Ahead of his live performance of the No Time To Die title song with Billie Eilish, FINNEAS and Hans Zimmer at the 2020 BRIT Awards, legendary guitarist Johnny Marr spoke with NME on the red carpet.
Speaking on being asked to work on the films soundtrack, Marr says “I was thrilled because growing up as a British boy in the late sixties and early seventies and eighties and all, I like that to me the Bond theme should have guitar on it, and I mean especially the sort of John Barry stuff. The sound of it to me is the guitar riff to some people it’s trumpets, I discovered, but to me it’s a guitar, which it would be, so it’s a real thrill to be able to do it.”
Marr also shared his thoughts on working with Billie Eilish, saying that “We were already working on the film, and then I heard that Billy had done the song. And that was already a really good idea to me, before I’d even heard she song. I thought it’s a really smart idea, even before all the Grammys and stuff.
Then when I heard the song I thought this is fantastic. It’s very brave you know, it’s something really minimalist in her sound and then the trick was to sort of Bondify it. It was already a great song, but from a sound point of view to Bondify it without doing the obvious, and it being really easy to be bombastic. So it was a case of less is more, and make it work with a film. So it’s a process we have of experimentation, taking it one direction, bringing it back, keeping your eye on on the integrity of the song. Working on the movie has been a blast. Yeah it’s fantastic.”
‘No Time To Die’ will be released by Universal Pictures in Australia on 8 April, 2020.
