![]() It keeps the energy up, and it’s weird to have other music. Most of the underscore is taken up by Elton’s songs. Which incorporates still more Elton music. On a couple tracks, we had the rhythm section from Chic, who I bumped into in the corridor of Abbey Road and said, “Listen, do you want to play on ‘Rocketman’?” Taron came in and sang live with them, and they were like, “God, he can really cut it.”īesides the gazillion songs, the film somehow finds room for an underscore as well. I had some pretty good guys playing on this album. If he wasn’t such a good actor, he could be a singer. But it’s a good album, and Taron’s really good. The schedule was crazy: While we’re making this huge film, we’re going to make the soundtrack album as well? It’s 22 tracks - a big album. And that was still during the filmmaking process, so it was taxing on both of us. I had to go back forensically on the tracks we’d done and piece them together and get Taron to come in and sing more. “Tiny Dancer” is half of “Tiny Dancer,” and “Rocket Man” is missing a verse, and all this kind of stuff. I suddenly called up Taron and said, “Listen, we’ve got to go record some stuff.” Because in the movie, we haven’t got full versions of songs. It was only halfway through, when it was kind of surprising that they said to me that they wanted to do a soundtrack album. In some of your tweets you made it sound like you didn’t spend too much time worrying about the fact that there was going to be a soundtrack album while initially making the film. I had actually written the score for a film called “Mobile” a while back, but this is a big undertaking, and I’m happy they chose me. It’s a big project, and I’ve never done a film like this before. It’s actually it’s quite a leap of faith on their part. So I knew both of them, actually, and Matthew mentioned that Elton said nice things about me, and that’s how that happened. With (producer) Matthew Vaughn, I had worked on a sequence in the church on the first “Kingsman” movie where I mashed up and rearranged “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Was that the connection that brought you into this project? “Oh my God,” he said, “what a day that was.“ Because we recorded him just after Diana’s funeral for that record. And I said, “The last time we were in the studio together and I recorded you, it was ‘Candle in the Wind’”. It just rode on a wave of his confidence, and eventually at the end of the project, we did get together in the studio because we recorded the end-titles track (“I’m Gonna Love Me Again”). He was really happy we were using earlier songs - like “Amoreena,” “Take Me to the Pilot,” “Hercules” and some deeper cuts - as well as the classics. I’ll hear it when he’s finished.” And that gave me confidence, and at the same time, it makes you think, well, I better not screw it up. And I have complete faith in Giles, so I don’t need to hear anything. There was an allocation of an hour and half to play Elton some music, and I was like, “Well, I haven’t actually got anything really good to play you! I’ve just been doing sketches of everything.” And in front of everyone, he goes, “Listen, I’ve heard Taron he’s great. He came to a rehearsal to watch them doing the choreography for “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” which is a big sequence in the film. (He also offered at least a hint when, on behalf of Beatlemaniacs everywhere, we asked whether he’s scheduled to work on an “Abbey Road” box set that’s expected to appear before the end of the year, as he did the last two such 50th anniversary collections.)Įlton was said to be pretty hands-off with the film, but did he give you any input during the process? Martin spoke with Variety about the challenges and ingenuities of recasting such familiar material for a large-scale movie musical that still has to rock.
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