Bryce Dessner Discusses the ‘Marathon’ of Scoring John Wilkes Booth Thriller ‘Manhunt’ & Taylor Swift’s ‘Genius’

Bryce Dessner, composer, guitarist and former Yale history major, confesses that he and his twin, Aaron – with whom he makes up two-fifths of indie rock outlet The National – have a bit of a fixation with a certain chapter of the American experiment.

“My brother and I have always been passionate Civil War buffs,” he tells Billboard from Melbourne, where the band has just played two shows at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. “For years we used to name National demos after Civil War battles – I think the song ‘Ryland’ was called ‘Fredericksburg.’”

You could call it kismet that the 47-year-old composer’s latest scoring endeavor is for Apple TV+’s Manhunt, a historical crime thriller centered around the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. The seven-part series, which premieres March 15, follows U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, played by The Crown’s Tobias Menzies, as he tracks down Anthony Boyle’s runaway John Wilkes Booth – a bloody, intense chase that Dessner says was like “running a marathon seven times” to write the music for.

To capture the scale of the tragedy’s impact — which risked putting Lincoln’s post-war plans for Reconstruction on the brink of collapse — Dessner threaded subtle electronic embellishments into an orchestral tapestry of strings and brass, all while honoring the American folk traditions of the time with the occasional fiddle or banjo. His attention to detail even led him to Nashville, Tenn., where he purchased a classic, early ‘60s J-50 Gibson guitar specially for the project. 

“It’s quite minimal but very specific,” he says of the soundtrack, which follows his previous work on films such as Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant and Zach Braff’s A Good Person. 

The cello, for example, unofficially serves as Booth’s sonic mascot, as demonstrated in the moments leading up to the fatal gunshot at Ford’s Theatre in episode 1. The droning instrument lurks beneath the surface as Boyle meditatively recites dialogue in sync with the play being performed onstage before bursting into the president’s box at what he clearly hopes is the juiciest moment to aim, fire, and declare, “Freedom for the South!” 

More than 150 years after the fact, the National is coming down from two back-to-back albums — First Two Pages of Frankenstein, which debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, and Laugh Track. The projects were released just five months apart in 2023, but Dessner says the band is already back to the drawing board. 

“We don’t fully understand how we released two records last year,” he says with a laugh. “It’s fairly shocking, because it usually takes us forever to make one record, but to make two in a year … We were just so excited about music and this intense, prolific period that we wanted to get them out there.”  

“But yeah,” he adds. “We’ve started writing again.” 

So, too, have Dessner’s friends and past collaborators, including St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. The musician recently unveiled a new single, “Broken Man,” and announced her album All Born Screaming. 

“She’s one of my really old friends,” Dessner says. “She and I met playing in Sufjan Stevens’ band in the early 2000s — I think Annie was like 18 or 19. It’s always exciting to see what she’s doing, and mind-blowing.” 

As for Taylor Swift, whose Folklore and Evermore albums he helped work on with his brother, Dessner says he’s “very excited” for Tortured Poets Department to arrive April 19. “It’s good,” he reveals, smiling. “I can’t say too much but, as usual, she’s a genius.”