In this episode, Scott Leeds, author of the debut horror novel, Schrader's Chord, stops by to talk about creepy weird songs.
Creators & Guests
What is Record Store Society?
It's time to visit your favorite local record store; a place where music fans spend countless hours flipping through records, discuss the minutia of favorite b-sides, best live albums, and anything else music-related. If you have any questions, you can always find Tara and Natalie behind the counter ready to give a recommendation or tell you about a recent discovery. Join Record Store Society, a music podcast, biweekly to see what’s new or just to hang around for some music talk.
0:00:08 - Tara
Hi Natalie, hey Tara, how's it going?
0:00:24 - Natalie
It's going okay. Actually, I know it's going great. It's fall, it's good, this is my time.
I'm going to go to the beach. I'm going to go to the beach. It's fall. This is my time. I love it. It's getting cold, the leaves are falling. I love it.
0:00:33 - Tara
It's my favorite part of the year. All the colds. The winter colds are happening, the colds. I'm a little under the weather.
0:00:39 - Natalie
Pulling out the sweaters, the grey clouds I know I'm a weirdo. I'm happy. Summer's over, so ready for the end of the year.
0:00:47 - Tara
Yeah, me too. You know we just got past Halloween and now we're into fall, like you mentioned. Do you listen to a type of music in the fall? Always Like I do.
0:00:57 - Natalie
Like you do. Well, do tell. I think my habits change that much, but tell me what's your fall vibe.
0:01:03 - Tara
I always listen to like bleak kind of sad folk and stuff or you play old music. Yeah, yeah, oh hi, how are you? Hello, I'm Tara.
0:01:05 - Natalie
I'm Natalie.
0:01:06 - Tara
Let us know if you need anything. We'll be back here behind the counter gabbing away. Yeah, I like to listen to sort of bleak, dark, cold, wintery, cuddled by the fireplace type of music in the fall. Okay, right on, I dig it. It's broadcast season, is what I'm trying to say.
0:01:33 - Natalie
Yeah, you know who potentially will have a really dope kind of fall autumnal album coming out really soon and I'm super, super intrigued about it. Who is that Is Andre 3000. I know you've heard about this.
0:01:45 - Tara
Oh yeah, oh my God, I cannot wait for an instrumental flute album from Andre 3000.
0:01:53 - Natalie
The only man who could probably pull something like that off. I'm legit excited about it. Oh, look who it is.
0:02:00 - Tara
It's Scott Leeds, hello.
0:02:02 - Scott Leeds
Hello.
0:02:04 - Tara
How are you Good?
0:02:06 - Scott Leeds
It's been a while since I've been in the store.
0:02:08 - Tara
It has been a while since we've been in the store. We haven't played our eye bur riallup game in a really long time.
0:02:14 - Scott Leeds
I know, I know, like I forget what are the scores. I don't even remember, I don't either.
0:02:20 - Tara
Probably you were winning.
0:02:22 - Scott Leeds
I don't think so.
0:02:22 - Tara
Nope, I think we were always tying.
0:02:24 - Scott Leeds
I think we were. What is this?
0:02:27 - Tara
What are you talking about? Do you know the? Remember Natalie the eye bur riallup game? When Seth was working in the store, he would play this game with Scott Leeds and I, and we would guess what song he was playing backwards.
0:02:41 - Natalie
Oh yeah.
0:02:41 - Tara
Okay, yes, yes, yeah, it was a fun time. We should, we should do that again soon.
0:02:46 - Scott Leeds
Yeah. It's very like McEnroe 1980, wimbledon, just back back, back, back back. Like every time I tried to pull ahead I was like yes, and then I would lose one and you'd get two and be like damn it, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
0:03:00 - Tara
Man speaking of the 80s. We were just recently talking about comeback albums and stranger things, and now we're talking about how Andre 3000 has an instrumental record coming out soon.
0:03:13 - Scott Leeds
As a flautist.
0:03:14 - Tara
Who knew yeah? I'm so excited, I'm so excited.
0:03:18 - Scott Leeds
I mean I think he like, he like, gave out that statement where he's like look guys, I really tried to make like a hip hop album, but it just came out as a flute record and it's like awesome, like I'm in, I'm totally yeah.
0:03:29 - Tara
I mean, that's a huge comeback too. 20 years it's been since.
0:03:32 - Scott Leeds
I can't believe it's been that long.
0:03:35 - Tara
Yeah, it doesn't feel like it, I think. I think just after like 10 years.
0:03:39 - Scott Leeds
I think we all just sort of gave up, you know, because, like we're always like well, because like big boy, like routinely just put stuff out all the time, and so it made like the chasm even wider that we were getting nothing from under 3000. And, yeah, I think forever. Like I remember, like the pitchforks and the stereo gums, always like is this the year? Is this the year? And then after a while they just stopped reporting. I think we all just got too heartbroken. And then now, as like after we've all long forgotten it, he's like I'm back, but it's a flute record and we're like okay.
0:04:04 - Natalie
That's probably what needed to happen, Just like all that added pressure was like oh no, man, just need to like give the man some space, you know, let him have his journey, totally, totally.
0:04:14 - Scott Leeds
He was like deified Like that's gonna be so much pressure.
0:04:17 - Natalie
And like rightly so.
0:04:19 - Scott Leeds
I mean, you know, but like I don't think I could ever like take that kind of pressure, I would just literally go into hiding and become a hermit.
0:04:26 - Tara
Yeah, see, that's the thing, though and I heard a podcast talking about this recently, where he was always taking his walks and had his flute with him, like he would go to Starbucks and be waiting for his coffee and he would just play the flute while he's outside waiting for coffee, and people were Instagramming him playing his flute and stuff, and like I feel like we saw him enough out in the world that we, like, weren't worried about him. I guess, I don't know, it's not like Britney Spears, where we see her on Instagram and we're worried about her, but Andre was out there like taking his walks and he seemed happy and he was doing some guest appearances here or there and yeah, I don't know, he just seemed good.
So we just wanted more from him, because we love him, so much, I mean because it's Andre 3000.
0:05:08 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, yeah, it's like when you're that good, it's like don't stop. I'm very excited to see, like, what this flute album entails, because even if it's just like a standard jazz flute record, I'm like that's still a fucking cool move.
0:05:20 - Natalie
Well, the album has been described as a quote stunning 87 minute mind bender, minimalist and experimental, tribal and transcendent. It's a lot of words.
0:05:29 - Scott Leeds
All of that is good. Yeah, let's do it. That's you know. On all beef patty special sauce. There's all good ingredients, so I'm all in.
0:05:38 - Tara
Yeah, so thank you for being a transcendent and maybe other worldly. Congratulations on your new book, Schrader's Chord.
0:05:45 - Scott Leeds
Thank you, thank you.
0:05:48 - Tara
It is so good, thank you. I'm a big fan of Stephen King. I haven't read all of them, but I have read quite a few of them at least, and I feel like you're like the new Stephen King, because this book, to me it's all the good parts of Stephen King. It's not the weird, like questionable bits, it's the enjoyable, like fantasy, weird, not weird. You know what I mean, oh yeah, well, first of all like that's a huge compliment.
0:06:15 - Scott Leeds
So thank you, it's not true at all, but I really appreciate that. That's I mean I am a huge King fan as well. Yeah, I have like every first edition you know wrapped in a bro dart, because I'm that guy that wraps his books in bro darts. But like it's it took me a long time, especially like the Gunslinger first edition. Yeah, Like Salem's lot first edition shining first edition. It was tough to get a hold of those. Oh the stand, oh God Cause, when they re released the stand. And like the super expanded edition. Like all those first editions were so hard to find and you had to get like book club additions and subtle for those. Sorry, I'm going real deep on like book collecting.
0:06:49 - Tara
but this is crazy. That's how I am with records. Yeah, like they just reissued all the Cape Bush records but like the OG first pressing is still out there for like five bucks.
0:07:00 - Scott Leeds
Yeah.
0:07:01 - Tara
Why? Why get the reissue when you can have the real thing?
0:07:04 - Scott Leeds
Exactly, exactly, yeah, it's so like when I moved from LA to New York, I had to like choose a physical medium, like cause I had so many records, I had so many like DVDs and Blu-rays and so many books, and I just I was like, well, I, I'm moving into a studio apartment in Manhattan, like I'm not going to be able to hold all three of these, so I just went with books and all my records and DVDs came back up to Spokane in my childhood house and they're still sitting there and like every once in a while, like I'll go down, look at my record collection, cause I have like I don't listen to records much anymore, just cause I don't really have a place to put a record player, but yeah, they're still down there. So whenever you know I'd get some room to set up like a really nice high-fi system, I got them all there.
0:07:43 - Tara
I mean. But again, speaking of record players, high systems, the book, I mean the fact that you tie in a record store records all this music. It's, it's just so. It speaks to me I thought that would be very happy to hear.
0:08:00 - Natalie
You very masterfully drop in some good tidbits for true audio files out there and little bits of history and stuff and it was great. I, I plowed through it like three or four days. It was very compelling. It was very impressed with it.
0:08:12 - Scott Leeds
You guys are going to make me blush. I like I was that's. It's really funny. I remember I was talking to my editors at night fire and they had expressed not like concern, but they were just like, look, are some of these references like too deep? And I was like, look, there's like 100% references like the Beatles, everybody's going to get that. And then there's like 50% references for those that are like they're like active music listeners, but they're they don't go too deep. And then there's like the 1% jokes that people you know, like the John Cage joke, not many will get that, but those that will like hopefully they'll be like.
This guy sees me.
0:08:44 - Tara
This guy gets it. Yeah, so yeah like and so yeah, I star stuff.
0:08:49 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, totally, I've had so many people come to be, just like I never knew who big star was, and it's so like which makes me really happy, or it's like good, that's the more people that know the better. But yeah, and it was also I wanted to be really cognizant of doing like pop culture drops, because, like, sometimes it can seem really cloying and again, I don't know if I succeeded or not, but like I tried to make them and like, if you said it in a record store, music is the vernacular, so it seems hopefully more organic than it would be. It was just like two people hanging out in like a coffee shop or something, even though that would all seem probably normal to us in a coffee shop.
Yeah, so it hopefully gave the vehicle to let those pop culture drops seem a little bit more organic as opposed to in a different medium.
