UK: GRAMMY AWARD WINNING COMPOSER DAVID ARNOLD TALKS ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIPS WITH MUSIC FROM PAST BOND FILMS

Record ID: 387301

  • Title: UK: GRAMMY AWARD WINNING COMPOSER DAVID ARNOLD TALKS ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIPS WITH MUSIC FROM PAST BOND FILMS
  • Date: 5th November 1997
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (NOVEMBER 5, 1997) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) COMPOSER DAVID ARNOLD SAYING, "YOUNG AMERICANS WAS WRITTEN IN MY BEDROOM IN MY FLAT ON A YAMAHA KEYBOARD AND A LITTLE COMPUTER AND THAT WAS IT THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE INVOLVED. THEN TO GET STARGATE WHICH WAS LIKE AN EIGHTY MILLION DOLLAR SCIENCE FICTION HOLLYWOOD EXTRAVANZA, I STILL,
  • Embargoed: 20th November 1997 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVA6LGJWDY3D4HDHIEXHN2ZBN3VV
  • Story Text: Grammy award winning composer David Arnold spoke about his relationship with music from past Bond films on Friday (November 14), as the world waited for the December release of the latest spy saga "Tomorrow Never Dies" - for which Arnold wrote the soundtrack.

    While Arnold has to wait to see how popular his new music becomes, his currently released album "Shaken and Strirred" - a compilation of reworked Bond tracks - continues to generate interest.

    The first release from the album was the hugely popular single by The Propellerheads - "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

    "Diamonds are Forever" performed by David McAlmont and Arnold, is the latest track for release as a single from the album which features current artists singing the old songs.

    Arnold was introduced to soundtrack writing after meeting fledgling film maker Danny Cannon. Writing the scores for over twenty of Cannon's low budget shorts gave Arnold more than simply a taste for the art.

    Cannon subsequently contacted Arnold to write the music for his feature debut, "Young Americans" - the music for which Arnold said he created in his bedroom on a Yamaha keyboard and a computer.

    Not long after that, Arnold was discovered by director Roland Emmerich, who commissioned him to score the science fiction film "Stargate" and subsequently the record breaking "Independence Day" for which Arnold won the Grammy.

    In October this year Arnold also clinched Britain's Broadcast Music Industry award for "Independence Day".

    Among his current releases is the sound track for the film, "A life Less Ordinary".

    The transition from "Young Americans" to "Stargate" left an impression and Arnold confessed to feeling a little out of his depth.

    "All of a sudden I was in Hollywood with all this stuff and studio executives phoning me up and asking me questions about things I didn't know anything about." he said.

    According to Arnold, film music is not the arena to be stamping your personality, because most of the time the film tells you what it needs, and not the other way around.

    When Arnold was asked to update songs from the James Bond films, which were originally sung by the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Bassey, he found that today's chart parade hero's were keen to join the album project.

    Arnold explained, "I loved the songs it's as simple as that, and I think everyone in this country (U.K.) grown up with those dongs in the back of their heads,...its been hugely influential on contemporary British music." The resultantant collection of updated Bond Songs, on"Shaken and Stirred" proved so popular with the musicians that there simply was not room to include Radio Head, Oasis, Bjork and Portishead - all of whom were reportedly desperate to get on the album.

    The first single to be released from the album, was The Propellerheads track "On her Majesty's Secret Service".

    Arnold maintains that the album is less of a tribute to Bond himself than to the songs and to their composer John Barry.

    Arnold believes Bond music owes its popularity to its ability to cut its own path in the history of music. "They didn't tip the hat to anything that was going on around themand so they became just of their own era, their own ilk, which is why they are still, you know...you can play them now and they still sound kinda cool and contemporary".

    Arnold had such a positive reation to his Bond reworking that the producers of the next Bond film (the 18th) "Tomorrow Never Dies" asked him to score the music.

    Speaking about the soon to be released movie soundtrack, Arnold said, "it has all the elements of a classic Bond music and the way I have kind of described it is I've tried to keep one foot in the sixties and one in the nineties."
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