From & Inspired By

This is an episode that's been two years in the making. Can you believe it? We first invited Jon Dobyns to come on the show to discuss his musical project, Alone in the Woods, and his work with the anime soundtrack reissue label, Tiger Lab Vinyl, back in November of 2018, but due to the man's incredibly busy work schedule, it didn't happen until November of 2020. Then we went on our annual holiday hiatus, and so on and so forth, but I'm happy to say that this is a very wide-ranging, awesome interview, that's totally worth the wait, and we're sneak-previewing a couple of cuts off Alone in the Woods' new album, Help Is Not Coming, which goes on sale this Thursday, February 4, at noon eastern. Check it out!

Royal Dagger Ballet is Tristan Bechet’s first album as a solo artist after Flux Information Sciences, electronic rock duo SERVICES and Sauna Kings. The result is an edgy, opulent and mesmerizing compilation of genre-defying industrial experimentalism. Engaging in modern electronics, synthesizers and drum machines, each track is its different world, some cinematic and melodic and others rhythmically chaotic, industrial and cacophonous. Born in Portugal but raised between Brazil and New York City and now living in Paris, Tristan’s idiosyncratic approach to music uses a collision of electronic sound design. He has also composed for brands like Nike, Karl Lagerfeld, Dior, Chanel, Givenchy and The Creator’s Project, his works featured by The New York Times, Nowness and beyond. He is currently composing for a psychological drama horror film currently in the works. We spoke about all of this and more at the end of last year.

And we're back. Every year, it seems like I hope we're going to keep going through the end of the year, but then end up taking Thanksgiving through New Year's off to deal with the day job. Thanks for waiting. I think you'll be pleased with this episode as our comeback. From 1989-2004, musician Paul Hartnoll was one half of the legendary electronic music duo, Orbital, along with his brother, Phil. While the pair have reunited several times in the intervening years, since that time, Paul Hartnoll has released a pair of solo albums – The Ideal Condition and 8:58 – and has begun scoring various films, documentaries, shorts, and even the second season of Peaky Blinders. His latest work is the score for the Welsh crime thriller, Concrete Plans, directed by Will Jewell. I spoke with Hartnoll about his scoring work and how Orbital's music found its way into many, many different areas of entertainment.

New Wave band Berlin has gone through multiple incarnations during its four-decade tenure, seeing members – including lead singer Terri Nunn – come and go over the years. After Nunn rejoined the band in 1980, the underground success of Berlin's second single led to their debut EP, Pleasure Victim, which spawned the national hit “Sex (I'm A...)” in 1982, followed by “The Metro” the following year. The band's music would go on to be iconic, thanks to the massive success of the Giorgio Moroder written and produced song, “Take My Breath Away,” featured on the soundtrack to the 1986 action film, Top Gun. That song would go on to win both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and has come to the band's defining cut. The band would break up in 1987, and while Nunn would reform the band–sans any other original members–in the late '90s, it wasn't until an episode of VH1's Bands Reunited in 2004 that the group's founding players would get together. However, just last year, fellow founding members

Established by producer and director Charles Band in 1986, Empire Pictures quickly became notorious for the horror-comedy classics made during its brief but legendary lifespan. With wild special effects, outrageous humour and over-the-top horror action Ghoulies, Troll and TerrorVision were three of Empire Pictures finest works, and each movie featured an unforgettable score by Charles' award-winning composer brother Richard Band. Now, these scores have been carefully remastered and are presented for the very first time on half-speed mastered, limited-edition 180g coloured vinyl in stunning packaging with liner notes from the composer. Ghoulies features the full uncut original soundtrack, available for the first time ever, and includes a bonus 7inch featuring Fela Johnson’s "Dancing with a Monster" and "Surrender" as heard in the movie. Troll features the complete soundtrack, and TerrorVision features the special director’s cut soundtrack. Each release is housed in a gatefold sleeve with full movie gallery,

Director Hu Guan's film, The Eight Hundred, might have only played briefly in stateside theaters before Covid shut everything down, but the Chinese war drama has taken in over $450 million worldwide since it released at the beginning of August. Just a little after it was released, I spoke with music supervisor Fei Yu and composer Andrew Kawczynski about the music of the film, and how the music was put together on a global scale.