0:09:28 - Tara
Yeah, Absolutely, Just so that our friends in the record store kind of have an idea. I mean, I feel like we're hinting a little bit at it. But I'm going to just read the very short blur, but from your publisher, the description of your book Schrader's Court. It says heart shaped box meets the haunting of Hill House. In Schrader's Court, Scott Leeds chilling debut about cursed final records that open a gateway to the land of the dead.
0:09:56 - Scott Leeds
And I want to make one thing very clear for those so heart shaped box, not the Nirvana song, the Joe Hill book and haunting of Hill House, not the Shirley Jackson book, the Mike Flanagan show, like that's. You know, if you go in there expecting the Shirley Jackson book, I'll be so heartbroken because, like that, like it's not that at all. As much as I love it, it has the best first paragraph in any book of all time. She did it, she did it. Everybody tries right the perfect first paragraph. But she got it down and one day I will get that whole thing tattooed on me.
0:10:23 - Tara
I don't know. Yeah, To me it was more like high fidelity meets beetle juice meets final destination meets maybe some other Stephen King something. It's so funny Like I've heard a couple of people say like high fidelity.
0:10:37 - Scott Leeds
I'm like, well, yeah, but like I've heard a couple of people say beetle juice, which makes me so happy, but like that's not, was in my, it wasn't in my brain, but it's obviously like imprinted on my DNA. But yeah, like I've had people say like hellraiser, because they're like, oh, it's like the records are like the puzzle box, that kind of open up. Again I was like right, yeah, that's, yeah, that makes sense. And then final destination. I've never seen final destination any of them. And so when even my editor was like oh, yeah, it's like finals today, Like the death is coming for them and I know this is like they mean like dead, like me she's like no final destination. The movie is like hi, I never saw it and then I finally did watch it. Really good, it's really good.
0:11:08 - Tara
Oh my God Dead. Like me, I loved that show.
0:11:10 - Scott Leeds
So good. That's one of those shows. I have to be careful because if I watch too many episodes I everything will kill me, Like I'll go downstairs and be like that. Peanut butter is sitting too precariously close to the edge of the shelf.
0:11:20 - Tara
Yeah, no, but I think I told Natalie there's humor in some of these weird scenes and I again I don't want to give too much way but like the dad reminds me of, of Beetlejuice, like Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, and so if there's ever a movie of Shader Squad which I hope there will be, although I don't know how you could film any some parts of those, like I'm not going to ruin it, but like some parts will be very hard to capture in a movie situation, but the dad should definitely be Michael Keaton, just like Beetlejuice.
0:11:51 - Scott Leeds
That is great casting. That's great casting. That would be really, really good. Yeah, if they ever make a movie, I just want to see how they, how the composer makes the chord.
Yeah, I kind of wrote any future composer into like a corner, because I was like, what are you going to do? Like you know, you have to use like sub microtonal notes and all this kind of stuff and make it sound like really, really out there and unlike any chord that's ever been made, and so in my head it's sort of like Polymorphia, the Pendresci piece of music, it's just all that like you best probably heard for those that don't know Pendresci, it was in the Shining where it is just like these like million A tonal notes all going up and down the strings and it's. It can be really nauseating when you listen to it, and I should have put that on my my list today, not to jump forward, but that's a good one. That'll be a, a, what do you call that? A runner up an honorable mention.
0:12:37 - Tara
Yeah, well, I think you just hinted at it, but every time. Sorry, I don't mean to like.
0:12:41 - Scott Leeds
I'm not trying to like push the schedule forward.
0:12:44 - Tara
Well, it's just. It's good that you're here, because every time we have our friends in the store, we always play the high fidelity game, as you know, because you've been here before and you've played it with us, which I think the last time you played the high fidelity game with us it might have been Christmas songs.
0:12:59 - Scott Leeds
It was Christmas songs.
0:13:00 - Tara
Wow.
0:13:01 - Scott Leeds
Yeah.
0:13:02 - Tara
And so I was thinking. You know it's getting cold outside. You have your spooky book or your rock and roll horror book. Yeah, there's a lot of songs out there that fit onto a Halloween playlist.
0:13:15 - Scott Leeds
True.
0:13:16 - Tara
And we just had Halloween, but aren't necessarily Halloween songs, Like not the monster mash but like songs on records that just sound kind of spooky, kind of eerie. When we have our friends in this store, we like to play the high fidelity game. Do you want to play with us today?
0:13:32 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, totally.
0:13:32 - Tara
Heck yeah.
0:13:33 - Natalie
Sweet. It sounds like you came prepared. I did.
0:13:37 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, this was a pretty easy one to do. I am, yeah, like, especially like this time of year, like these songs. These songs work well.
0:13:44 - Tara
Right yeah.
0:13:45 - Scott Leeds
Yeah.
0:13:46 - Tara
Well, do you have a? Do you have music that you listen to when it's fall and winter? Oh, without a doubt.
0:13:51 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, I, it's funny like I separate my stones by between like 60 stones and 70 stones. Like 70 stones is summer music, that's like you know, some girls and yeah, yeah, like, but like 60 stones, like between the buttons and aftermath, that that's, that's, that's winter, that's cold stones, warm stones is 70s, but yeah, and like I, I do. I like I listened to a lot of like moon face, like Spencer Krug's solo stuff, like his his album Julia with blue jeans on, and like the city record EP, because as he recorded it, I think, somewhere in Scandinavia, like in the winter, so it just sounds super cold. Yeah, I listened to like a lot of Joy Division. Like it's hard for me to listen to Joy Division in the summer, so I'm just like I'm not supposed to be bummed out right now.
0:14:31 - Tara
Right. Plus, you're supposed to be wearing like a black cardigan, maybe black leather jacket, like jeans, boots. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I feel so weird to listen to it in the summertime.
0:14:40 - Scott Leeds
Exactly, although I remember like my, my ex-girlfriend would always give me so much shit living in New York because I would just wear my like Doc Martin boots all year round and be like 110 degrees in the city. She's like, why, what's the matter with you? And I was like, first of all, they like fit like a glove, they're perfect. But I would like I'd get back from walking around the city for six hours and my feet would just be just like two ovens. I was like, yeah, she'll probably get some tennis shoes.
0:15:03 - Tara
Are you born? Are you from from Seattle, from?
0:15:06 - Scott Leeds
yeah, so I like lived in Seattle for a few years, then lived in, then grew up in Spokane, which is like 280 miles east on the other side of Washington state, which is even colder than Seattle Gets like snow six months of the year- yeah, Well, I was going to say.
0:15:21 - Tara
your answer should have been like I'm from Washington state.
0:15:24 - Scott Leeds
I'm wearing my.
0:15:25 - Tara
Doc Martins.
0:15:26 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, like I have like pine sap in my blood, Like this is, you know, we don't do warm weather well, yeah, Like when I lived in LA. I lived in LA for like 10 years and all my friends are like, why do you wear jackets all the time? It's like because I have to, because it's just I can't. And like if I just wear a t-shirt, I just feel like I'm like a five year old, I feel like I'm Dennis the menace. It just doesn't, doesn't work for me. Yeah.
0:15:46 - Tara
Wow, okay, wait. So, natalie, last time we did a high five game, I went first, so it's your turn to go first this time, okay.
0:15:54 - Natalie
Yeah, yeah, I can do that, all right. So we're doing songs that aren't really intended to be spooky but are kind of spooky, yeah, okay, okay. So I don't think any of the songs on my list could could end up in a Halloween playlist per se, but maybe. But these are just songs that creep me out on a personal level, all right. So there's something about my psychology that just doesn't jive. So I'm going to start with my number five pick. It's what game shall we play today? From Chick Korea and Return to Forever.
Now, that's a totally random, random thing to pick, because it's actually one of my favorite songs, classic Jazz Fusion album from Return to Forever, I think in 1972. But and I love the song, it makes me so happy, it's just so great. But there's something, something about stuff that's just too happy and charming and light that just has like this undercurrent. There's just something sinister about it under the surface. It makes me feel like some Hansel and Gretel shits happening and I'm being carted off to my doom. Do you know what I mean? Like I love the song, but if I'm at home alone at night and I'm just vibing to music, I would never put this on. If I'm like driving out on a deserted country road at night. I would never put this on, because there's just something that creeps me out about it. I don't know what it is.
0:17:21 - Scott Leeds
There is like a weird like sinister fairy tale kind of aspect to it, right, yeah, yeah, that's a good thing I can hear that it's got this like sing-songy.
0:17:29 - Natalie
it's like I'm being hexed.
0:17:31 - Tara
And actually of the songs in your book, which again, maybe this is a question I want to ask you too about this guy's how did you pick the songs in the book? Because there are songs like that, Natalie, that are kind of like happy but not, but if you put them in the right setting it can be totally creepy, like Ico come on yeah.
0:17:52 - Scott Leeds
Yeah totally Ico. Ico ended up in there just because like that might be like in my top five songs of all time. Like when I lived in New Orleans, just to hear people like in the street just like calling out Jacques, mofi and Anet, like it's just it's part of the vernacular, I just loved that song, like my dad loved that song. But yeah, like that was in there and like I always like there's a part where like a car crashes and like Petula Clark's downtown is playing and like I don't know there's something about that. Like maybe because it was like featured in Jaws 2, I don't know, like they always kind of had like a creepy aspect to it.
0:18:21 - Tara
It was also in short circuit, though.
0:18:23 - Scott Leeds
That's true. Also, that's also true. Oh, good old Johnny five. But yeah, like picking the songs, I can say this like the book was originally a lot longer, so I cut out a lot and right up until the final edit, I was switching out songs all the time. So it's funny because I don't even really know what ended up in the book because I changed them out so many times. But yeah, I did create a playlist with most of the stuff that was in there that did get taken out, coupled with all the stuff that's in there as well. Oh, okay.
0:18:50 - Tara
That's gonna be another question, like what are all of these songs? Where did they come from, cause I know they weren't all mentioned in the book, that's for sure.
0:18:58 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, A lot of them were in the book to begin with. A lot of them were songs I was listening to, I was writing the book. A lot of them are some of them. Some of them are songs that I think that certain characters would like, and then some there are titles that just hint at stuff that happens in the book.
0:19:14 - Tara
Oh cool.
