The legend of skyjacker DB Cooper remains an unsolved mystery that still, almost 50 years later, continues to capture the imagination of those who know the story — including songwriters Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk. Music from the Portland-based duo, recording together as Wonderly, has already accompanied true life stories on the popular New York Times’ The Daily and Dear Sugars podcasts, which they composed the theme tunes for, so it seems fitting that they’d want to tackle a real-life puzzle that’s long held their attention for the first single off their forthcoming album.
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“Living and growing up in the Pacific Northwest, we have our local legends and weird, rain-soaked lens in how we look at the world, but DB Cooper always stood out because it was such a hard one to ‘sum up,’” Brunberg tells American Songwriter. Indeed the story of DB Cooper, which is also the subject of an HBO documentary currently on demand, The Mystery of DB Cooper, confounded the FBI, who closed the case in 2016. It still draws much speculation, remaining the only unsolved airplane hijacking in US history. The man behind the legend is known for taking over a 727 flying out of Seattle in November 1971, trading the passengers’ lives for $200,000 and four parachutes, leaping from the jet and never being heard from again.
“It’s not a sweet story and it certainly isn’t a moral fable. It’s very rock and roll though, almost heavy metal in its excess and danger-embracing, bomb-wielding, parachute-jumping nature,” says Brunberg. “There is no heroic protagonist (the guy hijacked a plane and got away with it!) but unlike the Sasquatch stories or origin stories that sort of permeate the Columbia River Gorge, the DB Cooper story is this singular, troubling tale. We know so little about it. We tried to put every single fact that is actually known about the event right into the song and film. But we were left with ‘what if’ questions that I think make the whole legend endure for 50 years.”
The track, titled November 1971, is an epic myth song-journey that plays on those speculations about who DC Cooper is and why he did what he did. The duo created a short film to accompany the song and filmed aboard a retired Boeing 727. “For such a crazy legend, there’s a dearth of films about DB Cooper. Maybe the 50th anniversary of the event, in 2021, will change that,” says Brunberg. “We timed ours to come out on the 49th anniversary, because we couldn’t wait. There’s a guy named Bruce Campbell (not the cult figure actor from Evil Dead, but the retired Electrical Engineer from Forest Grove, OR) who actually lives in a real, intact Boeing 727 — the same plane that DB Cooper jumped from. Bruce bought the plane and moved it to the top of a hill in 1999, and he’s such a quirky, kind guy that he let us film on it.”
Having created soundtracks for a number of indie films, Wonderly were able to call on two actors they knew to be in the short film, Andrew Harris and Elizabeth Ghiz, who play the roles of Cooper and flight attendant Florence Schaffner who was given a note by Cooper saying that he’d hijacked the flight and told to relay his demands to the flight crew. “We fancifully portray Flo as being a little bored with her shift, flying a commuter run on Northwest Orient. The entire story is acted in pantomime, and it follows the words of the song we wrote, which was a little challenging in terms of pacing the film.”
It’s the first film that Wonderly have made and the duo decided all of their songs for the upcoming album, Story We Tell Volume 1, due out in January next year, will have narrative films that go along with them. It’s been a new avenue explored for Brunberg and Landsverk, who have a rich history together as friends and collaborators, and have worked with some of their greatest musical idols, likeSmokey Robinson, Van Dyke Parts, and Kristin Hersh. Both of them have spent time in nationally touring acts, but they’re using the time now to explore creating stories in song together.
Together, Brunberg and Landsverk have brought their expertise to musical scores for film and TV shows, like Bojack Horseman, and podcasts, like The Daily. “The process always starts with a conversation with the producers or show host. Usually they have some idea of the vibe they want, especially in the theme,” says Landsverk. “For Dear Sugars, it was pretty straightforward — they wanted a song that sounded like Nina Simone’s cover of “I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl.” We spent some time with the song, internalizing the vibe and stylistic nuances. Then we started writing, and “Oh Dear Someone” popped out in less than 30 minutes, lyrics and all. We recorded that same day, and brought in our friend Liz Vice to sing it.”
For The Daily, Landsverk says, it was more complicated. “The producers were at odds as to how the theme should sound — one producer wanted something newsy, another wanted something with a hip-hop edge. Michael Barbaro, the show’s host, suggested the Westworld theme as a model, so it was hard to get a clear read on the direction of the thing.” After a few days of back and forth, they all agreed the duo would develop and rearrange a track from the existing Wonderly catalogue, “an Elvis Costello-esque rocker” called “They Are Angry.” After much time tweaking it and taking it in more of an electronic direction, they had created an option the producers loved.
With Story We Tell, Wonderly get to explore the duo’s own vision from the start. “Story We Tell is us challenging each other and ourselves to write better songs, to make more daring choices, to grow as musicians and storytellers, to be accountable to our shared vision. It’s the story of an ongoing musical conversation, and a soul-bound artistic partnership,” says Landsverk. Later next year, they plan to release Volume Two, which promises to explore some more “true tall tales of the Pacific Northwest.”
Photo is by Anthony Pigeon
