As Deliver Me From Nowhere, the Scott Cooper-directed biopic about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s moody, bleak Nebraska album premiered at Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on Friday night (Aug. 29), viewers were the first to hear Jeremiah Fraites’ emotional score.
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The Lumineers co-founder moved into composing with the film, which held special meaning for him. “I grew up in New Jersey, so Bruce Springsteen’s music was always a part of my landscape, whether learning how to drive to eating at 24-hour diners, his music was always with me,” Fraites tells Billboard. “Collaborating with Scott Cooper on Deliver Me From Nowhere was a career high and personal privilege. What Scott has done with this film is rare—he’s captured the quiet fragility and unfiltered honesty of Bruce’s life during the making of Nebraska. It was an honor to support his vision.”
The 20th Century Studios film chronicles Springsteen writing and recording the 1982 album, recorded on a 4-track recorder in his New Jersey bedroom, and the emotional upheaval he experienced as he dealt with his growing fame and his conflicted past. Jeremy Allen White stars as Springsteen, while Jeremy Strong plays his longtime manager Jon Landau.
For Fraites, the challenge was to honor Springsteen’s work without parroting it.
“I didn’t approach the score by trying to imitate Bruce’s sound—there’s no way to replicate that. But the emotional tone of Nebraska—its restraint, its space, its raw honesty—definitely informed the way I thought about the music. It was more about feeling than style,” he says.
“I chose to ground the score with an upright piano I playfully call Firewood—a beat-up instrument so devalued it was once considered fit only to burn,” he continues. “That imperfection felt right for Bruce’s story: raw, unvarnished, and rooted in resilience. Its rough edges and worn tone captured a sense of grit and authenticity that a pristine concert piano simply couldn’t.”
It’s a big fall season for Fraites, who also scored Stephen King’s The Long Walk, with the Lionsgate film opening Sept. 12. Additionally, The Lumineers continue on their 2025 tour, which includes a mix of stadium and amphitheater dates, including Chicago’s Soldier Field Saturday (Aug. 30) and Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 6.
Deliver Me From Nowhere opens wide theatrically Oct. 24.
