AIDAN: Is it like color, is it shapes?
GERARD: I think it gets more specific than that. It feels like visuals from a movie, like a scene.
AIDAN: Really?
GERARD: Yeah. It feels like, like- I think I’ve heard other musicians describe this too. But cinema could be a big source of inspiration for me.
AIDAN: Got it.
GERARD: You know, like, when we were recording The Kids From Yesterday, we had it on repeat - there’s this short, there’s an anthology film, I believe it’s called Spirits of the Dead, and one of those short films is called Toby Dammit, and it’s Terence Stamp playing this guy Toby Dammit. And we had it playing the entire time we were doing the song. It starts off - it’s Fellini, who shot it, so it’s moving through this airport and everythings very warm, and there’s this warm glow coming from outside. And it really just synced up with the music for me. It helped push us to finish that song. So if I’m seeing my own cinema in my own head, it’s also fueling the music.
AIDAN: Got it. That probably helps with the like, conceptualizing of the music.
GERARD: It does.
AIDAN: Is it fully formed for you, or are you developing the concept as you get each song?
GERARD: Developing them as I get each song. Like, sometimes I’ll have a concept early. Lotta times I’ll just write a piece of music, and then I will think about what that makes me feel, but also what happens. What it could be about. It could be something like Cronenberg’s The Fly, or like body horror. Occasionally I would write body horror into my Doom Patrol run, and I like body horror. I think it’s super interesting, and I like the idea of transforming, and metamorphosis, and things like that.