0:19:15 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, like, there's even like. And then there's a song in there like the Nick Cave song Bright Horses off of Ghostine. That's just a reference to. There's a scene with horses that's hopefully pretty horrific.
0:19:24 - Tara
Yeah, it's shocking.
0:19:26 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, so yeah, that's kind of what it is, yeah, but it is it's. I was very dubious about a lot of the song choices Cause I was like once it's there and it's printed, it's done and I can't go back and change it. And, as I'm sure people like us all know, like when creating a playlist, it's you know, it's, you're like, oh, but like there's gotta be a better one out there. I know there's a better track that can fit in this space.
0:19:48 - Tara
Yeah.
0:19:49 - Scott Leeds
And so we just torture ourselves and eventually you just gotta let it go.
0:19:52 - Tara
Yeah, Back to your song though, Natalie I go is definitely one of those that's like kind of happy but can be creepy, Just like the Chikariya song.
0:20:01 - Natalie
Yeah, it's, it's an effect that I. It's something that I think is particularly effective, like in video games too, where nothing creeps me out more than running around in this apocalyptic or like spooky horror setting and then there's like a radio somewhere playing some fun, lighthearted dance music from the forties or something.
0:20:17 - Scott Leeds
Oh yeah, that gets me every time.
0:20:20 - Natalie
Oh yeah, I hate that so much. Yeah, all right, so my next pick is the Wu-Tang Clan Triumph.
0:20:31 - Natalie
I'm the old Cyrus of this shit. Wu-tang is here forever, so I had to get the Wu-Tang. Clan in there in general, because a lot of their songs.
0:20:38 - Natalie
I think they have some really cool like horror-esque kind of creepy beats going on with these samples that are just really evocative of like a horror setting and I picked Triumph from their 97, big comeback album, wu-tang Forever. This particular track I think it's the only Wu-Tang track with all the members present, which is pretty good. I think it's the only Wu-Tang track with all the members present, which is pretty dope.
0:20:59 - Scott Leeds
Is that real? Is that right?
0:21:01 - Natalie
Yeah, I think so. It includes what's widely regarded as one of the best verses in hip hop history from Inspector Deck right at the beginning. It's one of my favorites. But yeah, this beat from RZA always always super spooky, especially when the strings come in on like the higher octave and there's some kind of like organ sounding synth he brings on. It's just, it's straight out of Transylvania. Yeah, I love it, it's really, really good. Another fun spooky connection with this track I read this in a complex magazine interview. Method man says that this track was recorded in Ray Parker Jr Studio.
No way who created and performed the Ghostbusters theme another iconic spooky banger so I always thought that was kind of a fun connection.
0:21:43 - Tara
Yeah, that is a fun connection.
0:21:46 - Scott Leeds
It's a part of Ghostbusters that always confused me. When he's just like you know, like I hear it likes the girls, you're like why Ray? Like where did that come from? Like everything else makes sense, even the weird like Bustin Makes Me Feel Good line, which is questionable, it's the best. But like I hear it likes the girls, like I mean maybe phonetically it just fit. But I want to like, I want to like sit down with Ray and be like why that line? Yeah, when did that come from?
0:22:10 - Natalie
Yo, since you mentioned it, there is an entire remix of that song based off of that line. Bustin Makes Me Feel Good and when I say it is my ultimate dance anthem, my partner and I like if we want to get, if we want to pregame or like, just have a little silly dance party at home.
0:22:25 - Speaker 4
Bustin, that is the jam. You should look that up on YouTube.
0:22:27 - Natalie
It's awesome.
0:22:28 - Scott Leeds
That's awesome.
0:22:29 - Natalie
It's so good, All right. So my number three pick is Arca Confianza oh yeah.
So Confianza. This is from her 2021 album, kick 2. Okay, this song I felt the panic in my chest immediately because it just it gets too weird, too fast. It just kind of catches me off guard Like there's no, it doesn't hold your hand. It's this crazy experimental, avant-garde electro reggaeton kind of shindig and it's a ride. It's a real ride. The piano is just absolutely gorgeous and her singing is just all frenzied and defiant and tormented. It's really intense. But lyrically the song is just it's I think it's just an empowering and passionate call to action. You know, confianza, of course, means confidence. The lyrics are basically about embracing your desires and asserting yourself boldly. I mean, just look at the cover art for this album. Like Confianza sounds the way the cover looks basically Like we're we're delving into some very kinky shit here. It's intriguing, also kind of terrifying.
0:23:42 - Scott Leeds
Kind of yeah, like like Clive Barker's works Like kinky and terrifying, like you cannot look away.
0:23:48 - Natalie
Exactly exactly, but I do love this song. Yeah, it's strange, as it makes me feel.
0:23:54 - Scott Leeds
Special, like Arca's. I mean and just the fact that you know, like when like Bjorkan picks you to work with her, like that's saying something, yeah, that was a strange era that that Arca Bjork. The Arca Bjork era.
0:24:05 - Natalie
I don't know how I feel about that one Kind of lost me on that one, but I respect it. You know, that's cool Little bit, I don't know this one.
0:24:12 - Tara
I don't know that Arca song. I'll have to check it out. But I know, the album art, and it was definitely a very strange thing. Yeah, yeah, that's a very intense kind of yeah, a lot going on. That's a good way of describing it for sure.
0:24:26 - Natalie
Okay, we are in the home stretch. My number two pick is Apex Twin Beatles Apex Twin.
0:24:33 - Natalie
Beatles under my carpet, under my feet.
0:24:41 - Natalie
They come out with Ooh, trying to think which one that is. It's from his 96 Girlboy EP.
0:24:47 - Scott Leeds
Okay.
0:24:48 - Natalie
Yeah, the first time I heard this track I was mad and comfortable. It freaked me out because I felt like I was being set up for a crazy jump scare. You know, right, it made me very paranoid. It's like this weird twisted children's nursery rhyme thing. Yeah, and the lyrics are just random. I don't want Beatles under my feet. I don't like creepy crawlies hiding under the carpet. Just the imagery alone was like eh, that's okay. I don't know, it's a little bit like the Chick Korea. It just sounds too happy into like eh, yeah, for kids.
0:25:16 - Tara
There was a YouTube video that I saw like in the early 2000s or late 90s I can't remember Probably early 2000s and I thought it was Apex Twin, but it was something like Rubber Boy or something like that. Do you guys happen to know what I'm talking about?
0:25:32 - Natalie
Rubber.
0:25:32 - Tara
Boy and it was like this, like I don't know, for whatever reason, like the video made it seem like this was a real person, but it was like strange, like like oh yeah, rubber Johnny, rubber Johnny.
0:25:45 - Natalie
Yes, this is Rubber Johnny. Was that? That was a Chris Cunningham? Yeah, man. Oh, was that that was Apex.
0:25:50 - Tara
That was weird.
0:25:51 - Natalie
Yeah, it was. It was very weird yeah.
0:25:53 - Scott Leeds
Was there a?
0:25:53 - Tara
video for that one yeah.
0:25:54 - Scott Leeds
There is.
0:25:55 - Tara
It's creepy, that's what.
0:25:57 - Scott Leeds
I was thinking. It's a Chris Cunningham video oh, chris Cunningham, I thought I heard that name for a second. Okay, I think I have seen that one.
0:26:03 - Natalie
Yeah, yeah, Apex Twin really messed up my sleep frequently in my teens. Awesome, so creepy. Actually, recently, like in 2020, I think there was a video of what I who I assume was Apex Twin singing this song Beatles and he's doing that creepy shit where he superimposes that weird smiling face from his album covers over his own and it's all distorted while he's singing. It's just very upsetting. I have seen that, so if you want to be creeped out again. You should look it up.
0:26:31 - Tara
I saw Apex Twin at Primavera Sound in 2017. And he did that on people's faces in the crowd. It was sorry.
0:26:39 - Natalie
Oh, yeah, it was weird, it was weird.
0:26:42 - Tara
He had some special video effect Super creepy.
0:26:45 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, definitely one of the creepiest faces in music is that face. Yeah, yeah.
0:26:50 - Natalie
Just iconic, iconically terrifying.
0:26:52 - Scott Leeds
Yeah.
0:26:52 - Natalie
That and the come to daddy. You know screaming.
0:26:55 - Scott Leeds
Oh, yeah, yeah, John hinging thing.
0:26:58 - Natalie
Oh God, all right. So my number one pick is very super random, but this one creeps me out too. It's from Leraji. Is this clear? Part three Is this very clear?
0:27:21 - Scott Leeds
I don't know this one.
0:27:22 - Natalie
I'm familiar with Leraji, so Leraji is one of the pioneers of ambient music and this is a track from his 1984 album, vision Songs, volume One. So he's been pretty active even to this day, releasing music since the late 70s, including his 1980 album Ambient Three Day of Radiance, which was produced by Brian Eno.
0:27:42 - Scott Leeds
Nice.
0:27:43 - Natalie
But Vision Songs is like his magnum opus. So there are three versions of this song. Is this clear on the album? I don't know why. It's all good, whatever, but this one is definitely the strangest. It's the final track on the album and it comes off even stranger when you've heard the previous two versions. It's just really out of left field. So in this version, after each stands up, it pitches up, the music speeds up, his voice gets a little bit more chip monkey and you're just like why is this happening? And it just sort of repeats and gets faster and faster and pitchier and pitchier and by the end the song is just kind of chugging along. And I just would love to ask him what inspired this choice. Well, I want to read the lyrics.
0:28:24 - Tara
He's playing at Big Ears this year, this next year, oh yeah. You should go and ask him.
0:28:29 - Natalie
Oh, that's hysterical. Oh, that would be really cool.
0:28:33 - Scott Leeds
They just walk up and be like why I love that he's still making music.
0:28:36 - Natalie
I'll just scream it at him, just like that. Why? So here's the lyrics, because I think they're cool. It goes like this this is where this is going on. This is where this is taking place. This is how this is going on. Is this very clear? You couldn't be that because that is that and you are this this way. Is this very clear? You couldn't know know about that because you are this and this is all you can be. Is this very clear? And I just love that. I think the whole thing, all three parts, is just this meditation. It's like this extended mantra. I just think it's a vibe.
0:29:07 - Scott Leeds
But yet it ends. Really weird. I'm adding it right now.
