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Beautiful Creatures leads Dhani to Abbey Road

The film score is played by Dhani Harrison’s band thenewno2

By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times
Published: 07:52 February 20, 2013

Image Credit: Snap Stills / Rex Features
No Merchandising. Editorial Use Only. No Book Cover Usage Mandatory Credit: Photo by Snap Stills / Rex Features (1980533a) Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert Beautiful Creatures - 2013

Working on Richard LaGravenese’s latest movie, “Beautiful Creatures,” gave a couple of the musicians who created the film’s music a chance to follow in their fathers’ footsteps.

“It was epic,” George Harrison’s son Dhani Harrison told Billboard about his first opportunity to record an entire album at London’s famed Abbey Road studios, where the Beatles did most of their work. The film score is played by Dhani’s band thenewno2, and Harrison said he was able to share the feeling with his bandmate Paul Hicks, whose father, Tony Hicks, was a member of the Hollies, who also spent time working at Abbey Road.

“It was just interesting to see where my dad must have been sitting all day long next to his amp, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea,” Harrison told Billboard. “When you’re working there, too, you’re actually in the same boat. And they haven’t changed the room at all. We got to play Mrs. Mills, the piano that’s been on everything, which is insane. It’s just a studio ... Jon [Sadoff, the other core member of thenewno2] said it’s like a high school gymnasium, but a high school gymnasium that Michael Jordan used to dunk in.”

The soundtrack also includes a new version of thenewno2 song “Run To Me” featuring Ben Harper, Dhani Harrison’s friend and bandmate in their other group, Fistful of Mercy, with Joseph Arthur.

“Beautiful Creatures” is the film translation of the debut entry in the bestselling series of teen fantasy romance novels by Los Angeles-based novelists Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

“The movie’s got a cool alt-rock sound thanks to the haunting music of the Brit band thenewno2, and a graceful grunge look,” Times film critic Besty Sharkey wrote in her review, adding that writer-director LaGravenese’s film “reaches the artistic heights hoped for, but never quite scaled by ‘Twilight’ — heresy, I know.”