The Bikeriders

The Bikeriders is a fast-paced drama about a fictional 1960s US Midwest biker gang, starring Austin Butler (who co-starred with Tom Hanks last year in Elvis) as Benny. As we hear the slow purr of bike engines, the trailer opens with Johnny (Tom Hardy, star of Mad Max) encouraging Benny to become leader of their gang. In the first 20 seconds, this roadside conversation is gradually intercut with other shots – close-ups of gloves on handlebars, a speedometer, bikers cruising open country, Benny screaming in ecstasy as he rides – as a single note begins to swell in the sound mix. Benny’s scream lasts from 0.16-0.18, spanning across five shots including Benny loading a gun and Johnny stabbing a man in the gut, while the scream’s tone is intensified by the added sounds of an accelerating engine and low thuds evoking a racing heartbeat.

At 0:21 we hear a keyboard intro from the original version of The Rolling Stones’ song “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)” off their 1973 album Goat Head Soup. This keyboard riff was played by Billy Preston (also known for his work on The Beatles’ album Get Back). The intro is quite similar to that of Nirvana’s iconic 1991 song “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” providing a sense of musical familiarity here for multiple generations of listeners.

At 0:24 we segue to Kathy giving an interview about being married to Benny. At 0:30, a drum fill cleverly sets up the on-screen text “Chicago 1965” and while Kathy’s interview voiceover continues, we see the gang’s glory days in a nostalgic montage: pulling stunts, shooting pool, falling in love. Benny’s got a potent stare (picture Flynn Rider’s “smolder” eyes at Rapunzel in Tangled), and as Benny and Kathy lock eyes in the pool hall for the first time at 0:36 The Rolling Stones fade out, and the thudding heartbeat returns.

At 0:43, we jump back into “Heartbreaker,” landing at the second line of the first verse, which is followed by part of its first line. Re-arranged this way, we hear Mick Jagger sing “they chased a boy right through the park” while a gang fight in a park unfolds on screen. When a bottle smashes at 0:51, The Stones disappear again, making sonic space for Kathy to explain that Benny is “wild” – just in case you hadn’t already made the connection between these bikers and Marlon Brando’s gang from the 1953 classic biker film The Wild One.

And in case you missed the “Heartbreaker” intro the first time, we get it again at 0:56, now with a steady bass drum pulse remixed in. This time the drum fill leads into a downbeat coinciding with the thud of Benny’s head being slammed from behind with a bar stool. The downbeat one bar later aligns with a knife slashing across an unfortunate face. But The Rolling Stones continue their fickle role in this trailer, and we cut to silence again at 1:08, making enough sonic space to hear Johnny give the order to burn down a bar.

In the next sequence we hear a few more choice lyrics from Jagger, including part of the song’s first chorus, “Heartbreaker, with your .44, I want to tear your world apart.” The word “apart” ends with a reverberant low percussion strike at 1:26, cutting to musical silence again. When The Stones return at 1:31, we’re in one of the final choruses, and the horn section is grooving out.

Several trailers we’ve blogged about in recent months have cleverly rearranged pop songs so that select lyrics loosely coincide with an imagined film storyline (Stormzy in Heart of Stone, Johnny Duncan and Nancy Wiskey in Asteroid City). Here again, The Bikeriders trailer manages to take a song about a girl drug addict and police in New York City and edits it in such a way that the chosen handful of lyrics is able to resonate with this story. It helps that The Rolling Stones’ classic macho bad boy aesthetic is spot on for this film.

The Bikeriders rolls into theatres December 1st.

— Jack Hui Litster