Back in 2016, Spider-Man officially joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, which introduced Tom Holland as Peter Parker. A decade later, Holland is now starring in his fourth solo film as the web-slinging hero, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. And for that, we have to credit Alt-J at least a little bit.
You may recall that Alt-J’s song “Left Hand Free” was playing in the background when Holland first appears onscreen in Civil War. Speaking with ABC Audio, frontman Joe Newman remembers his reaction to that moment while watching the film at its London premiere.
“It wasn’t until I was at the premiere where I was like, ‘Ah s***, this is f****** cool,'” Newman says. “I mean, this is huge.”
He continues, “I processed it, I was like, this is the first time they’re introducing Tom Holland as the new Spider-Man, he looks about 12, and there’s something really exciting about this.”
For Newman, providing the soundtrack to a star-making movement for one of the world’s most famous actors is perhaps the crowning achievement of the unexpected legacy of “Left Hand Free.”
“‘Left Hand Free’ has been really good to us,” Newman says. “It’s the quickest song that we wrote, it took 25 minutes to write that song. It’s the song that sounds like us the least, and it’s been our most successful song.”
He adds, “The top of that pile of achievements for that song is definitely the Captain America film, for sure.”
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now in theaters.
Newman, meanwhile, has a new album out called The Canyon, which he released under his solo moniker, JJerome87.
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