LIVE AGAIN with Philip Hernandez from Haunted Attraction Network

0:08 We're discussing Halloween music with that Halloween Podcast that's coming up on today's show from the hat Attraction Network. I'm Philip, and this is our sixty one day Hantathon where we're counting down to Halloween by celebrating haunted houses daily via videos, podcasts, and in person experiences. Since this podcast is only part of the Hantathon, the best way to follow everything is by subscribing to our newsletter or by going to our Hantathon twenty twenty three page at our website at Hantedattraction Network dot com. And remember that the best way you can support us to Solloween season is by sharing our Hantathon with someone you think we'll enjoy it. Okay, Today we're sharing an episode that actually aired on that Halloween Podcast Season three.

0:52 That Halloween Podcast Season three has been airing daily since October first, and we'll continue through Halloween. Each episode of this season reveals a song from that Halloween Podcast Halloween Spotify playlist, and then discusses that song with a special guest. I had the pleasure of being a special guest on season three, and we're sharing that episode with you today. Jeff and I discuss live Again, which is a song that was featured in Halloween Horror Nights Inside of the Bride of Frankenstein May's last Year. If you enjoy this episode, consider subscribing to That Halloween Podcast wherever podcasts are found, or at the link in our show notes. I'm Philip Hernandez from the Haunted Attraction Network and you're listening to that Halloween podcast. So you're looking for things that go bump in the night.

1:51 You celebrate the spooky season all year long. Enter if you dare, and good luck is escaping from that Halloween Podcast. Hey, folks, I'm Jeff to Paully, and welcome to that Halloween Podcast. Today in the show, we're discussing the musical selection Live Again, written for the Bride of Frankenstein Live's Haunted House at Universal Studios, Hollywood in twenty twenty one. If you haven't listened to this score yet, click on the first link in this episode's description to go to our specially curated Spotify playlist. Once there, give it a listen. Each day, a new song will be added to the playlist to correspond with that day's episode of the podcast. Joining me to discuss this music is Philip Hernandez. Philip is the founder and editor of the Haunted Attraction Network, the leading news resource for haunted attractions. Philip has published several books, including The Thirteen Commandments of Haunting and Follow the Story, The Foundation of Every Great Attraction, and has contributed to in Park Magazine, Sharp Productions, and Attractions Magazine. He also co hosts the weekly podcast Green Tagged Theme Park in thirty The Spooky fun is coming your way right after this. Have you been naughty this year? Well, then creep Kringle has some Halloween leftovers for you

3:24 this November seventeenth and eighteenth at creep It Real Festive, taking place in Orange County, California. This spooky Christmas crossover festival will unwrap live music, tons of sweet treats and food, along with doorbusting shopping opportunities at their Cryptsmiss marketplace. Visit Creepitreeloc dot com and follow them at creepit Reeloc for all of the ghoul Tide details. Hello Phil and welcome to that Halloween podcast. How you doing, my friend, I'm well, it's spooky season, there's pumpkin spice in the air, and I'm happy to be here. Yeah. Thanks for joining me. Today we're gonna be talking about the song live again. And the reason why I actually selected this one for you is because this song is associated with a haunted house, one of the most popular haunted houses from one of the most popular events, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios theme parks.

4:29 So why don't you explain to the folks real quickly your association with haunted houses. Yeah, so I founded the Haunted Trastion Network, and we're sort of a news agency that really covers hanta attractions worldwide. And of course every Halloween we do our haunt Athon, which is daily coverage of haunted houses, and it takes the form of videos, podcasts, and articles, and we just celebrate haunted houses daily from September first through Halloween. So we do a lot with honted houses. And of course I go to Universal on both coasts and this year also to Japan to see that. And of course I loved the Selesh Night when it came across me because I was like, Wow, I loved these houses. They were phenomenal houses. I just I loved especially the Bride of Frankenstein moments, you know, I just I loved it. I just I also I love how when you have haunted houses where there are characters that are sympathetic in them and not everybody is just out to get you mm hm, you know, because I totally I feel like I can relate to the to the Bride, like you know, I'm like, oh, that would be terrible if you're you're really you're like you're trying to bring your love, like you finally found love and you're trying to bring your love back to life. I'm like, yeah, So the story of this is this, Like I said, the song was called Live Again. It is from a haunted house called The Bride of Frankenstein Lives and Universal Studios Hollywood, the theme park there. They've been doing these kind of Universal Monsters houses for this current year would be the fifth installation. The first one was in twenty eighteen.

