By James Jennings

Copyright brisbanetimes

“The approach was, ‘We don’t need to do this’,” says Silvestri. “We didn’t have a studio coming to us and saying, ‘We want this’ – it was all generated from us. Back to the Future certainly didn’t need a musical – it was already a beloved, iconic film that had become a part of American culture. The mantra became, ‘If it’s not great, we’re not gonna do it.’ And that was right up until the day we walked on stage. ‘If this is a mess and the audience doesn’t like it, it’s over.’ That was the spirit in which we worked – we always felt it’s got to really be great and fun and honour everything that’s great about the movie.”

To develop the music and lyrics, Silvestri paired up with songwriter, lyricist and producer Glen Ballard, furthering a partnership that began when the duo collaborated on the Oscar-nominated, Grammy-winning Josh Groban song Believe from the 2004 Zemeckis film The Polar Express. Ballard, whose other co-writing credits include the Michael Jackson single Man in the Mirror and Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album Jagged Little Pill, calls Silvestri “an absolute orchestral genius”.

“I was challenged as a lyricist to find the words to go with this incredible score that everybody knows – [imitates the Back to the Future theme] ba ba ba ba da da da da da da,” says Ballard from his Hollywood home. “We made a song out of that, and then we just wrote a bunch of other songs. But we always tried to incorporate his iconic score because we were not naive enough to think that people didn’t want to hear that, ’cause it’s one of the great themes of all time.”