Bette Davis is a legend of the cinema, the ultimate classic Hollywood star. Her style and attitude have had a cultural impact that goes far beyond the screen. And now, finally, her impact on musical inspiration will go far beyond “Bette Davis Eyes.”

THREE ON A MATCH is a new songwriting project from songwriters Neil Carlill (Lodger, Delicatessen), Jeff Mellin (The Eddies, Miss Mary) & King Toad (Furious Skinny, The Michael Tabors). Inspired by the films of the great Bette Davis, their songs draw on plot elements, characters, actors, biographic details, or, in some cases, the film titles alone.

Carlill (fresh from his collaboration with Duran Duran’s Warren Cuccurullo) and Mellin (fresh from his own recordings with the Velvet Underground’s Doug Yule) had been looking to collaborate for years, and decided the best place to start would be their shared love of old movies. And of course, the films of Ms. Davis were at the top of their list.

“Each Bette Davis film resonates with me in its own way,” says Carlill. At times he finds inspiration in of the back story, rumor mill and pop-culture trivia because “the surrounding mythology yields too much comedy, irony and tragedy to go un-eulogized.” He conceived abstract character sketches and highlighted iconic lines to evoke the films’ atmosphere and to produce a musical structure “that sets the listener quite literally off-balance.”

Mellin says that Bette Davis movies are "perfect seeds for songs." His approach was to focus on the titles alone: "I wanted to let the raw sound and rhythm of the words shape the songs’ creation, knowing there’d be no escaping the inherent aesthetics and my own subconscious associations." He says the titles’ infuse the songs with a “vintage mystique” and “cinematic narrative” that results in the “sort of memory dream you might’ have falling asleep to Turner Classic Movies.”

To fill out the trio, Carlill brought in King Toad, who found inspiration characters, dialog and even historical context. “My approach was different for each track,” says Toad. He comes at the material from perspectives inside an out of the film, and deals with plot elements, controversies surrounding the films, the overall sense and feel of the films, as well as their unifying roots. “Both "Of Human Bondage" & "The Letter" are based on the works of W. Somerset Maugham,” he notes. “I was happy to be able to write songs for the pair.”

These three varied approaches yield an album that is complex, witty, dark and even romantic -- not unlike Ms. Davis herself. Sticking to minimal, mostly acoustic arrangements, the three artists create a mood that evokes the playfulness of a Saturday matinee, the nostalgia of an old movie house and the solitude of private screening.The thirteen songs span Davis' entire career, from early pre-code romps like “Cabin In The Cotton” and “Parachute Jumper” through her artistic heights of "Dark Victory" and “All About Eve” and and up to the high camp of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and “Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte.”

To celebrate Bette Davis' 103rd birthday, the album will be pre-released as a name-your-own-price download on April 5. Stereorrific Recordings will officially release the album on matchbook (yes, real matchbooks) as high-quality download and then as a limited edition CD package, complete with film canister, imagined movie still, and a 28-page book on May 26.