Abhiroop Das
Created by Jonas Pate, Prime Video’s ‘The Runarounds‘ tells the story of a high school band with aspirations of making it big in the music industry. With just one summer left before the entire crew sets out for college, Charlie Cooper realizes he is short on time, money, and inspiration. However, whatever the band lacks is more than made up for by their sheer perseverance and passion for the craft. As they face every adversity thrown at their way, they grow both as musicians and as teammates. In doing so, the band finds an outlet for all bottled-up feelings through their shared creations. The highlight of this story is undoubtedly its bands, particularly The Runarounds and Futhermucker, with their ups and downs mimicking a musical journey in and of themselves.
The Runarounds is a Real Band Which Originally Featured in Outer Banks
The story behind The Runarounds as a band is as interesting as the music they create, bringing fiction and reality together to create a grounded creative experience. Many years ago, creator Jonas Pate developed the idea of a teenage rock band show, but quickly came across a major hurdle. To hire popular stars would have meant faking the actual musical aspect of the show, and that was not a compromise he was willing to make. Instead, Pate sought the help of actors Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline from his other major work, ‘Outer Banks.’ Soon, a casting call was made specifically targeting young musicians and bands. In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Pate explained the process: “We basically said, ‘We’re going to put a band in Outer Banks, send us your high school band (…) We got 5,000 bands sent to us in a week.”
In the ensuing selection process, William Lipton, Axel Ellis, Jeremy Yun, Zendé Murdock, and Jesse Golliher emerged as the new members of The Runaround. However, Pate understood the importance of acclimatizing his musicians to the world of television before putting them on its center stage. To that end, the band appears in season 3 episode 7 of ‘Outerbanks,’ lighting up the show with their spellbinding performance. From there, the pilot for ‘The Runarounds’ was filmed in 2022, with the real artists donning new, fictional personas for this imagined narrative. William Lipton, as the frontman, essays the role of his fictional counterpart, Charlie Cooper, with Axel Ellis and Jeremy Yun embodying Neil and Topher, respectively. Zendé Murdock plays Bez while Jesse Golliher plays Wyatt, rounding up the entire band.
The Runarounds Draws From Real-Life Bands and Bandmates
While the plot of ‘The Runarounds’ is largely fictional in nature, it is not without inspiration. In particular, Jonas Pate was moved by the story of Dillon Fence, which is a real-life Rock band based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Notably, the state also becomes the backdrop for The Runarounds’ journey on screen. In keeping with the show’s mantra of authenticity, all of The Runarounds’ songs are real and sung by the actors themselves. The band is also a success outside of the show and has been writing and performing songs since 2022. On June 2, 2023, the band released a live album titled ‘The Runarounds Live at USC,’ which might have served as a potential inspiration for their music on-screen. According to Pate, the group has also participated in a music festival in Charlotte, which reiterates their nature as a fully fledged band.
In a conversation with Metro Philadelphia, Pate brought up how he enabled the cast to organically develop their own characters, mixing some details from their personal lives into the larger narrative. He stated, “Once we started, we had ’em all (Lipton, Ellis, Yun, Murdock, and Golliher) down and we knew that they were going to be the band. So we would just interview them in therapy sessions: We were literally like, Who’s your mom? Who’s your dad? Where’d you grow up? Were you rich? Were you poor? Do they believe in you as a musician or do they not? And so we would just write to that. We tried to make the characters as close to their actual personalities as we could.” To that end, the writing team, which is spearheaded by Pate himself and also includes Nora Kirkpatrick, David Wilcox, and Ilana Wolpert, put special care into finding a balance between reel and real.
Futhermucker Shares a Name With a Real-Life Alt Punk Band
While The Runarounds’ journey is at the heart of the show, its creation is itself an early plot point. Prior to the eponymous band, Charlie is joined by Topher, Neil, and Pete in the creation of Futhermucker. Although the band shares many traits with its successor, internal disturbances lead it on a different trajectory. However, while The Runarounds is based on a real band, Futhermucker is a fictional construct mainly created to serve the narrative. Its name plays on an expletive, which reflects the band’s amateur origins and high school aesthetics. Incidentally, Futhermucker shares its title with Futhermuckers, a real-life band based in Newcastle, England. The Alt Punk band comprises Des Butcher as the lead vocalist, with Nina Verkuill on bass guitar, and Jozz Fernandez on the drumset.
Over the years, the real-life Futhermuckers have found a niche footing in the music industry; however, their connection to the fictional band is unlikely. To begin with, the two groups perform different genres of music and are based in different countries. Furthermore, the real-life Futhermuckers is a successful band with three members, unlike their fictional counterpart, which comprises four high schoolers. As such, it is likely that their shared commonality arises due to the catchy nature of the band’s name, and all the subsequent overlaps are coincidental in nature. It is possible that Futhermucker, as depicted in ‘The Runarounds,’ is a composite of many high school bands, which in turn makes it a stepping stone for Charlie and his friends to begin their real journey. However, what remains consistent is the team’s chemistry, which elevates their music to another level.
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