6:00 Of course, twenty twenty there was no event, so the Bride of Frankenstein Lives is actually from twenty twenty one, so it was the third installation. And I'm gonna be completely honest, one of my favorite haunted houses of all time at Halloween Hornet's Hollywood Loved. I agree, I agree, yeah, And the cool thing is it's a. It's an original storyline. It kind of begins where the original story ends, which is, you know, the bride is surviving an explosion and she finds the monster dead in rubble and he was the only one that was ever really nice to her and showed her kindness, so she decides to do whatever it takes to save him. And this song is from the first scene in that haunted house. And one of the really unique things about these Universal Monsters Haunted Houses at Universal Studios Hollywood is that the music is written by Slash from the band Guns N' Roses. He's been doing it since the first started in twenty eighteen. To be fair, I kind of had like Universal Monster representation throughout the event even before that, but these like standalone houses started in twenty eighteen. And it's interesting because a lot of haunted houses use pre recorded tracks, right. There are companies out there that write music for haunted houses. Some of them were actually talking about on the podcast this month. And it's different when your Universal Studios Hollywood and you have a megabudget compared to almost every other event, and you know, with a budget like that, you can get one of the most famous rock stars

7:32 in the world to write original scores for your houses, and that's kind of what's going on here. On that note, I think that is something that was, like you said, very unique about it. The custom music score. Now, it's not unheard of, I will say it's not unheard of. There are quite a few haunted attractions in at least in our country and I'm not sure about internationally, but in our country that do. The vast majority do not, But there are a few, you know, like of Trash has a custom soundtrack. Elej Haywright had won for a few years, remember that, you know, there's yeah, and this year, you know, Shaktoberfest has some not a custom one, but they have like a few custom song, like one custom song, and they have some like one liners that were developed to help with the story and help with the you know, the the nightly. So it's not unheard of, but I think especially in this instance where it's their own characters kind of like they're telling you know, they're expanding the cannon for one of their own characters, and they're able to bring that to the music score. I think that's what sets it apart.

8:33 Yeah, So do you happen to remember the first time you heard this music score, because for me, it was not at Halloween Hornit's I heard it along with a lot of other people a lot earlier. Do you happen to remember, I don't know if you were in the room or not. No, I was not in the room. Okay, No. Did they play it at the presentation at Midsummer Scream Awaken the Spirits in twenty twenty one. They were giving a full presentation about, you know, Halloween Hornites that year, and we got a sneak listen to this particular song, and I gotta tell you, I was in that room, and I remember in that moment being like, oh my god, this is like an epic score. And I really truly fell in love with it in that moment. And it's so difficult when a score is written for a haunted house, Like there's a lot going on. There's a lot of visuals, there's the music, but there's a lot of sound effects plus screams on top of that. So like the score can get lost, But at the same time, if it were missing, you would one hundred percent notice that it was missing. Yeah, So I'm kind of curious what were some of your first thoughts when you heard this and did you happen to revisit a walk through of the Haunted House and kind of here where it's place, because it's placed right at the beginning of this Haunted House. I did not encounter it until being there at the event itself, but I do remember it leaving an impression on me. I think we can get into this instruments later, but I think, you know, just kind of like the I think you said it exactly right. The epic and

10:05 nature of it is kind of what brought kind of But then again, when you think about it, if I remember correctly, you know the opening scene is like is it's an epics scene. I mean, just thinking about the storyline, Like you said, it starts right at the end, and so your first scene is like you know, you're you're seeing her, She's trying to move rubble off of the monster, and I mean it's a she is upset. I mean, it's really like it's a high emotion, high intensity grand scene. It's not like where some of them once today where you have this exposition build up, right. It starts in a high energy, high action, high everything, and I think that comes through in the score.

10:46 Of course, if there's high energy parts to it. But that's what I remember most is just being like, you're just it's so big of a start, which is unusual, you know for Hornet. It's because a lot of times I think you start with the facade of the house, or you start with this year with the Last of Us, where you start with jokes. You know, it's an ease in. You're eased into it. This one, You're like, you arrive at her point of trauma, right, and then you go from there. It almost there are scenes where it's almost down in energy because it's her, you know, through the decades. And that's another reason I actually really liked the how epic it is, because it's an epic story. This takes place over decades, and she's she's spending you know, like a decades putting together and trying to find a way to bring the monster back to life. So it becomes her quest. So I think it fits. Yeah, And we, as the guest, literally walk into the book. The facade of this this haunted house was a giant book, beautifully illustrated, and we walk into it and right away, like you said, it's just high intensity visuals and the score and this first song live again, we can totally get into the instruments. Now, you mentioned some of the instruments what stood out to you, so so to me the I think the three main things that set up to me, one is like I'm not sure at all what it is. You know, I'm not a musician, but I feel like I'm hearing this almost like electrical buzzing type of thing. Like

