Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 670: Father's Day w/ Stephen King & Joe Hill

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

The boys celebrate Father’s Day with a visit from two generations of horror royalty as Stephen King and Joe Hill join Last Podcast on the Left for a rare joint conversation on family, fear, and the business of nightmares. For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free, plus get Friday episodes a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. Big day. Big day. Massive day. This is such a, let's just say a victory.

Yeah. This is a victory for LPN. This is a victory for last podcast on the left. Validation. Validation. We got him. The white unicorn. First of all, welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies gentlemen.

My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski. Pink Unicorn. The pink unicorn, Henry Zabrowski. Got filled with shrimp. Yeah, and the hairy unicorn. I was going to say illiterate unicorn. Just your beard is looking quite nice.

Have you been trimming? Yeah, well, yeah, I have a person who trims. It looks great. Thank you. I appreciate it because I was worried it was looking bad, but now it gets another week like this. You really look good in that way. But the thing is the guy who. trims your beard.

Definitely. It's a woman. Wow. But he makes you look like an Iranian lord. You know what I mean? I'll take that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You do look like a lord of some kind. Hey, you want to get through the straight? You come talk to me. You're right? I'll get you through the straight. I'll get you through the game. I can't get old submarines. I can't figure old submarines.

All right, we got a raw topic here. We're off topic. The big topic that we have today is that, okay, we interviewed Joe Hill. Author, Joe Hill, a few months ago. Yeah. Fantastic man. It went so well. And we never, we didn't really even say anything about his dad.

Yeah, we didn't say, we said nothing about his dad. We were so cool during that interview. But it went so well that he came back and he brought his father, Stephen King, with him. That's right. He was like, I got my dad. You guys are talking about me and I got my dad here now. But then he did a whole thing. You'll see in the interview where he's like, my dad will beat you all up.

And Stephen King stood up and he was like, come here, you little. F words, see you'll say it's all there. It's all there. But this is our Father's Day special. It is. Because in many ways, Stephen King raised us. He was definitely a big part of my childhood and a very big part of everything I've ever known about horror and novels. Yeah, I'd be nice. He's one of the cultural voices of the 20th century. He's one of the guys who created the 20th century is culturally. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I, I, I, I watched a documentary called King in Movies, and I was like, oh, he's, like, shaped my thoughts completely. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm very excited for this, but let's just get to it. Let's just get to it, yeah, because I finally got to ask him about shitters. And I didn't even, I just rewatch Christine, and I was like, oh, yeah, shitters. You should read it in the, they tone it down in the movie a lot. Oh, he asked them about it. I look at that book on my shelf all the time. Let's get to it. Live from your blade.

How are you guys? We're doing fantastic. How are you all doing today? I'm good. First question, out the gate, doing well. Wow. This is we are watching this. I just want to say, I hate to disappoint because honestly, our dads really wanted to meet you guys too.

And one of the hardest things was that I noticed that when I was bringing them over here, the urn was really loose. Yeah. And so I didn't want to spread him all over the stuff. I didn't want to spread them all over my car. Yeah. Well, the urn was loose because when you weren't paying attention, I actually switched out my dad's ashes with your dad's ashes. And so now I got your dad in my house and your dad's, my dad's at your house.

How many ashes have you been presented with as a couple? Oh. No one's given me their ashes yet. I have made an ash in my house. myself once in a while. I was at a signing at a library in like Boise. This was years and years ago. When a guy came up to me, he was one of the last guys in line, sort of a decrepit old

fella. And he said, you know, I loved heart-shaped box so much. And your dad's books have meant so much to me. And I just wanted to give you something to express that, how much those books meant to me. And he lifted up this leather bag. It looked like a doctor's bag. And I accept, I said, thank you. And I opened it and this stink just rolled out like there was, you know, I don't know,

like a rotten piece of meat in it or something like that and a chemical odor as well. And I said, what is this? And he said, my dad embalmed people for 40 years. And that was his bag. That was the bag he did for his work. And I was like, boy, you shouldn't have. Thank you. Thank you so much.

You know, and I will say, I will say that I had him, I had him chuck it as soon as like I left the thing. I'm not bringing a fucking bag like that on an airplane. No. You can't bring it to the Hilton. You know, it's always the last person in line when you're really tired and you just want to go back to your hotel and pee. Oh, just somebody that shows up with, with that. Yeah. Stephen, what was something that sticks out in your mind that a fan brought to you that you were just immediately revolted by?

Well, it wasn't so much that, but I was at a place one time signing books, and this fat kid comes up to me and says, Hey, kid, where's the Nazi books? And so I took them to the Nazi book. But I'll tell you what, you just can't tell what people are going to do. One guy came up to me and said, you know, about Salem's lot. He said, you know, you ought to write a squeal in that Jenner. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, a sequel in that genre.

You know, you know, one thing, speaking of grotesque gifts, you know, disturbing gifts. John Wayne Gacy sent my dad some art back in the day from prison. And actually, I found that so disturbing. That's in the first paragraph of heart-shaped box. Yes. You know, that kind of hung in my mind. Because the other thing is, is Gacy wasn't terrible.

I mean, he was obviously terrible. I can't underline enough how terrible he was. Well, he was a funny guy. Yeah, he was a funny guy. We've already singled it out. You're screwed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's got to be the clip to sell. this episode. John Wayne Gasey was pretty good.

You know, but he did. A real mushroom. He was a fun guy. He could do a passable. He could do passable like Disney characters and stuff. Well, he used to do paint by numbers. He used to go and get the, like, he would have a whole system of other serial killers, including one of the, uh, the guys from the Chicago Rippers. And he also had the guy that killed everybody. to avoid the earthquake in Southern California.

Yeah, the Herbert Mullen. Herbert Mullen. He had other serial killers working for him on an assembly line, painting these paintings for him. That's not true. Yes. Is that true? Yes, because he literally was a job creator.

