Jeremy Renner collaborates with Reno teens on a song premiering today at Artown
Actor Jeremy Renner had no problem lending the phrase to six teenagers in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program in Northern Nevada.
“I feel the change coming,” Renner said of the line that became the lyrics, which he helped craft after listening to the teenagers’ thoughts.
And those lyrics became part of a song the teens wrote and recorded over the weekend as part of a project called “Imagine: A Musical Collaboration with Jeremy Renner.” The teens had 48 hours to write a song – with help from a movie star – that will premiere today at the opening of Artown, Reno’s month-long arts festival that begins at 5:30 p.m. in Wingfield Park.
A video of the incident will be shown tonight. The children will attend the premiere of a documentary video of the incident. Renner is hosting a camp for children in foster care at Lake Tahoe this week and will not be in attendance.
Their work took place in the John Lennon Education Tour Bus, a mobile recording studio that gives future musicians, songwriters, engineers and producers hands-on experience in composing music.
“The melody is more important than the verse,” Renner told Maverick, an eleventh-grader at Douglas High School who sang a few lines he had written.
“I feel the city changing around me. There’s always something new. Something unexpected,” sang Maverick. “I feel the change coming.”
Renner interjected as the teenager paused. “Sounds good, man.”
Renner’s recovery
The statement that change is coming fits Renner, who has spent the last year recovering from a near-fatal accident. The “Avengers” actor was hit by a snow plow at his home outside Reno on Jan. 1, 2023.
Renner, who suffered over 30 broken bones and had to undergo numerous operations, has made a remarkable recovery.
Renner played guitar and went from child to child in the program. The injury had no visible effects.
“I tried to find a common thread for what she was saying,” Renner told the Reno Gazette Journal after working with the teenagers and engineers from the Lennon bus.
“I just manipulated what she already had into a hook. I manipulated three lines into one,” he said of songwriter and 11th-grader at Damonte Ranch High, Sileisa.
In addition to being an accomplished actor, Renner also writes and records music, most recently a seven-song album about his recovery.
The single “Wait” on the album “Love and Titanium” was written for his daughter Ava. It begins:
I know I’m complicated. I don’t have much to say in daylight. I might feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I’m a bit unpredictable.
Whatever it’s worth, I know it hurts. You are the ocean and I am the earth. Hiding in my head, leaving things unsaid. I am the needle and you are the thread.
“Something like that is pretty simple lyrically,” he told RGJ about the song. “Emotionally, it’s not so simple. I could never play it live.”
Lennon Bus shows what they can do
According to CEO Brian Rothschild, the goal of the Lennon Bus is to reduce the intimidation of music and expose more children to it.
Rosthschild said this fast-paced experience gives aspiring artists a glimpse of what they can accomplish in a short period of time.
“Sometimes it’s just about embracing the process,” Rothschild said of encouraging songwriters to write every day.
Renner said he has always been a “music man” and always will be.
“It’s a wonderful shared experience,” he said of his own writing style and collaborating with friends on “Love and Titanium.”
“When you join forces for a common goal, you can move mountains,” said Renner. “And there’s something wonderful about that.”
Words that shaped a nation –
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