Pittsburgh 2026 Horror Realm Convention Part 3: Tommy Lee Wallace, Don Shanks, and Alan Howarth

The Fisch Bowl Podcast had the pleasure of attending Pittsburgh's 2026 Horror Realm Convention, and interview many actors and filmmakers behind the scenes of your favorite horror and sci-fi films! Today's episode is with Tommy Lee Wallace, director and screenwriter for films including Halloween 3: Season of the Witch as well as the It miniseries from 1990, Don Shanks, known for playing Michael Myers from Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and lastly Alan Howarth, the composer and sound designer behind many of the Halloween films, Escape from New York, and Prince of Darkness.

Transcript

Welcome From Horror Realm Con

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Attention, all you fishing team.

Halloween III And Its Ending

SPEAKER_04 0:03

Welcome to the Fishbowl. It's Chad Fishbowl. Samfish the Fishbowl here at HorrorRoundCon 2026 with one of my all-time favorite childhood hero filmmakers, Tommy Lee Wallace. Tommy, I'm doing great. Thank you for taking the time to swim in the fishbowl with me. Good. I hope the temperature is just right. Just great. Excellent. First off, huge, huge fan. Halloween 3, one of at least my my favorite in the franchise. Thank you. Absolutely. I think, I mean, Michael Myers is great, but I think I think the the tone and storyline of Halloween 3 was a little, it's it's like deeper rooted.

SPEAKER_05 0:55

And well, it's funny. The uh Halloween, I'm immensely proud of Halloween, and I had a lot to do with its success. But Halloween was originally called the babysitter murder. And really, when you get down to it, it's not that much about Halloween, right? Whereas Halloween 3 is all about Halloween.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Exactly. And not to mention the great uh Tom Atkins.

SPEAKER_05 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Pittsburgh Local.

SPEAKER_05 1:22

Yeah, yeah. Local boy makes good.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had the pleasure of uh interviewing Tom a good while back, and we had a discussion about Halloween 3 and some of the other films, Escape from New York and The Fog. Fine actor, good man. Absolutely, absolutely. And I I think his role in Halloween 3 really is part of the reason. And was it a Dan Dan O'Hurley? O'Hurley, yes, yes. His character, and also I just I spoiler alert, I love the concept of having Stonehall. Yeah. You know, a little far-fetched, but hey, you know, right. So you know, I'm it probably goes with the territory with being a horror fan, but I'm also very much into like urban legends and you know, Bigfoot aliens, you know, all that stuff. Sure, but when I saw that the first time, one, I was absolutely terrified. So you did your job. Good, good. That was that was what we were supposed to do. But then I I would re-watch it and then I'd really look at the story and the concept, and really I it's it's a phenomenal film. I I think it stands on its own, but also can be part of the collective. And like I would love to see, you know, as much as they've been remaking Michael Myers movies, I think the one pivotal story point is to do a sequel to Halloween 3 if they ever did one.

SPEAKER_05 2:56

I've been shown a couple of scripts, and uh to me that's a hard, that's a hard movie to work out. I've given it a little thought, and I I can't solve that problem. It's fun to think about, but right. How it would be. It would be challenging.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

I I could see sort of like if they fast forward the present day, you know, and it was like kind of with like John's later films where it was like end of the world sort of scenario, you could do kind of something with like kind of like how in the mouth of madness ended, you know, where you could have like a dark exactly how how in three ended. Like it yeah, did did it did it did were they able to stop the the jingle from turning you know the children into you know stuff or of course that's the beauty of any fiction like that.

SPEAKER_05 4:02

You can your audience can draw its own conclusions. Some people think it's the utter apocalypse. I have my own opinion. It was a fiendish plot, but did they get that last channel off or not? That's a nice question. Suppose that killed off a few million kids, right? That's not the end of the world, right? It put a big scar in, especially in the USA. Right, right. But did it kill off everybody? I would probably be more interested in the psychological impact of having such a disaster and what it meant. But that then that becomes kind of a political film to me. That that takes you in that direction. It's no longer a horror movie. Right, right. Unless Connell Cochran comes back and hey, sorry, but Dan O'Hurley, he's dead. Right, right.

Fright Night Part 2 Secrets

SPEAKER_04 4:55

Unfortunately, yeah. Another fantastic sequel that I am fiendishly in love with is Frida Night Part 2.

SPEAKER_05 5:04

Thank you, thank you. It is everybody watch for it. This spring, we're getting a 4K. At long last, it will be visually represented for the really good-looking movie that it was, thanks to Mark Irwin and Dean Cheddar, the DP and the production designer, respectively. A pretty movie, a good-looking movie, widescreen. So I'm excited about this coming release. Oh, I thought the goodies commentary. I think the package would be nice. Awesome, awesome.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

Was there any like what was like the I guess the the origins for Friday night part two and the additions to like not just the goal and the vampire, but you also had the werewolf and you know, like additional monsters like put in. Well, which I think also adds to the flavor of uh the film.