He was an executive manager. He was a project runner. That's what he did. He was a project manager. They had an art club in prison? It was kind of like a chain gang. Like literally, he kind of forced them to do stuff and then they would bring in

there's a whole story about how John Wayne Gacy was sort of gamed by this young man that called him and pretended to be really into him and so this young man sort of arriving to visit with John Wayne Gacy and then the two of them would talk to the other serial killers like they were his little like crew like it was like his little

brothers so don't feel that honored about the art is it like that it was like hair club for men but with art yes yes do you find that in speaking of terms of collaboration because you guys worked together because John Wayne Gacy can really run that type of collaboration. I'm sure you guys really put some really good stuff together.

Like, because in the tall grass was a great thing. Like, how do you guys feel like when you're together working? We've only done it twice. We've only done it twice. We wrote in the tall grass and we wrote Throttle. And, you know, I mean, I feel like when I, the times I've written with that, you ever see in like the, the Warner Brothers cartoons when Wiley

Coyote climbs on an Acme rocket and lights the fuse and then suddenly it takes off under him. Yeah. That's what it's like writing with my dad. I feel like I'm just kind of hanging on for dear life. You know, I'd sort of like sweat and pull my hair out over like three pages or something. And then I'd email it to him

and like 45 minutes later he'd be like, it was great. Here's five more pages. Jesus Christ. I wrote five. I wrote five and keep it up. Well, you know, there was a time when I was chemically assisted by some of those things. And the books with Peter Straub in the early days. But those days are behind me now.

Yeah, now it's just what, Cialis, a lot of snapple. That's what I do. I crush up my Cialis right into the right into it. I just do it. I do it line by line each day just to get me going to do podcasts. Yeah, and under the lid of those snaples, they got funny little things. You can just slide right into the book. You know, if you wanted to.

So, man, if you say so, that's good. We had a pretty good movie made out of it in the tall grass. Oh, it's great. It's so good. Yeah, that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool. And for a while, for a while, for a while, Well, Sylvester Stallone was talking about doing throttle behind the scenes.

And like, as a guy who grew up and then, you know, I mean, me and dad went to go see all those Rocky films and everything together. And wow, what a blast that would have been, but it didn't happen. I just want to say right now, Sylvester Stallone as the gunslinger. Can it just like, let's just do it. Make it expendables. I don't think that would really work in his age. I mean, Chuck Norris could have done it. I mean, Chuck Norris could have just wiped that shit out entirely.

No guns at all. He could have just used his hands. I always saw Daniel DeLewis was my gunslinger in my mind. Do you have a gunslinger that you wish besides, I mean, I loved Idris, but you got a gunslinger in your mind that you wish you could see walking around? Clint Eastwood back in a day. Yeah. Back in the day, it would have been great.

would have been great. I mean, I got the idea for those books in a large part because of those Sergio Leone Westerns. You know, I saw him in the theater because, you know, I'm old. And so, you know, they were just widescreen men. And it was, Eastwood was so quiet in those movies, you know. he wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful. So that was great.

Yeah, they didn't even give him a name. The man. He was literally the man with no name. How did you respond, Joe? Are you as big of a fan of the Dark Tower as the rest of us? I'm sorry, Marcus. I'll get you your questions. I'm just sorry.

I just started in Dark Tower. And it means it actually means the whole world to me. But you've seen a lot of fat guys and say this to you, Stephen. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm doing this at you. I'm just. Well, I love those.

I'm a big Stephen King fan. I love all those books. And I mean, the thing about the Gunslinger books is, is, I always think of them as the Gunslinger books, not the Dark Tower books. You know, and they're kind of like the unified theory of the Stephen King world, you know, and because it picks up so many threads from all the other books. And it's almost like a nervous system running through the whole body of Dad's work. And they're just such great reads. They're just so much fun and such a terrific cast of kids. characters and and and it is a little bit in some ways it is a little bit surprising there haven't

been at a you know well there was no no there was the interest there was the address there was the interest film but it didn't do very well um it's because it needs to be 25 hours long yeah he's good either I love to do but they talked for a while about Javier Bardem doing that's sexy that would have been great yeah he's sexy that would have been good I mean, I think there is an attempt right now to try to make it five seasons, you know, to try to do a TV thing. But I'm not sure how far along it's gotten. Have any of you guys seen Cape Fear, the new one, where Javier Bardem placed a bad guy? Not yet. Not yet. I'm very excited for it, though.

I am too. It's great. It looks really cool. Harvey A. Brin M. scary as hell, man. Oh, Stephen, earlier you mentioned that, you know, the spaghetti westerns were a big influence on, on the, you know, the Dark Tower series. When you were writing all those iconic works, how much inspiration did you take from other mediums

and other genres for your own stories? Well, I mean, I was a big fan of Western movies, period. And I tried to get in a lot of the things that those books and movies were based on, you know, that the idea that the guy has to be alone and he has to be a hero

and although in the early books, Roland isn't very much of a hero. He's actually kind of a bad guy. Yeah, he is. He is, and then he changes. Yeah, go then there are other worlds in these. I think about this and I'm so happy that you brought that back. I'm so happy you brought the back for the next book.

I'm so excited, Mr. King. I'm going to go. I'm going to show up at your house. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sir. Can I? No, I won't. I'm sorry.

Live from your play. Joe, I've been watching a lot of interviews to prep for this between you and your dad. And I got to say one thing. I'm so sorry. Yeah. You know, it's, I'm getting a taste for them. But Joe, my question is you, you're, you seem like your father seems so proud of you. What's that like?

I'm sure there's a joke here somewhere, but I can't find it. You know, just pretend I'm not here, Joe. Yeah. I know, right. I mean, I hardly know how to talk about it. I have a great relationship with my dad. We love a lot of the same things. You know, Owen and dad and myself, my brother Owen, Owen, is a wonderful writer.