12:16 I know because I know in the opening scene there's lightning, and of course there's there's a storm and there' stuff happening. But I know also she tries to at some point resuscitate him just normally and then figure out, you know, is like that's not going to work. I need to find other creature parts to kind of help with all that. So I feel like I hear that as well, there's this buzzing that's happening. I love the violin that comes in and out that kind of just because to me, the violin is always a I love the violin. It's one of my favorite like instruments, and to me, it I think it very it's very poignant to include that because it does give to me that sad note of like this is still a tragic event. And then of course you get the you know, the classic slasher thing, you got the guitar, you get the really high energy like that that instrument to me, so I think that is the most apparent, you know that. I remember hearing that when I first came in. It just felt like my first impression really was of the guitar of being like, oh, this is like a huge almost like a rock It's so like just the tone of just being like, wow, this is so rock and so like ah. And then there's lightning and the like and the and the boulders and the and she's like screaming. I'm like, oh my god, like this is crazy. And then you hear later like you hear the notes of the violin, and you hear the electrical stuff. So I think that's what I picked out, what I noticed. Yeah, what I really love about this is that the music is very modern. Right. It's electric guitar, so it's a very electric, right. I think there's some synthesizer in there

13:48 and such, And there is the possible, you know, problem of telling an old story. These are old characters and they look very old, and adding in very modern music could feel out of place. But I don't think it does at all. I think it works a million percent. The sound that you were talking about I describe and I don't know exactly what made the sound, but it sounds like a grating metal to me or something like that, like kind of like you have a buzz saw and you're scraping it against metal and you're causing sparks to fly like. That's the sound to me, and I love that, and I think that's a great sound effect musical choice there. Of course, the electric guitar riffs from Slash feel very November Rain if you're familiar with the Guns n' Roses song November Rain, which is such a tragic, sad song. But you've got that in there, You've gotten organ sound in there, so you're bringing back some of that kind of older sound. It's a little EDM to me, do you think so? Yeah?

14:50 I agree, And actually I really like EDM and I agree. I didn't think of it till now, but I do agree it is very EDM. It's so such a Again, this is why you compose an original score, right, because how could you it's such a I think, a unique piece to get all these elements together and have it fit the story. So well, because you know you, like you said, it's all the electric guitar, electric moments, and that fits in with the monster and his creation, and you know, with her later trying to resuscitate him, and then you get the melancholy notes in there, but then you also get the the high energy like EDM portion. I mean it it you know, it's it's it's a, it's a. It'd be such a difficult song to find, you know, if you didn't, if you didn't compose it originally. And by the way, this is scene one, chapter one. There are other chapters to follow, all with their own musical scores, so it's it's kind of wild to think, you know, each scene has its own score, and of course they have similar feels to it. But I don't know, I really really really love this one. I'm curious if you had to describe this score just one word, what's the word that you would choose. I think I would. I would choose electric electric Okay, yeah, you know, even though that kind of leaves out the melancholic notes, but I think the overall vibe to me was electric. Like I remember, my main impression was being that it was so high energy, you know that it was just

16:22 so big and epic and just like an active emotion, you know, like because there's there's a way to be sad, you know, but this felt more like anguish mixed with type of thing. You know. It wasn't like, you know, she's like screaming it. It's so to me, it's just like it's electric. Ye, it's high energy. It's electrifying. That's what I say. For me, the word is grand. That's the word that comes to mind for me. It's just very grand. I think epic is fitting as well, but it's it's it's big, you know, it's big, and it's loud, and it's it just does the job. I really really love it. And I'm you know, I'm not particularly a Guns n' Roses fan by any means, but I I think that this kind of run of Slash writing the scores to these haunted houses is a real success and and you know, I love it, and I love that they're available.

17:11 Some of these scores are available on Spotify, as you can hear in the That Halloween Podcast playlist. So very very cool. Anything else you want to add, Actually, there's one thing I want to talk about that has nothing to do with the music, but it's a pet peeve. Okay. So in the original story, who is Frankenstein? The original story of Frankenstein is the person who creates the monster, Great Doctor Frankenstein, and so his creation is referred to as the monster or Frankenstein's Monster, right, So who the hell is the Bride of Frankenstein. It's the bride of Frankenstein's Monster. Yeah it is. Yeah, Yeah, drives me crazy anyway, just throwing that out there. It drives me nuts, just because I feel like that's such a like a thing, like, no, his name's not Frankenstein's Monster, you know, And and then they just completely negate that. And I'm not saying this haunted house created this problem. This is a problem long before that.

18:07 But I just the title the Bride of Frankenstein. Uh, you know, is is not consistent, which, if anybody knows me, that drives me crazy. Now, Phil, before you go, you need to answer the that Halloween Podcast season three rapid Fire questions. Are you ready? Yes, I'm ready? Okay. What is the scariest sounding instrument? Oh gosh, I think I forget which one it is, but the one that the strings the it's a string instrument that always has this dramatic it kind of sounds like when when you when you use it, it sounds like it's like discordic melody type of thing, like it's off kilter. Oh, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the name of it. I'll figure it out, but yeah, it's it's it's uh to me. Strings are always the string the string ones.

