"Sing Street" is a love letter to the music of the 1980s. The movie — set in that decade in Ireland — is about a young teenager named Cosmo who starts a band to win over a girl.
The film was written and directed by John Carney, who wrote most of the original music in the film. He previously lulled audiences into a non-traditional love story with the 2007 film, “Once,” and he’s also a musician himself. Carney played in the indie-folk band The Frames with Glen Hansard -- who starred in “Once.”
The Frame's John Horn spoke with Carney about why he's so connected to '80s music, how his siblings encouraged him to be an artist, and how Carney views his films more like albums.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
In "Sing Street," you really focus on what it takes to write a song — from going over chord progressions, to lyrics, to the structure of a song. How much of your experience in playing in bands did you put into these scenes and how important was it to get it right?
Actually, myself and Adam Levine, who sings the final song in the film and who co-wrote the lyrics to it, just met up last night and we were talking about that very idea. I sent Adam a rough cut of the movie because I wanted to make sure that things were working and that it was a realistic account of a musician's journey.
I got positive feedback from Adam, who rang me up afterwards and said, "It feels like that was my band." You can't get better validation than someone like Adam who has been in a number of bands, including Maroon 5. He obviously knows what he's talking about and he felt that the film did a convincing job at what you're talking about — the chord progression, how you build the song, how you go from a naive post-school band or college band and how that works.
I have a guilty love affair with bands like Tears For Fears and a-ha, and those are bands that are referenced in your movie. There are a lot of films out there that view the ‘80s in an ironic way or poke a lot of fun at it. But your film treats this decade and the music from this decade with a lot of love and respect. Is that something that was important to represent and reflect, in the way you heard music back then?
It does, and by the two first names that you mentioned there, I see nothing guilty about either of those bands.
a-ha though...
Actually, a-ha, they had a couple of hits, but their really big hit was "Take On Me." It's pop-opera. It's as good as any opera song. The vocal line — I dare anybody in this studio to sing to try and attempt the range of notes that the vocal top-line is going through at the chorus. But just to finish the point, a lot of the '80s is awful hair, awful fashion, and we were running — our generation — in horror from that decade for so long.
Now I'm 44, now it's okay. It's the same with our parents when they started to look back on the '40s and '50s and [say], Hang on a second, actually. It wasn't all bad. In fact, there's a sort of interesting moment in the timeline when a decade goes from horror — and looking over your shoulder as you run — to that moment when you realize this is my youth that we're talking about.
There are a couple of adult characters who are incredibly supportive of their children making music. Was there somebody like that in your life — a teacher or parent — who celebrated the fact that you wanted to become a musician?
Yeah, my siblings were the people in my life who from when I was four-years-old — doing handstands or drawing pictures of Christmas trees or banging on the drums — I was the youngest kid and I could do no wrong. So that is an incredible force of good in the world, to be indulged in everything, not being told no by people. Particularly, that was my siblings for me because your parents have to tell you no occasionally.
Firstly, they can't afford everything you want, but secondly, they have to make sure that you don't fall off a cliff on your bicycling, or that you drop out of school because they buy you a guitar. Whereas your siblings, they have no preconceptions of who you could be. Your parents want you to be the president or doctor or lawyer, whereas the brother or sister doesn't give a hook as long as you're happy. That's what I felt from my brothers and sisters was that they were giving me permission to experiment who I was and to change my mind about things, which I think is very important to be given as a kid.
The last three films you’ve made could almost be viewed as albums. “Once” is like a debut album — very personal and made with a lot of heart. “Begin Again” is the follow-up album after being signed to a major record label — it’s big and more ambitious. And then “Sing Street” is the album that returns a band to its roots — back to the “sound” of the first album, with more reflection and experience. Have you ever thought about your films in that kind of way?
In fact, that's exactly the term that we used to help not only sell "Once," but figure out "Once" in our heads, which was that it was a visual album. The music came first and the visuals came second. So I think it's an interesting way to look at it, and I think it's true that "Begin Again" was the difficult second album for me.
It was the one in which the fans that we had built up on "Once" had their instruments out and were sharpening them and were ready to go at it. And they did and that's fine. I think you're right. I think "Sing Street," whether consciously or unconsciously, was an opportunity to come back home and go to the set an hour later because I didn't have to drive halfway across the New York traffic, and I could sort of be a little bit more of myself with it.
“Sing Street” is in theaters now.