Queen guitarist Sir Brian May convinced The Darkness to join him on the anthem Eternia, which featured on the soundtrack to the recent Masters of the Universe movie.
Sir Brian May convinced The Darkness to join him on the Masters of the Universe track Eternia.
The Queen guitarist had been working on the movie’s score with composer Daniel Pemberton and convinced the I Believe in a Thing Called Love rockers – who also sing the film’s end-title theme – to collaborate on the anthem.
Brian told Rolling Stone magazine: “I reconstructed the whole track, and pulled everything in that I could find, with the help of Daniel.
“And then I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could get The Darkness on this as well? It would bring it to life.’ And I wanted a bit more vocal anyway, to tell a bit more of the story. The Darkness were already involved in the project – they’d done the end-title theme.”
May recalled how The Darkness guitarist Dan Hawkins agreed to play bass on Eternia and convinced his brother Justin Hawkins to contribute vocals to the track – which were recorded over the phone as the band were on tour at the time.
The 79-year-old musician said: “They are really dear friends of mine. Dan came down first, and played bass, which I actually wasn’t expecting, but he just instantly said, ‘Look, I have to play bass on this.’
“And I said, ‘Do you think we can talk to your brother about doing some vocals?’ And Justin immediately said yes.
“He was brilliant, Justin, ’cause they were already on tour and halfway around the world, and what he did was take a copy of the track and a little handheld, well, an iPhone, I suppose, and just sang into it and sent it over to me, and it was good enough quality for me to put on the track.”
Meanwhile, Masters of the Universe director Travis Knight previously reflected on the “surreal” moment that the rock legend brought out He-Man toys that belonged to his son Jimmy when he was recording music for the flick.
The filmmaker told Polygon: “At the end of the session, he disappears.
“I thought he was just tired, but then he shows up and he’s carrying two giant boxes of He-Man toys that he still had in his attic from his son Jimmy.”
The 53-year-old director continued: “He put them on the ground in his recording studio, pulled out the characters – and he knew who they were.
“It was a crazy bizarre moment for me to be sitting there with Brian May as he’s talking about Skeletor and Man-E-Faces. It was so weird and also so cool.”
Sir Brian May convinced The Darkness to join him on Masters of the Universe track Eternia
