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“I needed to find out what they were
used to playing, what style they liked to play in and what
their strengths and weaknesses were,” says O’Rourke. “After
I gathered that information, it was my job to make it all
blend.”
According to Craig Wedren, who composed
the film’s instrumental score and jammed with the kids
during numerous band rehearsals, the set truly turned into
a music camp and a safe haven for the kids to just rock out. “It
took me back to when I was 12 years old and in my first band,” recalls
Wedren. “It was a time you could just wail on your
guitar or bang on your drums and make great music with your
friends, and that’s what happened on the set with these
kids.”
Joey Gaydos Jr., the lead guitarist, remembers
when they began rehearsals. “The first time we actually
played together, we were real sloppy, you know, because it
was our first time,” admits the 12-year-old. “But
when we began really practicing, we started to sound pretty
good.”
While some kids were already familiar with
the style of music they were going to play in “School
of Rock,” others were not. Twelve-year-old Robert Tsai,
for example, who had been playing the piano since the age
of five, was strictly a classical musician.
“ Robert didn’t really know anything about rock music, so when rehearsals
first began it was quite a mystery to him what we were doing,” remembers
O’Rourke. “I’d put a piece of sheet music in front of him and
he’d play it, but always in a very classical style. In the end, though,
he was jamming with the rest of us.”
Rebecca Brown got into the swing of things,
too. A guitar player since the age of four, the 11-year-old
not only learned how to play bass guitar for the film, but
she also had her first introduction to the cello, which she
plays in the Horace Green Elementary School orchestra.
“All the kids are extremely talented
and they really worked together as a team” observes
director Richard Linklater. “Their experience mirrors
the experience of the kids in the story. They started out
playing in a comfortable musical environment, then basically,
we just tried to make it fun for them -- just like Dewey
Finn did in the film.”
While the young band of “School of
Rock” rehearsed, the filmmakers reached out to musicians
and lyricists for the key songs. In the end, however, it
was Jack Black and Mike White who wrote a lot of the songs,
including several solos that are performed in the classroom.
“They’re not really songs so
much as nuggets of songs,” explains Black. “I
could stretch them out and turn them into songs. But they’re
more like little comedy nuggets.”
Mike White adds, laughing, “We were
trying to write lyrics, and I thought, What would AC/DC do?
I don’t think I’ve ever been in a script meeting
where I was thinking what would AC/DC do.”
The song, “The School of Rock,” which
is performed by Black and the kids in concert at the finale
of the film, was written by the New York band The Mooney
Suzuki.
“They opened in New York for The
Strokes and I met them afterwards,” remembers Black. “So
I asked them if they’d be into writing a song for the
movie, and they said they’d give it a crack. Mike White
gave them some lyrics; they worked on them and eventually
made a really good song out of it.”
“I was totally psyched because, at
one time, my entire life revolved around a Battle of the
Bands,” admits songwriter and lead vocalist for The
Mooney Suzuki, Sammy James Jr. “In fact, I’m
in a band right now because I wanted to be in a Battle of
the Bands in high school. That’s probably why the song
came pretty easily. I just sat down to write, and within
an hour I made a little four-track demo in my apartment.”
No Vacancy, the band that dumps Dewey Finn
at the start of the movie, is fronted by singer/actor Adam
Pascal, who starred in the original Broadway production of “Rent” and
currently stars in the Broadway production of “Aida.” Their
first song was written by Warren Fitzgerald, who plays with
a band called The Vandals in Los Angeles, and their second
song, performed at the Battle of the Bands, entitled “Heal
Me, I’m Heartsick,” was written by Craig Wedren.
George Drakoulias was the music producer who worked with
the artists in the recording studio.
Cert: 12
Running Time: TBC
Release Date: February 6
Distributor: UIP
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