Setting the Soundtrack for the MTV Movie Awards
Like any big cinema production, tomorrow night’s MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles will feature a soundtrack. This one comes courtesy of DJ Martin Solveig, fun. with help from Janelle Monae, Wiz Khalifa and the Black Keys, who will serenade MTV Generation Award Winner Johnny Depp with a new rendition of their single “Gold On The Ceiling.” (Depp’s award will be presented by Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.)
Rolling Stone caught a sneak peek at rehearsals yesterday at L.A.’s Gibson Amphitheatre and spoke to fun., Monae and Khalifa about the event.
Fun. and Monae will open the entire show with their massive hit “We Are Young.” To Monae, the song is a natural for the Movie Awards. “I think it brings people together,” she says of the track. “And why wouldn’t MTV Movie Awards want to be brought together and have a little fun. and Janelle Monae?”
The performance will also include a balloon drop and confetti. Does it make the band feel like arena rockers? “Yeah, to an extent. We’re in a tiny box, but it’s awesome,” fun.’s lead singer Nate Ruess tells us. The only thing missing might be some pyrotechnics to make the effect complete. “I feel like pyro might have died out. I saw the Behind The Music with Metallica,” Ruess jokes. “I don’t think we’re capable of it.”
Just being in a room full of movie people is enough excitement for fun. “Not only are we inspired by film, but I want to score film someday,” Andrew Dost says. “And to be around people that work in film is very, very exciting.”
The band’s Jack Antonoff sums up the sentiment more succinctly: “Fuck all that, Adam Sandler is in the front row,” he says. “What else can you say? That’s our childhood.”
“He’s Jack and Jill,” Dost adds.
With any Hollywood awards show, there are always big parties going on – but fun. are holding out for a special invite. “We haven’t gotten anything in the mail from one P. Diddy,” says Ruess. “Go big or go home, isn’t that what someone says?”
Wiz Khalifa, on the other hand, isn’t expecting to rub shoulders with anyone in Hollywood. “I’m a square, nobody really hangs with me,” Khalifa told us. “I just chill by myself, I’ll be in the studio all the time.”
But Khalifa, who will be performing his new single, “Work Hard, Play Hard,” as part of a special tribute to “Instant Cult Classic” winner Project X, is curious to see the responses he gets from the star-studded crowd. “It’s gonna be cool to see the looks on their faces cause I know a lot of them don’t know who the eff I am, but their kids probably know me, or their sister’s kids,” he says. “So they’ll be like, ‘Oh, this is who they was talking about.'”
Charlie Sheen will be introducing the Khalifa performance, which features a backdrop of three separate rooms with crowds of people dancing to look like a party in celebration of the song’s spot in the show. While Khalifa has yet to see Project X, he does have a favorite film in the genre. “The best party movie to me is probably House Party,” he says. “It really inspires to get you ready for partying.”
The rapper, who co-stars with Snoop Dogg in Mac & Devin Go to High School (out on DVD July 3rd) has other movie star aspirations. Asked which director he most wants to work with, he replies immediately: “Quentin Tarantino, that’s a no-brainer. I just want him to tell me exactly what he wants me to do, whatever character he wants me to play, however he sees me doing it. And we could go crazy.”
Would Khalifa be down for the type of action sequences found in movies like Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs? “Fuck yeah!” he says. “I’m a crazy individual, so bring on the action, bring on the fake blood and all that shit.”