Kirkpatrick: The next [fan event] was in Dallas, and I called the Dallas field rep and said, “This is out of control -- we need to talk about this with your security people and the local police.” So I get on the phone with the local police guy, and he’s going, “No, no, we do mall events all the time,” and I’m like, “You have no idea what I’m talking about.” And they had, like, 70,000 people show up. It was just insanity.
Tortella: The Twilight soundtrack entered at No. 1 [on the Billboard 200], and a lot of people were just like, “Holy shit!” And this was before the movie came out. The books were very popular, and I always knew that if we got it right and made the music in sync, [it would] open up the series. I knew it would do well.
Kirkpatrick: We didn’t know it would be No. 1, but we knew we had a really good soundtrack. I mean, those songs are good! You know, even if it hadn't had anything to do with Twilight, if it had been a compilation for something, it would’ve still done really well.
Tortella: [The first compilation] laid the groundwork for Alex to put exclusive material on each of the soundtracks. So from that point onward, when I was talking to Lykke Li for the second one, there was already a track record. Alex set the stage for volumes two, three and four to be all-exclusive material.
Patsavas: I remember Bruno Mars watching the [first] film. I remember getting a confirmation that Thom Yorke was going to contribute [to New Moon]. I remember hearing the Bon Iver and St. Vincent duet [for New Moon] -- and that was their idea, to do a duet. That’s really what I remember, watching the director put these songs so artfully in certain spots of the movie to highlight the drama.
Beam: Later, Bill Condon, the Breaking Dawn director, asked me to re-do [“Flightless Bird”], so we totally recorded a whole new version of it with the string section -- that was super fun. It’s one of those things where, as an artist, you put your work into the world, and sometimes it finds nooks and crannies that you would never imagine it would find. [Twilight] was just a giant train that was unstoppable.
"THE MARRIAGE BETWEEN MUSIC AND YOUNG ADULTS IS SUCH A POWERFUL CONNECTION"
Tortella: Ten years makes me feel like I’m old. It’s just one of those things where I feel like it was yesterday -- it had such a huge impact.