"All the kids are extremely talented and they really worked together as a team" observes director Richard Linklater. "Their experience mirrors the experience of the kids in the story. They started out playing in a comfortable musical environment, then basically, we just tried to make it fun for them —just like Dewey Finn did in the film."
While the young band of "The School of Rock" rehearsed, the filmmakers reached out to musicians and lyricists for the key songs. In the end, however, it was Jack Black and Mike White who wrote a lot of the songs, including several solos that are performed in the classroom.
"They’re not really songs so much as nuggets of songs," explains Black. "I could stretch them out and turn them into songs. But they’re more like little comedy nuggets."
Mike White adds, laughing, "We were trying to write lyrics, and I thought, What would AC/DC do’? I don’t think I’ve ever been in a script meeting where I was thinking what would AC/DC do."
The song, "The School of Rock." which is performed by Black and the kids in concert at the finale of the film, was written by the New York band The Mooney Suzuki.
"They opened in New York for The Strokes and I met them afterwards." remembers Black. "So I asked them if they’d be into writing a song for the movie, and they said they’d give it a crack. Mike White gave them some lyrics; they worked on them and eventually made a really good song out of it."
"I was totally psyched because, at one time, my entire life revolved around a Battle of the Bands," admits songwriter and lead vocalist for The Mooney Suzuki, Sammy James Jr. "In fact, I’m in a band right now because I wanted to be in a Battle of the Bands in high school. That’s probably why the song came pretty easily. I just sat down to write, and within an hour I made a little four-track demo in my apartment."
No Vacancy, the band that dumps Dewey Finn at the start of the movie, is fronted by singer/actor Adam Pascal, who starred in the original Broadway production of "Rent" and currently stars in the Broadway production of "Aida." Their first song was written by Warren Fitzgerald, who plays with a band called The Vandals in Los Angeles, and their second song, performed at the Battle of the Bands, entitled ‘~Heal Me. I’m Heartsick," was written by Craig Wedren. George Drakoulias was the music producer who worked with the artists in the recording studio.
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