F9, the ninth instalment of the Fast and the Furious film franchise, arrived with a bang, opening last weekend to $70 million in North America, the best start for a Hollywood film in over a year.
As usual, the musical artists who have roles and cameos in the film were under the spotlight — as was the soundtrack, featuring highly curated songs by top and up and coming names in Latin and urban music. But while soundtracks in the Fast and the Furious franchise change with the seasons and the charts, the films scores’ have long fallen under the steady hand of Brian Tyler.
The 49-year-old conductor and multi-instrumentalist with a master’s degree from Harvard University has composed all the Fast and Furious scores since 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (when current director Justin Lin took over). And although he’s known for scoring other blockbusters like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, Tyler’s versatility is vast, beginning with his score to Bill Paxton’s dark Frailty in 2002 (which won him a World Soundtrack Award) and including the big band jazz and romantic string score of breakout hit Crazy Rich Asians.
Tyler spoke to Billboard about the F9 score, out today (July 2) on Back Lot Music, and its history.
This is a very orchestral, cinematic score. How do you juxtapose it with the soundtrack?
I definitely take into account the rest of the music. I produce hip-hop tracks a lot outside of scoring, so there’s a lot of production in the score that also has hip-hop, urban and Latin elements that are really part of the production — the feel, the groove of it. We always wanted to make the music in Fast and the Furious to feel a seamless whole. You always have to make sure the tapestry of the music has a flow. It’s exciting, it has motion, and it has a very contemporary music edge to it.
You’ve scored so many action films. What is distinctive about the Fast and Furious scores?
Even the score for Fast and Furious has a very unique sound that has been developed over so many films. This is a series that has been so successful, and has allowed me and anyone involved with it to find a particular voice for the films. Fast and Furious has a unique and developed sound, and it’s very crystalized by the time we come to F9. When I do concerts, for example, people cheer when I play the themes.
So, tell me about the themes in F9?
There’s a big character, the new Toretto. So we needed to have a theme that was really about the rivalry of these brothers, and this Toretto theme is a huge part of the score and it’s a new angle and a new tone.
We create a theme for every character or for every joint group of characters. For example, there’s a theme for Brian and Mia and that theme comes back and it’s very emotional and poignant. Letty has a theme that began in Fast & Furious 4. It’s a Latin-based theme and it uses a nylon string Latin guitar. It’s one of my favorite pieces in the series.
This is your seventh film in the franchise. How has the scoring evolved?
As the movies have progressed, the tone of the films have become more epic and the films have gotten longer. Where it really took a turn was four and five. Now you have planes and submarines and all sorts of really big, dramatic ideas. But what’s surprising is how much of the score is quiet and emotionally based. That’s why the Toretto theme is so dramatic: It starts the album.
Source
