Meet Back to the Future's Resident Guitar God and Behind-the-Scenes 'Johnny B. Goode'

In a key scene in Back to the Future on Broadway, Marty McFly, played by Casey Likes, straps on a cherry red electric guitar and performs an ecstatic rendition of “Johnny B. Goode.” Likes unleashes a furious blizzard of notes, slides his fingers down the fretboard and works the whole room into a frenzy before getting carried away, finally leaving a wailing high B hanging awkwardly in the air.

Likes—obviously—isn’t really playing the guitar.

Somewhere in the warren of tightly packed backstage spaces at the Winter Garden Theatre, well out of sight of the audience, the guitarist Aurélien Budynek is the guy who actually performs the instrumental part that Likes studiedly simulates on stage. Budynek executes the number on his own custom Gibson ES-345 without breaking a sweat. “I actually bought this for the show,” he told a visitor recently, showing off the instrument. “I made sure that it was the same color as the movie too.”

Growing up near Bordeaux, France, Budynek took a few piano lessons around the age of four. They didn’t stick. A few years later, he saw Back to the Future for the first time. The scene where a time-traveling teen single-handedly invents rock’n’roll—and pulls off “a kind of an electric guitar music history lesson in one solo,” as Budynek describes it—made a big impression. “That’s part of what made me want to become a guitar player. So to be back here it's really full-circle.”

As a member of the 18-piece orchestra, Budynek gets a kick out of supporting the string, horn and reed players, playing an integral part in the show's “very, very epic” sound. Playing the familiar adventuresome notes of Alan Silvestri’s theme is a particular highlight.

Within the regimented confines of the score by Glen Ballard and Silvestri, Budynek tries to find some room every night to experiment with the dynamics and micro-details of his performance. “I’m going to attack this a little bit different, I’m going to bend instead of slide. That’s something that keeps it fresh for me after having it played almost 400 times. I don't know if anybody hears it except for me, but that makes it more fun for me and for my bandmates.”

A little over 20 years ago, Budynek, whose idols include guitar gods Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, David Gilmour and Django Reinhardt, left provincial France—“Not a lot of opportunities to play live,” he said—to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to New York after graduating in 2005 and soon acquired a Fender Stratocaster from a music shop on the city's old Music Row on 48th Street. That trusty Strat keeps Budynek company at the Winter Garden. “I had a handful of other guitars, but this has been my main guitar for a long time. As you see, it's pretty scratched up and banged up and it's been all over the world with me. It's nice that it has a steady home here for now.”

Budynek’s first Broadway gig was as subbing in the glam metal jukebox musical Rock of Ages. He appeared onstage at the Helen Hayes, delightedly playing the part of the billowy-haired rock god who cranks out a face-melting solo at the top of the show. Substitute gigs in Hamilton, School of Rock, Book of Mormon and The Last Ship followed, the latter involving, meaningfully for Budynek, a guitar-and-vocals duet with Sting.

In 2018, Budynek became a “chair holder” on Broadway for the first time, serving as guitarist for Gettin’ the Band Back Together, followed by Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Both shows, like Rock of Ages, involved being on stage in full view of the audience. “I feel I'm a stage performer first and foremost. If I had my pick, I would be on stage all the time.” Budynek’s wife, Katie Webber, was also in the ensemble of Tina; these days, she’s part of the ensemble in The Great Gatsby—her ninth Broadway show—at the Broadway Theatre. a couple of blocks up Broadway from the Winter Garden.

Aside from his work with Back to the Future, Budynek keeps up a busy schedule as a private instructor and gigging guitarist. Earlier in July, he spent a week performing daily improvised sets at Birdland with celebrated drummer Cindy Blackman Santana. Budynek's students learn all there is to know about working Broadway's pits—which is as close as it gets to a steady job for a musician, he said. “I leave my gear here at the theater. I just come up here and play and go home and sleep in my own bed as opposed to being on tour and changing towns every day and sleeping in a hotel. Which is fun too, but long-term…”

And for a grand total of four bars a night, as the audience files out of the theater, Budynek finally gets to improvise for real, during the orchestra's exit-music jam. Rest assured, for those few seconds, he plays the guitar just like ringing a bell. “I’m allowed to do whatever I want,” he said, “which is fun.”