Alien: Earth showrunner Noah Hawley has discussed the series’ metal-as-hell soundtrack in a new interview.
The show’s first season, which takes place before Ridley Scott’s classic original Alien film and features a bunch of freaky-as-hell new creatures, cyborgs, synths and some delightfully weird plot twists, has also made headlines for its use of hard rock and metal bangers, with each episode in the season finishing with a humdinger of a needle drop.
The likes of Black Sabbath’s Mob Rules, Tool’s Stinkfist and Metallica’s Wherever I May Roam are amongst the songs to have played over the show’s closing credits – and Hawley reveals that once he had an idea of how he wanted to close each episode, it was clear which genre he needed to turn to to make those moments pop.
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“I’m just gonna say: I see you, man,” he tells the Empire Spoiler Specials podcast. “I see all of the Alien fans, driving around in their vans with their [American fantasy/sci fi artist] Frank Frazetta paintings on the side. I know the records that you owned, the CDs that you owned. I know you.
“I want this show to be arena rock, and so I gotta play arena rock,” he continues. “I don’t want it to be late night at the Palladium or something, where it’s good, it’s a good theater, you can sit two thousand people in there, but it’s not Shea Stadium, it’s not Wembley, right? You want that.
Hawley also reveals that he “watched, along with everybody else, Ozzy’s last concert, and that crowd wanted to be there and they wanted to be there in that size,” before explaining why rock and metal made such perfect sense for each episode of Alien: Earth’s tense final moments.
“I wanted to end each episode with a big feeling, a throw to next week, there’s a bit of a cliffhanger, and so I was like, ‘I’m gonna call in the big guns here.’ Each week, when that song kicks in, the hair stands up on the back of your neck. That’s the feeling.”
The final episode of Alien: Earth’s first season aired on Wednesday, September 24, climaxing with – yep, you guessed it – a cliffhanger and a big hard rock number. Hawley has suggested that he’s hopeful for a second season to be commissioned, but it is as yet unconfirmed if and when that will arrive
Alien: Earth is available to watch on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland and Hulu in the US.
Alien: Earth | Official Trailer | FX – YouTube
