50 First Dates Premiere (About.com)

Between working on the soundtrack to the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore romantic comedy, “50 First Dates,” and getting ready for an eight state tour with his band, 311, Nick Hexum’s been one busy guy. Showing up at the World Premiere of “50 First Dates” with fiancée/singer Nicole Kea, Hexum talked about becoming involved in “50 First Dates” and working with Adam Sandler. NICK HEXUM (Lead Singer of ‘311’):

What is the call like when they ask you to do a song for a new Adam Sandler movie?
It was so cool because they were like, "We want to hear your ideas of what would be good for this movie." And the original title of the movie was ‘50 First Kisses,” so I was thinking, "What could be songs about kissing?" That's why I came up with “Lips Like Sugar,” the Echo and the Bunnymen song, and “Breakfast in Bed.” Those were a couple of my ideas for the soundtrack. It was a real thrill because I've never really done anything for a movie. And to be with someone so cool as Adam and so laid back, and a good guy. He came to one of our shows and hung out with us afterwards and it was killer.

What songs did they use?
I did five songs. 311 did one song and I produced four more. I produced Seal singing “Lips Like Sugar,” Jason Mraz singing “I Melt with You.” My fiancée, Nicole Kea, singing “Breakfast in Bed,” the UB40 song, and Dryden from Alien Ant Farm singing The Cure's “Friday, I'm in Love.”

Whose idea was it to have covers and not originals?
I guess that was Adam's idea. He wanted to have songs that he grew up loving. It was a perfect fit for me because in my high school band, we covered so many Cure songs. I was throwing out ideas of Smiths songs and different things. They really wanted the most romantic songs that we could find to go with the theme of this movie, and I think they made a really good match. I'm really happy to be part of it.

How did you match the artist with the song?
I was like who would be the best vocalist to sing “Lips Like Sugar?” Seal. That would be great. Done. Then I was like, “Alright, we need a guest vocalist, we need a reggae rapper.” We got Mikey Dread who used to rap with The Clash. He was a reggae toaster with The Clash. So it was just a dream team for me.