Sons of Anarchy rides into their 4th FX season on September 6th with a special 90 minute episode. Its 14 months later and most of the SAMCO members have been released from jail. Now they’re out and ready to take on the world, or at least their section of it in the town of Charming. But things have changed since they’ve been gone. Now there’s a new sheriff in town and he’s ready for trouble.
Kurt Sutter, creator, writer, director, producer and sometimes actor discusses Sons of Anarchy and what changes may come in Season 4.
POP CULTURE ZOO: What about the opening sequence in Season 4 with the gang being released from prison. It’s a very powerful set-up. Where was it shot?
KURT SUTTER: It was shot in two different places. The interior is actually a woman’s prison that is no longer being used. It’s an actual prison but it’s no longer functional. The exteriors are an actual prison. We were there doing some of those exterior shots with a full yard [with real prisoners] and all of that stuff. It’s all very organized because they do a lot of filming at those places. There’s a lot of protection that goes into that. All that barbed wire it’s a functioning prison. It’s literally out in the desert where there are 6 detention centers all within 5 miles of each other.
PCZ: I also like the last scene of “Out” (the first episode) where you use the song “What a Wonderful World” in a montage.
SUTTER: My music supervisor and composer Bob Thiele, his father, Bob Thiele Sr. composed that song. It’s really one of those situations where I’d probably never get to use that song, because it was kind of like a wedding song. I talked to Bob about it and I kept apologizing to his father as I was watching it. But we had the opportunity to do it and we got Alison Mosshart from the band The Kills. We sent her the track and she recorded it at a studio in Dublin. She loved it and she loved the idea that she got to see what we were doing with it. Bob has a great relationship with all these artists and I loved the band and I love the voice.
PCZ: You seem to like to use montages. Why?
SUTTER: The great thing about doing montages and why I do them a lot is when you only have 42 minutes and change to tell the story it’s a great device to through music and through intent and through singular scenes to continue telling the story. So just through images I’m allowed to the emotional arc of an episode that maybe in scenes would require three times that amount of time. It’s just a great device for me to continue to tell a story which is why I rely on them so heavily.
PCZ: I’m curious if anyone from the biker community has ever reached out to you and whether there’s a biker version of Comic-Con where they squeal when you show up?
SUTTER: They [the actors] have actually been going to some biker shows and because Sons has a presence at some of these rallies and stuff. My experience is that the feedback has been generally very positive. I have friends that are in the life and I try to stay in [touch] I really keep the lines of communication open. Look, I know it’s a drama and we take a lot of liberties with how these guys live their lives. But my experience is that they embrace that. And I’ve mentioned this before; they consider it their soap opera. And I do keep the lines of communication open so that it remains homage and not exploitation, because I never want to sort of cross that line where they feel like you were sort of exploiting their lives. And so that’s really been the experience and it’s really been very positive to the point where I’m usually getting head shots and stuff like that when I enter into these events and stuff.
PCZ: I bet you guys are very popular in prison.
SUTTER: (Laughing) Its funny, cops love the show as much as the outlaws. It’s that Alpha male thing… you can go that way or you can go that way. It’s a very similar personality.
PCZ: This year just based on the premiere, obviously there are some issues between Jax and the rest of the club, but you also introduce Ray McKinnon (Agent Lincoln Potter) and Rockmond Dunbar’s (Sherriff Eli Roosevelt) characters. How do you decide how much is going to be about the club fighting within its self and how much is going to be people coming at them from outside?
SUTTER: I think the idea always is to use those external pressures to incubate what’s going on inside the club. So, when you have these dynamics set up as we set up this season with the Russians in the premiere and then ultimately with the Mexicans there’s all these internal conflicts going on. And then, when you sort of add the external pressure of a new sheriff, for me it’s always about using those external things just too sort of torque up and create more tension on the things that are going in here. So that our “A” stories, which quite often deal with them taking care of business, but what you then have is all the shit that’s going on between the members and the conflicts of the club. How does that play out in the day-to-day when they have to go and take care of business? That ultimately is what the show is in terms of, if there was a narrative device that you could land on, that’s really what we try to do. The expository things and the narrative beats are fun and exciting and testosterone driven. But underneath it, you have all the characters stuff and all the emotionality that’s going on because of these internal beefs.
SONS OF ANARCHY is on 10:00 PM Tuesdays on FX Network. The DVD for Season 3 was released on August 30.
