The poster for Judd Apatow‘s “Walk Hard: The Story Of Dewey Cox” was recently revealed and you’ll remember that we noticed that musician/composer Michael Andrews (“Donnie Darko,” “Me & You & Everyone We Know,“) was composing the music for the rock biopic satire (the connection? Andrews scored ‘Hard’ director Jake Kasdan’s first feature, “The Zero Effect,” and did some music for Apatow’s “Freaks & Geeks“).
Well we decided to reach out to Andrews and ask a few questions about the film that stars John C. Reilly as a Johnny Cash-like figure (Dewey Cox) and the movie’s score and he graciously answered them, if somewhat cautiously as not to upset any of the film’s producers (can’t say we blame him).
We know that a shit-load of musicians contributed songs for Reilly’s character to sing in the film (the spoof tracks his career over the course of at least four decades) including songwriters Dan Bern and Candy Butchers frontman Mike Viola, renowned producer/musician/lyricist Van Dyke Parks and Marshall Crenshaw.
Andrews told us that he co-wrote a song with Van Dyke Parks, L.A. folk-rocker Charlie Wadhams (he’s worked with Andrews, Inara George, Eleni Mandell and Joey Warokner) wrote two tracks and John C. Reilly even co-wrote a song as well.
Kasdan wrote many songs on his debut “The Zero Effect,” and the director and Apatow had once talked about writing songs for the film, but as thought, it was more in a conceptual manner. “Because a lot of the songs are part of the story line they were very involved with the songwriting,” Andrews told us. “Musically [Apatpow and Kasdan] did not write the notes but were there every step of the way, a lot of the songs sprang from their ideas. Jake is always very hands on.”
Andrews said that John C. Reilly sings all the original songs except for an all star tribute song during a lifetime achievement award for Dewey Cox that is sung by Lyle Lovett, Ghostface, Jewel, Ghostface Killah and Jackson Browne.
Don’t expect an “I’m Not There” soundtrack disc scenario of covers either. Folks like Jack White and Eddie Vedder may appear in the film, but you won’t hear anyone on the upcoming 2-disc Box of Cox CD either. It’s all songs sung by John C. Reilly. “This is a Dewey Cox record. All the songs on the main soundtrack will be Dewey Cox original material sung by Dewey. All songs were written specifically for the movie. Dewey Cox is the only artist to have ever performed them outside of demo form,” Andrews emphasized.
Director Jake Kasdan recently echoed Andrews sentiments in an interview with MTV and confirmed the Box of Cox (or Cox Box, they’re apparently not totally settled on the title). It’s a fake music biopic, and we developed the guy’s whole canon,” he said of the tunes sung by Reilly’s Dewey Cox in the flick. “We worked with songwriters, and recorded 30 original songs that John tracked and sang … The movie is almost a musical. It’s wall-to-wall music, and that adds a tremendous amount of complexity in terms of just executing it.”
Kasdan also talked about the character arch and musical styles that Cox goes through over the decades. “He starts out as a contemporary of Elvis, so he’s a Waylon Jennings/Roy Orbison composite – this country guy, infused with an early-rock crooner. In the 60s, he goes through a political period and starts singing protest songs defending the rights of underrepresented groups like the North American mullato. In the late ’60s he gets involved with LSD, and goes into a psychedelic period. In the ’70s, there’s the disco period, and then he goes quiet for a while. A brief punk period [follows], then he discovers cocaine.”
ComingSoon.net also spoke to Kasdan and Apatow recently, thought it’s pretty amusing watching movie people completely out of their element discussing music (in their attempts to transcribe the interview, they call legendary Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks, “Mike Park,” The Candy Butchers, “The Candy Britches” and Charlie Wadhams “Charlie Bottoms” ha.). The piece reveals the lyrics for the John C. Reily/Jenna Fischer duet aptly titled, “Let’s Duet” (you’ve heard some of it in the trailer), Van Dyke Parks’ role (“[He] came in and worked on the Beach Boys psychedelic period. We asked him to make fun of himself.”), 30 original songs and at least 5 covers – though Andrews has said there is 40-plus songs, a few new song titles (the pre-posthumous “Dewey Cox Died Today” and “Guilty As Charged”), and even a hip-hop track (“[There’s a period where] Dewey is older, and semi-retired. This rap star Lil’ Nutsack samples “Walk Hard” and makes the filthiest song you have ever heard…and man, it’s really dirty.”)
There’s a ton of musical contributors on the film, but John C. Reilly said Andrews was the driving force that held the project together. “He was the one that was pulling all of the levers and arranging the music. He was the one guiding the musicians, and pulling the right groups of people together for the different sounds. He was our guru…the ringleader in the studio.”
“Walk Hard’ is due December 21 and Andrews is currently recording the film’s instrumental score material as we speak.
“Walk Hard” trailer