“Kill what’s inside of you,” Eric Clapton sang on Cream’s perky 1967 psych-rocker ‘Strange Brew’. Almost six decades later, showrunner Noah Hawley and composer Jeff Russo have reimagined the track as a spooky slow-burner that opens each episode of FX’s acclaimed show Alien: Earth, their contribution to the beloved franchise that kicked off with 1979’s classic Alien.
Set onboard a research vessel (yes, it’s loaded with Xenomorphs) that’s crash-landed on Earth and become lodged in a skyscraper, Earth is a bold reimagining of the Alien universe. Here, human-android hybrid Wendy (Sydney Chandler) vows to protect her brother, Hermit (Alex Lawther), a medic who’s been sent to investigate the wreckage. Cue vicious face-offs with the titular creatures, a dizzying body count and an unexpected amount of classic rock.
Noah Hawley provided the vocals for the ‘Strange Brew’ cover, which is surprising until you hear he was in a short-lived alt-rock band called Bass Nation in the early 1990s – around the time that Jeff Russo formed his successful post-grunge band, Tonic. The duo have collaborated since 2009’s The Unusuals and solidified their formidable reputation with Hawley’s smash-hit TV remake of Fargo.
Hawley acknowledges that the ‘Strange Brew’ lyric can be applied literally to the franchise’s alien-implanting facehuggers “and the idea that your death is inside of you, and you just don’t know it yet,” but adds: “So much of those movies is about the evil that human beings do to each other.”
He recorded a rough version of the track’s vocal and guitar as a voice memo around two years ago. Once shooting wrapped, he and Russo cut the finished song at London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios. Now that they’ve released the haunting cover as a single, NME chats to the duo about how they soundtracked their wild ride of a show.
Classic rock is totally Alien
The first episode closes with the thrilling war-cry that is Black Sabbath’s ‘The Mob Rules’, while later episodes feature Tool’s ‘Stinkfist’, Metallica’s ‘Wherever I May Roam’ and Jane’s Addiction’s ‘Ocean Size’.
These 20th century rockers might seem rogue choices for a show set in 2120, but Hawley explains that they fit the Alien universe perfectly: “When I picture that classic Alien super-fan, I picture ‘em driving a van with a [fantasy artist] Frank Frazetta alien airbrushed on the side of it. Alien is body horror, action and rusted metal – how is that not a Tool song?”
The audio Easter eggs are delicious
You know an Alien soundtrack when you hear it – think ominous rumblings, skittering effects and eerie, mournful synths – but the series doesn’t have an instantly recognisable, well-known theme. “Most of the Alien music is all about a feeling,” points out Russo.
His goal, then, was to create a score that summons the dread inspired by the existing movies: “There are tropes that are used in the first two scores – not as much as the third and the fourth – that I love to tip my hat to. Those are little Easter eggs.”
It’s all about that bassdesmophon
Much of the show’s “underlying tension”, says Russo, is generated by a custom-made instrument called a bassdesmophon: “It’s this big, metal, hollow instrument that has two strings on it that I can do many different things with. It’s throughout the entire score. You can use a bow on it that sounds really, really ugly and gross, almost. You can hit it, which is where we get a lot of these big scares from.
“It also makes this groaning sound, which we use everywhere. When we talked about it early on, Noah suggested that it did sound like the groaning of the metal as the ship is lodged in the building.”
The duo aren’t frustrated rock stars (honest!)
Hawley is clear-eyed about Bass Nation’s fate: “I was a little too much the boat and not enough the ocean. I was a little too much like, ‘Where is music going? Should we be going that way?’” Russo, who now plays only sporadically with Tonic, looks back fondly on their biggest show, a 2009 headline set at Poland’s Pol’and’Rock Festival (then named Woodstock Festival Poland). There were around 370,000 rockers in the audience: “You couldn’t see the end of the crowd. It was a pretty incredible experience.”
For all their differing experiences, though, they both shudder at the indignities of life on tour and don’t miss the rock ’n’ roll dream. Instead, they’ve found their own ways to scratch the musical itch and seem in awe of recording at Abbey Road. “However you’re buying your way into that room,” Hawley says with a smile, “you’re in that room.”
As a self-taught artist, he adds, “I’m trying to game every system I get in. I was gonna be a rock star when I was 18, 19 years old. That didn’t work out for me, but I found a way around it. I was like, ‘If I build these shows, who’s gonna say no [to me recording the theme tune]?’ Now I can do it. As long as it’s not in service of the ego – as long as it’s in service of the material – why not do the thing?”
Russo and Hawley enjoy a band-like camaraderie and speak the same musical language. When the showrunner sent him the original voice note of ‘Strange Brew’ (a snippet of which appears in the finished song), the composer knew exactly what Hawley was getting at. “I have found, in my collaboration with Noah, a way to make music that is very satisfying.” He adds, tongue in cheek: “It feels like this is what I was always meant to do.”
Alien: Earth is a big swing all round
Whether it’s Russo reworking classic Alien audio tropes or Hawley slinging in a Black Sabbath banger, the pair aren’t afraid of taking creative risks with a high-stakes franchise. “There’s clearly a commercial value to things we’ve seen before coming back again,” says Hawley. “Left to the devices of uncreative people, you’re gonna end up with literally the same thing over and over again. You need those people to take big risks.
“What I like to say to FX is: ‘You want me to be ambitious for you. You can always try to pull me back, but I’m gonna take these big swings because I know that’s what’s best. Maybe you get nervous and that’s fine – we’ll work through that – but I would rather fail big than small.”
‘Alien: Earth’ is available to watch now on Disney+