SPEAKER_05 6:04

Uh the idea of a sequel to Friday Knight came up, and at that point I had not seen the original, so I watched it right away, as soon as it became clear that I was a candidate for the for the gig. And I just loved it. I thought it was original and fun, and Fright Night, it it sits on that little fence between horror and comedy, which is so hard to do. You can do a comedy that has horror elements, or you can do a horror movie that has a sense of humor, but to really land it right in between the two is a hat trick. And so I admired Tom Holland's idea and the work that they did. I loved the idea that they were bending all kinds of rules about vampires and whatever else. I mean vampires turning into this stuff, these untold monsters. So I really carried that ball to its limit. I thought, okay, if that's it, when this fabulous long-lost sister comes along, exotic, in the guise of performance artists, I thought that was a pretty good neat idea. That is hiding in plain sight. I'm a vampire, but everybody thinks I'm just this is performance art. Right, right. I thought she needs a posse. And so we can have a lot of fun, but just what are these things, you know? Right, right. Boz, for example, the driver, is like, what form of monster is he? So I I thought that all worked out very well. The magnificent four, you might say, when they're revealed, the elevator reveal uh door opens, and there's Charlie sitting there looking at these rock star kind of people. Right. It's like, oh my god, that's cool. So we had a lot of fun with that.

IT Casting And Tim Curry

SPEAKER_04 8:04

Awesome. One of my favorites of all time. Another one I have to talk about and throw in there is the, in my opinion, the one and only original It.

SPEAKER_05 8:16

Yes, thank you. I think the secret weapon of it, my version, was the casting. I mean, not only we had great TV stars, good actors, but we cast very carefully for the children, and I believe that those children grew up to be those grown-ups. I think that's not an easy thing to pull off. Right. And if the heart of that movie, you know, special effects for me, neither here nor there. They were fun, and some of them gave off a sense of like an old 50s movie, which I really, to be honest, was accidental. It's just a matter of budget limitation, but I thought it worked for the movie. But uh, I think the secret weapon and really what's going on with Stephen King a lot of the time, it's not the gore, it's not the horror, it's the children, it's childhood, it's the rite of passage, it's secrets told, bonds formed, getting through hard times together. That really touches the heart, and I think Stephen King is very, very good at that. And that's where I think we really hit it out of the park, was in that part of the story. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

And I have to ask this question what was Tim Curry's audition process like?

SPEAKER_05 9:50

There was no audition. All of the uh adult actors were that was telephone casting, just sitting around with the producers, house numbering who we'd like in the part, and saying, Wow, you think we could get Tim Curry? Well, call his agent, let's see. We can get him. Okay. The adult casting for that movie was effortless. No auditions required.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

Wow, amazing. And and Curry's performance. Yeah, I mean, I I I I have to tell you this. I I had because of it and killer clowns from outer space, I have what has become recurring killer clown phobia, recurring phobia, killer clown dreams.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

We ruin it, we pretty much ruined clowns for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

And also I have to say, Tim Curry's penny wise is so much scarier, so much more diabolical than the Bill Scarskard.

SPEAKER_05 10:54

It's interesting because I think Tim had the ability to be charming and friendly, and I believe that kids would be drawn in. The Skarsgard look was artful and clever, but he looked too scary. I can't, I couldn't buy that any kid would go near that preacher. Right. It's too he's just too scary looking.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

And another thing I'll say is your version of it, the original version, in my opinion, the one and only version. Thank you. Absolutely. It it from the book, Pennywise is supposed to be more of like a cosmic monster. Right. He's an entity of like an interdimensional monster. Yeah, whatever. And I thought your version of it really encompassed that and also like held such potential to like go beyond the mini-series. And I think the the newer it's they whether it's production, producer, studio interference or whatever, I feel from especially the part two, that their Scar Scar's version of Patty Wise is more like Freddie Coover. Yeah. You know, it's not it totally loses that what I think is a much scarier kind of concept.

