Sing Street director John Carney says too many are 'wasting' music

Once director John Carney compares music to heroin shot directly into the bloodstream. These days, the celebrated songwriter says he can't "use" music like he used to.

"Music to me is too direct into my heart. I can't let it in, sometimes," he tells guest host Gill Deacon. 

In a wide-ranging conversation anchored in his latest film Sing Street, the Oscar-winning songwriter details his surprisingly complicated relationship with music of the past and increasingly "derivative" present.

Although he's proud of his new coming-of-age film, which was inspired by his own boyhood in Ireland, Carney says he doesn't want to be pigeonholed. He muses about making a horror film someday, and otherwise surprising those who only know him for his strikingly original musical movies. 

The director also explains how his 1980s-set film — packed with great, original tunes — re-frames his difficult high school "prison sentence". 

WEB EXTRA | Carney struck a chord with his quietly powerful musical Once, the story of two musicians who fall in love, one song at a time. His latest film, Sing Street, already has big fans — including Jay-Z, as well as the Sundance crowd, who gave it a standing ovation. 

The story centres on a high-school student who forms a band with fellow misfits, mostly to attract the attention of a girl.