Writer and director David Chase, whose feature film debut, “Not Fade Away,” opened the 2012 Austin Film Festival is, of course, best known for “The Sopranos,” HBO’s groundbreaking television mob drama (that show’s star, James Gandolfini, is the biggest name in the new film). The debate about that series’ loved and hated, not-fade-away-cut-to-black ending has long since ceased, and Chase aims here to give fans something new to talk about.

The film’s coming-of-age story, placed amid the tumultuous events of the 1960s and set to the driving back-beat of the decade’s music scene, revolves around a basement band called the Twylight Zones. Its drummer and eventual front man’s working-class New Jersey upbringing bears more than a passing resemblance to Chase’s (born David DeCesare) own.

The writer and director took a few minutes to discuss the film with me via telephone before its AFF screening. The festival continues Saturday with more conferences, screenings and the annual awards luncheon.

Q. How would you describe “Not Fade Away?”

A. I would sort of describe it as kind of a picaresque about an era that was alternately very light and very dark.

Q. Is this film something you have been planning on making or wanting to make for a long time?

A. I’ve had an idea to do something about friends of mine back in the 1960s who played music. I’ve had that idea for a long time, but it wasn’t this movie. I dropped it for a while and this one — I came up with the idea of doing it while I was doing “The Sopranos.”

Q. How much of the film is autobiographical or influenced by your own coming-of-age?

Well, the incidents in it are not, um — I was in a band and I played the drums and then I played the bass, but to call the thing I was in a band would be a misnomer. It was really just four people with delusions in their head who played in my friend’s basement and thought we were too good to even play for people. We were actually too scared. But we ate it, slept it and drank it — music and musicianship and learning licks and the blues and we talked about it all the time. And played all the time, but just for ourselves.

Q. Music was important in “The Sopranos” as well as, certainly, in “Not Fade Away.” John Magaro’s lead character says, toward the end of the movie, that he wants to wed music to film. I’m wondering how music is important to you?

A. Music is very important to me as it applies to film. It’s important to me anyway; I just love to listen to it. Although, I’m so sick of it right now I’ll probably have to take a vacation.

Q. You’re coming to the right city.

A. (Laughs) Yeah, that’s what I hear. No, I mean, I love that music. Live music is great, and I’m looking forward to that. But just listening to records over and over again — I did a lot of that for the movie and I kind of need to take a break from that. But it’s very important to me and it’s even important to me as the way I get ideas. I used to listen through headphones. … I’d put on a Springsteen album and listen through headphones, and images would occur to me which would turn into stories which would turn into TV episodes which would turn into whatever. And I still do, I just don’t listen through headphones anymore. I put on records and I listen and I just sort of zone out and usually those are the beginnings of my story ideas.

Q. How closely did you work with Steven (Van Zandt) on the music choices and original music for this film?

A. Very closely. He’s the musical soul of this thing. He took those actors, who were not a band at all, and within three or four months made them into a functioning band — gave them a sound, gave them a personality, helped them with stage moves, helped them with every aspect of it, of what it’s like to be a kid who’s immersing yourself in music. He was essential to the whole thing. It wouldn’t be the same without him.

Q. How difficult was it to find the right actors?

A. Very hard, because we started out wanting to find musicians who could act, who were musicians first and actors second. We did a huge Internet search and a search of colleges and music schools in the New York metropolitan area. We had a lot of people come in, and they were good, but they just couldn’t handle the acting. Which isn’t to say that they couldn’t handle the acting in another situation, but my dialogue is emotionally complicated — people are very seldom saying what they really mean. And so those actors didn’t really cut it. We had to stop all that and go back to more traditional means, finding actors as actors and then hope that we could teach them to play music.

Q. Did they actually play in the film?

A. Well, they played and practiced and learned their instruments. The instrumental tracks that you hear the band “playing” are actually Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent and Bobby Bandiera. We got them to play at what they considered to be their worst and then we got our band to play at a point where they could really almost faultlessly mime that and almost do it themselves.

Q. It looked good. It can be really distracting when it’s not.

A. I know. That’s Stevie. We really worked very hard at it, and one of the good things about it was that both John and Jack (Huston) did their own singing.

Q. What were the challenges, if there were any, in setting such a personal story in such a culturally sweeping time period?

A. Well, I felt a lot of trepidation about doing the ’60s. You know, the ’60s has been heralded, it’s been derided, it’s been satirized, it’s been dragged behind a car. It’s an era of buffoonery, it’s an era of very serious things, and I was concerned about doing yet another thing that took place in the ’60s. And why I continued doing it, I don’t know. I guess I just felt I had to. I got deeper and deeper into it and didn’t want to quit.

Q. As a director, what is it about James Gandolfini that appeals to you?

A. Well, his enormous talent. I mean, he’s, um, he’s indefatigable in the amount he will work to get something right; and how much he has to fall back on; and what a problem-solver he is, how hard he works. But, of course, what it really comes down to is just this great God-given talent of his. He takes emotion and makes it into something tangible.

Q. “The Sopranos” was so huge, I’m wondering if you think it would be possible for you to do another television series or does your move into features mean that you’re finished with that?

A. In fact, I’m supposed to be doing a miniseries. But I’m not the least bit interested in doing another hourlong weekly drama.