SPEAKER_05 12:27

You know, there's only one Tim Curry. Yes. I'll tell you a story. He uh, as soon as we knew Tim was gonna do the part, we went to work on some sketches and uh visualization for what he was gonna look like. And the whole, based roughly on the bozo the clown coming from that end of the clown spectrum, we designed a bulbous forehead, these very sharp cheekbones, a chin piece that extended his face. And when Tim actually came in, he really objected to that stuff because, well, actually he'd done creature, not to was it creature? What did he do that was he was covered in legend? Legend, sorry, yes, legend. He was covered in rubber, and he was so sick of it that he started campaigning to not have all that apparatus. And I got him to agree to try it once, and it looked pretty awesome, but it was like he was right. We removed the tin piece, we removed the cheekbones. I insisted he keep the big bulbous forehead. But the fact is his own face was more than enough. Right, right. His acting ability, and especially in that regard, in white face, uh almost a mind troop sort of uh approach to the part. He just brought so much to it. Uh he would do the script as I asked him to, and then I would let him take off, you know, improv. And he just always delivered something original, and that hat trick of something original and scary and macabre, but also funny. Yes, yes, that man, not not just anybody can pull that off. So kudos to Tim. And I want to tell you, everybody knows Tim had a terrible stroke. Yeah, fortunately. But he is hanging in there and getting actually better, improving, his health is improving as of this date, anyway.

Invasion Homage And Final Cut

SPEAKER_04 14:48

So this is for Tim. Thank you, Tim, for your amazingly terrifying performance. You have instilled clown nightmares for me that'll never go away. Yeah, it's infinite, it's there forever. Uh and and and I just also have to say there's only been two movies to really like the first time I watched them, I couldn't make it the whole idea. Really? And that was You're It and the first time I saw Cuprix the Shining.

SPEAKER_05 15:21

Oh. Shining didn't do much for me. I I thought a much scarier movie was the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Great film. Great Felm. Which is my all-time favorite horror movie. And actually kind of ties to Halloween 3. I can see that. It's a lot of a tribute to the original invasion and an homage, in a way, to Don Siegel, the director, because they forced a bookend ending on the original Invasion that softened it for people. It was supposed to end with Kevin McCarthy saying, You're next, you're next, right in the camera. That was supposed to be the dead cut ending, and they made him bookend structure into the thing where, oh, he's on the phone and it's gonna be alright, and he lets the audience talk to look at oh shit, I hate that. So that our ending for Halloween 3, Tommy Atkins, stop it, stop it, that's an absolute direct tribute to writing a wrong, if you ask me. Let's get that dead ending, and we have we got pressure to uh soften that also. And uh John left me with the final say on it, which was a great privilege. John was behind the scenes, he was the producer, one of the producers, and he had final cut, and he just gave it to me. So, talk about a privilege for a first-time director. He said, uh, they want us to change the ending. He said, but I'm gonna leave it to you. What do you want to do? And I said, I thought about it for maybe eight seconds, and I went, nah, nah, let's leave it the way it is. And he said, You got it.

SPEAKER_04 17:14

There it is, ladies and gentlemen. All my guppies in the sea. You heard it first from Tommy Lee Wallace himself.

SPEAKER_05 17:22

It's in the book. I wrote a book about this. H3, the subtitle of which is Where the Hell is Michael Myers?

Don Shanks On Being Myers

SPEAKER_04 17:31

Fantastic. Or Fantastic, I should say. Okay. Tommy, thank you so much for taking the time to scroll the bowl with me. Thank you. Thank you. I could knock off their stuff. That's nice. I'm a huge fan. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Sam Fish, the Fishbowl, here at Horror Realm Con 2026 with Michael Myers himself, Don Shanks. From number five. Number five, right, right. Thank you for taking the time to swim in the bowl with me. Well, I'm glad to be here. Absolutely. Let's talk about Halloween since we're at uh a horror convention. Okay. Obviously, a lot of physical demands come with those types of roles. What would what would you say your overall experience was working on Halloween 5 and what were some of the difficulties, constraints, any special stories with the cast, anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Well, I mean, it pretty much is what I figured it was going to be. Okay. The mask is difficult because you can't see out of it very well. You know, so a lot of the, you know, you have to take into consideration you gotta do this, that, you know, for safety reasons, you know, but uh it was a lot of fun to do, you know. It was very physical, but that's what I do.

Donald Pleasence On Set

SPEAKER_04 18:55

Yeah. One of my favorites in the franchise, it's it's like I considered one and two, like obviously part one, part two. Three is you know, stands on its own, and then four and five was essentially another part one, part two. Um did did you get to work with Donald Pleasance at all? Oh yeah, yeah. Any any stories about uh Donald or anything?