0:29:10 - Tara
That reminds me of some more nightmare fuel that I remember from my childhood. There was this live action Alice in Wonderland called Looking Through the Looking Glass or something like that. Or Through the Looking Glass. John Stamos is in it and Pat Marinus, or wait, the Mr Miyagi guy.
0:29:28 - Scott Leeds
I forget his name oh, pat Marita, pat Marita, okay.
0:29:32 - Tara
And then all these other people, I don't know why. Those are the only two I can remember off the top of my head right now, but Carol Channing, and she's the one who's in the nightmare fuel, but she's pricked her finger on her pin after she had just gotten finished singing this song Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never, ever jam today. And Alice is helping her, or whatever, and she's like how's your thumb? And she's like beta, much beta, and then she turns into a sheep.
0:30:00 - Scott Leeds
I think that might be the same one. Is that the one with Sammy Davis Jr who plays the caterpillar?
0:30:06 - Tara
Yes.
0:30:07 - Scott Leeds
Is it things? You were old, father William. What is this? Yes, isn't that also the same one too? Like where, like in like one of the houses. They're like screaming like pepper and they like keep putting like pepper on the baby and then, like the baby turns into a pig.
0:30:19 - Tara
Pig. Yes, yeah, yeah.
0:30:21 - Scott Leeds
And that's where like the Jabberwocky shows up and it's like super creepy, yeah that was a good one, and it's like this, like wet looking Tyrannosaurus Rex monster thing. Yeah, it's all made of like shiny, like black Mylar, yeah, yeah.
0:30:34 - Tara
The 80s. Why was I watching some of this stuff as a child?
0:30:37 - Scott Leeds
I don't know, but like.
0:30:38 - Tara
Dark crystal and everything.
0:30:40 - Scott Leeds
There's some creepy stuff Like never ending story, especially like the G'mork, like the wolf like thing is like really creepy, like Morilla the ancient one, like the giant turtle, super creepy. But it's so good, it's so good and plus I mean you got Lee Maldew and the theme song with Georgia Maroder, like you can't go wrong.
0:30:57 - Tara
And Artex dying scene, if you've watched as an adult, is too real. I'm like how was I not Trump? Maybe I was Trump. I mentioned that in the book. Oh yeah, yeah, artex.
0:31:06 - Scott Leeds
And the bottomless pit of sadness. It's so sad.
0:31:10 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, I think God Artex comes back at the end like spoilers everybody from that 1984 movie. But Artex does come back.
0:31:16 - Tara
If you haven't seen it yet, you're really missing out.
0:31:18 - Scott Leeds
It's so good yeah, it's so creepy that quote.
0:31:21 - Natalie
That sounds terrifying.
0:31:22 - Tara
The lyrics from that Lirajee song reminded me of the jam tomorrow, jam yesterday but never, ever jam today.
0:31:29 - Natalie
Okay, well, definitely listen to it before bed in the dark.
0:31:31 - Scott Leeds
Okay, I'll do that, I'll do that.
0:31:32 - Scott Leeds
It's all cozy, just get nice and creeped out.
0:31:35 - Natalie
All right, well, that's my list of spooky songs that have traumatized me over time.
0:31:40 - Tara
There are some songs on there that I'm just totally unfamiliar with, and now I am a little bit afraid to listen to them, though.
0:31:47 - Scott Leeds
I know, yeah, I wrote down like three of them. I was like, okay, I'm in.
0:31:51 - Natalie
Sweet, so creepy. My job is done, all right. Well, I'm gonna hand it off to the Har master. Scott, we wanna?
0:31:59 - Scott Leeds
hear I was like is that me? I don't know.
0:32:01 - Natalie
That is indeed you.
0:32:02 - Scott Leeds
We wanna hear your spooky songs. I don't know if the book is that scary. I can tell you this the next book will be a lot scarier, oh.
0:32:09 - Tara
How long did it take you to write Stratus Court?
0:32:12 - Scott Leeds
About four months.
0:32:13 - Tara
That's it, four months.
0:32:15 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, four months yeah.
0:32:17 - Tara
And some of the imagery, like the horse thing you were just talking about. I'm like how does that even, how do you even come up with a scene like that?
0:32:23 - Scott Leeds
It's so crazy. I can still remember I was in bed it was like two in the morning and I was just listening to music or whatever like that and that scene just went boop and I was like fuck, it All right.
0:32:34 - Tara
Were you on drugs.
0:32:35 - Scott Leeds
No, no, Like I just was hanging out and it just popped in there and I was like, and I was so tired Like I wanted to go to sleep, but I was like if I don't write this now, I mean I'm gonna forget it.
0:32:44 - Natalie
So I got out of bed.
0:32:45 - Scott Leeds
The Muse Beckins my dog was really pissed off because he was like laying on my feet and I was like you gotta get off, and so I pushed him off and then sat down right here and typed it out yeah, it just popped in there.
0:32:55 - Tara
Even the I'm just gonna say the tree. That was disturbing.
0:33:01 - Scott Leeds
That was my little love letter to poltergeist, like when I saw that movie when I was a kid, and like the tree like comes to the window and like takes the kid, and like that just scared the hell out of me. And yeah, there is a big tree right outside my childhood window that has these just long reaching claws that when I was a kid would scrape against my window and I asked my dad so many times to go and just clip off those branches and he was like yeah, yeah, I will, I will, I will. And then never did, cause I'm like, I get it, it was kind of precarious to get, cause I'm above, like what this? Like kind of gabled roof kind of thing, and I get it, I wouldn't want to go up there either, but yeah, just scared the hell out of me.
0:33:35 - Tara
The bathtub scene. Is that an homage to the shining?
0:33:37 - Scott Leeds
It is it is to Mrs Massey yeah, that's but it felt like that. Yeah and like, but.
0:33:44 - Tara
It also creeped me out, just like that one did that one like it's.
0:33:47 - Scott Leeds
I've like people have talked to me about that scene a couple of times where they were like you know, what is it about it that made you want to write? I was like, well, first of all it was a homage to the shining and like woman in a bathtub, anybody in a bathtub that's not supposed to be there is not not cool man. But what really made me? To me it's like it's sad, scary, cause there is something really horrifying about feeling or the thought of dying in a place and nobody knows that you're there and you know how. You know I'm not giving you any way, it's just one of the scare scenes in the book. But like she reaches out, she grabs Anna and is just like don't leave me. Like nobody knows that I died here and that to me, is like way scarier and like I've had people like that's not scary and I'm like, well, that's cool, but that terrifies me, like if I die like somebody better find me immediately, cause I don't want to be just sitting here rotting. That'd be terrible.
0:34:32 - Tara
That's kind of how I feel about Candy man. Like it feels like such a sad story to me. I grew up in this like really bad part of town and yeah, I think there, man, it's been a long time since the scene, that movie too, but I think there's like a Romeo Juliet, like love situation couldn't happen then either and I like, like let's be real too.
0:34:51 - Scott Leeds
Like Tony Todd is genius. He performed that role of Candy man better than anybody else that I can think of could like he did it with such like gravitas, but also like he got the creepy factor in there and also like he also did put the bees in his mouth too. Which is insane. Where you're like man, like that is dedication to your craft and, like you know, also like it's the music, is Philip class. It's just it is. You know it's a. That is a classy horror movie right there.
0:35:17 - Tara
Yeah.
0:35:18 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, I haven't seen the new one, though, like the one that Jordan Peele produced. I haven't seen that one yet, but I'm I want to.
0:35:24 - Tara
Yeah, I haven't either. I didn't even know there was a new one. Yeah, I don't know if I could watch a new one. I love the original one so much.
0:35:31 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, I don't know I'm I'm into it Like you know, like, if you guys like, if there's a different take on it, like I, like, I'm super into like the new Chucky show which is so good.
0:35:39 - Tara
There's a new Chucky show.
0:35:41 - Scott Leeds
It's so good it's it's like it's one of those things where you're like there's no reason this show should be as good as it is and it totally is.
0:35:48 - Natalie
Where is?
0:35:48 - Scott Leeds
that. Where do you watch that? I watch it on Peacock, but I think you can also get it on Hulu. I think you can get it a couple other places. But yeah, it's, it's super good. And like they tackle like Don Mancini, the guy who created Chucky and has kind of written Chucky all the way through the whole series. He's sort of the keeper of the key to Chucky. Like he like works some really timely stuff into the storyline which you'd think like for a Chucky story, like it wouldn't really make sense, but it really does in the story and it's yeah, they tackle some really kind of like hot button issues or you're like right on Way to go Chucky.
0:36:20 - Natalie
Interesting.
0:36:21 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, I mean the doll doesn't, but like the show does, right, yeah, yeah, but it's really good. It's really good.
0:36:28 - Tara
Another thing I wanted to talk about before we get into your list, if that's okay, is the setting in Seattle. Because things like that I love when a writer puts their, their place, their hometown or like where they live and things like that in their books. Because, like Cormac McCarthy, for example, on the road he had a house in Louisville, tennessee, where I grew up, and you can tell I mean he doesn't outright say it, but the way he describes some of the landscapes when they're crossing pretty much the South to get to the coast, it's post apocalyptic, son and dad going to you know a new place and yeah, I just feel like you can tell he's in, like Knoxville, yeah, he's like crossing through Tennessee in some parts and I'm like, okay, this is it. You can just tell you know, because from there and I don't know, Totally puts another connection to the story for me, and I know you're.
you live in Seattle. You've been there for a while, or?
0:37:21 - Scott Leeds
I'm all over. I'm all over, I'm all over the place, Like, yeah, it's like I live for a long time in Seattle, Spokane, Portland, Bellingham, I've been all over the Pacific Northwest.
0:37:29 - Tara
But yeah, seattle is all in your book. You even talk about KEXP. You talk about other record stores, not just the Cuckoo's Nest. But is the Cuckoo's Nest real and how did you?
0:37:41 - Scott Leeds
So yeah, the Cuckoo's Nest is not real, Like Fremont is a very real place, but Asterian Avenue is not real. So, like I you know was, it.
0:37:51 - Tara
That's the street the record store is on.
0:37:53 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, the bar across the street, so the bar El Camino is real.
0:37:58 - Tara
Oh.
