Here’s how Elvis composer, Elliott Wheeler, blended Elvis Presley’s vocals with those of Austin Butler to make him sound more like the musician.
Elvis composer, Elliot Wheeler, described how he blended Elvis Presley’s vocals with those of Austin Butler to make the actor sound more like the iconic musician. Elvis is a biographical music drama that premiered on June 24, 2022. The film stars Butler in lead role of Presley and explores the musician’s rise to fame and his navigation of his career and stardom. Throughout nearly the entirety of his journey, Presley shares a complicated relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), who propels Presley into stardom but exercises too much control over his life.
Elvis also tackles the relationship between Presley and his wife, Priscilla Presley (née Wagner), who is portrayed by Olivia DeJonge. So far, Elvis has received relatively positive reviews from critics. Viewers have praised the film for its dazzling, bright, and vivacious take on the King of Rock n’ Roll’s life. Elvis taps into the energy and charisma of Presley, while also taking a look into the more tragic and controversial aspects of his life. Meanwhile, one common point of praise for the film is the performance of Butler. Butler beat out a number of stars to land role and it isn’t difficult to see why as Butler fully encompasses Presley, both physically and vocally.
In an interview with Collider, Elvis composer, Wheeler, described how he made Butler sound more like Presley for the film. Essentially, Wheeler blended the vocals of Presley with those of Butler. Butler sang each of his songs in full, but then his performance was spliced with Presley’s recordings. They would utilize a lot of the grunts, breaths, and body movements from Butler and then switch to Presley. By blending the two vocals, Wheeler created a much more authentic sound for Butler. Check out his statement below:
We ended up slicing [parts of] Austin’s performance. We used a lot of the breaths, grunts, and body movements that are Austin, and we’d switch back to Elvis.
Wheeler’s techniques are certainly an interesting approach to recreating Presley’s iconic vocals. One of the biggest problems that music biopics run into, is not being able to recreate or do justice to the vocals of the original singer. In most cases, the cast and crew want to shy away from simple lip-syncing to give a more compelling performance. However, if the vocals can’t be recreated, then this can definitely lead to heavy criticism for butchering an iconic musician’s vocals. For example, Hank Williams’ grandson slammed Tom Hiddleston’s performance in I Saw The Light, because he didn’t believe Hiddleston quite captured Williams’ vocals. Hence, Wheeler attempts to remedy the situation by balancing recordings of Presley with authentic performances from Butler.
The act of splicing Butler’s performance with Presley’s vocals does more than just put on a good show and honors Presley’s memory. It only seems right for a biopic honoring a musician’s life, to include a little bit of the musician within it. Wheeler’s method sees that Butler gets to give an iconic performance, while incorporating Presley’s timeless and unmatchable skill into it as well. Wheeler’s blending of Presley and Butler’s vocals ensures that the music in Elvis does justice to the iconic singer and also encompasses a bit of Presley’s original music, too.
Source: Collider
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