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Well, he was very much the gentleman, right? We're doing the scene on the staircase, and I mean I literally was being mesmerized by you know what he was saying to me. It's like uh go and then snap back into it. Yeah, he was just a very consummate actor. We were doing the scene where I wrecked the car, I'm chasing him with the car and whatnot, you know. And he has a scene after that, and they had wrapped me. And he came to my dressing room and he knocked and he said, Could I ask a favor of you? I go, Yeah, okay. And he goes, Uh, would you mind being just standing out there that so I know that you're there? I go, Yeah, okay. You know, he goes, That you don't have to do anything, just you just need to know that you're there. I go, okay. So I started putting the wardrobe on. He goes, Well, you don't have to do that. I go, no, it's fine, you know. But I mean, he was just so polite and so, you know, could you do this for him? Happy to.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

Awesome, awesome. Donald is was in so many fantastic roles. Oh, yeah, so many great films.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Well, Peter O'Toole, this is one of his stories. Yeah, that he was offered a Perandello play. And he said, Well, you know, I really appreciate you asking me, but I think the only person who could play this part is Donald Pleasant. Because, in my opinion, he's the finest actor in England. And, you know, he, you know, very understated, you know, very slow, but then he could build it in such a way, you know, that you just start listening to him, listen, then he comes back at you. Exactly. But he was he was very, very good actor. Any stories with Daniel Harris or well, you know, she was she was like my buddy, you know, we're working all night and stuff, and you know, she's trying to keep her energy up, and you know, we just had a great time, you know. The little scene in the laundry chute, you know, that was kind of a hit-miss type of thing, you know. We had to work it out, you know. She had a stunt double, but she wanted to do it, you know. And she did an excellent job.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Awesome, awesome. Were you familiar with any like the the prior installments or was it?

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Well, I had seen one and two, and I saw three, and four hadn't come out when we were shooting five. And I asked them if they wanted me to. Go see it and Dominic goes no. I want you to bring what you're gonna bring.

Building A Physical Screen Villain

SPEAKER_04 22:05

I I can see that because it's just like with Jason, it's you can see each each actor's performance of Jason and Myers.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Like and I think that's what makes those films and each installment so unique is that like you get Michael's the same, but it's not just like the actors difference. Like the the physical demands, the the body movements, you know, it's like each person who encompasses those those characters makes it their own.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

Well, they're gonna have certain characteristics, you know, there's certain physical things that you do, you know. I mean, when I double somebody, I was telling this earlier, that I'll watch them from afar, and it's like, okay, do they put their hands in their pockets? Do they stand with this foot forward, you know, and you start taking on those characteristics, you know? Right, right. I was doubling Rutger Howard, told this story too. Yeah. And I've just watched him, and you know, it's okay, this and that, you know. And so the scene came up, and they go, Okay, we need Rutger. You know, hey Rutker, we need you over here. Hey, Rutker, we need you over here. And they came over and they go, Oh, Don. You know, but I was standing there in such a way that they thought I was Rutger Howard. The performances he put on. I know, incredible.

SPEAKER_04 23:34

Yes, yeah, and it's a very physical performance. Right, right. And I just found out in the last couple years that the whole monologue he does right before his character and Plade Runner like shuts down or you know, dies, especially.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

That he just starts to die.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

Right, right. And he lets the bird go. Right. It was apparently he wrote that as a poem himself, literally, like right before they're about to shoot the that scene, and he came to Ridley Scott and was like, I like to use this in the scene. He reads it to Ridley, really goes is just like blown away in awe of like absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

Another favorite horror villain role of Ruckers, the Hitcher.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

What?

SPEAKER_04 24:23

The Hitcher.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I like it.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

I I think that film is so well done. Eric Red, phenomenal filmmaker, and someone to have a tone, unique tone to all his horror films. Uh, you know, another one I'll throw out there of his Bad Moon, one of the best, in my opinion, werewolf movies to come out. But with Halloween, do you do you like admire any of the past and future or I guess post your performances, Michael Myers?

SPEAKER_03 25:03

Do you is is like do you admire like any like you said, each one brings a certain you know presence to it. You know, we were working on Marriage with Children, Dick Warlock was on that. And I went over to him and I said, you know, we played the same character. He's like, right, right. You know, he's like five, seven, yeah. I go, no, I did the Michael Myers. No, no, you know, this I said, have you ever done any of the personal appearances? He goes, What do you do? I go, well, you bring pictures and you sign them, and you know, this and okay. Anyway, so it's like a few months after what we had done, and I had already booked an appearance, and somebody called me and I said, Well, you know, I have someone else who might be you know interested in doing it. So I gave him a call and he goes, Really, you're gonna do this? I go, Yeah, you know, and so I like the next time I saw him, he had the banners, he had the pictures, you know, he's getting other people involved, you know, and you know, I really enjoyed his performance. I you know, Nick Castle's the first one. I enjoyed his too. You know, I like horror films, and I think the Halloween's the Friday the 13th, you know, they brought a certain thing, I mean, that people still like, and that's why they keep doing more and more because but I mean in the beginning, I I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They had a they brought out King Kong, an uncut version that hadn't been out since 1939. And so I'm sitting there and they're showing Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I was like, oh, this is pretty good. Hey, this is you know, you know, you really got, you know, I loved it. You know, and I didn't know anything about it. I hadn't heard anything about it. It was, you know, just in one of these art. Right, right.