Composer Sam Ewing has slowly but steadily made a name for himself over the last few years, thanks to his work with the massive talent that is composer Bear McCreary on shows like The Walking Dead and films like the Happy Death Day series. However, Ewing has also started doing work on his own, and the composer's first solo score, for director Frank Sabatella's vampiric horror, The Shed, was just released on vinyl from the folks at Enjoy the Ride Records. We spoke with the composer by phone about his career.

From 1983 to 1989, and from 1993 to 2001 Jeff Pilson was the bassist for hard rock band Dokken. Over the course of the band's lengthy career, Pilson co-wrote many of the band's biggest hits, including the two tracks included in 1987's A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors. The theme song has become rather iconic, as has "Into the Fire," which plays over the film's opening sequence. He was briefly a member of Dio in the mid-90s, and as if that wasn't enough, Pilson now plays bass for Foreigner, whom he's been with since 2004. Throw in the fact that the bassist also played on the soundtrack for the Judas Priest-inspired 2001 film, Rock Star, as well as appearing in the film, and we have a lot to talk about.

This installment of Your Favorite Soundtrack sees us talking with Greg Dedrick about the soundtrack to the 1985 Tom Holland film, Fright Night. Greg -- aka Greg D -- is a podcaster who hails from Kansas City. Dave is, along with Jenius McGree, the co-host of the Kansas City-based Nightmare Junkhead and Nerds of Nostalgia podcasts, as well as the host and co-host of many cool live events, Covid quarantine restrictions allowing. Greg and Jenius have been cool enough to have me on multiple episodes of Nerds of Nostalgia and Nightmare Junkhead, so it was great to finally have Greg on to talk about all things vampiric.

An ode to Giallo, '70s crime flicks and French new wave cinema; Bastien Keb’s third album, The Killing of Eugene Peeps, is an imagined score of downbeat anti-ballads, cinematic instrumentals, psychedelic-folk and warped soliloquies. Set for an October 9 release via Gearbox Records, the album was oiginally made in three parts: film score, soundtrack and incidental music. The record develops in a dream like state, a narrator periodically guiding the listener between songs of longing and regret. We spoke with Bastien Keb about his cinematic influences, and the making of the new album.

The Dutch symphonic metal masters known for their love affair with horror, Carach Angren, released their sixth full-length, Franckensteina Strataemontanus, on June 26 via Season of Mist. The record explores the story of the “real” Dr. Frankenstein, Johann Conrad Dippel. Dippel was a mad scientist in Germany who performed sick experiments that even included failed attempts to reanimate dead animals, among other things. The album explores the stark reality of this madman while incorporating fantasy elements from the Frankenstein monster mythos.In addition, composer and musical mastermind Ardek has composed music for a number of other bands, including Lindemann, Pain, Ex-Deo, and more. He has even tried his hand in film and scored the horror movie Pyewacket, exercising a diverse and incomparable scope of musical talents. We spoke with Ardek earlier this year about the band's literary and cinematic influences.

Composer Jackson Greenberg's theme song for Netflix’s hit docuseries, Explained, went viral earlier this year, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon and taking on a life of its own. It's a bop and a half, and we discussed its unusual rise to fame with the musician, as well as his work on the FX/Hulu documentary, AKA Jane Roe, and other reality projects, earlier this year.

Less Than Jake has been making music since the mid-'90s, and their ska-punk sound is just as popular now as it was during the third wave's heyday. The man behind the drum kit, Vinnie Fiorello, is the mastermind behind many of the band's most popular songs, and so it was a real treat to get him on the phone to talk about the band's work in films like Good Burger and Scream 2, as well as his latest project, the Inevitables.The Inevitables' Kickstarter ends at midnight EST on Thursday, September 3.

