Long-time Peaky Blinders collaborators Antony Genn and Martin Slattery have spoken to NME about returning to compose the original score of new film The Immortal Man, and putting together a “dangerous” soundtrack featuring the likes of Fontaines D.C.‘s Grian Chatten, Amyl & The Sniffers‘ Amy Taylor and Lankum alongside songs by Nick Cave and Massive Attack.
Announced last week with the first trailer and the soundtrack’s lead single ‘Puppet’ by Chatten, The Immortal Man sees Cillian Murphy return as Tommy Shelby, the notorious Birmingham gangster who starred in all six series of Peaky Blinders, which ran from 2013-2022.
The new feature-length story written by series creator Steven Knight and directed by Tom Harper (Heart of Stone, Wild Rose) picks up the story of the Birmingham crime family from 1940. “Amidst the chaos of WWII, Tommy Shelby is driven back from a self-imposed exile to face his most destructive reckoning yet,” reads the synopsis. “With the future of the family and the country at stake, Tommy must face his own demons, and choose whether to confront his legacy, or burn it to the ground. By order of the Peaky Blinders…”
The film also stars Barry Keoghan (Saltburn, The Banshees of Inisherin) as Tommy’s son, alongside Rebecca Ferguson (Dune, A House of Dynamite), Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight), Sophie Rundle (After the Flood, Gentleman Jack) and Stephen Graham (Adolescence, A Thousand Blows).
Having previously put together the score for seasons four, five and six, former Pulp and Elastica collaborator Antony Genn and his Mescaleros and The Hours bandmate Martin Slattery are back to pen the music and put together the soundtrack for the movie.
Talking about what sets this work apart from their previous music for Peaky Blinders, Genn told NME: “Ultimately, it’s a different story on a much bigger scale. It’s suddenly bigger than Small Heath and Alfie Solomons. It’s a movie, and it definitely feels like one. It’s so much broader. Tommy’s character is different and there are new characters involved. It’s given us more scope to do different things.”
He continued: “We’re obsessed with sound and the character of sound. A lot of people I know who are film composers, and brilliant ones at that, are at the top of their game and I admire them all – but we are from the school of hitting things.”
Slattery agreed: “Also, we’re both lunatics. Not many people would take on the environment we’ve got to be able to do things the way that we do.”
With 36 tracks including five brand new original recordings, the soundtrack features Amy Taylor of Amyl & the Sniffers, along with Chatten plus Carlos O’Connell and Tom Coll from Fontaines D.C. lending powerful new songs, as well as songs by Lankum, McLusky, and a newly-recorded version of classic Peaky theme ‘Red Right Hand’ by Nick Cave. It also comes with two reimagined Massive Attack covers by Chatten and rising sing-songwriter Girl In The Year Above.
“It was an experiment with Tom [Harper, director],” said Slattery of the process. “We played around with ideas and sometimes went over the line.”
Summing up their mission statement, Genn said: “Ultimately you want to make dirty, gritty music.
“This isn’t meant to sound derogatory to any of the brilliant film composers out there working, but even this isn’t just big, grand Hollywood music. Far from it. It’s got a lot of guts and the feeling of the human hand, brought to you by a lot of brilliant human hearts, minds and souls.”
Check out the rest of our interview with Slattery and Genn below, where the duo talk to us about what makes these artists “Peaky”, the bold new covers, what to expect from the film, and the “genius” of Grian Chatten.
NME: Hello Martin and Antony. The last two seasons of Peaky Blinders were very much a study of Tommy’s haunted psyche, and the music reflected that. Did you talk to Cillian Murphy about what he was feeling this time or were you just making sounds to what was on screen?
Antony Genn: “You just react to what you see. Cillian is a man who deeply understands music, deeply feels music, and is a real music obsessive. We’ve had a strong bond and friendship over that. He understands the DNA of Peaky Blinders more than anybody as he’s been living it. As directors and composers have come and gone, he’s been the person right in there. He’s always got good ideas, and it’s good to have someone to bounce ideas off.
