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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 23 June 2017
The song that begat ‘Baby Driver,’ a quasi-musical on wheels

By JAKE COYLE decades later, with his new
AP Film Writer film, “Baby Driver.”
NEW YORK (AP) — In the jag- “The idea for this movie is
ged grooves and quivering as old as ‘Orange’” Wright
violins of the Jon Spencer said in an interview. “I was
Blues Explosion song “Bell- either 20 or 21 and I had
bottoms,” a young Edgar just moved to London. I
Wright heard a movie. was working on my first
When Wright first started movie I ever made. I was
fanatically listening to the completely broke. I think I
lead track off the band’s had a cassette of ‘Orange’
“Orange” album in 1995, that I had copied off of
the British writer-director someone else, maybe my
had a vision that has cul- brother. I listened to ‘Bell-
minated, more than two bottoms’ all the time. I just

Director Edgar Wright poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film ‘Baby Driver’
in London, Wednesday, June 21, 2017.
Associated Press
started to visualize this car right song and the right mo- Moby and GZA have all
chase. I’d think, ‘This would ment. It’s something that a remixed them. Mike Mills,
be the perfect car chase lot of people do on a sort of the “20th Century Women”
song in a movie, but what’s everyday level, but what if director, designed some
the movie?’” you put it together with an of their cover art and di-
“Baby Driver,” it turned out, extremely high pressured rected a music video. Da-
was the movie, but it took job, like being a getaway vid Michod’s recent satire,
years for Wright (“Shaun of driver for a very dangerous “War Machine,” used one
the Dead,” ‘’Hot Fuzz”) to gang?” So it’s fitting that of their songs. For “Baby
find the story that matched the movie was essentially Driver,” Danger Mouse,
his initial inspiration. Even- born from a single song. Big Boi and Run the Jewels
tually he hit on his pro- It’s the start of the film, too: made their version of “Bell-
tagonist: an uncommonly “Bellbottoms” kicks off the bottoms.”
young, fresh-faced get- high-octane opera that is “We didn’t have any hits,
away driver (Ansel Elgort) “Baby Driver.” but if we were to have had
who obsessively syncs his “I definitely get a kick out a hit, this was our hit,” said
life and his car chases to of it,” said Jon Spencer. Spencer. “It’s our most Blues
the music of his iPod. The “Edgar is sort of a very Blues Explosion song and it’s from
movie wouldn’t just tie to- Explosion kind of director — our most popular album.
gether song and cinema; it sort of post-modern, post- We were a working band.
would be about the fusion genre, everything is kind of We weren’t on a late-night
of music and action. amped up. Who better to show until like two or three
While not exactly a musical, use a Blues Explosion song years ago.” Wright’s idea
“Baby Driver” (which opens and that particular Blues underwent many iterations.
Wednesday) was built on Explosion song?” He tested a version of it in
top of its soundtrack, start- It’s an especially high-pro- a 2002 music video for the
ing with “Bellbottoms.” file role in one of the sum- Mint Royale’s “Blue Song.”
Martha and the Vandellas’ mer’s best-reviewed releas- ‘’I thought: What a waste. I
“Nowhere to Run” plays es — not to mention one of just burned off a great idea
during a tight squeeze. A the season’s few refresh- on this music video,” said
hair-raising escape is set to ingly original tales — for a Wright. “Ironically, years
the Damned’s “Neat, Neat, band that has for decades later, it became a way of
Neat.” Things happen on proudly lived in the under- post-dating the idea.”
the beat. Wright had to se- ground. Spencer, who also But Wright decided to keep
cure his soundtrack’s rights wrote a song for “Hot Fuzz,” at it. He estimates he wrote
before shooting; many of even makes a cameo late the script around 2010,
the songs, like the Blues Ex- in the film. when he started talking to
plosion one, were cleared The New York blues- and ex-convicts for research,
years ago. Actors received irony-infused post-punk trio peppering them with ques-
their scripts with a thumb of Spencer, Judah Bauer tions about what, if any-
drive of music attached. and Russell Simins were a thing, they listened to dur-
“It’s something about try- garage-rock forerunner ing heists.
ing to assign order to life by to the White Stripes and One mentioned that he
soundtracking your every others, whose most popu- was superstitious enough
move,” said Wright. “It’s lar days were in the ‘90s. that if a truly awful song
that thing when everything They’ve long drawn the in- came on the radio, the gig
breaks right and it’s the terest of other artists; Beck, was off. q