Rock Dog

LAKESHORE RECORDS PRESENTS THE ROCK DOG - ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK Featuring Original Music by Rolfe Kent With The Original Song “Glorious” by Adam Friedman

(February 21, 2017 – Los Angeles, CA) – Lakeshore Records will release the ROCK DOG- Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally on February 24, 2017. The album contains original music by Rolfe Kent (MR. POPPER’S PENGUINS, UP IN THE AIR, SIDEWAYS) and original songs “Bodi Finds The Fire” by Adam Friedman & Rolfe Kent and “Glorious” by Adam Friedman.

“The story needed to have that sense of the exotic- that we had left Western society and gone somewhere different, somewhere mountainous, but not country specific,” stated Kent. “To that end I explored different instruments and sounds. You know, the music needed to have that interesting ethnographic colour, but still sound like a movie score.”

For the Tibetan Mastiffs living on Snow Mountain, a dog’s life has a simple riff: Guard a peaceful village of wool-making sheep from the thuggish wolf Linnux (Lewis Black) and his rabid pack. To avoid distractions, Mastiff leader Khampa (J.K. Simmons) forbids all music from the mountain. But when Khampa’s son Bodi (Luke Wilson) discovers a radio dropped by a passing airplane, it takes just a few guitar licks for his fate to be sealed: Bodi wants to be a rock ‘n’ roll star. Yet that means defying his father’s wishes, heading to the city, and locating the legendary – and reclusive – musician Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard), who needs to write a new song and fast.

If Bodi can put a band together, help Angus with his song, and defeat the wolves’ plot to take Snow Mountain, his life will be in tune. Bodi will become what he’s always dreamed of being: More than a dog … more than a Rock God… he’ll be a ROCK DOG! ROCK DOG is a fun adventure with great music, in theaters February 24th!

Summit Premiere presents, a Huayi Brothers Media Corp. and Mandoo Pictures production, in association with Huayi Tencent Entertainment Company, Eracme Entertainment, and Dream Factory Group.

“Bodi has his own theme which we first hear as we follow him walking through the mountain village,” said Kent. “He plays a Dramyen in the film. I listened to that and also went through collections of Tibetan and Mongolian flutes and horns and drums. Mongolian music has lots of very usable elements that work well for a western ear. I wove some great wooden flutes into the fabric of the music, and some Asian cymbals and drums, and we had some fascinating days recording all these incredible players live.”

Kent incorporated these ethnic sounds with symphonic instruments. He explained, “I always loved the sound of Yo-Yo Ma’s sliding cello in CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, and for Bodi’s father, Khampa, who is a Kung Fu master after all, I used solo cello in a similar style, with the softly sad glissandos of the cello revealing his gentler side, and how he misses his son. This theme keeps coming back each time we revisit Khampa.”

The wolves needed a sound of their own. “I enjoyed creating the wolves’ musical elements, some sinister (inspired by brass harmonies in Prokoviev’s Peter and the Wolf), and some slightly 70’s grooviness, as they drive around in their 70’s gangster cars. The wolves really bring some twisted spice to the story, and their recurring musical elements were always fun to work on,” Kent described.

Unexpected texture, sounds and a signature musical personality are the hallmarks of British film composer Rolfe Kent, who has scored more than 50 films, including Academy Award® nominated Up in the Air (for which he won a Golden Satellite award), Sideways (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award in 2007), Labor Day, Bad Words (Jason Bateman’s directorial debut), Dom Hemingway, About Schmidt, Election, Mean Girls, Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde II, Wedding Crashers, The Matador, Reign Over Me, The Hunting Party, and Thank You for Smoking. Kent also composed the Emmy®-nominated main title theme for the Showtime hit, Dexter. In 2012, he received the Richard Kirk award for career achievement.

In the confines of his musically busy studio, one can immediately see why his musical personality is as distinct and his own. Constantly on the go, adventurous and curious, Kent has developed a style that is not only distinct, but indicative of his aversion to the-anticipated-score in tone, texture and rhythm. The walls are lined with many familiar and many more unfamiliar instruments, gingerly handled and gleefully demonstrated for their sonic qualities. Among his collection are the Indonesian percussion instrument the angklung, the shawm (first used in military maneuvers as a psychological weapon), the melodica, used for the light, soothing effect in Kent’s jazz-infused score for his Golden Globe-nominated Sideways, and an instrument he discovered and cannot name that sounds like the world’s beaches at their most romantic high tide... combined.

Kent has the distinction of attracting and sustaining relationships with directors as popular and diverse as Alexander Payne, Mark Waters, Jason Reitman, Burr Steers, and Richard Shepard.

Summit Premiere presents ROCK DOG in theaters on February 24, 2017. Lakeshore Records will release the ROCK DOG – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally on February 24, 2017.

Rock Dog soundtrack page