Nick Luca has produced and contributed music to 10 films and documentaries since he left his adopted hometown of Tucson for Los Angeles in 2009.
But none of them challenged him like his latest and biggest project: Producing the soundtrack for the new Kelsey Grammer drama/comedy film “The Space Between.”
Luca, who lived in Tucson from 1993 until 2009 and was a major fixture on the local music scene, was tasked with making songs written by Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo sound like they were written for the 1970s, not the modern rock 1990s that informs Cuomo’s songwriting.
“They sounded too much like modern rock and we wanted it to sound like the 1970s,” Luca said last week as the soundtrack for “The Space Between” dropped on major streaming outlets. “That was my challenge: How do I take these modern rock songs and sort of reverse engineer them and go back in time? How would they do this if this was the ‘70s?”
His answer was to go back to the basics.
“My thought was, well, the best way to do that was to kind of get a real live band sort of sound instead of today’s modern slick production,” he explained.
So Luca recruited the 1990s Brit-born, California-based Americana roots band Minibar to give the soundtrack that live band sound. He also had to figure out how to make Cuomo’s songs, which the Weezer lead singer recorded on a demo in his higher pitched voice, fit Grammer’s smooth baritone.
That’s where things got interesting.
Grammer can sing, but his style is more Broadway than rock. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in “La Cage aux Folles” in 2010 and originated the roles of Charles Frohman and Captain Hook in the 2015 Broadway premiere of the musical “Finding Neverland.” But he’s best known to fans of his 1990s sitcom “Frasier” for singing the “tossed salad and scrambled eggs” ditty that plays over the closing credits.
In “The Space Between,” set in the 1990s LA music scene, the 66-year-old Grammer plays a burned-out 1970s rocker whose label wants to cut him loose after he records an album of doors opening and closing. The movie features Grammer singing his character’s 1970s pop-rock songs.
“He’s very much a stage singer; he projects, which is the opposite of what singer-songwriters do,” Luca said, which posed the biggest challenge in producing the soundtrack: How to transform Broadway Grammer into Sunset Boulevard Grammer.
“The director was very adamant that it had to sound like a good musician’s. She was throwing out names like Cat Stevens and Jackson Browne,” Luca said. “I was like, whoa. I can produce music, but I’m not a miracle worker.”
Luca met Grammer for the first time in 2018, when they were still filming the movie. The actor came to LA’s New Monkey Studio, where Luca has worked for years, to record the initial demos.
“He came in the first time to do the demos and he was in character, large and thundering like a big man,” Luca said, describing how Grammer was heavier than he was when he was on “Frasier” and had unkempt, long hair and a scraggly beard. “He came in and I was like, oh my gosh, who is this crazy person coming in here? Oh, it was Kelsey Grammer.
“For me, hearing his voice ... wow,” Luca added. “This is a guy I have been listening to through my television set since I was 10 years old. And here I am telling him that he’s flat, or sharp or critiquing his performance.”
Six months later, Grammer returned to record the final tracks after living with the songs throughout the filming.
“When he returned, he was Frasier, smart sweater, khakis, thin as a rail,” Luca said. “His voice, just because he was so much smaller, was naturally lighter, thinner and young sounding. He sounds younger than he sounds in the film. I thought he gave a great performance.”
The soundtrack features Grammer on six songs that are in the movie and Cuomo on four — three of them are the original demos of songs that Grammer also covered. Luca also plays several instruments on the album.
Luca, who comes home a few times a year to visit his wife Sandy’s family, also did a subtle shoutout to Tucson on “Rogue Wave,” which has this distinct desert rock, Southwest vibe to it.
“Right off the bat it sounds like a Southwest surf song,” Luca said. “There you go Tucson. There’s your sound.”