“We wanted it to have a strong narration musically with a line and a seam that runs through it. We wanted a mix of score, of songs, and those bleeding into one another.”
What can you tell us about where ‘Puppet’ fits in?
Genn: “The song is in the film in its entirety with hardly any dialogue. It’s telling a story right in front of your eyes. Working with Mr Grian Chatten – who I have to say is one of the great genius poets as well as being a ferocious musical force and an incredible voice that sounds like it’s 1000ft tall – has been amazing. This song came together really quickly.”
Martin Slattery: “We didn’t do this to picture. We made this song where it moves here, drops here and has these punctuation points. We did a rough version of it pretty fast and sent it off the editor. They said they’d found a spot for the piece and we didn’t half get the tingles when we saw that.”
Genn: “I could live for 1,000 years and never experience that. Everyone says it: that this scene just sends shivers down your spine. Grian sang this one line, ‘How does it feel to be a freak amongst the freaks?’ We kept looking at each other, ‘What the fuck did he just say?’ Grian got a real hunger for the film and he’s so poetic in the way he tells the story without being too on-the-nose. We live for these moments when you just know something great is happening.”
What’s “Peaky” about Grian?
Genn: “Grian is dangerous, isn’t he? He’s an edgy fucker. There’s a lot more going on behind the eyes.”
Slattery: “He’s an edge with a warm hug.”
Genn: “You know how with Tommy Shelby, there’s a lot more going on behind those big blue mince pies. There’s a lot of layers and he’s always thinking three steps ahead. I’ve got to say, that’s not a bad description of old Grian is it in the way he works?”
Slattery: “Exactly. We’re not saying he’s a raging psychopath…”
Genn: “No. He’s a beautiful human, but he’s got rooms in his castle that he can go to that others can’t. He comes back with treasure.”
And what did Lankum bring?
Genn: “Oh my god. I love Lankum. My friend Jeannette Lee from Rough Trade who manages Pulp is a legend of the music business introduced me to two artists on this soundtrack. One of them was Lankum who she took me to see in Barcelona and Hackney Empire; it was just transcendental emotion with the sound of land, history, and the fragility of human nature. Again, Radie [Peat, singer] is fucking dangerous – they all are! They’ve got the rebel vibe. With all these artists, you’d want them with you in a bar room brawl.”
Slattery: “They’re all outsiders away from that homogenous centre.”
Genn: “We asked them to re-record ‘Hunting The Wren’ to add some connection to the land and to push it. We wanted to exhaust every possibility to maximise the potential of the story. Lankum are phenomenal musicians and so unique in their character. Radie’s voice is insane.”
Speaking of dangerous, you’ve got Amyl & The Sniffers’ Amy Taylor as well…
Genn: “Another one! That’s what I’m saying. Amy is another artist that Jeanette introduced me to. We had a piece in a scene and this was a track we were doing with Tom Coll from Fontaines D.C. We had some guitar samples and were improvising with those, two drummers, some dirty bass, did one take. Martin said it needed a vocal and I said, ‘You know who we need? Amy fucking Taylor mate!’
“As Jeanette told me, she’s the female Iggy Pop. She’s just the most exciting, vibrant, visceral, punk motherfucker. She came in on a Sunday afternoon and she was awesome. She did it like a rapper. She said, ‘Full disclosure mate, I’ve never seen Peaky Blinders’. I had to explain to her all about the show, the movie, the scene and the character. She went in, without a pen and paper, and just made it all, free-styling like Eminem.”
Slattery: “It’s great watching a true artist. She went through the track once and we were jumping up and down in the studio like kids going, ‘What was that?’ 50 per cent of this song is from the first take of her just free-styling. We’ve had some great casting with these artists.”
And there’s Fontaines’ DNA across it?
Genn: “Carlos [O’Connell] was the first person who came in. I called Cillian, and we go back a long way, and said, ‘I know you’re doing a Peaky movie and me and Martin are interested. I’ve got an idea to get the Fontaines involved’. Carlos was the first person I asked as we’ve done some stuff with him and Tom before and we absolutely fucking love Fontaines.”
