How Phoenix Found a ‘Happy Accident’ With Song for ‘On the

A model of this story about Phoenix, “On the Rocks” and the Original Song contender “Identical” appeared within the Race Begins challenge of TheWrap’s awards journal.

Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars described the observe “Identical” as if it had been Cinderella’s glass slipper: It’s a music that delivers a primary style of the French rock band’s subsequent album, which will likely be its first since 2017’s “Ti Amo,” nevertheless it’s additionally an ideal match for the conclusion of Sofia Coppola’s “On the Rocks.”

The music, he mentioned, had an unexpectedly “strange echo to the movie” and to the loving however strained relationship of the characters performed by Bill Murray and Rashida Jones.

“There are many coincidences that are happy accidents, but once you listen to the song, that works with the Felix and Laura relationship,” Mars mentioned. “That has a father-daughter echo to the relationship. It’s rare enough that those moments happen, and it makes sense and was meant to be, so we embraced it.”

“Identical” continues Phoenix’s custom of worldly, digital pop rock that over time has taken their sound from Italy to Korea and past. The opening drum loop is a bassy jam coupled with a pulsing synth beat, which guitarist Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz mentioned is a “micro-slice” of a pattern based mostly on a observe from a up to date South African group.

“We don’t really think about what’s inspiring us,” he mentioned. “We’re like a compass; we’re just attracted to the thing that is somehow magnetic to our intuition. What captured our interest was this groove at the beginning, the whole bounciness and darkness, the melancholy groove…Once we found something, we just dove in.”

Mars, who’s married to Coppola, had beforehand labored on the scores and music supervision for the director’s “Somewhere” and “The Beguiled,” however “Identical” is the band’s uncommon single supposed particularly for a movie. Coppola instantly gravitated to the sound for the movie’s finish credit, however on the time “Identical” was only a very tough demo. So the band made one other first and raced to complete the observe, one thing Phoenix discovered “counterintuitive” in comparison with the method of ending a full album.

“We tried I don’t know how many,” Mars mentioned. “We tried from our own personal collection of demos and nothing worked, but it seemed like the demo to ‘Identical’ had a tempo and an atmosphere that Sofia liked right away, so we had to finish it.”

Read extra from the Race Begins challenge right here.