The last time Zach Braff put together a soundtrack was for his 2004 cult hit movie, “Garden State.” The album not only sold almost 1.5 million copies, it also won a Grammy.
So for his follow-up, this Friday’s dramedy “Wish I Was Here,” did he feel any pressure?
“Do you even have to ask this question?” he tells The Post. But, he adds, “you have to let that go, because it’s lightning in a bottle.”
In the new film, which Braff directed and co-wrote with his brother, Adam, the actor stars as a struggling thespian who can no longer afford to pay for his kids’ private education and decides to school them himself, ultimately learning just as much about himself along the way (but of course).
Braff set out to create the soundtrack for the film by asking some of his favorite musicians to watch the movie and write a song based on what it meant to them. James Mercer of the Shins — the band Braff made a national name with “Garden State” — was happy to comply, contributing the new track “So Now What.” After Braff’s music supervisor showed Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon the film, the musician immediately went into his studio to start writing “Heavenly Father.” Coldplay was inspired to write the title track, on which Cat Power (a k a Chan Marshall) also lends her voice.
There’s also a resurfaced song, “Wait it Out,” which Imogen Heap wrote a while ago for a film Braff couldn’t get made; she eventually reworked the track for one of her own albums.
“I was one of the only people on earth who’d heard her stripped-down, acoustic version of it,” says Braff. “So I asked Allie Moss, a genius ready to emerge who sings backup for Ingrid Michaelson, [to] sing it with a ukulele.”
Rounding out the album is an assembly of artists new and old that Braff hopes to project to a wider audience, including Radical Face, Hozier and Japanese Wallpaper.
“[It’s great for] people who aren’t music-festival people and don’t have an outlet to finding new music or don’t have the time,” says Braff. “We curate something that could introduce them to a lot of bands that I’d bet they’d like.”
That said, he’s not necessarily expecting “Garden State” sales figures for the soundtrack.
“When ‘Garden State’ came out there was no such thing as iTunes, and there was still a Virgin Megastore in Union Square,” he cracks.