Producer Stephen Lipson reveals in a new interview that the 007 actor 'wasn't all that sure that the song delivered the right emotional climax for his final Bond outing.'
- Oct 4, 2021
AceShowbiz - Daniel Craig wasn't a fan of Billie Eilish's James Bond theme when he first heard "No Time to Die".
Eilish wrote the theme song with her brother and collaborator Finneas and the track's producer, Stephen Lipson, reveals the actor was a little underwhelmed at first.
"I asked Finneas and Billie to give me a climactic vocal moment, which Billie wasn't too sure about, but when I heard it I knew it would deliver," Lipson tells Music Week. "Most important was getting Daniel's approval. I finished the mix and everybody was happy but we still had to get Daniel on board."
"From the start, quite understandably, he wasn't all that sure that the song delivered the right emotional climax for his final Bond outing, so satisfying him was key."
Lipson invited the actor to his London studio to hear the track in all its glory, and he made some last-minute changes in an effort to really appeal to the star.
He added, "Listening to it as if I was Daniel, I realized that the climax needed to be enormous, so I spent some time massaging the mix so that, without any perceivable change, it was very much louder at that point. I then set the volume of the song so that it was pretty muscular, knowing that the climax would be earth-shattering."
"They arrived, I sat Daniel in the chair between the speakers, hit play and waited for his response. When the song finished he didn't look up but asked to hear it once more... Then he looked up at me and said something like, 'That's f**king amazing!' "
