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Mastodon Updates ‘Jonah Hex’ Score
By Landfill | October 24, 2009
Remember last month we told you heavy metal rock band Mastodon would be scoring the upcoming CBM Jonah Hex? Yeah, well they recently talked about their latest gig scoring the film, how they got the job, and what they think their fans reactions would be. Continue with this article to find out what was said.
Turns out Hex director Jimmy Hayward is a big fan of the band. He said in order to finish the script for the upcoming CBM, he constantly listened to the band’s 2008 album Blood Mountain.
After feeling the inspiration from the band, Hayward felt obliged to offer the score to the band because they were already influencing the direction of the film.
“As opposed to labels profiteering the situation, saying they’d give a band $500,000 to use some song, he called us out of the blue as a fan,” said bassist Troy Sanders. “It was the most beautiful, authentic way to collaborate.”
After grabbing the band’s attention, Hayward invited Mastodon out to New Orleans where they were filming for the band to get a feel of the comic book movie. “They were immediately on the same wavelength of art, music and life in general.” said the bassist.
With the visiting band on location, the director gave lead guitarist Brett Hinds a cameo in the film. According to Paste Magazine, he’s the first of 172 poor souls to be slaughtered onscreen.
After meshing well with the production of the film, Mastodon wanted to do the score. They were flown out to Los Angeles by the studio to start production on the score.
“[The movie budget] covered our studio fees, but it was a break even deal,” Sanders said. “Malkovich, Brolin and Megan Fox all took pay cuts to be a part of this movie—that alone speaks volumes about how much people care about this film.”
The band worried at first of what their fans would think of them doing a CBM, “I guarantee an incredibly popular misconception will be, ‘Oh my god, they’re selling out doing a fucking comic-book movie. They probably got a huge paycheck and don’t give a shit about integrity,’” Sanders continued. “The fact is the exact opposite. We sacrificed another two weeks away from home to give away an album’s worth of material for nothing in return but satisfaction in being a part of something incredible.”
Sanders goes on to say the director gave them scene after scene of the film in order to get the right feel for the score. He also said the band was given 100% creative control for the score.
This from the source:
The resulting music is about an hour long in total, all instrumental, including five full songs and many smaller musical themes adapted throughout. Upon finishing, it was then given to composer John Powell ( Shrek, The Bourne Identity), who will paste the music to the movie. Some of the material, Sanders said, will likely be adapted for the London Orchestra for particularly epic scenes. “We wrote variations on themes for each character, different variables for a bunch of riffs: faster, slower, heavier, lighter,” Sanders said. “It’s the Darth Vader approach.”
And finally, the bassist said this is possibly the furthest Mastodon has stretched their sound. He said the sound they created for the upcoming CBM is something like Pink Floyd, Melvins B-sides, with a touch of Neil Young’s Dead Man. The band member used words like swirling, surreal, outer space, nausea music, to describe the score.
Topics: Jonah Hex | 4 Comments »
4 Responses to “Mastodon Updates ‘Jonah Hex’ Score”
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October 25th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I think this teaming of Mastodon and John Powell is going to be fantastic! I was just recently introduced to Mastodon’s music, and I’m in love with it. There are few bands that I can compare to the musical talent of Muse and Tool, and Mastodon is now one of them. I also love Powell’s style (just for more references, he also scored X3 and all of the Bourne movies), so this combination is going to be great! I can’t wait to see the final product. <3
October 25th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Haven’t really gotten into Mastodon yet but I do like the sound of Muse and Tool and if they are anything like that, I’ll lend an ear or two.
By the way, I can’t wait to hear a sample of what Mastodon has in story for the fans of comic book movies.
As for Powell, I had no idea he had prior CBM work. Hope it all works out well.
Oh yeah, welcome to the site Jubilee, look forward to more of your comments.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Thanks, Landfill. I’ve lurked around the site for quite a while, now, but just haven’t gotten a screen name before.
November 9th, 2009 at 2:08 am
I hear that all the time, someone’s always reading but never speaking their thoughts through comments. Glad you finally joined up to add to the conversation.