The Michael Myers Actor Club

SPEAKER_04 27:01

Here's a question. I I I heard a while ago there was uh uh another interviewer, I think they were interviewing either Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig when he was taking over uh the role of 007. And I'm gonna ask the same question, just rephrase instead of it being, is there a 007 club? Is there a Michael Myers club of all the actors that have played Michael Myers over the years?

SPEAKER_03 27:34

Well, you know, it's we know each other. You know, I like all of the guys, you know, Chris, you know, Brad, James. I mean, everyone brings something to it, you know. The last three, I think, have been really, really good. You know, I'd have to pick out one and two in the last three. I think you know, you know, excellent.

Alan Howarth On John Carpenter

SPEAKER_04 27:58

Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to swim in the bowl with me. Okay. I hope the temperature was just right. We dove in head first, we came out head above water, and now we're riding the waves. All right. Sounds great. Thank you so much. Samfished the fishbowl here at Horror Realm Con 2026 with the great and wonderfully talented Alan Howard.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Hey, how are you? Alan Howarth here. We're at Horror Realm 2026. 2026. And I see that the festival is growing, but not outgrowing. Yeah. It's just really nice. It's it's it's casual. You get to spend time with the people that come, tell our stories. It's not like there's a line of a hundred people that you've got to blow through and they're they're waiting three hours, you know. So it's a it's a my it's it's an ideal situation for what I see.

SPEAKER_04 28:53

It's it's a wonderful experience where we can chat about working with Carpenter and some of the amazing scores that have been made over the years. Timeless scores. First of all, huge fan. I'm I am a very avid, I can kind of consider myself a music aficionado. And one of the reasons I think Carpenter resonates so much with me, and I and I'm sure uh with the rest of his fans, is that he did everything.

Scoring Workflow And Live Performances

SPEAKER_02 29:23

You know, yeah, he was a Renaissance man. Yes. He's uh there's words for this, super talented, genius, whatever you want to say, but yeah, he does everything. So for me to work with him, consider this. I'm in my studio, I had all the toys. So he came over to my house. He didn't want to know about the technology at all. He said, that's your job to keep it all running, everything in tune. I just want to play. So John's usual thing was we'd come in, sit down. Um, in the beginning, we didn't even have videotape. We were just like stopwatching. Right. Eventually I put dialogue on one track so we could hear the from the dialogue where we were in the scene. But shortly after that, I got videotapes and we could run a videotape. He called it electronic coloring book. Because from the stopwatch to actually watching the movie and playing to it. So that's the way it was. We improvised the whole thing. Because he wrote it, directed it, edited it, done. He took the first pass. So most of those classic themes are his compositions. Awesome. He's a great, great talented person. His father was actually a professor of music. Oh, wow. A concert violinist. Amazing. So he had a musical education coming up just because of his dad. Right. But then he had this affinity for film. So it was kind of like, hey dad, thanks for all the music stuff, but I don't want to make movies. But now it's included in his toolkit. Right. And he always jokes that why does he do his own music? He says, because I'm the cheapest part. But that's his excuse. He really wants to do it. And as you see now, after you know, decades of movies, he's still making more music. Right. That's his outlet. He likes it because it's a smaller production. We're talking about, you know, less than five to ten people. His son Cody and his godson Daniel are the band. There's another bass player, like a six-piece. He's been out touring, playing this music that was created for his movies. Well, I'm doing the same thing. In fact, I'll take credit for getting him off the couch and doing it. The first time it happened was in the Halloween 35 convention. They wanted me to talk about Halloween music. He says, You want to talk about how do I play it? And they go, You could do that? I go, Yeah, yeah. So I set up my keyboard, my MIDI, and they there was a little, somebody did on their iPhone and put it out there, and I started getting traction playing this music. I just I could hear Cody saying, Dad, Ellen's out there playing your guys' music. Why don't we do that? Well, he got serious about it. Right, right, right. They're out doing it now. But where I was going with this, so imagine I'm I'm in a studio with John Carpenter. We're young guys, I'm like 31, 32, same, we're the same age, so there's different. And I'm sitting in the group with the guy who wrote it, directed it, da-da-da-da-da-da. Wait, watching him make the music for his own movie. Talk about custom. Right, right. No, craft it. So all that music. And he always he always felt the music, he used to refer to music as carpeting. Right, right, right, right, right. Something that the whole movie sat on and kept the mood going. And so I got it, I was like the apprentice, right? I got to sit with him for almost nine years on nine movies doing that. So that's that's my takeaway. Uh I I get that that the greatest gift anybody could give to another person is to teach them how you do it.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

