Interview: Emmy-Nominated Songwriters Doug Rockwell & Tova Litvin Talk HSMTMTS, ZOMBIES 2, SNEAKERELLA & More

Emmy-nominated songwriting team Doug Rockwell and Tova Litvin have risen to the top of the entertainment industry, becoming one of the most successful duos in TV and music today.

The talented pair's incredible musical catalog includes "Born to Be Brave" from the Disney+'s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, and "Flesh and Bone" from Zombies 2, which has racked up over 170 million views on YouTube. They also wrote and produced music for Kenny Ortega's 'Julie and the Phantoms', whose soundtrack hit #4 on the Billboard charts. Their song from the film, "The Other Side of Hollywood,'' was nominated for Outstanding Original Song in the 48th Daytime Emmy Awards, set to take place in June 2021. They also recently worked on Disney+'s upcoming first original live-action musical Sneakerella.

We spoke with Doug and Tova about their partnership, their songwriting process, where they see their careers heading, and much more!

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When did you two first meet and how was your songwriting partnership developed?

T: Oh, this is interesting, so we first met at the end of 2015, and we met because I walked into a Halloween party dressed as an obese coke bottle, and I ran into Doug, who was dressed as a full-on Gumby creature.

D: And I looked extremely creepy because no one could see my face.

T: And everyone else in the room was dressed as like, a sexy cat. It was a songwriter party, we were both doing a lot of pop songwriting at the time, and we became friends after that. We had written together, but we didn't really look at it seriously, we just became really good friends. It wasn't until late 2018 when we started working together all the time. We originally got a cut with Marvel, Doug asked me to write with him on it, and it was great. At the time, we were both realizing that the other person was also obsessed with writing to script, and really into musicals, and all these things. So, we teamed up and we took a very conscious turn and started focusing more on those types of musical projects. And here we are!

How do you both approach a song? When you begin working on a project, where do you typically start? Does it vary from project to project depending on what you're being asked, or do you have a sort of streamlined process by now?

T: A lot of times what we start with is a script, so depending on the project, we'll get a script, we'll get an outline, we'll start to understand the characters we're going to be writing for, what their trajectory has been and where it needs to go, so we're aware of all the different nuances that might be coming that the audience doesn't know yet. And then once we're really familiar, at that point it could go any which way. A lot of times we usually start with a melody. We'll be sitting on the floor of the studio, Doug will be holding the guitar, and we'll just kind of throw ideas back and forth until we find something that we love.

D: We try to basically guide the story with the lyrics and music, and it's all just about finding the tone to represent the world that we're trying to create.

You've worked on multiple projects with Disney, and a lot of those projects were geared towards a teenage demographic, did you think that your career would take that direction?

D: I don't think we did! It kind of just ended up happening that way.

T: Not in a million years. I never would have thought that, no.

D: We both started off writing in the pop world for pop artists. We actually were in bands, and musicians ourselves. It just kind of ended up falling into that little niche, which has been great.

T: Oh yeah, we're super grateful for it, and it's opened up a lot of doors for some of the other things that we're trying to develop. I mean, High School Musical, I completely geeked out when we got to do that because that was such a thing, so being a part of that world is really exciting. And it just led to so many opportunities where we could delve more into what we started out doing. It's been a beautiful building block.

D: That's what's really been great about working with these casts as well, a lot of the talent have their own artist careers, and we're able to work with them outside of these so to speak, 'to script' musical projects, to work with them on their artist projects too. So, it's a nice crossover from where we started to where we are now, and it works out very nicely.

T: It's very natural, weirdly.

"Flesh and Bone" from 'Zombies 2' has over 170 million views on YouTube, and your song from 'Julie and the Phantoms', "The Other Side of Hollywood,'' was nominated for an Emmy. How does achieving that level of success feel for you both?

D: You know, it feels pretty great! It's funny because we wake up and go to work, I have a studio in our house, I'm usually wearing sweatpants all day, so it's not like anything's changed, I still wear the same sweatpants! It's wonderful though, it's great knowing how many people it's reached. Especially for 'Julie and the Phantoms', it's created such a fandom, and such a dedicated following. Same for 'Zombies 2', all the projects we've been fortunate enough to be a part of have really dedicated fans and followers, and it's been fulfilling for us to be a part of these franchises.

T: My answer for the Emmy nom, is that it feels so great and so weird and awesome! It's funny, because Doug was on the east coast, and I was in LA, and he found out first because he got a phone call. He was late to a plane, and so he almost didn't take it, and then when he called me, I was just like, "Wait, what?!"

D: And I had to hang up immediately.

T: Yeah he was like, "We're nominated for an Emmy!" and then he hung up! I was like, "This is really not helpful, I have 92 questions, but yay!"

And you worked on Disney+'s upcoming first original live-action musical, Sneakerella, what can you tell me about that project? How was it working on that?

D: That was just so great because the people we were working on that with we have relationships with, and we love them so much. It was interesting because this was being done during the height of the pandemic, so it was a learning curve. The talent and the actors, they filmed in Canada, they had to quarantine, and that kind of pushed some stuff back. As far as recording, usually we're in the studio with them, and we had to do it remotely.

T: Which was totally fine, but obviously it's always more fun to be in the room, and be in that moment, so Zoom has been the fun learning curve for all of us.

D: Especially because usually when you're there in person, when tracking vocals for an artist, you're able to hear all the nuances, you're able to hear even if they have a little phlegm in their throat. So, those little things that are going to turn up on a record, or soundtrack, or cast recording, you'll hear. But, over Zoom...

T: You don't know if you're hearing something or if it's all the glitches in the internet world.

D: Right! So, there had been some times where we didn't catch certain things, we had to go back to catch one word, or something like that. It was definitely a little challenging, but it's amazing how they pulled through.

T: The project is going to be fantastic! We've seen teasers of it, and it looks beautiful, it's such a cool story, a lot of the music on it is really cool.

D: It also goes to show you when there's a will there's a way.

T: Hundred percent.

Can you tell me about what you're planning to work on in the future and where you'd like to take your songwriting partnership? I know you're working on developing an original musical, as well as an original musical feature film. Can you share any details about that?

T: You know everything, yes! We have so many things! Where should we start?

D: Our pie in the sky, big, big dream, is to be able to have a show on Broadway that we've done start to finish. And also a musical feature film, and something that could be a crossover, that could work on stage, and could work on film. We're really working towards that. We started working on a musical podcast because that's a space that's been growing in the new digital age. We've been developing that with our good friend Kristine Angelino, who's a wonderful writer.

T: And that's called 'Over My Dead Body'. It's a musical comedy, essentially, in podcast form. So, we've been experimenting with that type of medium, and it's been a lot of fun.

D: We have been developing a musical of our own.

T: To be announced! That would be for stage, and that's what we've spent the past few months doing during the pandemic, so ideally we'll be able to talk more about that very soon.

D: Funny enough, we have a passion project that we have been working on for a little while, and it's the backstory to Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

T: And this is just us being obsessed with Ursula, because she's the greatest character of all time.

D: And we've been working on a musical feature with our friend, Mary Neely.

There's so much in the pipeline, that's so exciting!

T: That's really our goal, we're very goal-oriented people, and we often have conversations about, "Where do we want to go? What do we want to do? What kind of stories do we want to tell?" That's been a real focus of ours, to develop as much of our own stuff as possible.

D: And just to broaden the palate of what people have seen from us before, too. Because a lot of the things we have done in the past is in the kid world, which we're very grateful for, but a lot of the things that we also are working on are outside of the kid world, which we're excited to showcase!

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