If you’re a fan of “Drive,” you may be familiar with the bands who delivered some of the neon-slicked tunes — Chromatics (“Tick Of The Clock”) and Desire (“Under Your Spell”) — but you might not know the name behind them: Johnny Jewel. He co-wrote those two songs, produced some of the other key tracks and was pretty much instrumental in providing the sound (along with Cliff Martinez‘s score) that became part of they key textures of the film, and it looks like Ryan Gosling really appreciated his work as well.
Speaking with Noisey, he revealed that he’s currently writing music for “How To Catch A Monster,” the actor’s directorial debut starring Christina Hendricks, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes, Saoirse Ronan and “Doctor Who” star Matt Smith. “It’s more doo-wop, disintegrated rockabilly mixed in with industrial sounds. So we’ve been listening to a lot of Alan Vega and the Shangri-La’s,” he said of the music, before adding a tantalizing tease about the movie, which follows a single mother of two and her teenage son who discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town: “It’s a really bizarre, fantasy-type story, in the vein of ‘Goonies‘ meets ‘Twin Peaks.’ ” That definitely sounds pretty intriguing.
Meanwhile, you might recall that Jewel was planning to reteam with Refn on the long-developing “Logan’s Run” remake over at Warner Bros. He’s still on the project, though he doesn’t sound optimistic about it coming to fruition. “I’ve been working on that one for about three years, but that one is still in pre-production. It might not even happen,” he said.” Ryan [Gosling] left the film, and Nic [Winding Refn] isn’t sure what he’s doing. I have a pile of stuff for ‘Logan’s Run’ that is awesome, but it’s a work in progress, and it’s very different from anything else that I’ve ever done…”
That’s not all on Jewel’s plate, as he’s also scored the Joe Carnahan directed pilot for the upcoming Fox series “Those Who Kill” starring Chloe Sevigny, an indie flick called “Beautiful Now” and another film called “Pimp” starring Dakota Fanning. It would seem that “Drive” really put the musician/producer on the map but will it be too much glittery glam pop and electro to handle? Well, we’ll have to see but we’re intrigued to hear all this upcoming work nonetheless.