After a teeny tiny little break (completely unintentional), the show is back on the road. Joining me in this welcome back party is Tim Kasher. Tim is probably best known as the frontman for bands like Cursive and Good Life, but he also has a parallel career as a director and film composer, primarily scoring the films he’s directed. His latest is the film/score Who’s Watching. The film follows a stalker making a film about his victim and he’s also a bass player for a local metal band. As a result, we get score written from the stalker’s perspective (as if he made it) and healthy doses of underground, grimy metal. Totally up my alley. So we dig into those, our mutual love (and criticism) of metal, the reason (or lack thereof) for bringing Cursive together to write a new song for the film, and plenty more.
The abstract, conceptual nature of the music was particularly interesting to me. While I don’t want to spoil the interview or the film, Tim ended up making all of the music (both the band songs and the score) from the perspective of the main character, going into the head of this deranged stalker and writing the music as if they were one. It’s pretty cool, and adds a lot of immediacy and authenticity to the faux documentary we watch.
Two little warnings here: first, we got a lot of swearing in this one and not just in general, as the band within the film has a pretty explicit name. As a result, I haven’t edited any of that out. Second, each of us had some audio issues (my primary audio file ended up getting corrupted and was unusable), so it won’t sound quite as crisp as normal.
Tim’s score for Who’s Watching comes out on October 30 (a little horror just in time for Halloween), while much of his other music (solo and in his bands) is available on all major platforms, as is the film itself.
Have a listen to our conversation below or wherever you get your podcasts (including Spotify and Apple Podcasts). Enjoying these interviews? Show the love by subscribing and leaving a rating or review!