How did a semi-obscure post-rock band come to score a big budget Hollywood movie? Good ol’ email. Music supervisor Brian Reitzell (Sofia Coppola’s go-to movie mixtape guy; former Red Kross member) wrote the Austin orchestral rockers Explosions in The Sky and asked if they were interested in recording music for the film, “Friday Night Lights.”
Having grown up in the Lonestar state, the band were all too familiar with the novel the movie was based on and the world that the film was set in (the rapturously die-hard world of high school football in Southern Texas). Aside from corporate, working with “the man” trepidation, the match was a perfect fit and after meeting with Reitzell, Explosions’ wariness was immediately assuaged.
“Our fears of having weird movie producers and studio executives hovering over us were completely unfounded. It was just us, Brian Reitzell and two friendly Australian engineers (Justin Stanley and Richard Jory),” the band wrote on their website, acting almost as apologists for their association with a big-budget film. The band were surrounded by all type of rare instruments, but decided to keep it simple and stick with what they did best; slowly crescendoing orchestral rock. Their sweeping and ascending rock gestures majestically took the drama to new heights and Reitzell scored yet another feather in his perfectly-atypical-picks-for-movie music cap. Beck’s dad, arranger David Campbell also added some dramatically tasteful strings to some Explosions songs (most notably “Your Hands In Mine”).
The Explosions songs featured in the film are comprised of old songs ‘Lights’ director Peter Berg had already fallen in love with and new songs the band wrote specifically for the movie (and in some cases, old songs slightly retweaked).
Not featured on the soundtrack, but used in the films and in keeping with the late ’80s era setting, are songs by Public Enemy, Motley Crue, L.A. Guns and Poison (The great Boobie Miles has to shake his ass to something). The film and soundtrack disc also features music by the great Daniel Lanois, Bad Company, and aforementioned engineer Justin Stanley. Despite playing a super-convincing Class A jackass, father and former football star, Tim McGraw has no music in the film.
Download: Explosions In The Sky – “Remember Me As A Time Of Day”
Download: Explosions In The Sky – “First Breath After Coma”