He wrote Sleeping Beauties with that. and Owen's last novel, The Curators, and absolute, you know, stunner. The first two pages of the curator better than anything I've written in my whole life. That's great. You know, and the three of us have both a playlist and a message thread.

And we talk to each other every day and mostly what we talk about is rock and roll and sometimes what we're watching on TV and Bob Dylan and Meatloaf. We talk about meatloaf a lot. We talk about meat a lot. You know, we really did. Because all it loves meatloat.

One time, Meat and Jim Steinman showed up at some place where I was shooting a commercial or something like that. And they were wearing these white clothes, man. Like Disney characters, you know. Now they're both dead, but I didn't have anything to do with that. The white gloves should have been a sign of the afterlife. It should have been, yeah. Well, Joe, you say that you and your dad love a lot of the same things.

Did you have to watch The Shining in a friend's house or something? Or could you watch that at home? I saw, Dad took me to a screening of it before the film was theatrically released like a day or two before it. Or maybe it was the premiere night

when it opened in Bangor. And I was just like six or something. When I came out, I was gripping his hand and I said, I know, I know, I know, but it was the 70s. It was different. Yay, yeah, yeah. We're the same.

We're all the same. I mean, like, you know, and when I came out, I said, who wrote all the great dialogue? And my dad said, me. I just thought that was, that thought had never crossed my mind. That was kind of like this unbelievable realization, you know, that my dad was a guy who invented fictional people and then put them into terrible situations and stuff. Somehow I hadn't really realized his connection. connection to that material. Yeah.

I mean, I also saw we also watched Salem's lot together when I was way too young. What? Which one? Oh, the Salem's Lot, yeah. But, you know, Joe

played a part in Creep Show. You know, he was the little kid who stuck pins into the doll. And his father was kind of an abuser and beat him.

up. It wasn't on the screen, but it was off screen so that when he shows up, they had done makeup so that there were a couple of bruises on his face. And one night, the shooting wrapped late, and Joe said, could we get a hamburger? Could we, like, drive through McDonald's? And so we drove through McDonald's, and here's this little kid that's up at 11 o'clock at night, and he's got all these bruises all over his face. And the lady in the drive-through called the cops. That's so funny.

Because that all's like, is because of Creep Show, is Father's Day a thing in your home? Like, because of that, like, is there a, where's my cake? Like, is that, does that come from your own personal experience, Mr. King? Like, is that the, did you not receive your cake?

Well, yes. But, I didn't get my cake, but nobody came out of the grave, you know, brought me the cake. So, you know, that didn't happen. That was make-believe, okay, guys. I know, I know.

I know. I know. I thought you made documentaries. You're ruining my life, Mr. King. You're ruining my life. So you were also in Creep Show, the lonesome death of Jordy Varel. Now, your performance in that. Was that intentional or did you?

We won't even talk about that. Right. Stop. You're terrific. It's a terrific comic turn. I love that. Thank you. When I watched that the first time as a little kid, I got teary.

Oh, yeah. Because it was so sad what happened to what happened to Jody Varyl. Or you just teary-eyed because you were a better actor than your father. A lot of stuff. people will come up to me and autograph lines and say say meteor shit. Yeah, yeah, great.

Honestly, I just watched Sleepwalkers the other day and as a comedian, your commitment to that awful joke is it bombed on screen over and over again. I love a comedian that

really sticks by a bad joke, so I appreciate you, Mr. King. The mother and son relationship in sleep blockers, is that anything similar to what you experienced in real life? Oh, yeah, I was just like my home. Yeah, yeah. Did you, Mr. King, did you get with Tabitha to breed authors? The goal was for you guys to get together. Was this like a program that you was like a King-based program to install authors?

Let me just rephrase. I just want to remind you guys that I'm sitting here. Yeah, I just want to know. The question you just asked was, Steve, did you get together with your wife to breed? I don't want to give wherever that question is going. It's already gone someplace I don't want to think of it. It's science. We're talking about Southern Freud chicken here.

Yeah. But still, you know, the thing is my wife is a writer, and I met her in a poetry seminar. And so we come by it quite naturally. We're both writers, and she's as good as I am or better in some ways. So she's like, what, five Joe, five books, seven books? Yeah, I think six. Everyone in the family takes the manuscript to her first. Yeah.

You know, and I'll tell you a story about my mom. My third novel, Nosphorus, had a really bleak ending, dark and dark, ugly ending, you know where you know hopeless and I'm like and I'm not changing a word because I'm a fucking artist man I'm gonna keep the reader and just rub their face in the hopelessness and futility of life you know when I was dead set like I'm staying with it and the first person I sent the book to was mom and she blasted through and she called me up you know a week later and she said Joe I I finished the book and it's just so wonderful but that ending really won't do. And I said, okay, Mom, I'll change it.

So that's how long my artistic integrity held out. And, you know, the other thing about Mom, and I think it's given us everyone in the family's sort of tough skin when it comes to reviews and stuff, is she writes all the bad reviews first. When Ad finished it, she said, the critics are going to say you left off two letters. And when he finished Insomnia, she said,

oh, I can see the reviews already. Stephen King's insomnia cures it. We talked a lot about misery, too. She said, the critics will say the whole review is written in that one word, misery.

Well, I mean, was she the one who came up with the phrase, it sounds like it came up the phrase, kill your darlings? Because for me, that is one of the best pieces of writing advice that you've given is that, you know, kill your darlings. It's so difficult. Is there like a darling that you have, like something that you felt was just so beautiful but just

didn't quite fit that was, you know, that you had to kill that sits out in your mind? Going back to Tabby again, I wrote a book. It was published last year called Never Flinch. And there were three main stories in it. There was a dollar. dog napping, which I finally got in another book, which is forthcoming. And there was a serial killer, and there was a dope thing. And Tavie came to me and said, this dope thing has all been done before. You know, this is so fucking boring. I mean, I fought for it.