Absolutely. And talk about not just like the films being classics, but like I kind of consider the stores as like its own entity. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Well, that's what we're doing, is we're separating the music from the movie and just listening to the music going, hey, that's some pretty good music. Yeah. Yeah. And and it's like I did a concert here last night, right? Right, right. And I played a medley of music cues, but only the music and the image. So now you watch the movie with music only. And you see how custom the music is. But at the same time, the style of music strung together makes this incredible musical journey. Going from here to here to here to here, to fight to scare to run to kill, and the music that goes with the stuff. And I've kind of made it into a concert now. And so I run the track and stuff, and then I literally improvise on top of the score, real-time extra score. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

It's way fun.

SPEAKER_04 33:39

Right, right. I mean, now obviously Halloween is is an infamous score and an infamous film and a Halloween tradition at this point. For me, though, I think my favorite scores would have number one would have to be Escape from New York and Escape from LA. We talked about this yesterday, but Escape from LA was the first Carpenter movie I was old enough to go see in theaters.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Oh, it's an interesting entry point.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

Right, right, right. And the whole story I told yesterday about how you know I was super young at the time, but my I told my dad there's this movie Escape from LA coming out. He's like, no, you must mean Escape from New York. This was in the days of Blockbuster, so immediately he's he educated me on Escape from New York. Then we went to see LA, and then I remember I think the next one we saw after that was In the Mouth of Madness, and then Vampires. Vampires is James Woods' character in that movie is fantastic. The score, though, for that film, talk about blues and guitar, and but but Escape from New York and I Have to Throw In There, Big Trouble in Little China. What an amazing score. What was like your I guess take and experience creating the stuff that like those memorable scores and what kind of differentiates I guess the process from like horror to sci-fi to a martial arts almost like black comedy sci-fi?

Big Trouble Score And MIDI

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Well, alright, so the the mouth of madness and ghost of marsh, I wasn't part of that. So John now collaborated with uh Dave Davies, the guitar player from the Kinks. And now Dave Davies' son is John's godson. So they really became buddies. So he likes to collaborate with somebody and and be really personal. It's not just like a doctor's office, right? We're gonna get to be buddies, we're gonna do stuff, we're gonna get, we're gonna share a vision. Obviously, his the primary vision because he made it, right? But he wants you to bring, you know, bring your stuff in. So so he opened up the door for me to do that. The best score I've ever done with Carpenter was Big Trouble. A couple reasons. One, the movie itself. In a Halloween, you've got this dark in the basement, look out for the knife, da da da. So you do Halloween. But Big Trouble had Chinese fight music, it had pork chop express rock and roll, it had uh mysterious stuff, it had Kung Fu fight. So each of those scenes asks for a different piece of music. So as the electronic music producer, discarbonner's gonna just sound a play, first of all, he doesn't know shit about that, he doesn't even want to know shit about this. A couple times I tell him about something technically, I don't know about what I don't care about. You want to just show up and do this thing. So I was I was creating the colors. And so at that time, there was another technology that was added to my synthesizer studio called MIDI. And this was a it was called the musical instrument digital interface. So it used to be you'd have a couple of patch cables and one synthesizer and another. Now, digitally, you could hook up like nine synthesizers at once, play one keyboard, and they all play. So now we got these what I call MIDI stacks, where each synthesizer has its element of the what you're hearing, and and we I went from used to be that you'd print each synthesizer on a track with a tape recorder and run it a tracks and it's over. Well, in this case, I was now printing what we call stems. So I was taking nine synthesizers, making them stereo with each one in its own little part in the stereo mix, and then putting reverb on it and printing the whole thing. So if you were to go back to the tapes from Big Trouble On, you'd literally put this the fader straight across on the console. That's the mix. Awesome. So it was it was built custom as it went. So that the technique expanded. The third part was we were supposed to get 10 weeks to do it, and there was a change in the schedule. We got an extra month. Wow. So when we thought we were done, I had a whole other month to go back and really produce it in the way that a record producer does a hit. So those three things for mine, Big Trouble is just fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 38:08

Big Trouble is one of my all-time favorite scores, one of my all-time favorite Carpenter films, just like you said, with a mix of rock and roll, comedy, martial arts, fighting, and and mysticism and everything. Like it's a very unique film among Kurt Russell being in one of his best carpenter roles.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

Yeah, actually, you remind me about the different kinds of music. That that was there's one scene where they're about to go into the fight with with Lopin. Right. And they have the little potion they're gonna drink.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

And they're they're getting ready to go to battle. And there's this heroic piece that goes with that. We never did any music like that, but that movie asked for heroic music, so we battled it up. So the music determines what the score is gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 38:55

Exactly, exactly. On the topic of music and being a musician, uh composer, what would you say your musical influences are?

