“Not many people will let you go as hard as they let us go. With Cobra Kai, it’s like, ‘Turn the gain all the way up!’” How Cobra Kai’s soundtrack senseis brought black-belt guitarists Tim Henson, Tosin Abasi and Charlie Robbins to their music

Since debuting in 2018, Cobra Kai, a sequel to the original Karate Kid movies, has become one of the most popular streaming shows on TV.

And while viewers have primarily been drawn to the spectacle of longtime adversaries Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) teaming up to battle increasingly outrageous karate villains – and kick each other’s asses while continually reliving their petty teenage karate rivalry – a key ingredient of the show’s success is its brilliant, guitar-driven score.

Building off the ’80s vibe of the original films, the show boasts a soundtrack that uses throwback hard rock, heavy metal and synthy pop as its foundation, with a serious helping of six-string shred, among other sonic flairs, thrown in for good measure. The result is one of the freshest, most unique and, for guitar fans, awesome scores in recent TV history.

The two men responsible for this are Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg, accomplished film and TV composers (their credits together include Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and the TV series Twisted Metal, among many others), who have been shaping the sonic environment of Cobra Kai since day one. Now, after six seasons, the series is wrapping with its final episodes.

Over the years, the show has evolved, and its sound has followed suit. In the final season, largely set at the Sekai Taikai, a fictional international karate tournament in Barcelona, the music takes on a more global feel (even as it remains anchored by the distinctive, high-octane guitar riffs and licks that made it stand out from the beginning), reflecting the diverse martial artists battling for supremacy.

“We have fighters from all around the world who we’ve never seen before, with their own styles and their own dojo histories and lineages,” Robinson says. “It was really fertile ground for coming up with new musical ideas.”

On the eve of the release of the final five episodes of Cobra Kai, Guitar World sat down with Robinson and Birenberg to discuss the show, and in particular the musical path they’ve taken in Season 6.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of longstanding gigs like this, especially ones that really kind of hit a cultural zeitgeist in the way Cobra Kai has,” Birenberg says. “It’s been so cool to be along for the ride and to be able to chart our own musical journeys along with it.”

For anyone that has been watching the show from the beginning, it’s clear that as the Cobra Kai universe has expanded, so has the variety of sounds and styles that make up the musical score. Nowhere is that more evident than in Season 6.

Leo Birenberg: “The path of the show is that in every season the universe gets bigger. It really started in Season 3 when you started getting the [sensei John] Kreese backstory in Vietnam, or you see Daniel traveling to Japan.

“There are more new characters, there are more old characters returning from previous movies, there are more locations. That had us changing the palette and expanding out. And with Season 6, the obvious expansion is, now we have this international tournament in Barcelona.”

Since the Sekai Taikai tournament introduces karate dojos from all over the world, it opens an opportunity to bring in so many different styles of guitar playing. And you also drafted some monster players to help you achieve this – in particular, Artificial Language and Syncatto phenom Charlie Robbins, and Polyphia virtuoso Tim Henson. How did you get them involved?

Zach Robinson: “It was honestly as simple as hitting them up. My Instagram feed is basically just filled with amazing musicians that I follow, and in the case of Charlie Robbins, we just DM’d him. When the concept of the Barcelona tournament came up, he was the first person we thought of, because his whole style is inspired by flamenco. He loves the nylon-string stuff, but he also has the metal sensibility. So it was perfect.

“And then with Tim Henson, we had a connection to his manager, and we knew he had done some soundtrack work and wanted to do more. For both guys we had cues in mind, and it was all fleshed out, except for the main melody part. We had written the melody, but we gave it to them to make it their own, essentially.”

They contributed some amazing playing – Charlie on Iron Dragons, which accompanies the Hong Kong dojo of the same name, and Tim on a piece named after the Spanish dojo, Furia De Pantera.

Robinson: “Well, Charlie was essentially on the payroll for five months. [Laughs] He’s featured on the Iron Dragons track, but he’s also all over the place. But both guys, we found that it renders the best results when you just let them cook, so to speak.

“They understood the assignment and we let them do their thing. And really quickly, I’ll just add that in Season 4, and this is kind of an Easter egg, but Tosin Abasi plays on the track Shirts Off. We did that really low-key, but I think this year we really wanted to kind of make it more of a statement and have these great players featured more on the soundtrack.”

