I have no musical skill or knowledge, so I usually leave everything to the composer - style, instrumentation, everything. As a result, the soundtracks always seem to work out pretty well.

One of the ways to tell a real independent film from a studio "independent" feature is by the musical soundtrack. If it has a great score, filled with classic songs and cool hits you've heard before, it's a studio film. Licensing cool old hits is hugely expensive, and only big-budgeted features can afford to do it.

If, on the other hand, the film has a soundtrack of original music and songs by local indy bands, this is a sign that there was no money in the budget for music, and that it is a genuinely independent picture.

To wit, REPO MAN, where we drove to work singing along with Talking Heads' "Burning Down The House" and shot a scene where Emilio Estevez went to sleep listening to it, but couldn't afford to use it in the film. The licensing was too expensive. Hence REPO MAN's original soundtrack by Iggy Pop and the Plugz - and local bands like Black Flag and the Circle Jerks recording new versions of their own material for us.

The composer with whom I've worked most often is Dan Wool and his group Pray for Rain: which started out as a regular band, objected to carrying heavy boxes up and downstairs, and so - like the Beatles - got out of live performances and touring. Now they're a full-time film and TV soundtrack delivery solution system.

Pray for Rain wrote some of the score of STRAIGHT TO HELL and SID & NANCY (including the bit that plays over where garbage falls from the sky), almost all of the score of THE WINNER, and all of DEATH & THE COMPASS, THREE BUSINESSMEN, KUROSAWA: THE LAST EMPEROR, EMMANUELLE: A HARD LOOK and MIKE HAMA MUST DIE!.

Also, The Pogues, were co-composers on STRAIGHT TO HELL and SID & NANCY.

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I worked with Joe Strummer on three films: SID & NANCY (where he contributed two official songs, and a whole slew of background music, anonymously); STRAIGHT TO HELL, where he acted and wrote some music; and WALKER, whose score he penned entirely on his own.

WALKER is Joe's masterpiece, as a film composer, and as a solo artist. While completely different, it is right up there with the best work of The Clash. Luckily, after many years of unavailability (LPs were selling for hundreds of dollars on the internet!) the CD is being reissued by Astralwerks Records, who reissued an excellent series of Brian Eno's early solo work.

Zander Schloss played on WALKER and wrote some of the score STRAIGHT TO HELL (including, with Miguel Sandoval and Joe Strummer, the Weiner Song); and all of the music for EL PATRULLERO, which has quite a beautiful short score, and a song by Tito Larriva.

Unfortunately, Z was not as scrupulous as Joe's People, or Pray for Rain's archivists, and the masters of that beautiful soundtrack have been lost.

Some of Zander's surviving soundtrack work can be heard on the splendid STRAIGHT TO HELL CD (Ace Records), and on the Japanese WINNER CD.

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In Britain I've worked with various composers, all excellent, all rock'n'roll based to some extent. Chumbawamba wrote a great, orchestral score for REVENGERS TRAGEDY and released it on the Chumba label. Pete Wylie, a.k.a. The Mighty Wah! wrote the music for I'M A JUVENILE DELINQUENT - JAIL ME! The producer of that score was Yorkie, bassist with Liverpool's premiere band, Space . Since then he and I have collaborated on a performance video shot in an abandoned cinema, The Futurist, and a remix of the score of EDGE CITY: the result is three new songs by Yorkie, and a new DVD of the film.

-- BUY DVDS OF JAIL ME AND EDGE CITY HERE --

Recently I directed the British election broadcast for the Green Party, which had a score by Franz Ferdinand. But I can't claim much involvement in that either: it was a new mix of one of their songs, "This Fire," organised by the ever-on-the-ball Scottish Greens.

Composers are like actors, in the sense that it's best to pick 'em carefully, then turn 'em loose to do their work!