I fought for it. But in the end, she was right. She usually is. I've seen that a few times too. I've seen dad gnash his teeth for 48 hours because mom said something didn't work. But then he always makes the changes, you know?

You've really never, you've really always felt in the end that actually she was probably right and that was the right direction to take stuff in. So there's been a, there's been a 50-year collaboration of ideas there, you know. Yeah. Yeah, she changed. the whole ending of other worlds than these.

In fact, there was a point where I thought to myself, I would really like her to write a chapbook about all the subcharacteries in that book. But she said, you know, somehow you have to bring it back around to the kid that he was, you know, because Jack Sawyer starts in the, talisman all those years ago.

What a great opening that first bookhead to. The talisman is on the beach outside the rotting in. It's my favorite. It's one of my, the first times I ever cried in a book was reading the talisman when the I'm not, I'm not, you know, right? Yeah, yeah.

How do you feel like, because you've said this, like, you don't know what's going to happen. I'm like, you guys are both kind of said similar things where you don't quite know what's going to happen to the characters you create when you start to kind of go in a way. But when you write something like that, like in the talisman, when you kill somebody beloved, like, do you laugh? Like, do you laugh to yourself?

Like, are you like, ah, I got these fuckers? Or are you like, or are you sad? How twisted do you think I am? Sir, I think you might be. I don't laugh. Joe, do you think ahead? Do you know then characters are going to die? I mean, sometimes I know I'm working towards a big scene.

Sometimes I have like a set piece in my mind, and so I'm working towards that. A few characters died in the last one, King Sorrow. Yeah. And when one of them died, it took me by surprise. I didn't realize that was going to happen. And I felt a little bit shaken up by it. What's funny is when Ryan, my 22-year-old, read, the book, he said, oh, I knew that character was going to be the first one to die.

You really gave that one away way in advance. And I thought I did? Because I had no clue. Yeah. Fascinating. How far along in the writing career did you get when it was like that? Or is it a thing that you have to have? Like, the idea that you get to the point where the characters just live, where you create

the characters and they just live in your brain? Is that just natural? or is there a thing, or is there a craft in that way that you learn? I know you guys went to school, but it's like, how do you guys get to that point where you could just be like,

yeah, I don't know what the character's going to do. How do you write books? How write books? One of the things that, you know, when you talk about characters that died, a little boy died at the end of Kujo,

you know, in the novel, in the movie. Jesus, Oilers. I mean, Joe, the book is fucking 50 years old, almost. Go read Coojo. Anyway, the little boy

dies at the end of the book, but in the movie, he lives, but he got lit by the rabid dog, so I think he died horribly of rabies after the fade out. But, you know, the thing

is, when children, children die or adults die in books, that's one thing. Don't let a dog die. You know, I have heard more about that. I mean, Greg Stilson kicks a dog to death at the beginning of the dead zone. I've never heard the end of it. That's an automatic one-star off your good reads rating. I killed a cat in a story called Jackknife, and I have eaten so much shit about it.

online. You know? My mother's dog who I took in Tutsi, she actually passed away yesterday out of complete, you know, randomness. She was only 19 years old.

So, you know, why did they? She could almost buy a beer. Why do they go so young? But I, so we did a wonderful thing with her. We took her up and we put her up. We brought a body up a hill

and then, you know, we, we put her in the ground and there was a beautiful rock structure. on the ground. It was like some kind, it was just gorgeous, and then we were putting her in the ground, and it was thin soil, it was sour. And so I'm hoping when I get home,

she'll be there waiting for me. Dead Cemetery, yes. Go and go down that role. Now, I'm sorry, I don't think that's better. Is that your Judd Crandall? Sometimes. better. I hope that your routine doesn't depend on the quality of your impersonation. He was good at him. Yeah, that's right. He was great. He's unbelievable. But I have to ask about

Pet Cemetery because like you, I am a massive Ramones fan, massive, massive Ramones fan. And the story goes that it's been told that, you know, you invited them over to your house when, you know, before Pet Cemetery was being made. And D.D. Ramon took a copy of Pet Cemetery. disappeared for an hour and came back with the song fully written. Did it actually happen that way? No. Okay. How did it actually happen?

Yeah, I love getting past a musician's stories. I said, would they write, you know, my idea was that they would do the soundtrack for Pet Cemetery, and that didn't fly, but they did do that song. I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery. And that was what you talk about a great line. Burying a cemetery. I don't want to live my life again. That's such a sad little, sad little, you know.

But every lanky nerd boy knows that feeling. They're all just like, I don't want to go through junior high again. That's what it's about. You just get a whole album out of ACDC. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, they did the whole soundtrack to maximum overdrive. I just saw that movie to prep for this.

Do you remember directing any of that, Mr. King? Yeah, I remember too much of it. Yeah. You know, the thing is, I didn't know. Dino said, hey, Stephen, this is Dino Dorentis. He said, hey, Stephen, I think what we want to do is make a movie, and you're going to direct it. Well, I'd never done anything before.

in film school or anything, I learned as I went along. I could actually do a pretty good job the next time. It was a blast. I have a lot of it because you have such a deep understanding of movies. Because you guys were both big media. You guys watch a lot of movies. When you guys are writing novels versus screen,

like, are screenplays, like, easier than a novel? Or is it like, because sometimes you're, retrofitting from one of your other previous works? Like, what's the hardest thing that you do? What's the thing besides getting up in the goddamn morning? I mean, going to the dentist, I think. Yeah. Or probably having a proctological exam.

