Courtesy Dionysus Records

Jason Lee: a surf guitarist helping to keep the joy of painting alive.

“I couldn’t begin to tell you how many happy accidents Dave [Klein] and I have had during this amazing process,” says Jason Lee about the creation of new soundtracks for the remastering of Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting, its episodes now re-christened The Bob Ross Gallery. Lee fronts the R.I.P.tides, an exotic surf-lounge tiki band. Ross, who made painting look easy for generations, was known for his positive demeanor and for making no mistakes, just having “happy little accidents.”

Lee’s musical collaborator Klein elaborates on the impact Ross had on him personally. “I really enjoyed watching Bob Ross and The Joy of Painting as a kid. The fact he could paint those landscapes in a half-hour blew my mind. I always admired his calm manner and love for animals — and, of course, his awesome hair.” Indeed, Ross’ unique look has become a mainstay of meme culture, further manifested in action figures, holiday ornaments, Halloween costumes, and, of course, art supplies.

Before Lee and Klein discovered their mutual admiration for Bob Ross, it was a musical instrument that brought them together. Says Klein, “We met from both of us playing in the surf scene. I was in a few bands” — The Ghastly Ones, The Bomboras, Agent Orange, The Finks — “and had heard of Jason’s bands and his amazing guitar work. We had connected through messaging, as I was looking to sell my Farfisa organ. Jason came up to buy it, and we’ve been close friends ever since. We eventually collaborated on a music project and found we’re very compatible when it comes to songwriting and arranging. We really connected as a writing team, we get along great, and we have a great time working together. Sounds nerdy, but we complete each other’s sentences, musically.” (Klein has also guested with Lee’s other band Dark Entities.)

Klein explains how the offer to score the episodes came to him, and why he brought Lee aboard as a collaborator. “A good friend of mine, the amazing artist Darren Frydendall, is the producer of The Bob Ross Channel and contacted me back in January. His company Cine-verse was looking for music for a new Bob Ross show and had recommended me to do the music. After meeting with his boss, I instantly thought of doing this with Jason. Eight months later, we’re now starting up season two. Season one was a fun journey, and we’re really excited to start up the second season.”

Though the theme and first season has already been scored, the show’s release date has not yet been announced. Until then, both musicians have plenty to keep them busy. Klein is joining a Ghastly Ones reunion and running his studio business in Los Angeles, while Lee focuses on his Dark Entities band and instructional YouTube videos spanning everything from surf music to spaghetti westerns. He says it’s all part of his mission to “get the surf guitar and 1960s instrumental music recognized as a more viable genre of music.”

While Lee doesn’t consider himself a visual artist and has never painted one of Ross’ happy little trees, and Klein confines his own painting to houses, they see a common trait between graphics and music. “I think the very essence of layering music is just like Bob’s work on canvas.” Lee explains. “Dave and I are both multi-instrumentalists, so we love layering to the soundtrack, just like Bob grabbing another brush or mixing colors on the spot. Everything has just felt so natural after all these episodes.”

“While working,” Klein elaborates, “we play the show on a screen, which helps us with the vibe and theme of the episodes — more of an old-school approach to composition and score. Then there’s always that last minute ‘big tree’ we add in the musical foreground, kind of like Bob did with his paintings.”

This, in turn, leads to the aforementioned happy little accidents, which Lee describes as “a different note here, or an instrument change there that creates a totally new song. We just roll with it. The beauty of our method of writing together is that we see where the music takes us with respect to Bob’s art. We’re very much in tune to each piece of art and how the scenes change. Our soundtrack has a mood and feeling to it.”

Klein concurs. “Writing as a team, there are always happy accidents and that’s definitely part of the creative process. We each bring in song ideas, but they’re always open to interpretation and suggestions. Some of the coolest stuff we’ve done was by accident.”