Later this year, the second season of the smash-hit documentary series, “Welcome To Wrexham”, returns to our screens.  The show is about Wrexham, a working-class town in North Wales, UK, as two Hollywood stars, Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), take ownership of the town’s historic yet struggling football club.

Back in 2020, Rob and Ryan teamed up to purchase the 5th-tier Red Dragons in the hopes of turning the club into an underdog story the whole world could root for. The worry? Rob and Ryan have no experience in football or working with each other. From Hollywood to Wales, from the pitch to the locker room, the front office to the pub, “Welcome to Wrexham” shows Rob and Ryan’s crash course in football club ownership and the inextricably connected fates of a team and a town counting on two actors to bring some serious hope and change to a community that could use it.

Recently, I spoke with the show’s composer, Giosuè Greco, whose work is currently up for Emmy consideration in the Documentary Series category.  Giosuè aimed to create a soundtrack that would capture the epic and anthemic energy of the UK football game and its passionate fans, while also incorporating the comforting folk sounds unique to the small town of Wrexham, Wales. To achieve this, he merged these two seemingly contrasting musical elements, resulting in a composition that embodies the spirit and character of the community.

As Giosuè grew up in a small town, similar to Wales, he had an emotional connection to the series, giving him the idea to grow the music as the series progresses. The instrumentation includes piano, strings, bombastic drums, saxophone, and electronic elements, creating a versatile tone for the show.

How did you get involved in working on “Welcome to Wrexham”?

I had done a couple of documentaries before, and the guys in the production company liked my work previously, so I got contacted. I actually… It’s funny, I got contacted about a year before they start shooting, which was great because it gave me the chance to get a little bit familiar with the Welsh traditional music, what they wanted to do. And I also had the opportunity to make some purchases to the extent of these two instruments that you can see here, which is a bouzouki and mandolin, and some other traditional Welsh instruments that I started playing and practicing on so that I could bring the score to life.

Where did the inspiration for the sound of the series come from?

Yeah, well, it’s a football… So, I wanted to make the score somewhat resembling of the stadium feel, sound, and so it was pretty much 50/50 between traditional Welsh/Irish music and big stadium anthemic motifs. So, the score, it’s basically a balancing act between these two worlds in a way. So, that was the main inspiration for it.

Did you get a chance to either watch any of the Wrexham games?

Oh, yeah. I didn’t make it… Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go yet, but I might in the future. That’s still in the cards. But yeah, I tried to stay pretty much on top of the… I try to watch the live streams. Sometimes I don’t make it because of the time difference. I live in LA. But yeah, and it’s quite exciting what’s been going on recently, actually. The team is moving up and so I’m super, super excited about that.

What was your biggest challenge working on creating the soundtrack to the series?

Yeah, I think a lot of that stuff, for me, a lot of the challenges were in the initial scoring process, when I didn’t have any picture, I didn’t have any footage to work with. So, there was a lot of guessing. There was a lot of guessing, there was a lot of, “Is this is actually going to work?” So, I started writing a bunch of very long suites, you might call them, long pieces, like four, five, six minutes. And some of that stuff, I was really going for the biggest swing possible. There are tracks with seven, eight mandolins playing at the same time. There’s tracks where… There are fully electronic tracks, they didn’t quite make it into the show and maybe that’s good. There’s also a bunch of stadiums sounding like… Almost like drum line cues that also didn’t quite work with the picture at the end. So, there was a lot of guessing, ultimately, that was quite challenging. But luckily I had enough time to really just go for it and experiment as much as I could, so I’m super grateful for having had that time.

What was your biggest highlight working on this project?

There’s a LOT of things that I’m actually very, very proud, that you can hear in the soundtrack. I managed to sneak a bunch of… I’m a saxophone player first and foremost. That was my first instrument, first love and I managed to… It actually made it into the score and it has quite a… It’s quite in the forefront, so that’s definitely something that I’m proud of. And also, I had the opportunity to make something that it varies in style and it… There’s quite a lot of range in the sonic palette that we ended up building for Wrexham. We go from traditionally sounding music to some electronic cues and saxophone and soaring melodies, and there’s a string… There’s a lot of string section pieces and drums blasting through the stadium. So, definitely the range of the project is something that I’m very, very, very proud of.

Are you working on the second season of “Welcome To Wrexham”?

Yes, season two, it’s happening and we’re doing it.

“Welcome To Wrexham” is available to stream now on Hulu in the United States and on Disney+ around the world.  And the soundtrack to the film is also available to download on digital devices.

Have you checked out “Welcome To Wrexham” yet?  Let us know on social media!

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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