How The Rescues Found the Sound of THE LOST BOYS

Things are about to get messy in Santa Carla. The new musical The Lost Boys, featuring music by The Rescues, is getting ready to take the stage at the Palace Theatre. The indie rock band, made up of Kyler England, Gabriel Mann, and AG, are already known for their breathtaking harmonies and unforgettable songs, and this spring their music is reaching new highs as they all make their Broadway debuts. 

The LA band recently headed to one of NYC's most iconic music venues, Joe's Pub, to give fans a Lost Boys sneak peek and BroadwayWorld is very excited to bring you an exclusive, 'throuple version' of "Hurt A Little" in this latest edition of Notes on a Score.  

Kyler England: Today we’re reminiscing on the writing of “Hurt A Little,” which started back in August 2023 and has been tweaked as recently as a couple weeks ago! Back to the very beginning, how did we decide this was a song moment and what the song should be about and do?

AG: Kicking the song off was a collaborative process with our book writers, David Hornsby and Chris Hoch. We knew we wanted a conditional love song that was simultaneously an ethos song for Michael and Star, all through the metaphor of a piercing, which could hurt, right?

KE: Yes- Star and Michael meet earlier on the boardwalk, and Michael's been looking for her ever since. He wants to get close to her and the action of the scene is him trying to convince her to pierce his ear. Star tells him to slow down and on the surface level, she's talking about piercing his ear, but underneath you get her worldview which is if you open yourself up, you're gonna get hurt. Life has been pretty rough for her, so she wants to protect herself and doesn't want to take risks. 

Gabriel Mann: Michael's coming at this from the exact opposite direction. He's ready to get involved in something new, something different than what he has experienced, maybe even something dangerous.

KE:  Michael’s a heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy. He wants to really live and really feel things, and he feels a spark with her, so he's chasing that.

AG: He’s also naive. Star has seen some bad stuff go down in Santa Carla and she's trying to wake him up. The challenge was accomplishing the action of the scene but still have it really feel like a song, versus us sort of narrating what's happening. The book writers did a great job of putting the specifics into the dialogue, so we were able to be more lyrical and zoomed out in the song.

GM:  This is so obvious it probably doesn't need to be said, but “it might hurt a little” is also her warning him about the danger of this town, and of vampires specifically. Also, piercing your ear hurts, and getting in a relationship hurts. This song is a warning. 

KE: Totally. And her warning goes over his head because he thinks they're talking about ear piercing, and falling in love, both of which he's like, sign me up. He's not at all afraid of either of those things, right? 

We landed on all of this after first exploring a couple of other directions. One was much darker both lyrically and musically and it was entirely Star singing, it wasn't a duet. But we needed something with more energy and chemistry to ignite their relationship. At some point we hit on the concept of “it might hurt a little” and the couplet in the bridge where Michael sings: “it’s better to have pierced and lost, than never to have pierced at all.” The whole “hurt a little” concept really had momentum and we could feel Michael's charm and that he was going to be able to convince Star to change her mind by the end of the song.

AG: That was a great Kyler lyric moment. There are so many in this show, and that was definitely one of them. In terms of the sound, we wanted the song to feel fun. Gabe and I orchestrated the musical and we really wanted to step into an 80s world, without getting too kitschy. We were going for an anthemic 80s fun feeling. 

GM: We also wanted to make a song that we would do as a band. This is something that AG was always reminding us about, that every time we got too specific in terms of the sound of the 80s, or an artist from the 80s, it didn't really work. But it did work when we made a Rescues version of that. 

KE: Agreed- AG has amazing instincts for authenticity and heart in all areas- orchestration, lyrics, melody. How did we get to the melody? I remember we were going for something soaring. 

AG: That chorus melody was Kyler's. That’s like a classic Kyler melody. 

KE: I didn’t even remember that, it’s been so long!

GM:  Another thing I’d say about the melody is we're often trying to make things sound like you would say them. This hook is a good example of that. Like, if you were going to say the words, “it might hurt a little,” it’s more or less the phrasing you hear in the song. 

AG: There's this piano hook in the intro that's very signature and really defines the song. And that is Gabe's specialty. He just pulled that out of the ether.  

KE: And also that great harmonic riff leading into the bridge, that’s quintessential Gabe!  Didn't we rewrite the verse melody, like, a bunch of times before we hit on the right thing?

GM: We kept trying to make it super melodic like the chorus, but it was too much, there was no contrast. In a musical, you have to go from speaking to singing seamlessly, and one thing that helps that is making the initial melody not too over the top. 

KE: I remember then we went too far the other way, too conversational. It didn’t feel like us and it didn’t match the 80s pop vibe. So, we went for something more hooky from a rhythmic perspective.

AG: And it's kind of an unexpected rhythm. It was definitely something that hit your ear. I was really excited when we landed on that. The tempo was a huge factor too, because the melody only feels right at a faster tempo. That was a tough needle to thread.

GM: Another tricky thing that is sort of unique to musical theater is the complexity of handling the disparate ranges of the characters. You have a female singer, you have a male singer, and they need to then somehow come together. We experimented with this a lot while writing this particular song. It wound up being not that complicated- it starts in one key for Star, we go down to another key for Michael, and then we return to the original key when they sing together. Solutions to those kinds of issues are different every time though; sometimes one character is in a harmony role, other times they need to sing the melody, so that determines where you wind up.

KE: I love how Star starts the song and sings about her view of the world in the 1st verse and chorus, and then 2nd verse and chorus Michael sings about his viewpoint. They come together in the bridge and sing in harmony while they’re also moving closer together emotionally, talking about ways that their experiences overlap, like “I've taken a hit, maybe you have too.” Then with the punchline at the end of the bridge, he really charms her. From there on out, they're singing together, and through that action, not just the words but the fact that they're singing together, you see that they've moved closer. It’s cool how structure can support the emotional movement and the action of the song.

GM: Totally. It's amazing how the simple fact of two people singing in harmony shows you something about them that goes beyond the lyric. 

AG: There was no shortage of intention, challenge and inspiration that was very much required to make this song work. Multiply that by about 30 and you get the last 4 years of our life in a nutshell!

The Lost Boys will open at the Palace Theatre on April 26, 2026.