Horror-music maven grew up in a haunted house
Aliens, witches, demons and ghouls: Tyler Bates has written music for the best (and worst) of them.
If you shuddered during Dawn of the Dead or Halloween II, felt a chill watching the TV series Salem or listened to anything from the last two Marilyn Manson records, Bates is partly to blame for your PTSD.
The composer, who scored both Guardians of the Galaxy films and is behind the upcoming season of Fox’s The Exorcist II and Netflix’s The Punisher, is a master at making audiences feel uneasy — at least in the music he makes.
“I grew up in a haunted house, I swear,” he said recently from his hillside home studio in the San Fernando Valley. “It was more like a log cabin, in the woods in a rural area outside Chicago. Al Capone once lived there. People were probably murdered there. It’s where I grew up, which explains a lot.”
Bates, who’s worked on more than 70 films, went from a broke guitarist of the minimally successful alternative-rock band Pet in the 1990s to becoming a favourite in Hollywood among directors such as Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn. Whether it’s orchestral interludes, thrash metal guitar riffs or eerie electronic sounds, Bates conveys quietly dark then bombastic moods swings.
Listening to his scores, one might imagine Bates to be a madscientist sort, who works in a catacomb-like studio for weeks on end, weary of human contact, joy and daylight. Bates, however, appears to be the antithesis of the music he makes. He’s outgoing, works in a studio that’s flooded with sun, and is a congenial host when guests drop by.
“Sorry about the couch,” apologized Bates, 52, gesturing toward a beige sofa in his immaculate studio. “It used to be white. But Manson’s black, leave-in shampoo changed that. He practically lived on it while we were recording. He made it grey. That’s the Pale Emperor for you.”
Though traumatizing film and TV audiences is a full-time job, Bates co-wrote, produced and played on Manson’s last two albums — The Pale Emperor and Heaven Upside Down — as more or less a labour of love. Bates gets to dabble in a world he knows and loves by performing standalone rock music while Manson makes his comeback. He’ll appear with the singer in San Bernardino next weekend when Ozzfest rolls into town, maybe even smashing a guitar onstage (“it’s therapeutic,” he jokes).
Another comeback artist Bates has been devoting time to between his billion projects? David Hasselhoff. Yes, you read that correctly — the Knight Rider star who for reasons unexplained is a god in Germany. Bates met him while working on the Guardians soundtrack and plans to make a record with him for the sheer love of it.
“Sometimes, you’re fine-dining, sometimes you’re eating a doughnut,” says Bates of the variety of projects he tackles. “You just have to enjoy it all.”
The fine-dining is the top-dollar Hollywood franchise films, where millions are on the line. Bates is prolific and in demand. He has scored films such as John Wick, Atomic Blonde, 300 and Sucker Punch.
But whether it’s Manson on the once-white couch in Bate’s studio, or Hasselhoff, or a Hollywood director, the process is pretty much the same.
“I listen to what they have to say,” says Bates.”They can be talking about anything — problems with their girlfriend, for instance — and I’ll start scoring it in my mind as they’re talking.”
And in the process, a soundtrack — often spooky — is born.