When the Bullhorn Singers and Reuben Bullock, of Reuben and the Dark, travelled to L.A. to record music, Bullock looked at Killers of the Flower Moon as the template for the type of film that one day he hoped they’d make music for.
Years later, the musicians’ voices now underscore a trailer for that same movie.
Killers of the Flower Moon tells the true story of the murder of wealthy Indigenous people in Oklahoma in the 1920s. The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone.
Bueford Plaited Hair (Kottoi) from Kainai/Blood Tribe group Bullhorn Singers said he never thought they would be connected to a Martin Scorsese movie.
The group was formed 25 years ago in a basement, he said.
“We started off ceremony singing, going to different ceremonies and just helping, because that’s what we were taught, because we love to sing. It’s all about singing, making music,” he said.
“I never thought this was ever going to happen, any of this.”
The trailer, which features the song Midnight Sun, has more than 14 million views on YouTube.
Bullhorn Singers’ partnership with Calgary folk rock band Reuben and the Dark started years ago. Since then, they’ve recorded about 10 songs together.
Bullock said the partnership brought them to L.A. to record. While there, he and his music producer browsed films and trailers for reference.
“There was a trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon that had already been released. I used that as a reference in my head, both me and the producer kind of discussed, if a movie like this were to ever come around again, let’s make a song that could end up in it,” Bullock said.
“Little did we know that movie got pushed two years. And then when the production house came to us and said, ‘we want to use the song for Killers of the Flower Moon,’ it blew my mind.”
Midnight Sun includes a tribute to the late brother of Bullhorn Singer’s Iskotoahka (Billy Wadsworth) — singing his Blackfoot name.
Bullock said that while recording he didn’t understand what Iskotoahka was saying, but the meaning was clear.
“The moment he sang the lyric in the verse, the first time, I started just crying. I’ve never done that in studio ever. Tears were just pouring out my face,” Bullock said.
Iskotoahka said that when he heard the song, he wanted to include his brother, who died of heart issues three years prior.
“It’s kind of like we’re just we’re giving out these messages to the world that even though he’s not here in the flesh, his songs will still keep going. His name, that song — through us — will keep going.”
Iskotoahka said the experience is still sinking in, and he’s looking to what’s next.
“You throw a rock in the pond and it ripples and it’s just happening like that. We’re just going wherever, whatever direction the music takes us.”
Two days after Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians in southern Israel, hundreds of British Jews waved Israeli flags and sang the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, at a vigil outside Downing Street.The event, organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, and attended by the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, was a powerful show of communal solidarity as the enormity of Hamas’s atrocities was still becoming clear.Now, two weeks after the terror of […]