18:52 String instruments are always like the most speak just because they're like they can be so discordant, like you can pluck them in a discordant way. Yeah, I agree. I love stringed instruments, so they're beautiful. They're beautiful and scary. I love it. What's scarier in a horror movie? Music? Or silence? Silence? Say happy Halloween while doing your best impression of famous radio DJ Wolfman Jack, Oh my god, oh god, until tomorrow, Happy Halloween. Yeah ah wow. I didn't see much effort in that, but all right, I'll let it slide. If you were a famous spooky music radio DJ yourself, what would be your sign off slogan at the end of each show? Stay spooky, stay spooky. I like it. What is the greatest spooky sound effect, So the one I use. I use this one all the time when I make videos. I feel like people don't don't even notice it. Just I love like dislike, I love whispers, little whist and like scratches. Okay, and I will a lot of times I will just put them into like Instagram videos and just into some all sorts of stuff just to like add a little bit of like mystery, excellent instrumental jump scare in a movie. Love it or hate it? I love it like I love it? Cool name a famous person with an incredible evil laugh.

20:25 I just I'm just thinking about Elon Musk. That's all right, that's it's fair enough. What's creepier? Children singing slowly or clowns giggling? Oh, children singing slowly? For sure. If you were a scary rapper, what would your rapper name be? Probably like something like big Pumpkin, Big Pumpkin. I love that. That's fantastic. And finally, if there were one standalone musical Halloween anthem, what would it be? Oh God, and you're gonna make me you pick up? Oh gosh, God, I don't know. I feel like I don't love it, but I in terms of an anthem, I think thriller is like, oh my god. I mean, it's so ubiquitous, it's so, it's so, it's just so ubiquitous.

21:14 It is everywhere. Yeah, I would say that would have to be just in my o. I just maybe it's just my world. But I feel like you hear it and anywhere and anytime it comes up people think about Halloween. Yeah. Absolutely, Well, Phil, thank you so much for coming on the show, and Happy Halloween, Happy Halloween. I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. If you have, don't keep it to yourself. Tell all of your Halloween loving friends and shout about it on social media. This Halloween Party's invitation is open to everyone. Help other people find the show by leaving a five star rating and review wherever you listen. Now in your review, let me know it would be on the top of your Halloween music playlist.

21:56 I'd love to hear about some of your favorite songs. And also, don't forget to head over to depodcastnetwork dot com to claim your free Halloween gifts from Me to you. That's di As and demon e as an Evil podcastnetwork dot com. But now it's time to see if you can figure out tomorrow's music selection. Tomorrow's song was released in nineteen ninety eight and was written and performed by a music artist with deep ties to the dark, grotesque and macabre. But this artist has taken his love of horror beyond simply albums and has directed numerous horror films for the big screen. The answer will be revealed soon on our specially curated Spotify playlist, and of course I'll be discussing it with a special guest on tomorrow's episode of That Halloween Podcast, where we're discussing Halloween music every day of October. That's gonna do it for today, till next time, Happy Halloween. That Halloween Podcast is produced and hosted by Jeff de Paully Your Nightmares Come True. This podcast is part of the podcast Network.

23:15 Learn more about this show, plus find more quality and entertaining podcasts at depodcastnetwork dot com. That's d epodcast network dot com. Today's episode was produced and edited by me Philip Hernandez, with post production by David Swape and original music composed by Chris Thomas. We're counting down to Halloween with daily podcasts, videos and events in our sixty one day Hantathon. Follow along at the link in our show notes. Our Hantathon is made possible through generous support from Gantum, Lighty and Controls. Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with the world's smallest intelligent spotlights. See what you're missing with a free demo. Sign up at d'antum dot com slash demo. That's Gantum dot com slash demo. Our Hantathon team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily Luis Rua, Meghan Spells, Gavin Burns and omni Adventures, and our content partners for this year include Attractions Magazine, Creepy Kingdom, Freaks of Ajgen, hont Topic Radio, Kevin Heinbach News TV, Omniadventures, Scare Track, Sharp Productions, That Halloween Podcast, The Horror of Being, Emily The Scare Factor, and This Weekend with Nick Pelliochini. The best way you can support us this Halloween season is by sharing our Haunted On with someone you think we'll enjoy it, and to follow along to our Haunted On, sign up for our weekly newsletter at hant Attraction Network dot com. We'll catch you back here tomorrow and every day until Halloween until next time say scary, this is a haunted attraction network.