For a long time it was rumored that former Guns N’ Roses/current Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash had done something for “The Wrestler,” but what exactly since longtime Darren Aronofsky composer Clint Mansell wrote the score?
The L.A. Times’ Pop & Hiss caught up with Mansell, and the answer kind of figures. Much like “The Fountain” score which Mansell wrote but Mogwai and the Kronos Quartet played, and for “The Wrestler” the moody guitar music was written by Mansell, but performed by Slash.
“We just thought it would be interesting, given that the character’s favorite music is rock — metal — music,” Mansell said. “We wanted that sensibility and wanted to bridge the gap between score and source. Slash is one of the world’s great guitar players, and he was up for trying something different than what he’s known for, but he could also bring his sensibility to what I was trying to do.”
Coincidentally, a lot of the music that influenced Mansell’s minimalist and mantra-like guitar score to the film was the stark early music of Bruce Springsteen, who of course wrote the title track.
“I had talked to Darren [Aronofsky] about Springsteen’s Nebraska album. It’s an emotional record, but it’s quite restrained — it keeps the emotion at a distance. I thought that this was the character that Randy Robinson was. That led me towards the guitar” (The fact that the film is set in New Jersey didn’t hurt either).
Will There Be A ‘Wrestler’ Soundtrack CD?
We’ve been asking for weeks if a rock-centric soundtrack to “The Wrestler” is being released, but so far we haven’t heard anything concrete. As previously mentioned in our original review, the film does feature Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (a track that Mickey Rourke personally procured from Axl Rose), Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head”) and Ratt’s “Round and Round,” and a boatload of ’80s metal and rock classics, but it was impossible to mark them all down in the credits (and some were covers from new bands, but a lot of the music was written into the original script and we marked down all the songs). The L.A. rock band Rhinobucket does have a song in the film as well, but the title of the track is unknown right now. We’d love a soundtrack disc to come out, but we’re betting clearing a lot of well-known ’80s rock and metal classics isn’t an easy thing to do, especially for a small, low-budgeted film like this one.
Mansell is apparently now working on the score to “The Rebound,” a rom-com starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. “The Wrestler” is out today in New York and L.A. in limited release.