0:37:59 - Scott Leeds
OK, and it's a great place. It does not have a jukebox, not least that I remember, but I saw it. But I, you know, I was like you guys need a jukebox, throw it in there. But yeah, like a Shuckers restaurant, the Oyster Bar where Charlie runs into a particularly spooky dead guy is a very real place. And I was just in Seattle with Seth and they seated us at the booth and like we didn't ask, like they just sat us in that booth. I was like I'm sitting where the guy has the gun, but yeah, so yeah, there are very real places in there.
I just, you know, I wanted to, like you said, like you know, cormac McCarthy writes a lot about the South and the Southwest and Southeast and that's kind of his area. King obviously writes a lot about Maine, like you know. Like John Irving writes a lot about sort of the Northeast and stuff and I was like, well, I've lived in most of these places but the Pacific Northwest is my home and it's the place that I know the best and also it's just really great setting for creepy stuff to happen.
It's just got a good creepy vibe to it. I mean, you know there's a reason Lynch set Twin Peaks here, because it looks like that. Lots of log trucks.
0:39:05 - Tara
Yeah, which? Yeah, final destination.
0:39:09 - Scott Leeds
Oh yeah, and I know what that reference now, because now I've seen that movie.
0:39:12 - Tara
Nice, ok, well, I'm excited to hear your list of creepy, not Halloween songs.
0:39:18 - Scott Leeds
So creepy, not Halloween songs. The first one, we've talked about it a couple of times and, Natalie, you've even mentioned, like you know, walking in an abandoned area and having radio play like an old creepy 40s song. I got to pull it right from the shining. It's Midnight, the Stars and you by Al Bully and his orchestra. When Jack Torrance is walking into the gold room Midnight were the stars and you.
Midnight and a wrongly moon or the gold ballroom it's. I love 1930s and 40s big band. It might be my favorite type of music other than New Orleans Jazz and, yeah, this song. When I saw this like when I saw this movie as a kid it was just like there's something beautiful, there's something really spooky about it, there's something really romantic about it, but it is unsettling and I just love it.
0:40:12 - Tara
Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, it does really have such a good effect, it does.
0:40:17 - Scott Leeds
And Cooper had like so many songs to choose from and he picked the right one Like that's the one you know like you could have picked an Artie Shaw song, a Glenn Miller song, a Harry James song, a Spike Jon song. So many different songs he could have chosen, but none of them would have worked as good as well as that one. So yeah, there's something super creepy.
0:40:38 - Natalie
Do you think there's like musically, a reason why that is?
0:40:42 - Scott Leeds
I think honestly it's the arrangement. There's just something it's got that really slow swing to it, Because obviously there were slow songs back in the 30s and 40s in the big band era, I mean, you know like Moonlight Serenade and Begin the Big Ean and stuff. But there's just something about the arrangement of the song, about the melody, where it just feels sort of like a memory.
0:41:02 - Natalie
Yeah.
0:41:03 - Scott Leeds
Yeah. So I think there's just because the actual lyrics you know and for me, I'm not a lyrics person, that's not to say that I don't like them, but I just I always listen to the music first and lyric second, which has got me in trouble with a lot of relationships. We're all sent a playlist to be like why'd you send me this song? I'd be like because it's amazing. Like, listen to the music. They're like did you listen to the lyrics? And I was like, no, she's like it's a breakup song. I was like, yeah, I retract that song, but did you hear, like, the change from like a B to like an E, sharp, like it was so good.
0:41:30 - Tara
That's like the cure songs they all sound pretty happy, but they're like incredibly depressing and sad lyrically.
0:41:36 - Scott Leeds
And yet, like Robert Smith, has been with his partner for like ever.
0:41:41 - Scott Leeds
And so you're like are they sad songs?
0:41:44 - Scott Leeds
Because, I mean, are they?
0:41:46 - Tara
The habitange of sad, you know.
0:41:48 - Scott Leeds
I mean, true, he is, like you know, one of those like artsy, fartsy kind of goth kids. You know, like it's just like, oh, I'm sad and you know, and we love him for that. But yeah, like I remember when I found out like he's been with his person for like 40 years and I was like it kind of it put the songs in a new light, cause I always thought like man Robert Smith just must have broken up with, had so many bad breakups, and then like yeah, and like yeah, like the entire length of the cure he's been with her.
0:42:12 - Natalie
And I'm like maybe they weren't sad songs.
0:42:13 - Scott Leeds
Maybe they were happy songs.
0:42:14 - Tara
Love songs. Yeah, just, you know, dressed just dressed in black tulle.
0:42:18 - Scott Leeds
Yes, there is goth love songs yeah totally which is smeared lipstick.
0:42:22 - Tara
Yeah, that's true.
0:42:24 - Scott Leeds
So my number four. Again, I can't really speak to lyrics very much, but there's something about the music that's oddly unsettling. I don't know if it's necessarily spooky or creepy, but it always just kind of sets me off. And then we did talk about her before, but it's a unison the last song on Vespartine by Bjork Before you count one, two, three, I will have grown my own private branch.
There's something just really just like two clicks left of center. I just feel like one foot off the merry-go-round when I hear that song and it's gorgeous, and it's sprawling and it's beautiful. But yeah, it also just kind of makes me unnerved a little bit.
0:43:08 - Tara
Wait, can you say that line again about the merry-go-round? What did you?
0:43:12 - Scott Leeds
say what did I say? I don't listen to words. I say I just talk until someone tells me to shut up.
0:43:18 - Tara
Two clicks off to the left of center.
0:43:19 - Scott Leeds
Oh, two clicks left of center, something merry-go-round. Oh yeah, like one foot off the merry-go-round.
0:43:23 - Tara
One foot off the merry-go-round.
0:43:25 - Scott Leeds
Yeah.
0:43:26 - Tara
That's a little bit how I feel about, or maybe it's because of the music video, but violently happy.
0:43:31 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, yeah, where it's just. Yeah, it's just, you just feel a little off. Yeah, yeah.
0:43:36 - Tara
But it's so fun and very happy but like the video and the words violently happy make you think okay, crazy person, yeah.
0:43:46 - Natalie
Definitely the end of that song, like when the choir comes in, yeah, and everything just gets all swirly and the beat, the music drops away.
0:43:53 - Scott Leeds
And it gets all like enmeshed yeah.
0:43:56 - Natalie
Yeah, it's like the floor has been pulled from underneath.
0:43:59 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, totally.
0:44:00 - Natalie
Yeah, I get that for sure, yeah.
0:44:02 - Scott Leeds
So yeah, so that's number four. Number three, a relatively new song, I guess I think Midnight, the Stars and you is the only really kind of old song here, but it's Unmade by Tom York, which he wrote for Suspiria Unmade, unmade, unmade, which it's very spooky to me, but it's also Again, I don't really can't really speak to the lyrics, but the music itself is so incredibly sad and almost it's got despair, and despair for me kind of turns into spookiness. It's not a song I can listen to every day. It's one of the more beautiful songs I've ever heard. It really, I think, solidified Tom York as as an equal of Johnny Greenwood's when it comes to film composition, because it's not that I ever thought Tom would do a Worst job. I'm just like man, that's, that's Johnny's place. And then what are you doing, tom? And then I heard the soundtrack and I was like nope, yep, you're, you're just as good.
Yeah and that song. Just, I remember seeing that movie for the first time at the end, when, you know I don't want to spoil anything, but something like super Wackadoo happens at the end. But this song is playing and it's, it's just viscera and violence and and just oodles and oozled oodles of blood, but set to this really sad, very delicate, very Just, this tune full of despair. And so I think the, the mixture of the, my memory of that scene and the song kind of lend itself to a creepiness, sort of an off kilterness, because I think for me, creepiness I, you know creepiness is is like, you know, it's like a fingerprint.
Everybody's definition is a little bit different, I think, and for me, I've always think I, the thing that scares me the most, of things that creeps me out the most in the world, are the absurd. You know like, sure, there's a monster in the closet, that's scary, right, but if there's, you know, like, a toaster in the closet that sings happy birthday every five minutes, that's really creepy, like I. Why, why like? Why is this right? You know, like Natalie, when you were talking about, yeah, that song where you were just like, I just want to ask why, why did you keep speeding up, like the lyric, like why, why does it do that? The in the absurd always scared me.
0:46:18 - Tara
I was gonna say. I feel like it kind of makes you question your own sanity too, which makes you like what's yeah.
0:46:25 - Scott Leeds
When the reason for something yeah well, when the reason for something is hidden, that kind of creeps me out. Yeah, it's the same thing. Like I I'd mentioned Clive Barker earlier. Like I saw Hellraiser when I was way too young, much too young to understand the themes that he was talking about, but there was something about it that scared me to the point where just the visuals, like the centabytes, like when they would do, you know, I had no Concept of like SNM when I was five, you know.
So I didn't understand, like what's with the self mutilation, why, you know, when, like all the black leather and there was some like there was something very clearly adult Happening here that I couldn't understand, that I couldn't wrap my brain around, and something so absurd about the way they looked and how they weren't like Jason or Freddie, where they were coming after Christie cotton with a knife, where they were basically like you know, we're angels to some, demons to others, and I was like that doesn't make sense. You know I'm a kid. I understand crazy person with a knife, like I understand that, but I don't understand there's like nuance to this and how, you know, frank cotton finding the box, the whole point of the box was to find new realms of pleasure. I'm like why would pain be pleasure? That's was absurd to me, and so that movie is always really stuck with me, and I've since loved every single word that Clive Barker has written and, and I love him did Clive Barker do in the mouth of madness?
No, that was John Carpenter. John Carpenter but a very similar vibe.
0:47:46 - Tara
Yeah. There's the guy with the crazy white hair riding the bicycle that has a card stuck in the wheel like perfect example you keep, you keep seeing this dude over and over and it's so creepy and so bizarre and you're like that. More than anything in that book was the most terrifying thing.
0:48:04 - Scott Leeds
Totally agree, you just go, why why? Is that there and that's that's the stuff that scares me the most, and I think that that happens in music too, where you just go why and I love the why, I love that they do it, but it's it did always kind of spooks me.
0:48:18 - Natalie
Yeah, yeah, I just. I just want to ask you one more question, because I've been trying for ages to work up the courage to watch this video.
0:48:24 - Tara
Okay, I feel like I haven't seen me this.
