Clint's epic movie life

Days spent on the South Bank at Molineux and enjoying a pint of Bathams are few and far between nowadays for Clint Mansell.

Instead the former Pop Will Eat Itself frontman is in demand from Hollywood film directors to work on soundtracks for their latest big budget epic.

It was back in the late 1980s and early 1990s that he first found fame though.

Once known for sporting flowing long locks, his band helped put Stourbridge on the music map.

They were part of a popular music scene alongside other bands like The Wonder Stuff and Ned's Atomic Dustbin.

But now Clint has swapped the UK for LA and has forged a new career as a sought after composer.

His long-standing partnership with director Darren Aronofsky saw the pair work on films like Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan.

The latter starred Natalie Portman, who won best actress at the Oscars.

And it also scooped Clint a nomination at the Grammy's in 2012 for best score soundtrack.

Some of his music from the film Requiem for a Dream is also used on the X factor. The piece called Lux Aeterna is what the judges walk out on stage to.

Their latest collaboration, the biblical epic Noah, featuring awarding winning actors Russell Crowe and Anthony Hopkins, has topped the US box office.

And is it Clint's film score helping tell one of the world's best known stories as the movie opened across the UK this week

You would think his life was all red carpet film premieres, glamorous awards nights and rubbing shoulders with Hollywood stars on set. But the 51-year-old film composer who lived in Pedmore near the old Pedmore House Hotel growing up, shuns the limelight to allow his work to speak for itself.

"I'm very fortunate in my life, I've never had any real jobs, I've always been a musician. Being able to write and record your own music with great musicians is a dream come true," he said.

"I don't really do any of the awards stuff. I'm already working on the next thing."

He did travel out to Iceland to visit the set on Noah but admitted he felt 'in the way' and left the cast to it while he enjoyed the trip. "It did help me get me into the mindset of the film but I think it is as much about trying to immerse yourself in the subject matter and there is so much out there that you can find for yourself as inspiration," he said.

"I didn't really think of it in terms of a biblical story, instead it was more of an end of the world event so I just approached it as a post apocalyptic dystopia story and if you take it literally, God, or the creator as it is called in the film, is ending the world which is a pretty scary thought.

"The great difference with this film was the pressure. Every film is going to be different. It's a learning curve all the time."

Clint's musical education started at an early age when listening to pop music, saying "I first heard David Bowie when I was about seven or eight and I was just blown away by that. That is what I wanted to do. Then there was Ramones, Sex Pistols and The Clash." The former King Edward VI College student was a member of early permutations of a group which eventually became known as Pop Will Eat Itself. Known to fans as The Poppies, the band scored a string of top 40 singles and four top 40 albums.

"We just stuck at it. We went on Top of the Pops, toured the world and basically spent our 20s having the best laugh and the best time. I wouldn't change that for the world," said Clint whose family including his parents Marilyn and Donald still live in the town.

He records many of the soundtracks in London which affords him time to travel back to the Midlands for some home comforts. "I love coming back to Stourbridge. The beer's the best. Can't beat a Bathams," he said. When the Poppies disbanded in 1996, Clint moved out to America and met Aronosky. He was living in LA by 2001 when he started getting more film work but said: "I was really lost here and it took me about three years to find my feet.

"But the thing that helped me settle was they started showing the Premier League over here.

Then Wolves got promoted that year and that gave me a real taste of home in LA and it was really important to me."

Clint is planning some solo shows for later this year which will see him take to the stage to perform some of his musical soundtracks together with a nine piece band. "It feels age appropriate," he said. "I would hate to be like the oldest swinger in town still jumping around in my leather trousers." Clint is already working on his next film project, composing music for The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, based on the life of Alan Turing who helped crack the Enigma Code in WW2.