The Great Gatsby is in theaters on May 7, and this Baz Luhrmann-directed, Leonardo DiCaprio-starring film has a star-studded soundtrack, featuring everyone from Jay-Z (who executive-produced it) to Jack White making appearances. UK bass music trio Nero also makes an appearance (with a new track, "Into the Past"), and as they told Billboard, their music had been used from the start:
When were you first approached about “Gatsby”?
Dan Stephens:We heard last summer that two of our tracks from ‘Welcome Reality’ were being used as temporary sound beds in the film. A little after that, Baz came to our studio in L.A. and we talked about writing original music for those parts of the movie. As fans of both the book and his work, we were pretty excited to get working on it.
How was the song developed? We heard it was a very integrated process with the film team.
Stephens: We worked closely with Baz to write two pieces for the movie using some elements and themes from Craig Armstrong's score. We also added some of the electronic sounds we'd used to other cues in the film to give some continuity to the overall score. One of the cues we'd written then developed into a full original song [“Into the Past”], with vocals from Alana. It's based around one of the central themes of the story, that of memory and Gatsby's drive to reshape past events.
Ray: We spent a lot of time working the score music we'd written into a song, so it was a mixture of happiness and relief when we heard it was definitely going to be used on the soundtrack!
While the full song is not out for listening, Billboard did get a 30-second preview of "Into the Past." You don't get to hear the signature drops and heavy bass, but Alana Watson's voice is present, and loads of electronic elements are laced within the track:
