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At the beginning of John Carney’s Oscar-winning film Once, Glen Hansard’s busker character is robbed mid-performance, resulting in a foot chase across the streets of Dublin to recover what rightfully belongs to him. In the Irish filmmaker’s newest film, Power Ballad, Paul Rudd’s wedding band frontman, Rick Power, witnesses an older busker being fleeced in similar fashion, only this Dublin-based street performer opts to shrug his shoulders when Rick asks him why he didn’t pursue the thieves. This moment sets up Rick’s own decision to reclaim what’s his after former boy bander Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas) stole one of his songs and turned it into a hit without crediting him.
Carney — who used to play bass in the Hansard-led band, The Frames — continually finds new ways to tell music-centric stories. From Once (2007) and Begin Again (2013) to Sing Street (2016) and Flora and Son (2023), he enjoys representing his fellow musicians, but he admits that it’s also a matter of necessity.
“I struggle to raise money for something that doesn’t have a musical vibe to it. I have not been able. Music has to be very front and center,” tells The Hollywood Reporter.
For Power Ballad’s original music, Carney reteamed with Gary Clark, his co-composer since Sing Street. Clark, the former lead vocalist of the Scottish pop band Danny Wilson, lent his group’s name to Jonas’ character. Surprisingly, Jonas co-wrote only one song, “Spectacular,” for the Power Ballad soundtrack, which is heard in fragments at a couple different points in the film. But other than that, Jonas, despite being one-third of the multiplatinum-selling Jonas Brothers, did not try to over-assert himself in the songwriting process.
