(Credit: Ruvan Wijesooriya/Astralwerks)
Even more exciting for the Norwegian native is the prospect of getting his music out to a whole new audience. “Dan in Real Life,” a romantic comedy starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche, features four new Lerche compositions, plus several tracks from albums like “Phantom Punch,” a collection of tart, Brit-pop-inspired rockers released earlier this year. It was also Lerche’s first experience composing instrumental theme music, a process he clearly loved.
As Lerche prepared to embark on a solo tour to promote the “Dan in Real Life” soundtrack, we talked with him about his involvement in the film’s creation and his own real-life experiences with romance.
How did you get asked to do the soundtrack?
I was asked one and a half years ago by the director, Peter Hedges. He wanted to try to do something else with the soundtrack other than the usual Hollywood treatment, with strings and that kind of thing. And rumor has it he listened through—I’ve heard 100 artists and I’ve heard 500 artists, so maybe the truth is somewhere in between. [Laughs] But he heard two of my records and he kept going back to those records, ‘cause he felt that they resonated with the story. So he came to my doorstep, at my apartment in New York, and asked if I wanted to try to come up with the music for the film.
So you got involved pretty early in the process.
Yeah, it was half a year before they started filming it. He was still rewriting the script…I saw one draft and then the next week he’d have a new one. And I got to work with a lot of the actors on the set. Before they started filming, they had all of the actors on the set rehearsing and trying to relate to each other as a family. Peter wanted music to play an important part in that, so I came up to [the film’s set in] Rhode Island, sat down with all the actors one on one and rehearsed a couple of songs that they sang to Steve Carell when he came on the set. We had John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest singing Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young,” Juliette [Binoche] did a wonderful “Piece of My Heart” and Dane [Cook] did “The Wind Beneath My Wings.” It was great.
The Pete Townshend song “Let My Love Open the Door” figures pretty prominently in the movie. Was that a choice that the director made or was it something you suggested?
Basically, Peter had two suggestions, and he had a hard time really deciding. “Let My Love Open the Door” was one of them. So he called me in to help out with that scene as well—for me to try to illustrate how these two songs might work in the dramatic setting of the film.
What was the other choice?
The other one was a Beatles song, “If I Fell.” And while that song of course is a beautiful song, I felt that “Let My Love Open the Door” left more room for the actors to make it their own. To make it as funny as it should be, of course, but also to bring out the very vulnerable performance that Steve does at the end of the song. It had more room for all the sensibilities we needed, whereas “If I Fell” is more of a defined song—it’s a very pretty song, but I just felt it was too specific in a way. And I think everybody agreed.
What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for anyone? Did you propose to your wife in a particularly dramatic or romantic way?
It was not very dramatic, actually. But I did [one thing] in courting my wife. I met my wife in one of my music videos; she was playing my love interest, which is sort of a cliché, I guess. But we only had that day, shooting the video together, and then I went on tour for a month. And after that…she was in Rome at the time, which was of course very romantic in itself. So I just showed up in Rome without even letting her know, and I called her and said, “Can you meet me in five minutes?” That was probably the most romantic thing I’ve done.
You definitely got points for that, I would think.
Exactly! [Laughs] It worked.
In the film, Dan is an advice columnist. If you wrote an advice column, what would it be about?
Oh, wow. I’m not sure what kind of advice I would be good at.
A romance and relationships column, maybe?
Maybe. Advising the young romantics of the world to show up wherever their object of desire is. Of course, if you’re not as lucky as I was, bad things could happen. So I would probably be giving a lot of horrendous advice that would seem very romantic on paper.
So this is a solo tour? You’re not bringing your band?
No, it’ll just be solo, [with] songs from “Dan in Real Life” and “Phantom Punch” in new versions.
Sort of “Sondre Unplugged”?
“An Evening with Sondre.” And of course in between [songs], I’ll be coming up with romantic advice for the audience.
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