0:48:27 - Natalie
I feel like I would appreciate it. I want to experience the music and context and everything, but I don't do well with her. Okay, like I'm yeah, I'm completely chicken when it comes to her, especially when it's like you said, when it's absurdist or if it's more psychological, like you can give me slasher gore all day, I'm fine. But those the things that kind of tickle your gray matter, that's the stuff I don't do so well with. Should I give it up, or do you think it's worth the continued effort to try to watch this movie?
0:48:54 - Scott Leeds
Have you seen the original Suspiria?
0:48:56 - Natalie
the Argento version even worse.
0:48:59 - Scott Leeds
It's. I would say the original Suspiria is closer to a slasher it's. It's really beautiful, it's very colorful. I mean like, if you like technicolor, like that movies for you. The thing that I love about the Luca Guadagnino Suspiria the new one is that it's a fucking vibe, like it's. It's there are definitely creepy moments to it and like the end is like very visceral and bloody, but what it really is is it is the feeling of a cold, rainy day. You know what this is, you know pre Wall coming down Germany. It's a very sort of desolate, very desaturated, very cold movie and when you're done with it it's gonna take a while to shake it off.
I don't know if it'll scare you. It didn't scare me. And just because I'm a, I write horror does not mean I don't get scared. I get scared of everything. That's how I know what's scary to write. I'm not a brave person by any stretch of imagination. I think anybody who's a horror writer that's not scared of anything would be like the haunted remote control, like they don't know what to write about. So, like movies scare me all the time, but Suspiria didn't scare me. Suspiria, just yeah, it's just a vibe. I think you'd be okay.
Oh man, now I want to watch it more than ever, yeah and like that's the other thing too, like the soundtrack is so good. It's a very long movie. It's very deliberately paced, but it will. It will, if you're anything like me. It'll sort of leave this film on you and like I had to like take a shower afterward, not because I was like disgusted, but I just needed to like wash the movie off me so I could go about my day and be productive, because if not, I would just sit there in a room like whoa, like all can out, like it was dope, it's okay.
0:50:42 - Natalie
I'm gonna try to watch it. If it doesn't go well, I will be forwarding you my therapist.
0:50:46 - Scott Leeds
Well, it sounds good, sounds good deal. Now I kind of want to watch it again myself. My next pick is from an Italian movie in the 70s. I don't know if he would technically call it a giallo film, but it's. It's pretty close. There are probably listeners that are like yeah or listeners that are like no, but the the movie is Sette note and Nero or seven notes in black, and this piece of music is by Vince Timpera and most people wouldn't know it because Rissa sampled it in Kill Bill volume one.
I think it's the scene where Uma Thurman is in the hospital room and she wakes back up out of the coma and she basically, like you know, like slices the dude's Achilles heel, and it's that, you know. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
And so this is, this is where it came from, that is all, just it's. It's a beautiful melody but it is really just creepy as hell and it's really effective. And you know, just as a fun bit too, like I don't think they put it on the soundtrack, or maybe they did, but they had like Like sound bites from the movies over a movie over it, which is like, no, don't do that, just give us Rissa's track to give us the one he used. But it's really cool to like listen to them back and forth because like that's where, like, rissa is really smart, where he's like he recognized, like the melody is beautiful and he didn't. He didn't change it too much, but he changed it just enough to like put his own stamp on it, but he didn't like overwhelm it, like he let it breathe still. Yeah, what a genius. Anyway, that's number two, and then my first one. My number one creepy song that is not a Halloween song but still creeps me out is John Wayne Gacy Jr by Sufjan Stevens.
0:52:53 - Scott Leeds
It's one of those songs and, again, I I'm not a lyric listener, but when I read the title of the, the song, I'm like why I gotta listen to what he's saying here. And I think what makes it so creepy is the tenderness of his voice, the sweetness of the melody and the horrifying lyrics it's just it's again, it's sort of off kilter it's.
It's like an apple in a hand grenade, you know it's. They're just kind of there at the same time. It's sweet and violent at the same time. And then horrifying and and tragic and it's really really creepy and yeah and just, and when at the end of the song he just gives out this big, just exhale, where it's like, it's like, it's not a sigh, it's just like a like it's just, you can tell like he had to, he's trying himself to wash that off of it, like off of him, wash it out of the system. Yeah, so that's my, that's my number one.
0:53:42 - Tara
I don't recognize that song, you know, by the title, but your description of it I can. I can imagine it, you know.
0:53:50 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, yeah, it's off of Chicago and it is, or I see it's not Chicago, but come on, feel the Illinois. Yeah, it's, it's creepy.
0:53:59 - Natalie
I always thought his voice was very haunting and chilling.
0:54:03 - Scott Leeds
I, I always I always say his voice is like a, the ghost of a camp counselor that I once had. Like you know, he's like that cool camp counselor, but he drowned, you know, and now he's back and he's got his little guitar and his little hat and he just like singing really good songs totally so.
0:54:21 - Natalie
Those are my five quick question for you, scott, before we jump into a terrorist list. I'm just curious about your process when it comes to like character development for the characters in your in your book. Did you have clear real-life models that you patterned these characters after?
0:54:39 - Scott Leeds
only for one character, anna Cortez. She based on a very close friend of mine. I think I can out her because I thank her the back of the book too. But I have a friend of Genesis, rodriguez who's an actor and like a brilliant actor and she was in tusk, the Kevin Smith movie, and she's been a bunch of other stuff. She was just in neon on Netflix go check it out. She was on an Umbrella Academy season three on Netflix. So she was, she was heavily, anna was heavily based on her. Well, like half of Anna was heavily based on her. The other half was really based on me. People I was like was Charlie you? And I was like no more Anna.
But yeah, everybody else is, is is kind of just pulled out of the ether. You know, I think everybody like has like little bits and pieces of people we've all known or personality we personalities we've known, because I think it's almost impossible to create somebody that doesn't exist At all. But yeah, when it comes to character development, I really just I think I learned it all from, from Stephen King, whereas just like I'm not a huge person who is interested in plot, I really like characters. You know, like I love like the movie, my dinner with Andre, like what's. Like yeah, it's just two people having dinner and talking, like I'm in and Like that's the other thing too.
Like I I don't read a lot of horror. I, you know, always read the new Stephen King because I love him, and or if there's a new Clive Barker or like Ramsay Campbell and stuff like that and and I have a few friends that write horror and I'll read their books and there's great stuff that comes out on my imprint night fire as well that I'll read. But yeah, most of what I read is just like sad bastard stories of, like college professors who had affairs with a student. You know, like a lot of Philip Roth novels, norman Mailer, like the new Zadie Smith book is Might be one of the best books I've read ever.
Like I love Zadie Smith a lot, but like this new one is Anybody that can write in like a new vernacular and keep it up through an entire book, to say nothing. The fact that it's a very long book is Amazing to me. It's the same thing with Ken Keezy doing cuckoo's nest, where it's written in like chief Brompton's vernacular the whole way through. Like that's tough to keep up. But yeah, so I really like like character studies. It's like as pretentious as that sounds. So yeah, I for me, just plot just gets in the way. I'm like I don't have to go make them do something. I just want us to have them sit them like just talk for two hours. But I can't do that because it wouldn't let me.
0:56:56 - Tara
I really liked Dale.
0:56:57 - Scott Leeds
Dale yeah. I was just gonna say that the leather vest with fringe is based on a very real guy that used to run the battle the bands here in Washington. But yeah, just just the look of him was sort of based on that, not the person because he was not from from Northern England. Yeah, I like Dale too.
0:57:15 - Natalie
Dale's cool. He was like so funny. I was gonna give you like props on on that character development because I didn't. I certainly didn't expect to become as attached to the characters as I did. Yeah, and it's Certainly not a minor character, you know, or comparatively minor character like Dale. Yeah, I just I vibed with him the most, like that would have been me in that scenario. Yeah, like I leave me out of this.
0:57:36 - Scott Leeds
Like there's some of them too. That like again, the book was way longer, so the characters came back, like Susan the older sister, like she came back. She doesn't in the book. One of my favorite characters is Harold. He's one of the guys that buys, or he's like. He's into big 40s Big band from the 40s. I really love him. He's a customer and like I'm like I just want to hang out with Harold.
0:57:54 - Scott Leeds
I just kept writing him and writing him yeah.
0:57:56 - Scott Leeds
I was like I'm sorry, harold, I gotta cut you like it's. Yeah, I gotta cut like 40,000 words and a lot of that was Harold, a lot of that was Susan. So, yeah, it is. It's tough when you're like I really love these people and I don't want to, but if it doesn't kind of add to the plot or if it doesn't push it forward, you know it's like you got to go, sure, but that makes me very happy that you connected with the characters, that's. That's that's like the only goal. Like honestly, like if you're like, yeah, I hated the book, but I love the characters, I'm like awesome, we're good.
0:58:23 - Tara
Yeah, it's a good question, natalie Well shall I do my list?
0:58:27 - Scott Leeds
I think so.
0:58:28 - Tara
Are you?
0:58:29 - Scott Leeds
ready, let's do it.
0:58:30 - Tara
Okay, my number five actually, Scott, you mentioned something about like despair and that's being kind of a dark thing. Yeah, my number five is Daniel Johnston. Despair came knocking.
0:58:55 - Scott Leeds
Nice.
0:58:55 - Tara
It's from 1983's Hi, how Are you? It has like this kind of sad sounding toy guitar sound and he's singing about despair, visiting him and smoking and how he let her in for a while. It's just really really well, weird number one, but it does sound really sad, which gives it this creepy vibe. And he also says and I saw you at the funeral. You were standing there like a temple. I said hi, how are you? Hello, and I pulled up a casket and crawled in. Just invokes this sort of weird, scary, claustrophobic anxiety feeling in me.
0:59:40 - Scott Leeds
Oh, totally, and like we could do top five creepiest Daniel Johnston songs, like that guy had a knack for just that sort of yeah, that kind of spooky, kind of creepy kind of. Again, I think it has a lot of. It has to do with loneliness too. Yeah, you know, not that I want to tell his story, but he was obviously for a lot of his life a very lonely guy, either literally just being alone and kind of shutting himself away and making all that music, or you know, figuratively lonely, just kind of he was so brilliant, you know, given his sort of mental faculties and like you know what he could do and what he couldn't do, and just being sort of this savant, this genius. I imagine that has to set you apart from the people you're around, because you're just on a completely different wavelength and that must be really lonely.
