While speaking with Cain, Levatino spoke words emblematic of the documentary’s purpose.
“In the end, the meaning of this film, it’s about not waiting,” Levatino said about his directorial debut. “When you have the opportunity, you just gotta do it — and we took that jump. And that’s what Chadwick was doing, right? And the band, they were all taking that jump."
Bastards of Soul documents the post-pandemic era of the R&B soul band and how they mourned and adapted to the loss of their friend and frontman Chadwick Murray, who died in 2021
The band first broke onto the Dallas music scene in late 2019 with the release of its first single in collaboration with Dallas-based Eastwood Music Group. After being separated for several months, the musicians got together in July 2021 at The Echo Lab Recording Studio in Argyle to record songs for their then-upcoming album Corners.
Although it wasn’t meant to be a documentary then, Levatino and his team embedded themselves with the band during that recording session.
A Documentary for the Ages
“This particular project started with just thinking about creating a 20-minute or so promo, just 'making of the album' kind of thing,” Levatino told the Observer the week before the film’s screening Saturday. “You know, going to the studio, talking about the process of making the album, that’s what the goal was.”The documentary, which had its world premiere at a sold-out screening in late February at the Sun Valley Film Festival in Idaho, is split into two distinct parts. The first hour chronicles the July 4th weekend studio session and filled with camaraderie and love for musical composition as the band members drank, laughed and played their instruments.
The film doesn’t shy away from the technical aspect of recording songs live on tape, which allows the project to serve as an educational tool while giving the viewer a true sense of the close-knit nature of the Bastards of Soul.
Levatino was able to capture raw realism and truth in the documentary because of how comfortable the band was around him and his crew, specifically the editor, co-producer and director of photography, Zack Tzourtzouklis, and the director of photography, Jeremy Word.
“I’ve recorded some studio sessions before where they’re not as intimate, but they let us get right up in there with them and I guess kind of disappear to them at that point,” Levatino said.
Levatino, who was a longtime manager of Erykah Badu’s Control FreaQ Records, first got involved with Bastards of Soul based on his connection with Murray. The musically like-minded pair met in ninth grade and began jamming with Murray on bass and Levatino rocking the drums.
Over the years, as their lives grew apart, they kept in contact by supporting each other's creative projects.
“When he [Murray] had already started performing with the Bastards of Soul, he reached out, said I should come to one of the shows,” Levatino said. “And I just fell in love with the band.”
His first project with the Bastards of Soul was directing a documentary short of the band titled Just A Little Bit, alongside Word. The project was a culmination of various artistic goals the band met at the start of 2020, including their critically acclaimed debut album Spinnin’.
The July 2021 studio session and a highly anticipated sold-out performance at the Ridglea Theater that same month were meant to pave the way for Bastards of Soul’s return after the pandemic.
A full crowd came out last weekend to support Paul Levatino and his documentary about the Bastards of Soul.
Ismael Belkoura
The Brevity of the Soul
A couple of months after returning to the stage in Fort Worth, Murray died suddenly after a weeklong fight with a rare illness.The second part of the Bastards of Soul documentary includes several interviews with family members and band members in 2023 as they chronicled their close friend’s passing and their reactions to the loss.
Levatino deeply mourned Murray’s loss, and for a while he didn’t know what to do with the footage.
“It was also very painful when Chadwick passed away,” Levatino said. “It was hard to even look at the footage. It took me a while to even process that — like every time I looked at it, I couldn't do it, I’d break down.”
After a while, Levatino, Tzourtzouklis and Word began to see their footage as a potential feature-length film documenting those few months. As they began to stitch bits and pieces together, Levatino sought approval and advice from everyone in Murray’s life, including his wife, best friends and the members of Bastards of Soul.
“Everyone who was in the film, they just gave me full support and said, ‘Do what you want to do with it, this is your vision,’” Levatino said.
The Texas Theatre Screening
Last Saturday, more than 100 people attended the Texas premiere of Bastards of Soul at the historic Texas Theatre on Jefferson Boulevard in Oak Cliff. The documentary received an emotional response from a visibly moved audience, ranging from claps mid-film at the culmination of a great song to sobbing and sniffling when Hannah Murray, Chadwick’s wife, spoke about the lead vocalist’s final days.When the screen faded to black, the audience cheered wildly. One of the final frames in Bastards of Soul has a dedication to Lennox Murray, Chadwick’s son, who was born in the same hospital as his father a couple of days before Chadwick Murray's death.
Cain ended the Q&A session by dedicating the night to Lennox. Levatino commented on how Murray was “really into angel numbers,” and how during the process of creating the documentary, those numbers continued popping up. One of the main examples was 737, which is Murray's time of death (7:37 p.m.).
Near the end of the Q&A, Levatino announced the creation of 7:37 Films Production and added that several creatives who watched the film have already been in contact.
“Telling really interesting stories with music and film, I think that’s what we are going for,” Levatino said.
