“Thunderbolts*” Composers Son Lux Discuss the Team’s Theme and Writing Music for a More Emotional MCU Film

As Thunderbolts* hit theaters nationwide on Thursday night, a special screening was held in Los Angeles at a cool location that was also an unlikely one to see a brand new big studio movie of this type in - Vidiots, the revival house (and accompanying rental store) that usually is the home to fun revival screenings of beloved classics and cult films.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with the film’s composers, Son Lux, the band made up of the trio of Ian Chang, Ryan Lott and Rafiq Bhatia. Son Lux made their first foray into scoring a feature film with 2022’s Academy Award-winning breakout hit, Everything Everywhere All At Once. The 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thunderbolts* is a somewhat surprising project for the group, known for experimental music, to find themselves composing music for, but they discussed how director Jake Schreier not only championed for them to be involved but made sure they were actively collaborating on the project as soon as possible.

STARTING EARLY

As Ian Chang noted, on a typical movie, composers are often brought in rather late in the process, during post-production, where they begin writing to edited footage - and then often have to try to evoke the temp track music pulled from other sources that was put there as a placeholder for the type of musical approach the filmmakers want.

Things were much different for Thunderbolts* though, with Chang revealing, “We were engaged before anything was shot, so all we had was a script and some art direction. Jake and us got together once a week and we threw a lot of paint at the wall, basically. And together, we kind of figured out what the sound of this film was going to be."

Chang said Schreier’s clear vision for the film was a big help, explaining, “We gave him a lot of themes, and he picked the few that he felt would kind of fit different things that needed to be hit by the movie. And so by the time that he was sitting down with the actors for their first table read, we already had, like, a full on suite of themes that he actually played for the actors before they read the script together for the first time."

When it came to getting to be so involved so early, he added, “It felt like a huge honor to be able to establish the sonic identity of the film at such an early place, in such a way that it was like part of the atmosphere in which it was created. And I know that he was also playing certain demos and stuff that we had made for actors before they did takes [on set] and stuff like that. That was really cool for us to hear."

ONE TEAM, ONE THEME

Superhero music themes can be iconic in and of themselves, but Thunderbolts* focuses on a group of characters who’ve mostly existed on the periphery of the MCU and don’t have strongly established individual themes of their own from previous films and series to incorporate.

As Ryan Lott explained, this left Son Lux and Jake Schreier asking themselves if each of the characters should have their own theme and sound associated with them as they’re introduced into this story. Said Lott, “Ultimately, we arrived at the conclusion that this film is about the unlikely partnership that they discover and their growing unity as a team. To delineate [individual themes] as an establishing aspect of each character was actually counterintuitive to the narrative arc of the story and so it was more important to actually establish a theme for them as a team."

However, even here Son Lux wanted to put a twist on the usual approach, with Lott noting for most of the movie, “We only hear [this theme] deconstructed because they are deconstructed for almost the entire film. There are glimpses of their Thunderbolts theme that emerge deconstructed, but also in ways that aren't declamatory."

Lott laughed about how the way they first introduce the theme is understated and not the superhero norm, in an early scene where Yelena (Florence Pugh) visits her father, Red Guardian (David Harbour), at his home and looks at a picture of her childhood soccer team. Said Lott, “It happens in a very melancholic way, right there, which is such a weird moment to introduce a new Marvel theme, right? Then elsewhere, as certain kinds of accomplishments as a team transpire in the film, we start to hear the theme coalesce in other aspects, like a baseline, or different arpeggio aspects."

Lott said it was an interesting challenge to play with the theme in that manner, explaining, “What that also meant is we ultimately had to make the emotion of their experiences together and individually, but primarily collectively, front and center. And that was the main question: How do we score their emotional journey as a family?"

MORE EMOTIONAL

Thunderbolts* feels different from other Marvel movies in a few regards, including its exploration of depression and struggles with mental health through characters like Yelena and Bob (Lewis Pullman). Chang said he felt that Son Lux’s musical background, and their creation of emotional soundscapes, led Schreier to think they were right for the project, “because it is a more emotional Marvel film, and Jake, the director, has a really deep relationship with music. He's someone who has a background in having done a lot of music videos. He used to play in bands back in the day and stuff like that, so I know that music is close to his heart."

Rafiq Bhatia said they had a lot they could evoke in their music for the movie thanks to its storyline, including “the degree to which a feeling of nihilism settles in and takes hold, or despondency - you know, just that hopelessness. And there's a pretty significant amount of dramatic real estate in the film that's dedicated to that and each character's relationship with their internal parts. I think beyond that, Yelena and Bob's relationship is one that kind of gets a bit of special treatment as well [musically], to some degree, because they have a link in that kind of way of discussing how to talk about teetering on the edge of despair. They're the ones that really go there."

Bhatia noted that Schreier’s directive to them from the start was, “Okay, we know this is a Marvel movie. It's gonna get big and grand and explosive at times. But how small can it be? How kind of fallible can I feel? How can we make music for our Marvel movie that feels like it could fall apart at any moment?"

Lott said it wasn’t only about the dark moments but also making sure the movie and the music was often “tender and and intimate. And we actually started there. The directive that we had about the gate was ‘Let's make sure we get that first."

He added that while they made sure to deliver exciting superhero music when the movie called for it, Schreier continued to ask the question, “How small can we get? And we really appreciated that. It was more intuitive for us too, because of the way we make records. It’s often like, ‘Where do we find the most tender and peculiar place to start?’ and he had that insight for the movie as well."

KNOCK ON WOOD

The Thunderbolts* score was recorded at the iconic Abbey Road Studios in the UK, and the size of the project had Son Lux working with a large orchestra for the first time. But Chang said there was one very unexpected inclusion amongst the instruments, which he described as “a surprising discovery for a sound that ended up being quite prominent in the film, specifically in regards to percussion."

Recalled Chang, “This was an early exploration around sort of Jake's directive to make things that weren't super huge and grandiose sounding. So instead of opting for big orchestral percussion, we were trying to find other alternatives. And at the studio that I work out of, there was some big delivery coming in on wooden pallets. And after it was delivered, there were a couple of planks of wood sitting by the front door ready to go to the trash. And I knocked on them, and I was like, ‘These sound pretty cool.’"

As Chang revealed, “Those two pieces of wood ended up being a very large part of the percussive identity, and you can hear it kind of right away, when Yelena first lands, after jumping off the second tallest building [in the world] and beats up that guy and it comes out really strong. And it's funny… I didn't think about it this way, but this week, we kind of realized how, metaphorically, those two pieces of wood are sort of like the characters in the film, right? They're gonna go to the trash, but they end up being the stars."

Thunderbolts* is now in theaters and the soundtrack is now available on most music platforms.

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