JUNKIE XL

Composer, remixer and multi-platinum-selling producer Tom Holkenborg has overseen a remarkable career change. Born in the tiny municipality of the Netherlands, Lichtenvoorde, the classically trained teenager became consumed by electronic gear after working in a local music store. By the early ’90s, his instrumental tracks were already being licensed to the video game industry and by the end of the decade he’d scored his first movie project, Siberia. Meanwhile, Holkenborg was cultivating his electronic rock/breakbeat solo act Junkie XL, peaking with the explosive success of his Elvis Presley remix ‘A Little Less Conversation’ (2002). Alongside his artist releases, he continued writing for the film and video game markets and finally cracked Hollywood in 2014 with the period action film 300: Rise of an Empire. Firmly on the big exec radar, further major films scores followed, including Mad Max, Deadpool and Terminator, conceived from Holkenborg’s hardware-rammed LA-based studio.

You’ve had dual careers as a producer/DJ and film score composer. Was the latter an area you always had designs on?

Looking back I should always have been a film composer rather than an artist, but I wouldn’t have been the composer I am now if I didn’t have an artist career. Technically, I started as an engineer/producer and at some point in the late ’80s decided to become an artist and start experimenting with electronic music. In the late ’90s, I saw my Junkie XL music being licensed in movies and was approached by different directors and studios to do little things here and there. After the worldwide hit I had with ‘A Little Less Conversation’, I decided to move to LA and pursue the film composing profession. It took 10 years to do my first big Hollywood film, which is considered to be quick as lightning in LA. My whole past, combined with my classical upbringing, was an incredibly powerful tool towards becoming a film composer.

What film signaled your arrival as a big Hollywood score maker?

My first big movie was , which musically speaking was a massive step towards doing a movie like . The movie broke me here in the city because it was a No. 1 hit around the world and had a very unique, rock-driven and alternative sound.