Those are, I mean. Is it easier to write scripts or books? Which one is? I mean, books, I'd want to write books any day of the week over writing screenplays. But I do write screenplays because that's how I get my health care. So I try to write at least one script every year. You know, but you've had a lot, you've done a lot more in that space. You've written whole TV shows, you know, like not just like the pilot or something,

but like every, literally every episode. I think you wrote every episode of Golden Years. You wrote every episode of Lecy's story. You wrote every episode of Storm of the Century. But does it suck to go from being able to be lord and creator in your own world of writing a novel to like having to go talk to a bunch of suits at a building and trying to tell them what you're ideas or do you just you just not care? Or they just like, oh, whatever you want, Mr. King? No, I mean, it isn't that way, really, but what I do, because I have this wonderful cushion

that I don't have to write for the rent every month. And that's a big fucking deal, as you guys probably know. The thing is, I can write a script on spec. And sometimes, it works and sometimes it doesn't. I did a series of scripts for a show called Storm of the Century. And that's my favorite one.

Really, you know, that really turned out well. And because I had a good relationship with director, you know. It's also really glad, I'm glad to hear that the only fans is really working out for you guys. And then that that is really paying the bills and I just really

I think that that's really great for you guys. It's regular. I've noticed that you have the same director do your stories, you know, like multiple movies. Is there a certain director you think that understands your stories better than anyone else? Mike Flanagan. Yeah. Life of Chuck was awesome. He's good.

But who's the other guy? I want to say he's got like a name like Jack Holden or something or like maybe he directed the hitter. You're talking about. Jack Jack Bender Jack Bender with Jack Bender Thank you

you just saved us He's a lot of your stuff bad Jack Bender is terrific and he's somebody who can do things that are just wonderful on a low budget and

short time and he's fantastic at both of those things And it doesn't look phoned in. You know, that's great. Live from your grade. Well, speaking of, you know, things that you've written for the screen, like, one of the massive influence on me was the TV miniseries for the stand that, you know,

came back in 1994 like that. It blew my mind when I saw that when I was a kid. But, you know, with, you know, writing that and also, you know, writing the, the, novel, which is also, of course, incredible. When COVID came around in 2020, were you surprised by how people acted, or were you pretty much like, okay, this is what I expected to happen when a plague hits? Well, one thing that did happen is this is horrible to say, but the book went through the roof again.

Right. It's like that story like other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the plague? Well, I mean, we did a whole series in 2021 on the Black Plague, like the history of the Black Plague in Europe. And one of the things that really struck us was how similarly people acted back then, how they reacted to the Black Plague in medieval Europe, as people. reacted in, you know, 2020 to COVID. Do you think that people are basically the same always? In the days of the Black Plague, did they have, like, arrows in the supermarket so that people would only go one way?

Yeah, that was a huge thing. It was a huge thing. And they had it. It was a lot of Zooms. Yeah. A lot of Zoom calls, yeah. There's a Dutch researcher named Matthias Claussen who wrote one of the best nonfiction books about horror as a genre. It's called Why Horror Seduces.

And he's really the sharpest, you know, the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to, you know, talking about the genre. And he co-authored a now fairly famous paper that showed that horror fans dealt with COVID psychologically and emotionally. better than people who don't enjoy horror. You know, that if you're, if you consume a lot of horror films and read a lot of horror novels, that you, you absorb the emotional shock of the COVID years at a higher, at better. And, and like, to me, that makes sense because we've all read the stand. And so we've already got our action plan for when Captain Trips hits. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, have you guys seen backrooms? We're on our way. We're on our way to see it tonight. I'm very excited. I've seen plenty of the YouTube videos. We spoke to the boy himself.

We spoke to Kane. I came this close to going to see Obsession last night, but Gillian's got a sore throat, and I didn't want to dump the kids on her when she wasn't feeling while, so I stayed home. Obsession is amazing because obsession does a great, which is what I think you guys have just destroyed.

You guys have this ability to do, which is take a simple, idea, like a kind of like a flatter idea and then explode it out. Like Joe, I was just, you guys have an idea like it. There's a scene in an obsession where the girl smiles

for about 20 seconds. It's so good. She's so frightening. She makes hot. She's so frightening. I mean, so it just seems like you still keep up on pretty much every horror movie that

out still. There's so much good stuff out there right now, right? I mean... Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's so much like, I mean, Keith. Keith Rosson had that great novel, Cough and Moon last year. Nat Cassidy had when the wolf comes home.

That was incredible. Widows Bay is great. I love that movie, Weapons. Yes. Like, like, I feel thrilled by all this stuff, but also a little bit challenged and stressed out. Of course. I kind of got to step up my game to.

keep up with some of what's coming out now because there's just there's just so much great stuff well i honestly wonder if that's a question you even ask your your dad because like think about that like you you have changed formats too mr king you also do like you write some crime you write some drama and you're like obviously joe you're in the same way you got you go you go into fantasy you go into sci-fi you go into horror one of my favorite stories you ever wrote joe was the one where the guy's trapped on the cloud oh a loft yeah that shit scared the fucking shit out of me just because it's so simple. Like, how do you take an idea that might be, like,

because you say this, so it's like an idea might not work out. I listen to your anecdote about the ladies' room story you were working on Mr. King, where you talk about how you spend 90 pages, you never figured out what happened inside that fucking bathroom, right? When does the idea tip? How do you know when the idea is going to tip to become a novel versus I've just been a hundred dollars, I've just spent 100 pages doing nothing? Joe?

I mean, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I can, when I have a really great concept, I can usually write on that for a couple days. But if I don't have a great character after a couple days, there's got to be someone I give a shit about. You know, there's got to be a character who I want to spend a few weeks or a month or a couple years with. you know, someone who's got some stuff inside them that seems like it would be interesting to explore and whose way of interacting with trouble seems interesting and a little bit different. You know, if I can latch into a good character, I feel like I'm off and running. Then I, you know, then I'm really excited to see where the story goes.

