We’re always up for a good music related drama — hell, we are called The Playlist — but we do wish they weren’t often as corny as what we’re about to report.
Details have surfaced for Peter Foldy’s (“Silver Man”) forthcoming drama “Rock & Roll Confessions.” The film, boasting an interesting cast of Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Virginia Madsen and Maxwell Caulfield, deals with a rock band that is one their way to recording their third album after dealing with the sophomore slump. With a video crew following them (who wants to bet the entire film will be shot through them?), the band has inner turmoil, with the bass player finding God and the drummer only caring about girls and money. Things go awry when the bell-hop turns out to be their former drummer with a gun. Before he kills them, he makes the band confess to all the wrongs they have done. We only wish were making this up, but see for yourself in the full synopsis below:
A young rock band returns to their hometown of Milwaukee after a couple of years on the road. The band’s first album has been a huge success that saw them touring the world, but their follow up has failed miserably, and now their third CD is crucial to their survival. The band itself is in a bit of a turmoil. The camaraderie that once existed has been replaced by animosity, jealousy and apathy. The band’s leader, Brandon, is very strong in his conviction as to what their music should sound like but his bass player, Joe, has other ideas. Joe has not only found God but also a good conservative Christian woman who encourages him to quit the group and spread the word of the lord. Their drummer, Spanky cares little about band politics. He’s there for the fun, the money–and the girls.
Staying at one of Milwaukee’s historic hotels, the band is being followed everywhere by a video crew that is filming them for a behind-the-scenes documentary. The lads soon discover that their former drummer, Danny, (whom they had fired on the very eve of their success two years earlier), is now a bellhop at the hotel and has shown up in Brandon’s room to deliver room service.
Instead of dinner, Danny reveals a gun and tells his former band-mates that he is there to get back what they’ve stolen from him—his fifteen minutes of fame. Before he kills them however, he is going to set the record straight and make each of them confess to all the wrongs they have done.
As the evening unfolds and Danny holds them hostage, truths and secrets are painfully revealed. The tense ordeal finally ends in an unexpected and violent tragedy. Danny however does get what he came for. His fifteen minutes of fame.
Full of edgy dialogue, behind-the-scenes drama and cool music, “Rock & Roll Confessions” is a realistic look at the cut-throat nature of the music business—its young characters ones you may always remember.
This frankly sounds ludicrous; talk about throwing every rock cliché in the book in a blender and hitting frappé. Interpersonal band relationships are often fractious enough, but pumping it full of characters finding God and wielding guns and then slapping a faux documentary angle on top of it seems like the screenwriters have crammed every idea they ever had into one movie. The film will go in front of cameras in October and we would assume will start doing festival rounds in 2011. — additional reporting by Christopher Bell
