David Arnold

Next time you engage in a bit of light wrestling with a stranger over a reduced yoghurt down at your local supermarket, you may want to check out who you’re dealing with. You may just be having a bargain shelf brawl with Luton’s most inconspicuous superstar.

The town’s multi-award winning composer and musician, David Arnold, is rarely seen. Yet he’s often heard. So it was quite a coup when he agreed to attend the recent launch celebration of Luton Rising’s new DART shuttle service, which connects the airport terminal with Luton Parkway station.

After grinding out a living doing temping jobs before getting his breakthrough on fellow Lutonian Danny Cannon’s directorial film debut, The Young Americans, David went on to score blockbuster movies such as Stargate, Independence Day and no less than five James Bond pictures.

“I’m happy that I can go into Sainsbury’s on a Sunday night and get the yellowstickered stuff, get a bargain and it’s not going to be in the papers,” said David.

“People know what I’ve done but they don’t know who I am. At the DART event, everyone knew Mick Harford because he’s a face. You saw him doing what he was doing on the pitch. You don’t see me. A film can come out on a Friday night and 80 million can people watch it – but I’m at home making a cup of tea.

“I like to be able to do ordinary things. We could walk around this town all day and no-one would know who I was.”

Yet David’s body of work extends even far beyond the razzle of

Tinseltown. He has also recorded hit singles and albums with the likes of Iggy Pop, Bjork and Pulp, and was appointed musical director for the closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. Then throw the huge television series successes of Little Britain and Sherlock into the mix, then you do genuinely wonder how David isn’t mobbed by adoring fans every time he leaves his house.

“The celebrity aspect doesn’t come into it. We are on the wrong side of the camera for that. You could be on the DART sitting opposite the five most successful film composers ever, and you wouldn’t recognise them.

“Whether it’s a student film or James Bond, the job is exactly the same. I’m sitting in a dark room, in front of a screen, looking at a film and trying to find a musical answer to the question that it’s asking you.”

Born at his parents’ Waller Avenue house in 1962, David vividly –and gratefully - remembers the teachers who inspired him to go on to greater things.

“My formative years were at Beechwood Primary and Junior School, then later on at Challney High School for Boys.

“So I remember summers at Bath Road swimming pool, the fireworks at Wardown Park, Saturday morning cinema - the same things that everyone did

“The teacher at my primary school, Mr Kerridge, had such a gentle, kind enthusiasm for music and for people, it made you feel safe. I used to look forward to his lessons. Then Colin Smith [at Challney] – I’ve never seen a teacher as enthusiastic about music as him. When you see that as a kid, it’s incredibly inspiring. I figured that there must’ve been some mystery that he’s discovered about music that made him feel that happy, and I really wanted to understand what that was.

“I remember the first time I played in the school band, I was enthralled by the sound and you can’t quite believe that you’re part of it. There’s an energy that happens between an audience and a performer. It’s inspirational, it’s elemental.

“Then, when I was at Luton Sixth Form College, my form and art tutor, Alan Hall, completely changed the way I thought about creative work. He took the artistic part of what I did seriously. It was all about expression and digging deep inside yourself to figure out what you want to say. He encouraged me to be a free thinker, and forget the rules and expectations.

“This was a cumulative experience that reminds me of how important teachers are as people.”

Yet David still had a long way to go on his journey before achieving worldwide success. Years of honing his raw talents followed, but were punctuated by the inconvenient need to earn enough shillings to survive.

“I was 31 before I made any money out of music. I was doing all sorts of other temping jobs, like working on building sites, unloading bags of cement, moving piles of bricks.

“I actually worked on one of the buildings at Luton Airport. They’d dug a new lift shaft and it had flooded, so was full of wet sand. They didn’t have a pump so I had a pair of wellies and, for three days, I shovelled wet sand over my head. I looked like a human statue by the end of it!

“What I do now is still not a job. I make a living out of it but it doesn’t feel like a job. I feel compelled to do it. If I didn’t get paid to do music, I’d still be doing it.”

Luton was a very different town in the early 1980s, yet the arrival of the now iconic arts centre at 33 Guildford Street became a focal point for local musicians and performers to network their talents for the greater good.

“There was kind of a series of fortunate events. I met Danny [Cannon] there, who wanted to be a film maker. I was 19, he was 16. Then ten years later he gets a feature film off the ground. That’s a long time in between, and you learn a lot in that time. If I hadn’t have met Danny, at this little arts centre in Luton, I would never have had my first feature film, then never had someone in America hear that and offer me Stargate, then Independence Day, and then James Bond.”

David is a big supporter of Care International, a non-governmental organisation fighting poverty and for equality in over 100 countries.

“Care International is principally involved with women’s rights and children. They have a very low overhead so the highest amount of your donation will go to ground, rather than staffing.

“They send experts out to places like Rwanda who engage with local people and teach them the skills they need to get out of the situations they’re in.” www.careinternational.org.uk

Grammy Award, composer

Independence Day

Ivor Novello Award, composer

The World Is Not Enough

BBC Radio Awards, music production

The Sound of Cinema with David Arnold

Emmy Award, composer Sherlock: His Last Vow years of supporting our community