There are few film-makers quite as particular about music as Jim Jarmusch. Over the years, he’s enlisted Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA to score his hitman-meets-samurai flick Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, had Tom Waits and Iggy Pop jacked up on caffeine and locking horns in a thick swirl of smoke in 2003’s Coffee and Cigarettes, and got Neil Young to let rip some improvised guitar for the soundtrack to Dead Man. Not to mention that his films feature acting turns by everyone from Joe Strummer to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and he directed a documentary on the Stooges along the way.
“Music’s always been there,” he says, in his unmistakable deep baritone register, speaking from New York. “Since being a teenager, music has been something that shaped my life and the decisions I’ve made throughout it.” But for the last decade, Jarmusch has evolved from avid admirer and astute curator to making music for his own movies with producer and musician Carter Logan in their band Sqürl. Together they’ve composed scores for films such as his deadpan zombie romp The Dead Don’t Die and Paterson, a subtle yet poignant tale of a bus driver poet.
