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Scott Pilgrim Vs Rock Sound

With Scott Pilgrim Vs The World finally getting a full theatrical release today, Rock Sound sat down with director Edgar Wright and star Michael Cera to talk Weezer, mixtapes, imaginary bands and Scorsese…

The soundtrack is unusually rich, with the likes of Beck, Broken Social Scene, Frank Black and Metric all contributing songs. When did you start thinking of music to use in the film?
Edgar Wright: “More than two years ago we started thinking about the artists that might contribute. We’d been working on the script on and off for like five years and me and Bryan Lee O’Malley, when we first started talking, we bonded like long distance boyfriend and girlfriend by sending each other mixtapes. He would send me playlists that he had made that he felt like soundtracked each book and mine were full of songs the book made me think of. And so a bunch of those are on the soundtrack.”

Were there songs that you wanted or artists that you wanted to work with that you couldn’t>
Edgar: “The Beatles [laughs]! No, not really, there’s an amazing roster of talent, mostly through Nigel’s [Godrich, producer best known for his work with Radiohead who wrote the score] involvement we’ve managed to get everybody that we wanted. We even had Cornelius doing parts for the film, which was amazing. It was great to create a world and use not only just existing tracks but to have new stuff and then just some artists working the score.”

Edgar, you tweeted and said one of your most surreal moments at the LA premiere was when Rivers Cuomo said that he enjoyed the music, and obviously you’re both big Weezer fans…
Edgar: “Yeah, that was incredible.”
Michael Cera: “It was amazing that he was at our premiere. He’s one of my biggest heroes in the world. I got to play soccer with him once, too.”

What was that like?
Michael: “It was amazing. He’s an incredible soccer player. And I made a really good pass to him at one point, and he said ‘Nice pass Mike’ and high-fived me [laughs]. I felt like I just wanted to curl up into a ball and… end things. Have it end that way.”

What was the first album you bought?
Edgar: “Oh my God [long pause]. That is a really good question.”
Michael: “I remember mine, it’s embarrassing. It’s Chumbawumba. Was ‘Tubthumping’ the album with the baby on the cover? Oh wow, that’s a British band as well.”
Edgar: “They were squatters, right?”
Michael: “So maybe they did get knocked down?”
Edgar: “Yeah, and they got up again.”

Do you guys still get to listen to much new music? Obviously your schedules might not allow you to go to shows.
Edgar: “I try to. I blind buy a lot as well. Especially singles.”
Michael: “Some people, only certain friends of mine are music lovers, like Jason [Schwartzmann] has really good recommendations.”
Edgar: “Jason’s also into going into a record store and just asking what’s good. He’ll just go straight to the source, I’ve never seen anybody do that before. I’m sure it works better if you’re Jason Schwartzmann. But if you, if the average guy went into sort of, Rough Trade and asked ‘What’s good?’ it’d be like High Fidelity all over again.”

Do you each have songs running around our head that you think would work well in particular films?
Edgar: “Oh yeah, I don’t want to name them because I might use them someday [laughs]. There’s songs I’ve heard that have like almost inspired entire narratives to me, or sometimes you hear songs and think that would make an amazing sequence.”

Michael, how much did you enjoy playing in Sex Bob-Omb [the fictional band in the film]?”
Michael: “Yeah, it was amazing. They were all good songs we got to play, so it was fun. Getting to feel we were responsible for it even though we had nothing to do with it was a blast.”

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is in cinemas nationwide now.

Ben Patashnik