“I went to meet George Lucas at the ranch and the meeting comprised of handing me these toys,” Copeland says. “And the mission is to sell these toys, write songs that will sell these toys. And there were cuddly furry ones for the Ewoks and mechanical kind of robots and stuff for the Droids. So, I went home and wrote songs about toys.”
And while the Ewoks theme, done by blues artist Taj Mahal, is itself another standout in Saturday morning cartoon music, it was Copeland’s “Trouble Again” that summed up the ethos of Star Wars: Droids. “That particular song, in fact, most of the songs, about half of them I suppose, were with Derek Holt, who was an English musician who had a band called Climax Blues Band for you nerds out there,” Copeland says. “We co-wrote that. That song there, ‘Trouble Again,’ was mostly his. I mean, I did the music. I think that’s his lyric mostly.”
Never one to drop a beat, Stewart rolled out a new verse. “By the way, just to follow through on that, some of those songs [that weren’t used for the show], like ‘Stay Ready,’ which I wrote, ended up on a Gizmodrome album.”
Gizmodrome was a four-piece supergroup, with Copeland on drums, along with Level 42 bassist Mark King, Italian keyboardist Vittorio Cosma, and guitar wizard Adrian Belew, who played for such progressive acts as King Crimson, Frank Zappa, and David Bowie. The band’s eponymous debut and sole album, Gizmodrome, was recorded in Milan over two weeks in summer 2016 and spring 2017 and was released on Sept. 15, 2017.
Star Wars: Droids debuted on Sept. 7, 1985 as part of ABC’s “Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour.” It was canceled after airing a full season of 13 episodes. The full version of “Trouble Again” has never been released.
Under The Volcano is available On Demand and Digital now. And you can also stream Star Wars: Droids on Disney+.