The computer is limited in expression. It can't do what the human player can do. What's dangerous is that you fall for writing for the computer and what sounds good on it instead of writing something that actually sounds good when a player performs it. It's dangerous when you go down that road.

What I like about the piano is that it's a beautiful hybrid instrument in the sense that it can sound very warm but also very cold.

There is an emotional aspect to live players that, no matter how good the samples are, you cannot replicate.

The piano is such a timeless instrument.

The tonality of the flute almost has a mystic element to me.

I don't listen to film music at all. I don't want to be influenced.

What's so cool about 'Light of the Seven' - and what I love about 'Game of Thrones' - is you never know what's going to happen.

After high school, I moved to the U.S. and studied music in Boston, at the Berklee College of Music.

With 'Iron Man,' I have to give Jon Favreau great credit for the score because he always said, from the beginning, 'Tony Stark is a rock n' roll guy.'

I actually enjoy the fantasy world quite a bit. You have no boundaries.

Really, I get inspired by just switching projects and instrumentation and things like that - that creative part of just being different every time is really what inspires me.

Silence can be a very powerful tool. Sometimes it's more powerful to leave you with nothing.

I like to have recognizable themes and sounds that really connect to the project and that you can identify with that particular project. My goal is always, 'When that theme comes on - even if you're not in the room - you hear it and say, 'Oh my show is starting, I gotta watch.'

I'm one of those artists who, if you'd let me tweak, would probably keep going and going, so it comes to the point where sometimes you just have to let go and make the decision, 'Okay, that's it.'

Find your own style, whatever it is. Whatever is inside you, bring that out. I think that's when you have something unique.

For me, always, the big inspiration really comes from talking with my creators, my showrunners and my producers, and seeing what is their vision for their project.

I myself am a huge Radiohead fan.

When I work on a movie, I look at the script or watch the film, and I talk to my director or producers and make a plan: this is our main character; we need a theme for this plot. We need a love theme.

'Game of Thrones' offers such a wide range of instruments that I use and stylistically for what I'm doing, but 'Westworld' is the same.

I guess with any type of music or any art, there's always an evolution.

I was born and raised in Germany, so I was classically trained. Classical has been deep in me from a totally early age. Then, as a teenager, I picked up the guitar and was really into rock music.

It's always daunting to start from scratch, but it's exactly what I love about my job.

I think a melody is a melody. And the way I usually start is I start writing my themes without even writing to picture to just try to find the tone for the movie or the TV show.

I listen to either romantic classical music, Brahms or Beethoven or something like Mozart, or I go all the way contemporary and listen to Metallica or Adele, Radiohead, jazz, whatever it is that is completely opposite.

I'll say, 'I really like Daenerys,' and then I go, 'Wait, but I like the Stark theme, too, and I like the Lannister theme.' I keep jumping around. But I think that's kind of the beauty of 'Game of Thrones,' that there's so many different ones, and they're all kind of different, and they do different things.

That's what I like: to kind of get up and start working right away in the morning.