Song Exploder - John Carpenter - Halloween (Theme)

Episode Date: October 26, 2018

In 1978, John Carpenter wrote, directed, and scored the film Halloween. It was made on a $300,000 budget, and ended up grossing over $70 million, making it one of the most successful independent movies ever released. The main theme to the film became one of the most iconic pieces of cinematic music ever made. *Halloween *became a franchise with ten more Halloween films since the original. In 2018 a new Halloween film was released, directed by David Gordon Green. And for the first time since the first film, John Carpenter composed the score. That included remaking his theme song for the new film, this time with the help of his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies. In this episode, the three of them break down how they did it. songexploder.net/halloween

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. In 1978, John Carpenter wrote, directed, and scored the film, Halloween. It was made on a $300,000 budget and ended up grossing over $70 million, making it one of the most successful independent movies ever released. The main theme to the film became one of the most iconic pieces of cinematic music ever made. Halloween went on to become a franchise, with 10 more Hollywood. Halloween films since the original. In October 2018, a new Halloween film was released, directed by David Gordon Green,

and for the first time since the first film, John Carpenter composed the score. That included remaking his theme song for the new film, this time with the help of his son, Cody Carpenter, and his godson, Daniel Davies. In this episode, the three of them break down how they did it. First, a little history. Here's John Carpenter. Well, when we made Halloween back in 78, we'd have to be a lot of, we'd didn't have any money for a composer. So I always knew that I was going to be the composer.

We had three days at a recording studio, sound art studio in central LA. I knew I was going to do the main theme to Halloween. And I had that down pretty much. Everything else, I was going to fake it, just improvise it. So I had three days to do the score. Originally, I wrote with the piano. That was the easiest and simplest. But I didn't know how to use the synthesizers. at the studio. And so Dan Wyman, the synthesizer teacher at USC, he tuned everything up. So I would say to him, I want a rhythmic sound here

or I want something that sounded like violins. I didn't have to confront what would happen if he had a lot of money to hire a composer because we didn't. So I'll never know what I would have done. But everything worked pretty well. And I think I got all the melodies that I wanted. After the first movie, I never believed there was much of a story left to tell.

But the original people who held the rights decided, no, that's not a good idea. Let's keep making sequels. So I emotionally divorced myself from them long ago. And so John Carpenter wasn't involved with the sequels. But then cut to 2016. Well, I heard about another sequel to Halloween, and all of a sudden Jason Blum appears. that Jason is a high-powered, rather successful horror producer in Hollywood. And he said to me, well, they're going to make a sequel.

So why don't you and I work on it? And we can make it good or make it better. And I said, well, no one's really challenged me that way. So this is great. I'll do it. The first step in making the new Halloween was to find a director. Jason Blum started seeing who was out there, who was interested, and finally came up with David Gordon Green.

He and his partner, Danny McBride, had come up with the story. So they came over here to pitch me the story and see if I liked it. I thought it was terrific. And they said, well, will you do the music? And I said, yeah, I'll do it with my son and godson. The three of us have been putting out albums and we'll do it together. So that's how it all came about. I'm Cody Carpenter.

Conceptually, we wanted to not stray too far from how my dad did it in the original film. So we use a lot of similar sounds and instruments from the first score, but kind of updated and modernized. The piano was the first sound that we used, because that's kind of the main focus of the piece. I'm Daniel Davies. Something that John pointed out early on is that the purity of that piano is what makes it scary. And it was important to keep that. The piano from the new movie is clearer and brighter than the old sound. You need to have that piano, crisp, clear, and up front, and pure,

so that everything else can surround it and be the terrifying, bizarre elements of the piece. Daniel brought over a couple of synthesizers that we chose from. There are so many synths now that can come close to those original sounds. The Oberheim OB-6, part of what makes the original cool is that it's not done with a computer. so you have human error, which creates a certain charm. But now we get so wrapped up in making everything quantized and perfect. I like to try and steer things a little bit away from that. So we double track all the synths to make them sound bigger and different.

So we would do one pass and then do another pass, and it's just going to be slightly different. And then we put that together. I like stereo, and I wanted it to sound wide. in the theater. I think it's important to have that movement. Sound-wise, I think the most challenging is the percussion, and those original ticking sounds, finding a way to stay true to the original, but make it new.

So we use clock sounds, and then pitch those to then create that ticking. And then when you pan them hard left, then right, creates a phase, a chorus kind of effect. And then I'm hitting a box and detuning it and distorting it to create that kick that's in there. One of the most significant changes in the new score is that we use guitar on it. Daniel is a maister on the guitar.

He can make the guitar sound like other things and use it in other ways, inventive ways. We had just finished touring and we played the original Halloween theme many, many times. and we had our own arrangement that we played on tour. You know, we were so used to playing it live, and we're a five-piece rock-a-roll band, so we played it rock-a-roll.

So maybe that crept into the new soundtrack. Watching David's Halloween movie was just another film for me. That's just how I looked at it, and it made it fun to score. But it wasn't my movie. It's David's movie, and he did a terrific job with it. I'm very proud of the music, The way it sounds now is just so much further along than what I did back then.

But to me, the really incredible part is working with Cody and Daniel. I'm most proud and I'm most emotionally connected with the journey with these two guys, and the journey was just a blast. And now here's John Carpenter's theme to Halloween, the 2018 version, in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.comnet to learn more about John Carpenter, and the Halloween franchise, including the 2018 film featuring the new theme. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out of full length,

and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship. relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists,

including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each. each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings,

John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's song, Exploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode was produced and edited by me, along with Christian Coons, with help from Nick Song. Carlos Lerma made the art for this episode, which you can see at songexploader.net. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of fiercely independent podcasts.

You can learn about all of our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you want a SongExploder t-shirt for yourself or your favorite creative listener, go to songexploader.net slash merch. You can also find Song Exploder on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder. My name is Rishi Kesh, your way. Thanks for listening.