Will Sharpe, Luis Felber on original music, Felix’s band

When Lena Dunham and Luis Felber started dating for the first time, playlists were a large part of their love language.

“There were times when we were not together, life stands in the way of mid-30-year-olds we would make each other playlists,” says Felber, a musician in himself as frontman of the British band Attawalpa, about Zoom. “And that became a very large part of the type of meat and bones of this TV program.”

The show in question is “Too Much”, who, the now married Dunham and Felber Co-Created and debuted on Netflix on Thursday. The ROM-Com series follows Jessica (“Hacks” striking Megan Stalter), a New Yorker who moves to London after a devastating break, and Felix (“White Lotus” star Will Sharpe), a wrestling musician who is also struggling with past trauma. The Soundtrack Includes Original Music From Attawalpa, Played by Sharpe’s Fictional Band Felix and the Feelers, As Well as Needle Drops From All Over The Musical Spectrum Including Fergie, Fiona Apple, Nicki Minaj, Congonaj’s Songs Again, Kacey Musgraves, Bob Dylan, Kendrick Lamar, The Dare and Taylor Swift – to name just a few. Most music moments of the show were already in the treatment when Dunham and Felber Netflix threw the show, and many of them came from those first playlists.

“The playlists of Lena were interesting for me, because it is more of the pop world. And my playlists were very Americana, country – I didn’t set up a slip knot or anything there,” says Felber laughing. “But you can see a gap … We both learned each other things. And that is the beauty of a mix -cd, or nowadays a playlist, you get a kind of someone to show how you feel and also where you come from.”

Although “too much” is not completely autobiographical for their romance, Dunham – who moved to London in 2021 – said Variety In her digital cover story this week: “It is certainly not a quote unquote Based on a true storyBut just like all I do, there is an element of my own life that I can’t help but inject. “The same applies to Felber. Lipstick and a matching guitar, Felix plays a moody, stripped back-back version of Attawalpa’s” Always the Girls “(from the new album” Experience “of the band), accompanied by piano and violin.

To make Sharpe’s Felix on stage persona, Felber says that he was inspired by Elliott Smith during his “XO” era in 1998 and Nirvana -frontman Kurt Cobain, especially for the first performance in the Ivy House. “I am so boring and basic, but I always go back to that ‘disconnected’ in New York,” he says. “We refer to that many, especially the songs of the Meat Puppets [Cobain played] -The musicality in the cello, only the glue of all that music for me is so perfect and so weaker. It’s the Beatles, but they are weakened. “

In terms of actually performing the songs, Felber was lucky that Sharpe himself was a musician who was trained on the piano and played as a teenager in bands. But he had not performed live for more than ten years. “That was one of the nice challenges to work with LU. I did not perform music, because I literally had, I don’t know, 22 or something. So for a while,” says Sharpe. “I really loved his songs, but part of it was pretty scary.”

Felber helped Sharpe to learn six songs from “experience”, including “no limitations” and “True Love process”. “Will, bless him, from the day he was:” I want to be able to play these songs without looking at an agreement magazine, without looking at texts. I want to feel them, I want to be in these songs, “says Felber.” So I was very happy that he just threw his personality on it, or Felix’s personality on it. ”

Then Felber had to form Felix’s band, The Feelers. He called in Prasanna Puwanarajah, who plays Felix’s roommate and best friend Auggie, like the drummer – although he had never played before. “He is a natural drummer, we knew little,” says Felber. The band is completed by real blue musicians Carlos O’Connell (the guitarist for Irish Rock Band Fontaines DC) on Bass and David Ashby (frontman of the local London Band Sleaze, who in fact first introduced Felber in the Ivy House) on Keys. Felber even set up a rehearsal room in 3 Mills Studios in East Londs, where “Too Much” was filmed, so that Sharpe and the bond between scenes could freshen up.

“In my head, Felix gives these songs a kind of echo and the Bunnymen atmosphere,” says Felber about the Sharpe singing voice. “He is an incredible student, and I think you should just meet someone in their place.”

Sharpe says he thought of making a unique flair or characteristic movement for Felix’s performance style – with reference to inspirations such as Ian Curtis, Oasis, The Hives and Julian Casablancas – but in the end he thought: “Just play the songman, just fuck it.

Regarding his favorite needle drops of the soundtrack, at the top of the list of Felber is Musgraves ‘Butterflies’, who plays between Jess and Felix for a soft moment. “When we dropped the song about the scene that I liked, cried because it was so beautiful,” he admits. There is also “Farewell Transmission”, through the songs of the late Molina: Ohia, of which Felber says the team used as Filler -music in adaptation before the score for the show was completed. “It just worked because it is such an emotional song,” he adds. “For me, [Molina is] Such as a modern Neil Young or what a Kurt Cobain from the 40 [would have sounded like]. “But there was one wish list artist who couldn’t get Felber.

“In the beginning I placed many Prince songs on this playlist. And he is expensive,” he says. “You know, season 2 can be full of prince.”

Although a second season of “Too Much” has not been green yet, Felber says that he “would like to see more from Jess and Felix”, but acknowledges that “we don’t control it, the universe does.” He and Dunham, however, have ‘thoughts about what that could look like’.

Until that time, the couple is hard at work to photograph Dunham’s upcoming film ‘Good Sex’ with Natalie Portman in the lead role, which she writes and directs with Felber who offers the music.

“There will be a lot of exciting original music in it, a really nice score and three cover versions of a great song, but I am not going to say what it is because it is a large part of the film,” he teases and adds: “Lena and I are always planning to be something. We are racing views in the waste in life.”