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Well, I'm a child of the 60s and 70s, so I'll be 78 in August, so 1969 was the apex of all that stuff, but I sort of got bit by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the whole English invasion. And then later on we got the flower power, and it was the Jefferson Airplane, the Quicksilver Vestim, and the Doors. Yes, and the American style of it. And then of the my favorite bands, I was a Pink Floyd for sure, Genesis, then other Jeff Rotal, and there was another one called Gentle Giant, and uh ELP for sure, and and then Tangerine Dream, which was the other synth guys from Europe, but they had all the big modulator Blade Runner, yeah, yeah, and then and Ben Jellis for sure.

SPEAKER_04 39:52

Yes, Ben Gellus, right. But Tangerine Dream did um Legend though. Right. Legend was a great, great score. They did a couple other ones I remember, but I I'm a big fan. I I view composers as the modern day Beethoven's and Wagner's and you know, like that that's that is the current living entity of composed music, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Yeah, right. And well, let's talk about it. So everything I did was just me and John in the studio with machines. However, the reason that orchestras still are active is because of film music, Hollywood. Exactly. And hiring a real orchestra to do this, which there's no question about it. Here's what happens when me and John do it, it takes us a long time because we are the only musicians who keep making tracks and tracks and tracks. Whereas in an orchestra, you got 60 people put them in, and boom, it all goes down in one shot. Exactly. And the musicians are interacting, and the emotions, it's it's a powerful, powerful of real music. So, yes, for sure, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman, James Honor, Alan Sylvestri, Sylvestri, and then prior to that, you know, Bernard Herman and Korn Gold and these eyes were before them, they used orchestras for a purpose, being the news. Consider this though, in the Renaissance, what was the purpose? You either wrote music for the king or for the church. Exactly. So that was your purpose. So these symphonies, these great symphonies kind of composed. A lot of fact, they were making music for God. Right, right. And they rose to the occasion, they did. You know, it's great music.

SPEAKER_04 41:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

And and so in some ways, the their movie was talking to God. Now you put movie in front of you, oh, we're doing other stuff too, or you know.

Frank Zappa Stories And Sound Experiments

SPEAKER_04 41:52

Right, right. Yeah. And and on the topic of some of the bands you mentioned, I have to get your opinion on I guess he's considered now the Mozart of rock and roll. Don't go where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow. Um the famous, infamous Frank Zappa.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Yeah, well, Frank, actually, I have a Frank Zappa story if you want. Yeah, yeah. Alright, so so I was working for this jazz band Weather Report, and I was the setup guy for Joe's Avenue. So I was like the butler. I had like all these synthesizers to be set up and get them all in tune, and then we do a show. But one one of the one of the road guys worked for Frank, too. And so there was a time when I was considered possibly moving from Weather Report to working for Frank. So I walk into Frank's studio, and they had just put this emu big modular synthesizer just delivered, and it wasn't dialed in yet. So Frank goes, all right, show me something. Oh wow. So I'm there and I'm dialing up some sound, and I I get something going, but because I had no reference, the the way I set the oscillators, they were like two octaves too high. So it sounded good down here, but over here it was really too high. Well, Frank walks up to the machine, they'll hear what I did, right? He looks at me and goes, not bad for parakeet music. He was so quick. Wow. And witty. And he didn't need to get high, he was already there. There was a great picture of of Frank Zappa in his yearbook from from Toronto. He graduated from there. Right. And in the picture, his instrument is the bicycle wheel.

SPEAKER_04 43:38

Yeah, I I I just saw it was on some. And he was serious. He tuned the smoke.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

And he played it like a harp.

