Composer Tom Holkenborg explored the sonic palette of Mad Max: Fury Road as a large-scale rock opera, and felt that a sonic shift was needed for the prequel, Furiosa: The Mad Max Saga.
Holkenborg, also known as Junkie XL, lit up a cigarette as he took part. variety We spoke to Holkenborg from his home and studio in Amsterdam to discuss his vision: “The music speaks to how Furiosa sees the wilderness and what's happening to her,” he explained. He wanted the music to feel like a first-person score, but also something more subdued.
He pointed to the lack of music in the first six minutes of the film as an example of restraint.
“Furiosa” tells the story of the eponymous heroine, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who is kidnapped by new villain Dementus, played by Chris Hemsworth, and taken into the wilderness by Dementus and his gang of biker thieves who seek to seize control of her.
Midway through the film, the iconic 12-wheeler truck known as the War Rig comes under attack. “We don't know that Furiosa is in that truck. The moment we start to see her, the music speaks to that,” Holkenborg said. “As she's desperately holding on underneath the truck, you don't hear big brass or strings or heavy percussion. You just hear her heart pounding and thinking, 'What do I do to get out of here?'”
The pulse sounds were created on an old Buchla synthesizer.
“It has such a unique character that I knew it would be important to the film,” said the musician. The buchla is used throughout the soundtrack as a heartbeat, with rhythms that “range from fast to uncontrollable, sometimes hesitant, almost like palpitations of the heart, mirroring the beating of Furiosa's heart,” he explained.
What's more, the music had to be rooted in nature – the Green Place where Furiosa lived with her family as a child. To achieve this, Holkenborg used the duduk, a woodwind instrument previewed in Fury Road. “It comes from the earth, and you feel the sand in your hands,” he says.
The Australian didgeridoo was also an integral part of Holkenborg's score.
“It's clear that this story actually takes place in Australia, and when you zoom in on Green Place you see that we're right in the middle of it,” he said. William Barton, a member of the Aboriginal community, was chosen by Holkenborg to play instruments throughout the film.
Holkenborg also incorporated elements of AI technology into the score. He didn't shy away from it, but instead chose to tackle new ideas. “I used AI to create a deepfake voice from another voice. I didn't actually use AI for the voice, I just thought, what if the original sound was a drum rhythm and the desired sound was an electric guitar? But the software doesn't know how to interpret that. So that's when the happy accidents that I used throughout the score came about,” says Holkenborg.
