Behind the scenes of one of Disney Channel’s latest animated series, Hailey’s On It!, lies an Emmy-nominated 25x multi-platinum songwriter and music producer, Matthew Tishler.
He has written and/or produced hundreds of songs for Disney, and beyond, lending his talents to provide the music for High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, Descendants 3, Zombies, Fancy Nancy, Mira Royal Detective and more, as well as the songs performed by Ashley Tisdale in the High School Musical spin-off, Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure.
I had the great opportunity to sit with Matthew for a few minutes where a genuine personality prompted natural conversation before we got into the point of why we were talking in the first place – the music of the new series from Disney TV Animation, Hailey’s On It!
Starring Auli’i Cravalho (Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Moana) as the voice of title character Hailey and Manny Jacinto (Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, The Good Place) as her best friend, Scott, Hailey’s On It, follows Hailey Banks, a risk-averse but resourceful teenager on a mission to complete every item on her long list of challenging (and sometimes impractical) tasks in order to save the world. Hailey will be pushed outside her comfort zone to discover the greatness within as she systematically conquers her fears, which includes facing her ever-growing and complicated feelings toward her best friend, Scott.
More importantly (at least for our purposes today), Hailey’s On It! features music from a cross-section of popular genres, from K-Pop to musical theater to pop-rock to EDM. Tishler (along with Andrew Underberg serve as the series songwriters and composers.
Together, we discussed a number of the musical pieces seen and heard throughout the episodes we’ve seen so far in the series, including the fan-favorite episode that features “Hats: The Musical,” as well as the song that he described as “barfalicious” that got him the job on the series.
In Asia, Matthew has worked with a who’s-who group of A-list artists, including BTS, TWICE, EXO, NCT DREAM, Taeyeon, Red Velvet, TVXQ, SHINee, BoA, Namie Amuro, Kumi Koda, EXILE Atsushi, Tohoshinki, AOA, Taemin, Seohyun, Joey Yung, LuHan, Ailee, P1Harmony, FTISLAND, and Stray Kids. Given Tishler’s background with K-Pop, we spent a bit of time discussing the most recent episode in the series, “Everything’s Going to be OK-Pop,” and how his experience helped that episode really stand out to fans.
Though he writes the addictive and catchy musical numbers of the series, he is also responsible for the score in the show, and we talk about his incorporation of the main theme of the show, alongside emotional high (and low) points throughout the series.
Announced with the cast ahead of the series debut earlier this year, the series also promises acclaimed musician “Weird” Al Yankovic as a guest star later in the series. Though we haven’t seen his episodes yet, Matthew shares a spoiler-free experience of what it was like to work with the legendary performer.
You can watch the video above for the interview, and be sure to catch Matthew’s music in the new animated comedy-adventure series, Hailey’s On It! Saturdays on Disney Channel and Disney XD. The series is also streaming now on Disney+.