SPEAKER_04 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

That's how you talk about esoteric.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

Right. He was so out. I I I just saw it was either on Facebook or Instagram, the his appearance on I forget what talk show it was, but him actually showing in How he could make the bicycle into a musical instrument. The guy was so ahead of his time, not just with music, philosophically, politically, like everything. He's one of my heroes.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Yeah, and the work with it was not a piece of cake. He was tough on everybody. Yeah. But hey, you just got hired to do that. I remember it was a rehearsal when they were using all the people that eventually became missing persons, right? So it was Terry Bozio and Tommy Mars was the keyboard player. And Frank puts this piece of music down in front of him to play. Tommy goes, Frank, that's really hard music. Well, that's your job. I made this for you to play. Learn it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 44:43

Don't look at me and he's I I I look forward to every single time a new live album of his comes out. I just just in time for Halloween this this past year was, I think it was 76 or 77, four Disc Set came out. Phenomenal. One of my top favorite artists of all time, but Alan, a huge fan of yours as well.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

I have another short story you like this one. So I also worked with George Duke. Yes, yes. Right. And so in the 90s, I was pioneering multi-channel audio for what is now Dolby Atmos. I was already doing that like 15 years before. Oh. For theme parks. Right, right. And so we were demoing it. So I was going to show it to George Duke, because he was a subset of Frank, and I thought I'd find my way to get Frank to come if I got George excited. Right. And so I showed George. It was amazing. It is amazing. The idea was we'd put a speaker like pixels across the whole room. And you would paint across a soundscape of speakers. So there was no more left and right. Right. All they were in directions. And also the reflections, a sound we hear, but you'd reflect it off the wall back here. So it was spatially correct. Way cool. Ultimate sound design took it. But so I showed this to Frank, uh to to um to George. He goes, Oh yeah, Frank was doing something like this. He says, What are you thinking? Well, he Frank wanted to be in spatialized sound. So he he had these hoops that the musicians would play in, and there would be six microphones on the ring, and the sax player was intended to play to different microphones so he could steer the music in the world.

SPEAKER_04 46:31

Oh wow, amazing.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

So each musician became his own spatial mixer as part of performance art. This is the guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Always experimenting. Always. You know, whatever we got.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Well, there's got to be more. Let's let's keep looking.

SPEAKER_04 46:51

Right, right. Oh my god. I I wish we could talk like literally all day. I I I'm gonna have to have you come back, take another swim in the bowl.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Yeah, well, we can always do a zoo or something.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

Yeah, yeah, uh, we'll definitely have to.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

I got lots of stories. A friend of mine, Mike Atkins, says, here's a way to go, Alan. He says, details tell, but stories sell. Exactly. And you want to hear the story behind that Profit 5 synthesizer, the day we used the taper. The day we I I was recording underwater for Huntsburg, October, and instead of using hydrophones, I used my expensive studio mics to put condoms on them to put them in the water.

SPEAKER_04 47:35

There's stories, we'll talk about it. Awesome, awesome. I I cannot wait. Zoom sounds great. I will definitely be in touch. This this is this is exactly what uh I love to have stories from multiple different aspects, not just the film side, but the music side.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

You know, five of us see a car accident, we all saw something different. Exactly, exactly.

Art As Communication And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_04 48:00

Same accident and and just that it's our interpretation, exactly. Our personal lens, right, how we look at life. Right, and people want to share that. Exactly. And I I just again think film and music go hand in hand, along with incorporating every aspect of the arts into making the film.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

I I touched, I have a short so the simplest definition of art. Art is a communication, yes, and now as an artist, you choose your media, yes, you're telling you're making your art with an images or sound or music or dance or poems or visual effects. Movies do all that at once, exactly, and that's why movies are so powerful that they pull from all these other media, have hundreds of people work on it for thousands of hours, and it's like the finest whiskey. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

It's all distilled to just exactly that that's that's where Carpenter comes in and and collaborations and every everything you've worked on.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

You touched on this. So the expertise of John Carpenter is to tell a story, yes, utilizing all those media and having personal expertise in a lot of them to integrate. Exactly. That's why that's why we're still talking about it 30 years later. Exactly. 50 years later.

SPEAKER_04 49:30

Master filmmaking, master music making. Alan, thank you so much for swimming in the bowl with me. I hope the temperature was just right. Oh, my snorkel was just long enough. Well, we made it, we dove in head first, we rode the waves, and we're above water. All right, we'll hit the showers. Thank you so much. You're welcome, great. Absolutely. Later.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Hey there, all my fishes in the sea. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode and for being a subscriber. Your continued listenership and support means the most and helps keep the show growing to deeper and deeper depths. I want to let all my guppies in the sea know the Fishbowl has now officially partnered with FastCustom Shirts.com, where they're now selling custom Fishbowl t-shirts under their podcast and website section. Every t-shirt that's purchased helps and goes a long way to keep the show growing to deeper and deeper in higher, higher depths. I also now have custom hats, beanies, handbags, pens, mouse pads, everything to make you look like the coolest looking fish in the sea, which you can DM me directly on Instagram at the Fishbowl88, or on Facebook at just the fishbowl, or you can friend request me, Sam Fish, directly and get yours today. Your continued listenership and support again means the most. It's the most important fishes that flock together. We are a school of fish and we keep the unit going. Let's all keep swimming upstream.