When stories die on me, you know, usually there was a good concept there. There was some, it had a clever hook, but I just couldn't find anyone interesting to write about it. It seemed to, you know. I don't know. What about you, Dad? I mean, you know, what, I mean. I start with an idea, something that's interesting to me. Sometimes it's just an image.

But it has to connect with something else. I mean, it's like an engine without a transmission. It's got to be two parts, you know. It's got to be an idea. And then it's got to be some nuts and bolts that connect. it all together. And then, man, I just go, and I hope that everything's going to turn out pretty good in the end. You know, it's like shooting off an intercontinental ballistic missile. If the warhead is big enough, it doesn't matter if you really hit exactly the spot.

Yeah, yeah. Because everything blows up in the end. So I just try to do the best I can. And, you know, you've got to try to be honest with the characters and you can't you can't bullshit you know like say oh guess what it was all a dream

I hate that I hate it shit doesn't work you know like like the other thing though is like dad's first drafts are so clean you know he he I came across something I was cleaning out the basement

I came across an old entertainment weekly where he had written a book review for Entertainment Weekly but he had written it. He was in New York at the time, and he wrote the review on a ruled yellow legal pad, longhand, and then had it sent over to the Entertainment Weekly offices by Courier. And Entertainment Weekly was so shocked to receive the manuscript that way that they actually printed the review, but they also printed a scan of his... That was the days before email.

I hear the wagon wheel. is there's no strikeout. There's no, every sentence is clean in first draft. There's no corrections or edits or anything. It was just, it was just this sort of perfect, you know, straight from, straight from your mind onto the page. And none of my copy ever reads that way. None of my copy is a demon. Maybe he's a demon.

And he needs to be exercised. I don't know, man. Because that scares me. Hearing you say that, Joe, scares me. Yeah. I certainly need exercise. size. I couldn't do that. Well, with something like that, like, when

you get back a manuscript, a review, or something like that, with no strike-throughs, you know, nobody is giving you any notes, do you ever ask yourself, like, is this good because it's good, or is this good because I'm Stephen King? No. Yeah. I always think that. And, you know, what I always think is, I'm going to send this manuscript into the publisher and they're going to call me up and say, Steve, this doesn't say anything. It's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have you ever had that feeling, Joe, that it's not good,

that it's... No. No, I always figure it's... I wrote it, so it must be pretty great. every word delicious yeah it's so nice to have that confidence i love it too i never doubt i'm just like everything i walk out of i go man i was fantastic i mean i fucking nailed it you know one of the things that excites me is the the audio version of uh other worlds and these uh lewis Pat Oswald is going to do the recording of that and this is a character

in the book who's a stand-up comedian who is kidnapped into this other world so I think that I can't wait for to hear that. Are you guys? Are you guys stand-up guys? Do you guys are you into stand-up? Do you guys are you into stand-up? Or do you have you go to comedy clubs?

Not really. I you know I had some of the you know, sounds so old-fashioned. I have some, like, comedy records. Oh, wow, yeah. I love my Milton Burrell. I was this in my old, my own.

That's some of my favorite. Burns and Allen. I am old enough to remember, Hello, Mother. Hello, Father. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But I like comedy. particularly I like lame jokes. I like jokes that make you go, oh, shit. You know, it's interesting to think that stand-up comedians are also writers. That they're, you know, that they spend time writing and they're building up material and that it is the same process as, you know, writing an essay or a short story or a piece of fiction. My dick is so small and does not work. My dick is so small.

By the way, basket full of heads. It was hilarious. Yeah. I had such a good time with that. And I got to, now, do you have to talk, do you talk to your dad about referencing Shawshank and Derry and stuff like that? Or does it all live in the same world? Or is that just you throwing an homage in there? Someone asked me about that online.

And I said, I just thought it was like, you know, dad and me go in the backyard to throw the ball around. Not that we ever really did that because I'm a, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. I'm not much of a baseball player. I like to watch it. Owen was the one. Owen's little league team went all the way to the playoffs. There's other balls. You know, you could, you can, you know.

We played games, and we did a whole bunch of shit, you know. We had great. We did frisbee. I guess we throw the frisbee around. So it's like that. So it's just, you know, I mean, we did have one thing when he was working on Dr. Sleep, and I was working on Nosferatu at some point we both realized. realized we were writing books about vampires that steal energy from people, steal their souls.

Basically, his antagonist and my antagonist operated along the same lines. And when you realize something like that is happening, there are two things you can do. You can either run from it and try to obscure the similarity, or you can run towards it and kind of embrace it. And just, I just think it's, yeah, it's just better to embrace it. So he stuck my bad guy in Dr. Sleep. He stuck Charlie Manx in Dr. Sleep. And I stuck the true knot in Nosferatu. That's awesome.

And it just seemed like sort of a way to, you know, acknowledge, you know, sort of acknowledge in passing that there was a similarity there. Yeah, was there like one horrible person that both of you met at the same time that made you think, like, I need to write something about energy vampires? There was a, I don't know. Let me guess. An editor or a publisher? Sure. I don't know, but, you know, I remarried in 2018 and my wife and I had twins, you know, and around about that time, dad wrote a story about a haunted pram. And I wrote a story about a haunted pram. I wrote one called the pram. And what was the one you wrote Rattlesnake? Rattlesnakes, was it called?

Yeah. You know, and, and neither of us knew what the other one was doing. And then we found out. And I remember saying, they're telling you, what are the odds that we both write, that the two of us would both write stories about, you know, haunted baby strollers at the same time. And she's pushing the baby stroller back and forth with one hand to keep the twins asleep. And she's like, what inspires you? I can't imagine. Where do you guys come up with this stuff? Where does it come from?

How scared are you two of cars? What is the deal? Yeah, what you guys boldly? That is the truth. In your work, there's a lot of scary cars. A lot of haunted cars. Trucks. Evil cars.

