Inspired by recent decades of American roots music, the End of the Dial Soundtrack includes 11 original songs written, performed, and recorded for the motion picture by Jeff Dernlan.
Dernlan sites albums like Nebraska and Pink Moon as templates for these recordings and credits Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, and Steve Earle as writers he modeled when constructing the songs. These influences are readily heard on tracks like Countryside and Grandpa's Cigarettes but there's also plenty of Dernlan's own take on the genre in the ambient A Migration Observed and the sparse, blues opener, Land of the Living.
Glory Bound is an authentic gospel number that closes both the soundtrack and the film. "We recorded an acoustic take for Elvis (Ripley, the film's editor) to use," Dernlan says. "After I left town some his friends came by and added some tracks. I couldn't believe who played on it." The final mix includes Grammy nominee John Fullbright, Davey Faragher (Cracker), and Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and the Attractions.)
The End of the Dial Soundtrack is a companion piece to the movie and an expansion of the story. "I imagined the soundtrack as a representation of Chase's (the films protagonist) career. What we really wanted to do was take the life that we built for him on the screen and pull it into the songs."
