Film-maker Jim Jarmusch on his transition to rock star: 'Music is just a release'

Jim Jarmusch has worked with stars ranging from Johnny Depp to Tilda Swinton. But in many of his movies, like Dead Man and Only Lovers Left Alive, the most emotional moments come not from the fine actors on screen, but from the music he chooses to score the films – and increasingly makes himself.

When he was working on the score for his 2009 film The Limits of Control, Jarmusch wanted to use existing songs from doom metal bands like Boris, Earth and Sunn 0))), but found that when it came to certain cinematic moments, nothing was quite right. Jarmusch, who had played in bands for years, had a back-up plan hatched with his producer, Carter Logan.

“I suggested we go in the studio and see if we could make something that worked. We made these loose, layered, psychedelic tracks with drums and guitars and some strange keyboards and samples. The music worked really well for that and we thought, let’s just make a band and keep doing it.”

Jarmusch and Logan, a longtime drummer, teamed up with sound engineer Shane Stoneback, who Jarmusch had conscripted to help him remix the White Stripes’ Blue Orchid. “[Jack White] wanted to put out a limited edition vinyl 12” with my remix on one side and Michel Gondry’s on the other,” explained Jarmusch. “I did that with Shane and that’s how we first met.”

The band’s first EP debuted under the name Bad Rabbits, which was soon changed to Sqürl. “That’s when our band really started,” said Jarmusch, who refuses to elaborate on the origins of the name. “We’re not going to tell you that, just to be mean,” he jokes, instructing interested parties to Google until they find the reference.

The members of Sqürl are all multi-instrumentalists who move from guitar to keyboards, from bass to vocals, incorporating samples and loops as they go. The resulting sound is something akin to the Jesus and Mary Chain teaming up with My Bloody Valentine.

They find that music allows them to connect with their audience much more quickly than with films, which can take months or years before the are released. “There’s an immediacy to music and a relative ease of doing it,” said Logan. “You can write and record a song and have it out there in an afternoon. That’s a bit more difficult with a film.”

“I love making films. I love collaborating with people. I love editing, where you shape it. I love the whole process. But it is a million questions that have to be answered constantly,” said Jarmusch. “Music is very different. To me it’s just a release. It’s communicating with just a few other people, not with words and just seeing where it goes.”

In addition to contributing to the score for Limits of Control, Sqürl teamed up with Jozef Van Wissem for the award-winning soundtrack of Only Lovers Left Alive, which was released on blood red vinyl (“We’re very proud of that one,” said Jarmusch). They have released a set of three beautifully packaged, limited edition EPs on the ATP record label.

Logan and Jarmusch are also preparing to do live scores of Man Ray’s films, practicing by playing along to the films to create “maps” to follow for their live performances. “We try to follow the map, but we never do,” says Jarmusch, preferring a freeform approach to their droney sound. “Sometimes we just start playing and see what happens.”

Sqürl is also planning a website called SqürlWorld that will feature a constantly rotating stream of their sonic experiments. In addition to the band, the website, and the live scores, Logan is in another band and producing films, including two upcoming projects for Jarmusch.

“We’re busy people,” notes Logan.

“Workaholics,” adds Jarmusch, who goes on to list a handful of other projects they are working on simultaneously, including a photo book and a film they want to be projected on to them while they perform.

“That’s why we like EPs,” said Jarmusch. “We can go into the studio every three months and record enough music for a new EP. We’ll probably put an album out eventually with things culled from this plus a few other tracks. We have a new instrumental EP that is done, but we’re waiting to put that out.”

Their busy schedules mean the band is unlikely to go on a world tour, instead playing one-off shows at festivals and event spaces. “We’d also love to do a residence at a club,” said Jarmusch. “We could play once a week for a month and invite other bands to join us.”

Jarmusch and Logan will be back in the movie business soon. “We’re making a film now about the Stooges,” said Jarmusch. “Not Iggy [Pop]’s life. It’s a love letter to the Stooges; an unconventional documentary. We’re still in the middle of it, but it’s starting with their fall and brings in a lot of clips of found material.”

But as they work on the film, there’s more music to make. Jarmusch has an iPhone filled with recordings that he finds inspirational and intriguing. They include the bells of the Cathedral in Cologne, a winding down Victrola and Tilda Swinton’s Limits of Control German stand-in cracking dirty jokes in heavily accented English.

Whether any of those will be used as samples in a future Sqürl track will be figured out in the studio. “We try things that don’t work all the time,” said Logan. “But problems can result in creative solutions. Like the battery in my pedal will be dying, but it sounds great right now, so we record it.”

“We’re very open,” said Jarmusch. “When you’re making a movie, you’re very regulated by time and location and scheduling and actors. Since I started making films, it’d be like ‘oh shit, it started raining.’ Do we pack everything up or make it work in the rain?’ Or the actor says something jokingly in response to a line and you realise it sounds great and do a take with it. It’s thinking on your feet and being open.”