You know, the cars are part of our lives. You know, they're just everywhere. And you know that if you're going to get into an accident, a serious accident, it's probably going to be in a car. Yeah. Of course, I didn't have an accident while driving a car. I just had an accident while I was walking along the road and I got hit by a car. Yeah.

But, you know, they have... There's all before that. The cars were there before. Yeah. Cars are a part of our lives, you know, so that's it. I want somebody to do a good story about a good haunted GPS story. Haunted GPS story. Think about that, guys. Oh, yeah. It just keeps leading you to John Wayne Gasey's house. Yes.

Honestly, that's not a bad idea. It's obviously because it comes from Mr. Stephen King. That is pretty good, guys, that is pretty good. You know, every time, you know, you program the GPS and you think it's taking you one place, but it keeps taking you back to the same place and it's someplace you didn't want to go. There's something interesting there. That's not bad. Keep working on that.

I like writing about cars because it's like a shortcut to letting you know something about the character. Yeah. You know, because when you think about it, the biggest purchase a lot of people make in their lives is their automobile, you know, after the, and it, and, and it's such a reflection of, you know, the things you think are cool or will make you look cool or will meet a set of objectives. Cars are your personalities, right, Joe? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was the whole thing with, you know, with Christine, the car makes the man. And I, I loved Christine, but I, for some reason, I became obsessed for some reason with the, the insult shitters that was used.

I have to ask, man. Like, shitters. What's up with shitters? Because I... You're so good at coining a curse word. I remember that the best line in that movie was the guy says, I'm going to sell this shithole and buy a condo. I love that.

I love that. That was popping in this line. God. It's so good. A question. Now, in Full Dark No Stars, the story 1922, you guys wrote about, you wrote about Mr. King about a father and son hiding the body of... How long are you going to call me Mr. King? Mr. King.

Steve, Mr. Stephen. Stevie, baby. Mr. Stephen. Hey! Is that something that you guys want to do? Do you guys want... Very a body together? Yeah, is that something that you've ever thought, like, have you really thought about putting your strengths towards crime?

Uh, I'd be scared to go to jail. No, I'll get it all out in my, in my imagination. Yeah. Yeah. You don't think you'd do well in jail? You know, for a guy, I have to tell you, for a guy who writes fiction for a living two, I'm a terrible liar. I think I just confess, whatever it was, I wouldn't be able to, I wouldn't be able to get away with it.

I just, you know, I just blob everything the first time a police officer looked at me sideways. So, yeah. No. It's a shame. Best to leave the murders on the page. I understand. Likely story. Yeah, I've heard that before a thousand times.

You guys are also creators, because this is a part of why we had this, and I want to say thank you guys an incredible amount for doing this with us. Part of this was because it was about it's Father's Day, right? Father's Day is coming up. And you have created some of the scariest fathers that have ever existed, right? You guys have both together created some very scary fathers. who is your favorite father figure in media? Like if there's like a, there's a dad, like, we'll either look up to a dad or you don't want to be that guy. I said to my dad once when I was a young dad, I said, I just, I just wanted to be like Gregory Peck playing Atticus Fenton to kill a mockingbird.

And I'm just, I'm just so not able to rise to that level. And dad seemed very perplexed by that. And he said, Joe, you know Gregory Peck had a script. Did you tell scary stories to your children? Yeah, I did. I did, but I told them funny stories too, because I did funny to go to bed with, you know, a scary thought in mind.

I mean, a funny story would be, you know, Goldilocks and the three bears, but at the end, Goldilocks doesn't get away. She's eaten by the Bears. That is funny. It would be very funny to me. But you never threaten him with, like, Pennywise? You mean, like, you know, I'm made up Pennywise.

Like, Pennywise is right here. I got Pennywise, like, you know, Henry's dad used to say, like, I got Santa Claus's number. Did you ever say, I got Pennywise's number. I'm calling it. I'll call Pennywise. No, I mean, Pennywise. now is out there. He's not in my head anymore.

So, you know, I'm fine, you know, kind of like, fuck you, you know. And actually... He did used to say, when I was little, he would sometimes say,

if we were just being crazy and, you know, the house was in chaos and stuff, he'd say, hey, don't make me go put my ass kicking boots on. And I remember looking in the closet, try to find them. We were looking at, you know, at shoes and boots and, you know,

sort of speculating about which were the ass-kicking pair. He never did put them on. Joe did he come after me? I'm very ticklish, and he would go, seller-dweller. Bab, blah, blah. Oh, God, I remember. I know, no, no, no, no. I hated that.

My dad used to go, he used to, when he was, like, wanted to do this, We'd do this bit as a family where he'd go, you know what happens when I take my belt off? And the whole family goes, your pants fall down. And it was like a funny tape. Every time. But it was a subtle threat.

My father, the first horror movie ever saw was Silver Bullet. And my father used to torture me. He used to torture me. He had this like furry hand and he'd grab my baseball bat and he hit my window in the middle of the night with it and scare the shit out of me. So thanks. Yeah.

Oh, it's wonderful. So we had time for one more question. And this one, it's a little large, but it's kind of a question that I've been asking myself a lot lately. You know, Stephen, you know, you're one of the most prolific and influential cultural voices of the 20th century. But, you know, like, I'm not the only one that's noticed that American culture, we keep dipping back into the 20th century for our stories, for our music. for our movies. Like, do you think that, you know, like, as one of those voices, do you think over the last 20, 25 years

that American culture has become sort of stuck? And if it has, how do we get unstuck? Man, I don't really know because it's even like we have this thread, me and my two boys. And a lot of them are about music, for instance. music and movies and TV, all the cultural things that are, you know, kind of like pop culture. Yeah. And I don't follow a lot of what they say because I kind of like have lost the beat in some ways.

And I don't want to be one of those people who gets into their mid or late 70s and say, well, I'm hip. You know, it's like Donald Trump when he tries to dance, you know. Don't don't do that. I love seeing you dance, though. It is never seen you move like that. It's great to see it. Well, you know, there you go. But I don't think that we're culturally stuck.

