Composers

Composer Junkie XL Discusses His Score For RUN ALL NIGHT; Listen To Four Tracks

By Michelle McCue | March 13, 2015

Opening in theaters on Friday, March 13th is RUN ALL NIGHT. The action thriller stars Oscar nominees Liam Neeson and Ed Harris and is directed of Jaume Collet-Serra (NON-STOP).

Brooklyn mobster and prolific hit man Jimmy Conlon (Neeson), once known as The Gravedigger, has seen better days. Longtime best friend of mob boss Shawn Maguire (Harris), Jimmy, now 55, is haunted by the sins of his past—as well as a dogged police detective (Vincent D’Onofrio) who’s been one step behind Jimmy for 30 years. Lately, it seems Jimmy’s only solace can be found at the bottom of a whiskey glass.

But when Jimmy’s estranged son, Mike (Joel Kinnaman), becomes a target, Jimmy must make a choice between the crime family he chose and the real family he abandoned long ago. With Mike on the run, Jimmy’s only penance for his past mistakes may be to keep his son from the same fate Jimmy is certain he’ll face himself…at the wrong end of a gun. Now, with nowhere safe to turn, Jimmy just has one night to figure out exactly where his loyalties lie and to see if he can finally make things right.

RUN ALL NIGHT also stars Nick Nolte, Bruce McGill, Genesis Rodriguez and Oscar winner Common.

The film’s score is from Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum producer and composer Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg).

He previously scored 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE and his additional works include Robert Luketic’s PARANOIA and the young adult film DIVERGENT, based on Veronica’s Roth’s successful trilogy.

The foundation for this new career path was laid in his native Holland, where he created multiple film scores. Earlier in his composing career, Junkie XL also provided music for such films as “Bandslam,” “DOA: Dead or Alive,” “The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury,” “The Animatrix” and “Resident Evil.”

He later continued to grow under mentorships with celebrated composers like Harry Gregson-Williams, on the films DOMINO and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, and Klaus Badelt on CATWOMAN. From there, Junkie XL formed a highly successful association with Hans Zimmer. They have collaborated on films including the 2013 blockbuster MAN OF STEEL, Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, the MADAGASCAR films, MEGAMIND and INCEPTION.

Junkie XL’s music accompanies the night’s journey with Jimmy and Shawn facing the ultimate sacrifice for their sons.

“I’ve always had a soft spot for the tapestry of family conflict in movies, especially if you can wrap it up in a little bit of action, and I believe this movie has all of that,” says Liam Neeson.

Collet-Serra notes, “I think if audiences come for the action, they’ll get hooked in by the emotion, and they’ll enjoy quite a ride.”

In my recent interview with the composer, Junkie XL and I discussed his latest score as well as his upcoming music for some of the most anticipated films in 2015 and 2016.

Warning: Movie plot SPOILERS ahead.

WAMG: Where’d the name Junkie XL come from?

Junkie XL: From my teens, because I was spending too much time listening to music, playing drums or on the guitar. The XL I added later which stands for Expanding Limits.

WAMG: I was wondering how one goes from Tom to Junkie XL.

Junkie XL: You don’t get born a Junkie, you become a Junkie.

WAMG: Director Jaume Collet-Serra said, “It was very important that with a movie called ‘Run All Night,’ we don’t just run from Brooklyn to Queens. You want to run through all of New York. We made a big effort to go into Manhattan several times, as well as Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. We really shot almost everywhere.”

Audiences haven’t seen an action movie like RUN ALL NIGHT in some time. Your score doesn’t overpower the chase scenes.

Junkie XL: When I saw the movie the first time, I thought the more interesting part to tell was not necessarily the action but the story of two dads having a troubled relationship and the two sons. When I started writing the music for the movie, they were actually very emotional themes. The movie opens with that, the movie ends with it – ultimately you need some big action music every now and then. When you have 15 helicopters over a building with a 150 FBI agents looking for two guys, you really can’t score that with a piano and a flute.

There were a lot of moments where I basically advised the director not to use music at all. The chase scene through New York City between the cop car and Liam Neeson, I said let’s basically go back to some really cool chase scenes that we have in the 70’s with just the sounds of bullets like in THE FRENCH CONNECTION – let’s not use music at all.

Another scene where Liam Neeson chases Ed Harris through the train tracks. It was another spot that I wanted to go scoreless and only go with some cool sound effects. Have the music start once Harris’s character is killed.

I think it’s an interesting movie too like you said. There’s not really an action movie at this point that does it like this and there’s some really proper acting in it. My favorite scene is in the restaurant during the conversation between Ed Harris and Liam Neeson. It was another example where I said we don’t need music here – just let the actors act.

WAMG: Fans of this genre will appreciate your themes for Jimmy and Shawn Maguire and as well as Jimmy and his son, Mike. Both are very subtle moments of your score.

