Washington, DC retro-future-rockers Trans Am have revealed that their new album, Thing, was originally supposed to be a soundtrack to a “Hollywood sci-fi film.”
Drummer Sebastian Thomson tells Brightest Young Things “Yeah, it was supposed to be some sci-fi film which was sort of a mid-range budget Hollywood movie and apparently the money fell through, but when we were told that we had already been excited about doing a soundtrack so we decided to keep on going.” Sounds interesting. Details are scarce on the canceled project, as talks fell apart before the band could find out anything substantial but, “Apparently the storyline was…it had something to do with aliens that are somehow undead…or something? And one of the plot lines is some kind of love affair between a human and one of these aliens? Some kind of Romeo and Juliet-like forbidden love kind of thing.”
While the band never really found out what the project was, in an interview on the Thrill Jockey website, they do have their guesses, “Well, we were supposed to get some serious cash to record a soundtrack for a Hollywood sci-fi film. We never found out for sure what the project was, but Trans Am has a feeling it was the soundtrack to ‘Avatar.’ Then Jim Cameron got cold feet and had James Horner come in to do his soaring orchestral bullshit. We’re not going to lie to you, that hurt. But Jim’s got a job to do and we understand it’s business, not personal.”
Before “Avatar”-nerds fly off the deep end, dudes seem to be joking about that. And also, there is no way that “Avatar” could ever be described as “mid-budget.” There are about a zillion sci-fi movies (and episodes of “Star Trek”) about inter-species doomed love, but it would be interesting to find out just what project Trans Am were being offered before it went elsewhere. Anyone have any inside scoops they want to send us?
Thing by Trans Am hits record stores tomorrow, April 20, 2010 via Thrill Jockey.