1:00:29 - Tara
Definitely that documentary is very good.
1:00:32 - Scott Leeds
The Devil and Daniel Johnston.
1:00:34 - Tara
Yeah, if anyone in the story hasn't seen it you should so good.
1:00:36 - Scott Leeds
It's really sad. It's good yeah.
1:00:39 - Tara
All right, my number four. This one is definitely more of a like. This one fits too well on maybe a Halloween playlist, but it's Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath.
1:00:48 - Scott Leeds
Okay, yeah, oh, no, no, please, god help me.
1:01:01 - Tara
This is Total Duman Gloom. It was released Friday the 13th in 1970, in February. Of all days, Friday the 13th, which it's like heavily vehicle already. So Friday the 13th being the release day is perfect. It just you know. And of course, like, besides the fact that it's also heavy metal, it's evil, it's paganism, it's horror movies through and through.
1:01:26 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, and based on and named after the horror movie Black Sabbath.
1:01:29 - Tara
Oh, yeah, which is what Tolkien no.
1:01:34 - Scott Leeds
Who did Black Sabbath? Karen Black, I think, was in it, and yeah, I don't remember it was it. It was Mario Bava. I was thinking that.
1:01:44 - Tara
I don't know, I'm not familiar with that one.
1:01:45 - Natalie
This album cover spooks me yeah. Like when I think about the song, I just immediately think about that imagery and I'm like, yeah, that's pretty creepy.
1:01:54 - Tara
Yeah, I mean plus the tritone like guitar sounds in the very beginning and they're very slow and just like heavy. The singer from Judas Priest, rob Halford, said that this is the most evil track that's ever been written. The lyrics start with what is this that stands before me, figure in black, which points at me? You know, it's just that, like you know, you can imagine it being a kid and in seeing weird shapes of people in your room and stuff like that, or even just outside your window or shadows. Just, I would love to talk about Art Bell one day in the store. That would be very cool. But yeah, just such a creepy song.
And also, okay, I think it was. Maybe it was Giza Butler, but he said there was this like weekly magazine called man, Myth and Magic that he started reading. It was all about Satan and stuff, and also Ozzy gave him this 16th century book about magic that he'd stolen from somewhere. So he put it in the airing cupboard, which is like, I guess, like an open cabinet thing, because he wasn't sure about it, and later that night woke up and saw this black shadow at the end of his bed. It was a horrible presence that frightened the life out of me. I ran to the airing cupboard and threw the book out, but the book had disappeared After that. I gave up all that stuff. So it's just. You know. Even the story around how the song was written is just so very very, very creepy.
1:03:19 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, I don't think there's like much more creepy than like an old, like English book of like spells and magic. We're just like, yeah, I'm not touching that thing. Yeah, so it might as well be like the Necronomicon, like I'm not touching it.
1:03:30 - Natalie
Yeah, you know what's crazy? I'm just I'm thinking about this now, but it's kind of fascinating how this music probably impacted my life so much more than I even realize, without like, even before I knew who black Sabbath was Like. Think about how insane this was for society in the 70s and that kind of set the stage for the Satanic Panic of the 80s. And when I was born and I know that really really had a huge impact on my youth in a very, very bad way. You know, it was hard to grow up in those times and especially being like in a very religious home and things like that. Yeah, it all stemmed from this, this era of music and art that people just didn't understand, didn't know how to deal with. And if you don't know what something is, if you don't get it, then it must be demonic.
1:04:15 - Scott Leeds
Oh, yeah, I remember like I was almost expelled from like I went to Catholic school growing up I was also born in the 80s and I remember when I was a kid I think it was like fifth grade and then, like there was one of these priests was one of our teachers and I just remember like raising my hand and being like why is Satan bad? And like the priest was like you're kidding, right, great question. And I was like, yeah, but I'm like. But think about it.
Right, like he gets cast out of hell or cast out of heaven. He's basically running hell. And like he doesn't want to do that but like he still craves like the love of God and like the light of God in heaven. So like he's going to do it, like he has to because he has to do with God, says he's still in it, he's a fallen angel, but he's still an angel. Like he can't say like no, I'm not going to run hell, I'm going to go move to Cleveland. Like he's he has to run hell, so he still loves God. He's still be like yeah, all right, like I'll take my punishment, I'll run hell. Like you're not a bad dude, you know like and like. The priest was like out and I was like I just it's a question. I mean, come on, make sense right. Yeah, wow, yeah, but like everybody, like a mischievous kid.
There was that fear of like that, like satanic panic where, like you know, people I mean, I like even in the nineties, like when people were talking about like Marilyn Manson being like a devil worshiper and stuff like that and so so strange to me. You know, it just has way cooler art, that's right.
1:05:31 - Natalie
You know that's a whole other conversation. But yeah, the wild with this stuff.
1:05:37 - Scott Leeds
It's like, you know, like Paradise Lost awesome poem. Dante's Inferno awesome book. You know like everybody, like everybody knows Inferno they don't know. Like Paradiso and what was the middle one, purgatorio Like no one quotes from those.
1:05:53 - Tara
It's always Inferno, man, oh gosh, okay. Well, I feel like the next one is somehow creepier than Black Sabbath to be honest, oh no. Number three is Suicide Frankie Teardrop.
1:06:06 - Scott Leeds
That was almost on my list.
1:06:23 - Tara
Dude, this song is so creepy Okay, it's a little bit the shining poverty stricken factory worker guys going to the factory doing his job is just driven to absolute insanity. Comes home from work, murders his wife and child and then himself. Sorry, trigger warning I probably should have said. But also the music background is just very sparse.
1:06:47 - Scott Leeds
And then it's like 10 minutes every once in a while.
1:06:49 - Tara
Yeah, it's like 10 minutes long. And then every once in a while you hear Alan Vega is just like crazy inhuman screaming and it's terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. Nick Hornby wrote in his book 31 songs that this is the one you could only listen to once, only once.
1:07:07 - Scott Leeds
It is kind of like the ruckum for a dream of songs, like when you're done with it you're like I don't need to do that again.
1:07:12 - Tara
Yeah.
1:07:13 - Scott Leeds
But it is, it is super creepy.
1:07:15 - Tara
There was even a radio show Sharpling's long running weekly call in radio show called the Best Show Did the Frankie Teardrop challenge where he would challenge fans of the show to listen to the song in headphones as loudly as possible at nighttime and while alone, and then they would regularly call in and say that they couldn't do it. Only a few people could actually finish all 10 minutes and 26 seconds of the song.
1:07:46 - Natalie
I mean, yeah, it's going to be a note for me. I've never heard this and it's not for me, it's not for my ears.
1:07:53 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, it's pretty unsettling, it's disturbing yeah.
1:07:56 - Tara
Yeah, it's messed up. Yeah, All right.
1:07:59 - Natalie
How did you discover this song? Like what?
1:08:01 - Tara
I love Suicide.
1:08:02 - Scott Leeds
How.
1:08:03 - Tara
Sheree, sheree.
1:08:04 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, suicide's pretty awesome. I was like one of those like early 80s like no wave bands. This is just one of those songs Like I can't. It kind of reminds me of what's the first song on closer, the Joy Division album. This is the way Step Inside, like there's something about the way the drums play in that song, like it. Just it kind of gives me like a similar vibe where I'm just like this just sounds like ultimate sadness and just pain.
1:08:29 - Tara
Like this is cursed.
1:08:30 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, it's cursed, it's definitely cursed All right.
1:08:33 - Tara
The next one, Number two, Broadcast and Focus Group, a seyouncing song. The songs are they blue?
1:08:51 - Scott Leeds
Are they blue in the blue In?
1:08:53 - Tara
the blue afternoon, there you go, broadcast and Focus Group, and they do this collaboration, which is, I guess, they're sharing sources of inspiration like soundtrack, music, pulp, science Fiction, occult text, jazz. Wait, is it for a movie? I think it is for a movie, right? Oh no, that's their Berberian sound album. I can't listen to that one either.
1:09:13 - Natalie
It's terrible.
1:09:14 - Tara
But no, this one is a little less terrifying but still very creepy. But there's just a lot of weird samples from like nursery rhymes and horror movies and weird ritual things and it's just creepy.
1:09:26 - Natalie
So yeah, a seaouncing song from Tara, your songs are just straight up scary. I'm sorry they're scary. We bypass spooky to just scary.
1:09:37 - Tara
They're creepy. Yeah, they're unsettling, though. All of these songs are unsettling. Yeah, I feel like the Black Sabbath one is definitely.
1:09:45 - Scott Leeds
I'm trying to imagine what your number one would be.
1:09:47 - Tara
Okay, it's not a scary one. Did you just go like full?
1:09:49 - Scott Leeds
wolf eyes. No, they're like their song, stabbed in the Face.
1:09:58 - Scott Leeds
I would have loved to hear Casey Kasem being just like you know, and now coming in at number 39, it's Wolf Eyes with Stabbed in the Face. Here's a letter.
1:10:07 - Natalie
That is a great Casey Kasem letter.
1:10:10 - Scott Leeds
It's the first time I've ever tried it. I was like I was wondering, like in my brain, is this going to fly? I don't know.
1:10:14 - Tara
That was a good one. No, no, actually, my number one is not. It sounds scarier than what it actually is. I think it's from the 90s, it's the band Boss Hog and it's the song Texas.
1:10:41 - Scott Leeds
I don't know that song.
1:10:42 - Tara
It's creepy. The lyrics are I'm in Texas, I'm in pain, I'm bleeding and ashamed and it's. It's got this like heavy kind of dark cello string music, but it's John Spencer and his wife of the blues.
1:10:56 - Scott Leeds
It's not Tina's.
1:10:57 - Tara
Yes, of the blues explosion.
1:10:59 - Scott Leeds
I never heard them either, I just know the name.
1:11:01 - Tara
Oh yeah, this. This came from their 1995 album called Boss Hog. I actually bought this album when I was on a band competition in high school. I was playing bassoon in concert season and we were playing Schindler's list music from For this like concert season thing, which is overwhelming also that movie and music very Just what Schindler's list? Affects you?
