about his contribution to "Lost Highway"
"David Lynch rang me up and said 'Yesterday, I listened to your music for
eight hours. I really like what you do and I'd like you to contribute
something to my new picture'," says Adamson. What began as one track
soon blossomed into a dozen when the two s
at down and worked through the script. "The film is so up my street,"
adds Adamson. "I connected with it totally. It's a thriller, it's noir,
there's mystery, horror, it was perfect for me."
Tell me about you and David Lynch?
"I just finished doing 40 minutes of music
on his new movie. It'll probably get honed down . Trent Reznor is also
contributing, underneath a score by Angelo Badalamenti. We've got a healthy
crack at what's going on. It's a pretty amazing movie, right up my street. It
fits well with what I do, which is pretty much why he got me on board in the
first place. I'm working with a director of such incredible calibre and
ideas..."
How did you tackle the job?
"I read the script first just to get an idea of
what it was about. He asked what I thought about it and I said `F*#k! It's
wonderful.' He said (Adamson does a stirling impression of Lynch's character
Gordon from Twin Peaks) `Right up your alley, right?' I said `Yeah.' A
lot of the ideas I try to get to, and the world I try to create - we're very
similar, but on a greater level. I've always done stuff like this, y'know
soundtrack stuff. When I did Moss Side Story it was like a calling card,
saying I was `Soundtrack minded. I think in those terms, y'know. I'm pretty
visual. So if you're making a movie and you can hear this fitting in anywhere
then I'm your man.' When this Lynch thing came along, I wasn't too blown away,
`cos I know what it is to write to picture. I've done those kind of
things. I've done enough of it to get over certain things that hang you up in
the first place."
Did you use all original music?
"I wrote 10 original pieces in a six week
trail-blazing, crazy period. There's a party scene that's really weird..."
No! Weird?!? Not our David!
"You'll see. I'm not gonna tell you; but that's putting
it mildly. They're slotting in Something Wicked This Way Comes from
Oedipus Schmoedipus - which is a great feel for that mood. As the scene
progresses, it gets a little darker and the song will fade into the background.
That's the only `pre-released' song."
The August issue of England's "The Wire" magazine features an Invisible
Jukebox column with Barry Adamson, who's done some music for Lynch's "Lost
Highway." For those unfamiliar with him, he was bassist with postpunk
group Magazine and a founding member of Nick Cave's The Bad Seeds. Here's
what he has to say:
Adamson: "I've just done some work with David Lynch and he was very clear
about what he wanted from the emotion of the scene, so he'd direct me in
certain ways. Once I got in the ballpark, he'd say, 'Now I want you to go
in a little further. Look at the eyes there. What are they saying, even
though they're talking about this?' Then you start to underpin the
emotions so it becomes three-dimensional."
Interviewer: "When I first saw Lynch's "Eraserhead" in my
teens, I found Alan Splet's sound design extremely draining."
Adamson: "Incredible, incredible. This new film is draining, I tell you. I
left the screening of it so worried. [Laughs] One scene is not too far
from that ["Background To Murder"] in terms of the orchestration,
lots of bass trombones and stuff, then it goes into other areas that are
pure horror-noir. It's scary. I couldn't listen to this music for very
long because things would start happening to me. I'd go home and people
would start ringing the door bell at two in the morning and I'd think,
'That's never happened to me. What's going on?'"