THE FURIOUS Interview: Flying Lotus on Captain Murphy, Collaboration, and Creating an 'Explosive' Song

We here at ScreenAnarchy have been looking forward to Kenji Tanigaki's The Furious since it was announced two years ago.

Of course we were excited about a film that reunites Joe Taslim and Yayan Ruhian from modern action classic The Raid and seeks to bring a pan-Asian melting pot of martial arts violence, with stars like Thailand's Jeeja Yanin and China's Xie Miao.

So with the film finally near, our team has been thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with anyone and everyone involved in the film in any way. For my part, that meant I got to speak with the inimitable Flying Lotus (legal name Steven Ellison) about "Mudhole," the bombastic end credits song he created with fellow electronic musician Little Snake and brought his long dormant rapping persona Captain Murphy out of retirement for.

You can read our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, below.

ScreenAnarchy: I love music, and I love your music, but I don't really know anything about production. So I wanted to ask you - I looked at the crediting [for "Mudhole"], and it says "performed by Captain Murphy, written by Flying Lotus, and produced by Little Snake." Does the "written by" mean that you wrote the lyrics over Little Snake's beat?

Flying Lotus: That's right yeah, he produced it. And it's not often where I do something with another producer, but he's an exception. He's an exceptional cat so I love to work with him whenever we get an opportunity to make something make sense.

Nice, I did a bit of looking into what y'all had done before, and I saw that you were on two tracks of his album A FRAGMENTED LOVE STORY[, WRITTEN BY THE INFINITE HELIX ARCHITECT] a couple years ago.

Flying Lotus: Yeah, and he's done some stuff for my live shows as well so it's been great working with him.

How did y'all first meet and start working together as collaborators?

Flying Lotus: I started releasing his music on [my label] Brainfeeder and ever since then he's been someone whose process I am very curious about, as he's curious of mine. I'm just like, "What are you doing, man? How do you get that with that?"

Did he reach out to you? Was he like "Hey, you want to put out my stuff?"

Flying Lotus: No, I think someone else put me on to his music. I think a friend put me onto his music, and then I reached out, and the rest was what it became. But yeah, he's just one of those cats who'll come over with nothing but headphones, and blow your whole shit away. Nothing but headphones and a laptop. It's like, "How do you? What are you doing? You don't have a whole room full of gear and toys and all this stuff?"

I was gonna ask what made you want to bring him in when you were invited to do a track for the movie, but it sounds like you want to work with him any opportunity you can.

Flying Lotus: Any chance, yeah. And the energy they wanted for the movie, I think they wanted something that felt explosive, something that felt big and loud and mean. I always think of him and, again, finding a reason for us to work together. I know he also wanted to do some film work. So I've been trying to find opportunities for him as well, just like things that might come my way. So yeah, it was just the perfect thing to happen.

That sound that you were talking about. Like I said, I'm a big fan of yours, and I found him through this and listened to his stuff and liked it a lot. But the song that y'all made together for the movie sounds very different from the stuff that y'all have done previously. Like you have definitely done some "aggressive" musical stuff in terms of densely layered and very fast beats, but this will make a car rattle.

Flying Lotus: Absolutely, yeah it's different. And I want to continue doing stuff with him. We keep talking about doing a whole project together and I hope that happens.

In terms of finding the beat that you wanted to use, what made you want to play in that new sonic space?

Flying Lotus: He'll send me stuff all the time. But I asked him if he had anything for this energetically. I told him what we're doing, "It's the end of the movie, fucking badass movie just happened. You want the audience hyped up." And he was like "try this and this." And I was like "The first one was perfect. Let's go. Let's run it."

Captain Murphy has been dormant for a while. I know that you just did an interview with the Guardian where you talked about wanting to work with Westside Gunn or Freddie Gibbs if you brought Captain Murphy back. And so I wanted to know, were you already working on any Captain Murphy stuff?

Flying Lotus: I think the plan is to continue with Little Snake. I'm also -- there's the part of me that is like, "I should just leave it alone." But then I still have so much fun doing it when it feels right. So I never want to say never, but I just want to do it if it feels right and makes sense.

So have you been working on some of that stuff?

Flying Lotus: Yeah, I record stuff all the time. But should people hear it is the question [Laughter]. My ratio is not -- I'm not always on, man. Sometimes I gotta step away for a little while and come back.

Since you brought up Freddie in that other interview, and as someone who likes both of y'all, I have to ask: Have you talked to him anymore about potentially doing a collaborative album as Captain Murphy or Flylo?

Flying Lotus: We haven't, but he's been in my orbit a bunch. Denzel Curry has been in my orbit a bunch. And we've been talking about doing stuff. [Chuckles] Denzel had his producer make a beat in the studio for me to rap on. I was like, dude, "I don't know if I want to do this right now." But I like the encouragement. I like people trying to get me to go. It makes you feel good.

I love Denzel. I love that he's featured on a song with Knocked Loose now.

Flying Lotus: Dude, he's about to have a big year, bro. He's got something crazy, crazy coming out. Everyone will see it for sure.

You've now directed two feature films and several shorts. Has becoming a filmmaker influenced the way that you write music for a movie, whether you're doing a score or just something like this song to go along with it?

Flying Lotus: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think having done some movie work, I just have more respect for the process. I have more respect for deadlines. I have more respect for trying to serve the image and the energy of the project.

Instead of coming at it from a place of like, "I'm going to do my thing and it's going to work," you say, "No, I'm going to serve this movie. I'm going to serve the scene." And sometimes that means not doing things that you would normally do. And that's, that's the fun part. That's the beauty of it. And it's so rewarding when you have the marriage working perfectly.

When they sent you the movie to watch, was Olivia Xiaolin's music already completed for it?

Flying Lotus: Yeah.

So did that inspire the track?

Flying Lotus: It's funny because they asked me. At some point, they were like, "Did you want to do all the music for it?" And I was like "...yes?" It was just a time when I didn't have the time. So it ended up being just this track. And again, just with respect to what I was watching, and energetically, I just felt like I knew what they wanted. They want you to leave that theater gassed up and hyped that you just saw the most brutal action. So you want to give them some music that reflects that as well.

Last question: when they reached out to you, what made you want to be a part of the project?

Flying Lotus: Oh, man. They had all the right elements. They were saying, "Oh it's up there with The Raid." I was like "Whaaat?" "Oh yeah, it's got Joe Taslim in it." "Oh, word?" So I was already on board, I was already a yes. A martial arts movie? Like come on now. Easy. That's easy business.