We were just talking about, I mean, you know, and especially in the genre horror, we just had backrooms and obsession open up, you know, to enormous, you know, and they're new and they're being directed by 20-somethings, and, you know, and there's, you know, there are all these, you know, terrific, there's been just, you know, an avalanche of great books in the genre,

written at a really high level, you know? But that opens up another, another interesting question is that, like, it's, I do agree that, like, horror is, you know, across media is where, like, all the best comic books coming out right now, horror, the best movie. the best TV, like, it's all, like, horror seems to be the one thing that's doing new stuff.

Why is it that seems like the 21st century has chosen horror? Because it's a scary time to be a lot of, I think, in a lot of ways, because the media, you know, to get clicks, you want to get something that's really horrible. Joe, do you agree? I mean... Yeah, I mean, it's like in the 50s when the world. all those great horror movies about nuclear war, you know, about like giant ants being created by, you know, the nuclear test blast and stuff like that. You know, people have these feelings.

I mean, maybe it's cathartic to go scream in the dark, you know, especially when when the times are really stressful and, you know, you can go to a movie and sort of let it out. Yeah. And, you know, audiences go to two movies. This is the great thing about movies when they really work. You know, somebody screamed behind me in back rooms last night. That was really good. And it just, it brings you together, you know. You can laugh together like in a comedy. You remember three amigos, Joe, how much fun we had at that.

Yeah, I remember Martin, Martin Shorts on the exercise machine. Amigo Montoya, it's time for you to die. What does that mean? Princess Bride, which was so great. I mean, the thing about the thing about the horror film, you know, going to a horror film is we're so politically divided these days. But when we're in the dark and something, there's a really good scare. Nothing brings everyone together like that because we're all frightened together at the same time. That's powerful.

Yeah. Also, I'll say you guys, you said something, Joe, about your dad's work. And I'll say it about yours too, where you tell you about how people saying, oh, the work's so frightening. and you said something along the lines of like, my dad's work's about bravery. It's about standing up to things despite insurmountable challenges. And I actually think that

what we're finding ourselves now is almost like we sci-fied our way in 80s dystopia sci-fi, we sort of sci-fied our way into this reality, and now it's up to sort of like us to create the next version of the future, which seems, which we need a hero, and we need the works of you guys because you're making heroes and putting them into the world

when you write what you do. You do put heroes in real. That's a beautiful thing. Yeah, you said it will. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.

This has been a true honor and just a lot of fun. And thanks for let me talk about shitters for a second. Yeah. And remember, next time you see me, none of that Mr. King's shit, I'm Steve. Yeah, Steve. You got it, Steve. You got it, Steve. Right from your blade.

And how wonderful was that? Oh, man. I hope it was okay. I hope so. I'm still, I still am scared. Yeah. Should we do a bonner check? No.

If you're watching this on Netflix, you can obviously see we're all wearing different clothes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. It is a different day, but he deserved an outro. I came. Yes. I'd already come. It was right after I shirked off real hard my card in the parking lot. Just thinking about how I got to look at him.

Yeah. You hear that, Steve? Henry Cape! I'm looking at you when I go. Oh, man. Oh, wow. Can't believe we got him to do the obsession face. Well, we actually didn't even have to get him to do the obsession face.

He volunteered. He wanted to. He wanted to so bad. I'm angry. I didn't see it at the time because I would have loved to have talked with him about obsession. And honestly, he did a great obsession. He really did.

Patreon.com slash last podcast on the left is where you can go to support us monetarily and get ad-free episodes. If you want to watch last podcast on the left, if you want to see that obsession face that Stephen King made, you can go watch us on Netflix.com. Is that how it goes? You know what? I think we watch it on TVs. I don't know why I felt compelled to put the dot com in there.

If you're sitting at your computer, you would have to write a that way. You would have to write it that way. Yeah, if you're at the bus station, you're on your phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've even your phone has an app. Yeah. And don't forget to follow us on all of the socials at LP on the left, TikTok and Instagram. That's where you can find us. And all the live shows we've got coming up. We've got Grand Rapids coming up. We've got Tulsa and Oklahoma City coming up. Those are on our website. Last Podcast on the left.com. The JK Ultra tour is winding up. Yeah. And we're working on like a live stream situation for one of those, right? Tulsa.

Yeah, yeah. So we can say that it will be live streams. We are working on it and we don't know how. Yeah. We're saying right now there. It's in the works, but we don't have any general information. And our manager told us to run with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if you are in that area, come see the show live. Come to actually check it out in person. If you have to see it on the live stream, that's great. But if you can see it live, make the drive. Make the drive from New Mexico. Make the drive from the panhandle. drive from anywhere. Seriously, get out of there.

Get out of the dust bowl. Leave the farmer's daughters alone. Let them have a break. Come to the big city, Tulsa. It's hot. Your air conditioner is in your car. Get in your car where it's cold and come to a show. I bet you'll find food closer to where the places in Tulsa than you will wherever you live.

Tulsa's got food. Tulsa's got all kinds of food. You want to go to Best Buy? Tulsa's got it. Yeah. You need any inoculations? Yeah. And if you drive.

to Tulsa, you can take I-40, you can stop at the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. They have a fantastic statue of Jesus holding an aborted baby. Wow, that is nice. How do you just have to find the largest man

to nail to it? And they have a replica of Jesus' tomb that you can go and sit in. Oh, I want to go. How do you like... You just wake up screaming. How do you like your aborted baby? I like mine sunny side.

up. Oh, see, I like mine rare, as in, I don't like them around. Whoa, in the toilet. I like mine bronzed. Permanent. It's bad on your teeth, but it's delicious. Well, enjoy, I hope you go enjoyed our interview with Stephen King. Thank you.

Bye.