Birenberg: “I would also add that our main guitar player is Andrew Synowiec, who is a top studio guy in L.A. He’s been kind of the heart and soul of the guitar sound of the show since the very first episode.”

Robinson: “And our good friend Myrone, who plays on things like Enter the Sekai Taikai. He played an amazing guitar solo on that. We give him a feature every season, and he’s also a major part of the Cobra Kai sound.”

There’s another great shred piece this season, Valley Bad Boys, that we hear during a fight scene between Johnny Lawrence and another karate “frenemy,” Mike Barnes. Who’s playing on that one?

Robinson: “That’s me, actually.”

Birenberg: “There are great Zach guitar parts sprinkled everywhere, though he doesn’t like to admit it. [Laughs]”

When you’re writing and playing something like that, where are you taking inspiration from?

Robinson: “That one in particular, I remember us being like, ‘We’ve just scored so many karate fights…’ [Laughs] So instead of doing something that was just some sort of hard rock or metal thing, we went quasi-thrash. The setting of the fight is in a wood shop, and it felt very raw.

“Honestly, we were just like, ‘Let’s do a Slayer thing.’ We’ve had some thrashy cues in the past – there’s one called Busted in Season 2 – but we don’t often have that speed and that sort of rhythmic chugging. It’s a little bit of a one-off, in a way. And it was really fun.”

What gear were you using this season?

Birenberg: “I have a lot of pedals that I run synthesizers through – a ton of Strymons. Because there’s a also huge synthesizer component to the show. One of the workhorses is a [Sequential] Prophet-6.

“And I have basically every variety of acoustic guitar, but no electrics in the studio. I was a jazz guy in high school. I played saxophone. Although I probably spent more hours listening to Pat Metheny in school than I have any other musician in my life.”

I was a jazz guy in high school… I probably spent more hours listening to Pat Metheny in school than I have any other musician in my life

Robinson: “I use an Ibanez RG550, neon, left-handed. It’s hard to find left-handed guitars that work well for this type of thing, although last season I found a featherweight left-handed Gibson Explorer.

“I also use a Hagstrom Swede for some of the heavier stuff, and a Danelectro Baritone. When I want to get a seven- or eight-string sound, I just tune that down and it sounds pretty good. I think Valley Bad Boys might actually be the Baritone.

“Then for amps I use a Kemper Profiler. I know it’s become kind of a mainstay for a lot of live performance stuff, but it’s amazing for composing. Because in our job, we have to write really quickly, we have to mock up a demo really quickly. With the Kemper, I turn it on and everything’s just dialed in.

“I have my 15 or so presets that are ready to go, and the Cobra Kai ones, hopefully I’ll get to use them again. [Laughs] But they have been very handy for the last five years.”

You guys have established a unique, and very recognizable, musical world in Cobra Kai. But it’s not the only thing you do. Where do you go from here?

Zach and I have very wide musical backgrounds, and there’s a lot of influences and dormant skills that are fun to bust out when needed

Birenberg: “I think one of our really strong talents is looking at a show or a movie and being able to prescribe what the sound should be. Like, looking at Cobra Kai and saying, ‘This should be this crazy combination of guitars and synthwave and orchestra…’ And then we go as hard as possible to make the score unmistakable.

“But the fact is Zach and I have very wide musical backgrounds, and there’s a lot of influences and dormant skills that are fun to bust out when needed. So I think we always just want to find new opportunities that will allow us to create a new sound, or something that hasn’t been heard before or hasn’t been explored before.

“We do have some other projects we’re working on now or have finished and are coming out soon that are really different, and that we’re really excited about.”

Robinson: “I think we’re now discovering that while we’re incredibly proud of this sound and this score, we’ve become in danger of just being known as the ‘guitar composers.’

“Because of Cobra Kai we’ve kind of become these people where other composers say to us, ‘I try to use guitars the way that you guys do.’ But we do lots of other stuff, too. [Laughs] And whatever we do, we put a lot of effort into it to make something that is super unique.

“With this project, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many amazing collaborators, beginning with Jon [Hurwitz], Josh [Heald] and Hayden [Schlossberg], the creators. Not many people will let you cook and let you go as hard as they let us go. Because with Cobra Kai it’s like, ‘Turn the gain all the way up!’

“That collaboration has been incredibly special. So no matter what we do, I think we need to be proactive in recreating that kind of lightning in a bottle every time.”

• Cobra Kai is streaming now on Netflix.