Yes, oh yeah but I bought this Boss Hog CD in a Record store in Canada, in Toronto. I was like I want something that's. You know, I've never heard it before and I wanted, I wanted to remember it for this moment. And it was Boss Hog. This is the CD that I got, but I knew a song from their album. Anyways, I dig you. Which is fun, another fun one.
1:11:52 - Scott Leeds
I'm gonna check them out.
1:11:52 - Tara
This isn't their regular MO, but it's such a creepy sounding song that I have to.
1:11:58 - Natalie
I like it, skip it yeah.
1:11:59 - Tara
I have to skip it because it's like, okay, this is. I can't listen to this right now. It's too creepy.
1:12:04 - Natalie
This could be you on the cover too.
1:12:05 - Tara
Oh yeah, with the umbrella yeah. That's my list. Yeah, I think mine are probably just like. These songs will make you kill someone. They are disturbing.
1:12:15 - Scott Leeds
Okay. So were there any like runner-ups, ones that almost made the list, that we were like ah, but just just didn't make the list.
1:12:21 - Tara
What about you? Oh?
1:12:22 - Scott Leeds
well, frankie teardrops was on there but like my, like this one, I don't think quite made the cut, but it is like speaking of like top five songs of all time, this might be my number one, which is the st James infirmary, the cab Callaway version.
1:12:36 - Tara
Oh.
1:12:36 - Scott Leeds
I mean I love all versions of that song but like those lyrics, like those are. Like I know all the lyrics like the old songs from the 30s and 40s, but like that one I've just loved it since I was a kid. It's a really weird sad song about, you know, I'm a man going there and finding his lady in the morgue and then just sings the rest of song about death and, like you know, when I die you know bury me in straightly Bridges, a boxback suit and the sets in hat. And also, like there's a moment in the show Tremay I don't know if you guys have seen that show, but when Wendell Pierce who you know we knew from the wire In this show, like he's sad, like he's got his trombone with him. He's just sitting in the emergency room and he starts singing a version of st James infirmary.
It's so beautiful and so sad and yeah and it's also just it's, you know, reminds me of my time living in New Orleans, which is one of the best places on earth, especially if you're a jazz nut, like it's just the band, if you like spooky stuff too, because, like, like all those summaries, spending Halloween in New Orleans like one of the best times of my life. So yeah, st James infirmary that's, that was my was my runner-up.
1:13:42 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, what about you guys?
1:13:45 - Natalie
Well, I had see David Bowie Subterranean's nice. Frank Zappa sleeping in a jar. I had any portas head song. Yeah, I just tried to stay away from trip hop all of its creepy. Had some a tecra and blonde redhead melody. Very nice, oh yeah that's a good yeah.
1:14:04 - Scott Leeds
I like tola maya by Ethel Cain. I don't know if you guys have heard that song really out there, and and I did have stabbed in the face by wolf eyes and then Eraser by nine inch nails, that song creep me out when I was a kid.
1:14:18 - Tara
Mm-hmm, yeah, I had dead Ken dance, the host of, say, our film. Yeah which is that song that they play during the whole, like weird, cult, sex, cult thing and eyes wide shut, Yep yeah creepy Mm-hmm.
1:14:32 - Natalie
Yeah, just a parting thought here. Do you think the songs that we call creepy, like individually, it says something about our own personal deepest, darkest fears, you know.
1:14:42 - Scott Leeds
I think so.
1:14:43 - Natalie
Because I hear, I hear, mine and mine are all based on being misled to my do right. You know, yours seem to be about like defying logic or things not being as they should. Yeah, making sense, yeah, and mine is like the terrace is just yeah, like right. Tara's like resisting her dark urge to murder.
1:15:05 - Tara
Oh my gosh, wow, I love it.
1:15:08 - Scott Leeds
No, I think there's something to that like that's that's one of the beautiful things about horror too when it's like there are so many people and like, having been in this like horror community for the last couple years, being part of the publishing world, there's so many writers that like there's this woman, cj lead, who wrote a book, may fly, which is brilliant, but it's so visceral and it's almost like you know, up there with like Brett Easton, ellis, american Psycho, like it's just like when you read it, like it turns your stomach and you know I'm like I could never write anything Like that because it would seem insincere. That's not my type of horror. Like my type is like I go like soft horror or like supernatural, but like that visceral stuff, like it's it. It's so genuine and you know I don't know CJ that well, like we've spoken a few times on Instagram and stuff, but I do like I I'm curious.
I was like I kind of want to know like where, where is that coming from? And another part of Me is like it's not in my fucking business, like it's to ask where that stuff comes from, but it's. You know, horror is that great genre where we can talk about the things that we're not supposed to talk about, and and do it in a way that that makes it sort of an oddly you know, comforting safe space, because, like, once you put stuff out into the extreme or into the supernatural, it kind of allows us to open that box and just go well, let's just chat about, let's talk about it.
You know, I think with a lot of drama or comedy, you have to work your way up to it and it may not always work. But with horror, I think, just going in like you've already made a handshake deal with the reader or the Watcher, the viewer, that's like we're gonna. We're gonna get into some shit here, so buckle up.
1:16:44 - Tara
Yeah, yeah that's a great point. That is a really good point. I know I was just thinking about. I Just finished reading Mexican Gothic.
1:16:53 - Scott Leeds
Oh yeah, Garcia and yeah.
1:16:55 - Tara
It was super good, super good, but it did talk a lot about like kind of like these native traditions and you know almost this like underworldly piece of culture but blended in like Western Medicine and stuff too.
1:17:14 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, yeah, it was.
1:17:15 - Tara
It was really interesting.
1:17:16 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, she's interesting brilliant in that sense, yeah and she's she is a monster writer too, like she puts out a new book every year, if not sometimes two books a year. Oh, she is just. Yeah, she's a writing machine and she's amazing at it too, like everything. I haven't read silver nitrate, her newest one, but everything else she's written has been brilliant. And yeah, I think, yeah, a horror it's funny, like I, you know a horror.
I think it's really oddly important again not to sound like pretentious or anything, because it allows us, like when we have a Bad dream, like when we have a nightmare, we're along for the ride. We don't get to say no to the nightmare, the nightmares, like we're going and you don't get to say anything about it and we don't really have any autonomy in our dreams. What I like about horror is, if it's a scary movie and you get scared, you can turn it off. If it's a book, you can close it, you can say no to the nightmare, which you can give yourself the choice to not be scared, and you can also give your choice to say yes, to say I'm gonna make it through this, which, you know, it allows us control over our nightmares, just for a second. I think that's really important and it's not even necessarily, doesn't even have to be horror. That does it I, you know, I was talking to my sister, who is also not a horror fan and but since I've been sort of like in this world, she's like well, I want to kind of get into a little more. I want to, I want to be a part of this with you and and I said, well, here's the thing, just because you don't watch horror movies or read horror novels doesn't mean you don't like horror. Like you know it's. Like you love that show Downton Abbey. There's a scene where, like the duke or the ear or whatever is like like an appendix burst or something bursting. They just vomit blood all over the table. Like that's horrifying, but it's not a horror movie Like it's.
Like you know, we grew up Catholic right. Like read the Bible. Like most of the Old Testament is just horror. That's most of what it is like. When I was a kid and like Shadrach, meshach and Abednego got thrown into the fiery furnace, like that scared the hell out of me. Like when King Herod was like killing all the firstborn and shit like that scared the hell out of me. Revelation is its own horror story, like it's it's. There's terrifying stuff in there and then it also just goes to also Like what Richard Matheson, who like a stir of echoes and what dreams may come, and and I am legend he talked about the difference between horror and terror. You know horror like describes that terror. You feel it and I don't think I write a lot of terror, I think I would just write horror. I hope I leave terror to the other people.
1:19:36 - Tara
Yeah, yeah, well, I like that. Sorry, I like I answered a question you guys didn't ask. I'm sorry.
1:19:42 - Scott Leeds
I told you guys just got to stop me, I will keep going.
1:19:45 - Tara
It was so well said. It was so well said, which you know again, explains why you're the writer.
1:19:55 - Scott Leeds
So so well said. Thank you, thank you.
1:19:57 - Tara
And this has been really fun and we're so glad that you joined us in the store again. It's been too long.
1:20:03 - Scott Leeds
I know cheese Louise stranger. I won't be like if you guys invite me back, I'll be here and if you don't, my feelings won't be heard. They'll be like that guy did not shut up like we, like I had to go to the bathroom and like that guy was just like going and going. He's like Colombo was just just one more thing every five seconds.
1:20:20 - Tara
No way, no way. You're probably actually the most prevalent Shopper in the store. Regular, you're a regular.
1:20:28 - Scott Leeds
I yeah, it's been a while, but now I'm. Now I'm back has been a while yeah back was the last time we did it pre-covid. Yeah no way, I think 2019?
1:20:38 - Natalie
it would have to be yeah, cuz we started. What 2020 really?
1:20:41 - Tara
Yeah, yeah.
1:20:43 - Natalie
Well, how's that for spooky?
1:20:45 - Scott Leeds
That's scared me more than anything else in this whole episode.
1:20:50 - Tara
Well, it's getting really dark outside, so I feel like we should yeah close the store and get home before we are Merged in the parking on our way out to have thoroughly creeped me out.
1:21:02 - Natalie
I need to yeah, need to get in my house. Yeah, go outside it was so cool to meet you those guys having this conversation with you. I hope we can meet again in the store, absolutely people in the store.
1:21:13 - Tara
Pick up your copy of schraders chord out now.
1:21:17 - Natalie
Yes.
1:21:17 - Tara
Scott leads. It's an incredible book. I love it so much. Five stars Absolutely. But. I'll be waiting for the movie, and if Michael Keaton isn't in it, I'll be very sad and we want to be extras.
1:21:30 - Natalie
Oh, yeah, totally want to be piddling around.
1:21:32 - Scott Leeds
Yeah, I like, I like, yeah it's like guys build the cougars, no, so I want to walk around inside. Yes, yes, All right.
1:21:39 - Tara
Well, thank you again for hanging out the store with us and We'll catch you later. Yep, good night everyone.
1:21:53 - Speaker 4
Record Store society is hosted by Natalie white and Tara Davies. If you'd like to contact the show, visit our website at record store society Dot com, or you can find us on all your favorite social media sites with the handle at record store society.
Transcribed by https://podium.page