Junkie XL: There are two main themes – one is for Jimmy and one is for Shawn. Then it gets sprinkled down to their sons. The theme for Michael is very much related to Jimmy, while the theme for Danny is very much related to his dad Shawn. It seems to make a lot of sense to have just those two. In a movie like this you could go with almost too many themes and then it becomes cluttered. I wanted to make it very clear what the intention is and what these characters are going through.

WAMG: The movie is about surviving the night, but it’s also about redemption.

Junkie XL: The movie is totally about redemption and the most beautiful part of the theme that I hint at, at the beginning, comes at the very end when Liam Neeson’s character dies and his hand falls to the right that we see the card with all the names of the people he’s killed. Plus his son Michael and the FBI agent need redemption too, so at the very end everyone finds some kind of peace. That’s why I took the thematic material from Jimmy and Michael and turned it into a warm, fuzzy motif because at that point in his life he’s fine where he is, and he got to have that moment with his dad. Jimmy’s only got one shot at redemption, at having his son not hate him anymore.

WAMG: How much of the movie did you see or even know about before composing the score?

Junkie XL: They waited quite a long time and I got in really late in the mix. I received a call somewhere in November from Darren Higman (Vice President of Music at Warner Bros.) and he said that the movie would be opening up soon and would I be interested. I said yes. He then asked if I could write a small demo theme of a couple of minutes that could help convince the director that I was the right guy.

He then told me the story of the film and I was so inspired that I wrote twenty minutes of music. I went to Warner Brothers where I saw the film, and realized the music I wrote would fit perfectly with it and then went back and wrote another 35 minutes of music. I ended up having 55 minutes of a sketchbook.

I met the director for the first time and handed him 55 minutes of music for the film. He listened to the whole thing and Collet-Serra said, “this is like the story of the movie!” He called me back later that night and said it was perfect and exactly what he was looking for.

After I got the job, we started turning it into cues and we only ended up having two meetings about the music because he was so convinced because I got what the movie needed. That’s a very important task for a composer to take that kind of stress off the director. They have a lot of things on their mind and by making a sketchbook of the music, that’s one less thing for them to worry about.

WAMG: The interesting transitions of jumping from one part of the city to the next through visual effects are very compelling. Did you see that before you started composing?

Junkie XL: That was as we went. When I saw the movie for the first time, it didn’t have those shots. At that specific point, the movie was testing so well with audiences, they were able to add those clever special effects. I think it’s important to the story because it shows the audience what’s going on in different parts of the city and correlates to the previous scene. The violence in the film is very personal – it’s not just a bunch of random shootings with people dropping like flies. The music didn’t need to be big during those scenes and it needed to feel personal.

The score gets the biggest halfway through the film when Jimmy and Michael are stuck inside the apartment building with the hired killer (played by Common) and the police are surrounding them, that’s where the music gets really big. It’s also the moment in the film where if they can’t make it through here, there’s not going to be a future to begin with. After that scene, it kind of mellows down again and the violence becomes personal again to the one on one situation. I thought it was great to score that scene really big then go back to small.

WAMG: Nick Nolte’s unexpected cameo is pretty cool. The music is very gritty like the classic hit man films of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Junkie XL: I’ve been doing a lot of research on these older movies. I went as far back as “Le professionnel” with Jean-Paul Belmondo with a score from Ennio Morricone, or even THE GODFATHER – all these movies were scored with a very emotional theme. We’re talking about a modern 2015 movie and it’s hard to make films for a big audience where there’s mostly no music and just music only where it counts.

Unfortunately that’s not the case and people want to be thrilled constantly, but I do feel RUN ALL NIGHT has a high level of 70’s quality to it and how it’s composed. Plus, how it looks and how it sounds – the sound effects are not overpowering either which is usually the case in an action movie. It’s nice for a composer to fill the blanks with music that tells the story, especially on this film. It was great to make music that was actually going to be heard.

WAMG: You covered the gamut of instruments for the score. What was your go-to instruments for the score?

Junkie XL: The signature instrument for Liam’s character was the piano. The signature instrument for Shawn (Ed Harris) was a solo cello. I used a distinct signature rhythm especially for Mr. Price (Common), the hired hitman.

Then I used a lot of unique sound designs from voices and choirs that I recorded a long time ago which was a very signature sound along with synthesizers and certain melodies and harmonies.

WAMG: What other film scores are you composing for?

Junkie XL: I’m going to be writing two during the rest of the year.

I’m starting on the reboot of POINT BREAK. That movie comes out in December so I have some time still.

I’m also working on BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE which I will be doing with Hans Zimmer. He will do Superman and I will do Batman. We did MAN OF STEEL together, plus MADAGASCAR 3 and MEGAMIND. We have a track record of collaboration.

My score is finished for MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. It comes out in May, and while I can’t say too much on that, the movie is spectacular.