The Psychedelic Furs have been making moody, beautiful rock music since 1977. Despite a hiatus for the better part of the '90s, when founding members Richard Butler and Tim Butler founded Love Spit Love with Richard Fortus and Frank Ferrer, the long-running band is still going strong. After reuniting in 2000, the Furs have toured regularly, and thanks to the use of their songs “Love My Way” and “The Ghost of You” in Call Me By Your Name and Stranger Things, respectively, the band continues to find new fans over 40 years on.Last month marked the release of Made of Rain, the band's first new material since 1991's World Outside. Thanks to the work of collaborator Fortus as producer, along with deft mixes from Tim Palmer, the new material hearkens back to the band's classic '80s singles, while still fitting in alongside modern indie and alt rockers. The sound on Made of Rain is vast and powerful, ably demonstrating that the album is well worth the long wait.I hopped on the phone with bassist Tim Butler and speaki

Starting with Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco & the Time Rippers at the beginning of this year, blogger and YouTuber Troels Pleimart, aka the Space Quest Historian, began reorchestrating the scores to the classic Sierra sci-fi comedy games. Three successful Qrates crowdfunding campaigns later, he's on to his biggest project yet -- a double vinyl release for Space Quest V: Roger Wilco – The Next Mutation. We spoke to him about how this all came to be.Fund the Qrates campaign for Roger Wilco V.

The Vandals' 1995 album, Live Fast Diarrhea, gets a snazzy 25th anniversary vinyl repress this week from Craft Recordings. To celebrate, we spoke with both the band's guitarist, Warren Fitzgerald, as well as bassist Joe Escalante, about the music of Glory Daze and their appearance in the Penelope Spheeris cult classics, Suburbia and Dudes, as well as the new Live Fast Diarrhea repress.

Despite hailing from Jersey City, New Jersey, and only being 35 years old, composer Joseph Trapanese has rapidly ascended to join the ranks of today's most exciting composers. Due in no small part to the composer's work with such musical luminaries as French electronic acts M83 and Daft Punk (the latter of which he helped compose the massively-successful score for Tron: Legacy), along with his work composing scores for films as diverse as the live-action Disney remake of The Lady & the Tramp or musical The Greatest Showman, Trapanese seemingly defies categorization. It's a fascinatingly broad selection of work in a very short time, and so we were very excited to get the chance to speak with Trapanese about his career up to now.

Ten years ago, on May 16, 2010, famed metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio died from cancer. In the intervening decade, there have been myriad tributes to the departed singer, including a hologram tour featuring original members of his band. For the tenth anniversary of his passing, the band Appice – featuring legendary drummers and brother Carmine Appice and Vinny Appice – put together a lockdown tribute to Ronnie James Dio, featuring their song, “Monsters and Heroes,” originally recorded for their 2017 album, Sinister.I spoke with Carmine Appice–who’s drummed for everyone, including Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, and Ozzy Osbourne–about his relationship with Dio, how the tribute video came to be, as well as a discussion regarding Appice's involvement in the seminal 1988 heavy metal horror film, Black Roses.You can find an abridged text version of my conversation with Carmine Appice at the Pitch.

Composer Kyle Newmaster has been a film, television, game, and concert stage composer for over 15 years. His latest project is the CBS series Blood & Treasure -- an Indiana Jones meets James Bond meets Romancing the Stone action-adventure drama. Kyle was able to record live musicians throughout the season, a rarity with TV composing nowadays. Newmaster has also worked as an orchestrator, most notably for Disasterpeace’s score for Under the Silver Lake, among many other. Additionally, Newmaster has done a slew of work for various Star Wars-related games over the years, most notably Kinect Star Wars. It's a fun chat to go through all of his work.

Hey there! Sorry for the massive delay on this episode. I bought a new computer and had to transfer all my files over and get everything set up, and it took way longer than I expected when trying to fit it in alongside a bunch of freelance writing assignments which had fast turnarounds. So, again -- sorry. We'll make it up to you with a new episode this coming Monday.Composer Timothy Williams has begun to make a name for himself with recent films like the heavy metal horror of We Summon the Darkness and the supervillian origin tale, Brightburn, with scores that manage to straddle two worlds simultaneously. Williams is also a long-time orchestrator and conductor, having tackled the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool 2. His skillful work around pop song needle drops and big time action means that we had a lot to discuss in this interview, and it's a real blast to hear some behind-the-scenes tidbits about all of these films.