We’re an Anglo-American musical group called SQUARE HALO and we’re keen to get songs from our Lyme disease awareness album ‘The Lyme Years’ featured in independent films. We have original, evocative, catchy, high-quality songs for sync licensing and we’re happy to waive the licence fee too!
Exclusively for Raindance, here are our favourite musicians made famous by their songs being used in film.
Singer-songwriter Demetrios Loukas of SQUARE HALO:
The 1983 film ‘Flashdance‘ was a vehicle for two very good songs: ‘Flashdance… What a Feeling‘ by Irene Cara and ‘Maniac‘ by Michael Sembello, an Italian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist, composer and producer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Prior to ‘Flashdance‘, Sembello worked as a session guitarist for Stevie Wonder.
The song ‘Maniac‘ which features on Sembello’s debut album ‘Bossa Nova Hotel‘ was the second best-charting song from the Flashdance movie soundtrack (after the title track ‘Flashdance… What a Feeling‘ by Irene Cara) and the ninth biggest single of 1983. Sembello went onto produce other artists and more of his songs were featured in other hit films such as ‘Cocoon‘ and ‘Independence Day‘ but ‘Maniac‘ which was selected for inclusion in ‘Flashdance‘ still remains his biggest hit.
‘Maniac‘ from beginning to end is like a non-stop dramatic car chase! At the very start of the song, you get 12 seconds of warm-up percussion but when the arpeggio comes in, it’s like an accelerator pedal!
Sembello: ‘Can you imagine, it’s like, here I am, I just wanna be a jazz guitar player, you know, I’m a songwriter for Warner Brothers and all of a sudden, here I am up with a number one record too and then it become this huge hit record!‘
The 1990 film ‘Pretty Woman‘ featured some great songs by established artists and bands, including Roy Orbison, Natalie Cole, Roxette, and Go West. However, ‘Fallen‘ by American singer-songwriter, voice-over artist, and producer Lauren Wood was both beautiful and captivating, and this was the first I’d heard of her.
‘Fallen‘ which featured on Wood’s second studio album ‘Cat Trick‘ was actually released as a single in 1981 but it was its inclusion in the film ‘Pretty Woman‘ (9 years later) that put Lauren Wood on the map.
At the Los Angeles Women’s Festival in 2003, Wood performs ‘Fallen‘ live. Just before she launches into the first verse, Wood shares with the audience: ‘This song changed my life‘ and I believe her!
Composer, arranger and producer Treyvonce Ambers-Moore of SQUARE HALO:
The movie ‘8 Mile‘ featuring the song ‘Lose Yourself‘ with rapper Eminem is not only a hit song within a film but also is one of the worlds most recognized songs in the hip hop community! I can still remember being only 10 years old and sneaking to watch the VHS version with my older brother. We would rerun the movie till we started mimicking the dialog of Eminem’s rap battles and as soon as we heard the dark grungy guitar intro of ‘Lose Yourself‘, we’d jump on the bed and prepare to rap all the words.
In a wider view, this song is a staple for millennials everywhere because whenever the phrase ‘Mom’s spaghetti‘ is uttered it’s a LAW to rap the next words regardless of the context of the conversation! It’s a shock factor whenever someone doesn’t get the ‘Mom’s spaghetti’ joke.
‘Lose Yourself‘ is legendary because it gave Eminem his first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single and maintained that position for twelve consecutive weeks. Also, it reached the top of the charts in nineteen other countries and won two Grammys! One being Best Male Rap Solo Performance & the other being Best Rap Song.
Even crazier is that ‘Lose Yourself‘ became the first rap/hip-hop song to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. When this came to my knowledge, I just felt very happy to know that Hip Hop/Rap has come a very long way.
Composer and co-writer Omar Shelesh of SQUARE HALO:
For this category, two songs immediately spring to mind, the first emerging from the 1991 movie, Buddy’s Song. While the movie itself did only moderately at the box office, it featured the single, ‘The One and Only‘, which became an international chart success. It’s easy to see why this song was popular; performed by the then 19-year-old musician and actor Chesney Hawkes, whose vocal talent and stage presence appealed to teenage audiences of the time, it was also skillfully penned by distinguished British songwriter, Nik Kershaw.
With simmering verses, an anthemic chorus with resonating lyrics to match, and a bridge leading to a lucid guitar solo, it is a masterclass in exemplary pop songcraft.
The second track on my list is the theme song from the 1982 movie, Rocky III. Interestingly, ‘Eye of the Tiger‘ came into existence through a request by the Rocky actor and director himself, Sylvester Stallone. Stallone’s intention was to use a song already made famous by Queen, ‘Another One Bites the Dust‘, but after he was turned down he approached the rock band Survivor to commission a new song to accompany the third Rocky installment.
At the time, Survivor had had only moderate chart success with one release making it into the US top 40, so the opportunity to record for a major movie franchise would be a real boon for the band’s profile. And it was: the single would go on to become an iconic anthem associated with the Rocky film series, reaching number 1 on Billboard Hot 100 chart, and achieving gold and platinum status in multiple regions around the world. Musically, the song is pure hard rock with a hooky, driving rhythm, and power chord stabs played in the way Rocky throws punches.
The song also cleverly makes use of minor/ major key transitions between the verse and chorus, creating a dynamic contrast that accentuates the emotional impact of the music. Combining this with motivational and empowering lyrics really takes the song to an extramusical level.
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‘SQUARE HALO’ are a trio of creatives from across the globe: we have London-based singer-songwriter and Lyme disease lobbyist Demetrios Loukas, Minnesota-based music producer Treyvonce Ambers-Moore and Demetrios’s long-time co-writer Tokyo-based composer Omar Shelesh.
Their story begins with Demetrios, a former primary school teacher who contracted Lyme disease back in 2005 whilst on a school trip to a farm in Oxfordshire. The infection went undiagnosed and untreated for 8 years and during this time his health deteriorated with the infection spreading and his life hanging in the balance. He was however clinically diagnosed in 2013 and since then, his health has improved.
In 2015, Demetrios reached out to Treyvonce online and they started collaborating remotely. Their debut album ‘The Lyme Years’ took the group over 5 years to complete.
Whilst still suffering from the disease, Demetrios managed to turn this experience on its head and was inspired to fight back and thus two projects were born, the first being ‘The FIGHT LYME NOW Campaign’ and the second ‘SQUARE HALO’. We have a mismatch of science and music combining forces with two main objectives – to spread positivity and awareness of Lyme disease through musical collaborations and also lobbying for the recognition of chronic Lyme disease (which is currently dismissed by the international medical establishment) and the need for effective treatment for both acute and chronic Lyme disease including Lyme disease co-infections (which are currently not considered, much less treated).
Contact Demetrios by email here.
