Elfman notches another holiday

The composer is set to reprise his role as Jack Skellington at the Hollywood Bowl.

- By KATHERINE TURMAN

ETHAN BENAVIDEZ For The Times DANNY ELFMAN, a frequent Tim Burton collaborator, has composed more than 100 feature film scores.

For the composer/star of “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas in Concert,” the annual Santa-centric holiday proved a bit scary as a kid growing up in Los Angeles.

“Halloween was always my favorite night,” admits Danny Elfman, who is reprising his singing role as Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, for the 10th anniversary of the star-studded live version of 1993’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” film. “Christmas time, Iwasalonely Jewish kid with no friends to play with, and it would just be me and my brother looking at each other, and he’s like, ‘I'm gonna kick your ass.’”

The Elfman of today — who, at 72, counts more than 100 feature film scores, themes for “The Simpsons,” “Spider-Man” and leading the lauded L.A. cult band Oingo Boingo among his numerous plaudits — could hardly have imagined his success.

In fact, he says, “It’s amazing that I’m still alive, because I used to irradiate insects and try to create little mutants. This is like when I’m 44, and I built my own Geiger counter. I was a weird little kid. I had radioactive isotopes in my room, Inthe ’60s, you could just order some strontium-90, cobalt-60 and little packets of radioactive test site sand.”

The self-confessed teenage nerd was dedicated to weird science as a vocation. “Music didn’t seem like an option to me when I got to high school, because all my musician friends started when they were kids, like most musicians do, right? So for me, the ship had sailed. I’m too late.”