Slattery: “Carlos trusted that if he came in and spewed out some ideas that they’d held in safe hands and fleshed out.”
Genn: “He only came in for a today because we had this idea for them to on the film and then they went and became absolutely fucking globally massive. We didn’t have much time and we were lucky. The music gods have got to shine on you and often they don’t. I’m constantly fascinated and mesmerised by the personality of musicians and what they bring to this. Tom plays the drums in Fontaines but he thinks so musically, Carlos is a force of nature in the visceral way he plays, and you just need to let artists like this lead and do their thing.”
“During that time Grian started coming in. He got such a hunger that we just kept going and we did more stuff than what’s in the film.”
How did newcomer Girl In The Year Above get involved?
Genn: “That’s a funny story. It’s a girl called Jennifer Ball who I met out one night with a friend Emily who’s a tattoo artist. They’re both from Sheffield and she’s a hairdresser who moved to London. She was very charismatic and they were both absolutely out of their minds – fucking crazy. I started following her on Instagram then a year later she starts putting up videos of her playing guitar and singing. Her voice was unbelievable so we sent her a message. She was in a band but they’d never been in the studio so we invited her in. She didn’t remember meeting me at first and said she hoped she’d never see me again because she was out of her mind.
“Her band came in and we worked on some stuff and there was just this moment where we trying to find this track for a scene. As creative music supervisor to find the songs and with the history of Peaky as having a lot of stuff that already exists, we really wanted to push on doing some more original stuff. You’ve got to evolve and be brave. If you’re surrounded by this level of talent then why would you not want to roll the dice?”
And for her to take on ‘Teardrop’ by Massive Attack is no mean feat…
“I sent it to Cillian, he called me the next morning and said, ‘Mate, who the fuck is singing that?’ I was like, ‘You’re not gonna believe this, it’s this fucking hairdresser!’ He said he was almost moved to tears listening to it. She’s got the greatest voice I’ve ever worked with. You realise this as her and her band come out into the world, but she’s an incredible storyteller and lyricist, but some people just have that gravitas to take someone else’s song and turn it into something new.
“This version of ‘Teardrop is absolutely beautiful. She’s destined for very big things. She’s an edgy motherfucker as well. Everyone on this is a real force of nature.”
And there are two Massive Attack covers on the soundtrack…
Genn: Yes. ‘Teardrop’ and ‘Angel’ – only the two biggest Massive Attack songs! They just fit. Massive Attack are so un-Peaky sonically, but not emotionally.”
Slattery: “The bassline to ‘Angel’ just tells you: ‘This is dark and dangerous’.”
Genn: “When we put it in there we went, ‘If Grian sung this it would be fucking unbelievable’. It’s a very different version to Massive Attack’s version. Both original versions are actual fucking masterpieces and I’m a huge Massive Attack fan. Robert [Del Naja] is a very old friend of mine and I was shitting myself to send it to him. He just said the nicest things. He said that ‘Teardrop’ was the most sublime, beautiful interpretation of that song that anyone has ever done.”
And of course you’ve got the OG Peaky theme, ‘Red Right Hand’ by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – but why did you choose to do a new version?
Genn: “In the script, it said there was one scene where this thing happens and ‘Red Right Hand’ plays. We did it and the original just didn’t work. It was too fast and too up; we needed a slower version. We did a slower version with Laura Marling in season four, which was very beautiful, so we thought we might lean into that.
“We thought if someone else should sing it, but then we did a test and put Nick’s voice on it. We were like, ‘Jesus, there’s only one man who can sing this’. It was so obvious. I called Cillian and said, ‘You’ve got to call Nick and ask for a new version for this scene’. Nick and Warren [Ellis] have done tonnes of films so you couldn’t be in safer hands. They really nailed it and it’s an awesome version. It had to be Nick!”
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man arrives in select cinemas on March 6, before hitting Netflix on March 20. The soundtrack will also be released on March 6. Check out the full tracklist here and pre-order it here.