What Riverdale and Austin Powers Have in Common (Besides Interesting Hair Choices)
Nick Spacek’s From & Inspired By talks movie and TV show soundtracks with the people who make ‘em.
Welcome to PodFodder, where I talk to the people behind podcasts about why they created their podcasts. Yeah. Cool. Let’s get into it.
Today’s PodFodder features Nick Spacek from From & Inspired By, a podcast where he talks to the people who make bomb-ass movie soundtracks come to life. From chatting with Matthew Sweet from the Austin Powers house band to discussing the creepy country tunes of Red State with Adam Lee, Spacek’s created a space for people like me who often get more attached to soundtracks than films and TV shows themselves.
You can check out From & Inspired here, subscribe here, and follow the podcast’s adventures on Twitter here.
So, let’s jump into it to find out more about the niche but strangely crowded world of film score podcasts, the brilliance of Fargo’s music, who ~the dream guest~ is, and more.
The Queue: You were told to think of this one beforehand. Describe your podcast in haiku form.
Nick Spacek: Talking movie tunes. With the people who make them. Soundtracks are our jam.
TQ: Where did you get the idea for your podcast?
NS: I’ve done different things; I’ve been a freelance writer for a good long while, and I wanted to do something that was based around my interests. I love soundtracks especially. I like film scores as well, but there are so many film score podcasts out there that I felt like I’d be jumping into a crowded market.
The idea I came up with was kind of stealing ideas from two other people: There’s the “I Was There Too Podcast” that Matt Gourley does where he talks to people who were present in scenes throughout film history, and then there’s Hrishikesh Hirway. His “Song Exploder” podcast breaks down the various elements of a song, and I like both of those ideas, so I thought I would like to talk to people who made songs for movies, or appeared in movies performing songs as well.
TQ: Slight pivot, why do you think there are so many film score podcasts?
NS: I think it’s finally gotten to the point where music podcasts have been a thing since the start. I mean, Curry from MTV was a VJ, and he’s the one who did the first podcast. I also think that with the recent rise over the last five or so years of record labels like Mondo, or Death Waltz, or Waxwork, there’s so [many] ways for people to relate to movies in a different way, so I think that has something to do with it. And that’s music that you can dissect, which I guess is related to what I do. The big question I always like to ask to people is “How does music change when it’s placed in a different visual context?” That’s a long-winded way of explaining it.
TQ: How do you find the people that you talk to? Is it more that you think of the movies you want to do, or soundtracks you really like in movies, and then try to find the people from there? Or do you know some of these people and think, “What are some movies you’ve worked on that I think are cool and have good soundtracks?”
NS: It’s kind of a combination of both. There are always people who have done music for lots of things. The two people that I have been trying to track down that are kind of my goals, the people I really want to talk to are E.G. Daily who did “Better Off Dead,” and was Dottie in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, and Rachel Sweet, who did all of the singing for John Waters’ Cry-Baby, and she’s also the one who did the theme for the original film version of Hairspray.
Those are just people that I know, and there’s always the folks who have recorded theme songs to movies and stuff like that. But I also work as a freelance music writer. I’m always trying to piggy-back off of other assignments to have content for the show.
TQ: How has the podcast changed over time, in terms of both formatting and the issues you talk about on the podcast?
NS: The first couple of episodes I would talk more about the soundtrack to the film in general, and then focus in on one thing. The first episode is about Caddyshack, and I talk about the whole soundtrack and the different songs that are on it, and then I talk with Paul Collins from the band The Beat about how they have a song on the soundtrack that’s not actually in the movie. Basically from the first episode I was already off-script, but I haven’t one-hundred percent stayed with the format.
I did an interview with the author of the book Life Moves Pretty Fast, which is about soundtracks. I have essentially a small library in my house, and I always enjoy reading books about film criticism and music criticism, and there’s so very few where the two join up, so whenever a new book comes out, I always want to try and hop on it and talk to an author. A couple of months ago I talked with Liz Prince and Amanda Kirk about a comic book that they have out now that’s called Coady and the Creepies, which is a comic book about a punk rock band, which just seemed to fit with the show.
Those are the ways I’ve sort of jumped off. I’ve talked to authors, I’ve talked film scores a couple times, but mostly I just send random emails. I’ll sit and watch TV or go through my record collection or go through the DVD shelves and just think, “I wonder who’s the most ridiculous person I could send stuff to and get a response from.” Getting to talk with Matthew Sweet — the fact that that came about and was able to go up the day before the 20th anniversary [of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery] — I can’t believe I made that happen.
TQ: Totally. I don’t know if you read the other blog posts on The Queue, but one of them is about Riverdale, the teen drama show, which I think has a genius soundtrack. They’ve also been genius in terms of really promoting it on Spotify — anything they’re doing they’re always like “We have a Spotify playlist of all these angsty teen songs, go listen!” Have you ever considered doing soundtracks for more iconic TV shows or TV shows with a strong soundtrack like Riverdale?
NS: There was an episode I did last year right after the season of Gotham ended where I talk with their music supervisor about lining up all of the music they had done for the first two seasons. Finding people involved in TV, because there are so many different people involved, is a little bit harder. But there are shows I’ve sent emails to, like the people from Riverdale, because that show hooked me hard.
TQ: [laughs] I know! That’s why I’m writing about it for all next season because I was like, this is the show. It’s the most bizarre thing. I was not expecting to like it, but here we are.
NS: Sitting on my table next to the couch here is actually the Riverdale Digest, which is actually a compilation of all the Archie comics that inspired the show.
TQ: I knew that was out there. I’ve watched every interview known to man online because I’m preparing my season two preview of the show, which is already 3,000 words and not even close to done.
I’m trying to think of other shows where I’ve thought, “Wow, what a soundtrack.” I think it’s really fascinating how MTV markets their shows, and how you always know what song is playing on any given show. There have been smaller bands that have kind of launched off of that over the years.
NS: The one that I would almost keel over and die if it were to happen is that I would love to talk to somebody who did the music on Fargo. I think the use of music in that show is brilliant, and they’ve gotten to record songs. The White Denim cover that they did for, I think, season two just blew my brain. I want to know how this came to be, why them, and why that song — I mean I know why that song, because it works perfectly.
TQ: Another weird show is Grey’s Anatomy. In all of their earlier seasons, there were songs that had been specially created. At the end of season five or six, the one where the two main characters Izzie and George are in this limbo world, there’s a song called “Off I Go” that I didn’t know was written just for that episode. That show’s been on for so long that you kind of assume they just find music for it. But they really gave so much thought, especially in the early seasons, to having original music that wasn’t just scores; they got popular bands to write songs for their show.
On the more logistical end, what have been some challenges for you in terms of the podcast?
NS: Maintaining audio quality. If it’s at all possible, I would really prefer to do [interviews] via Skype, just because the sound quality for the interviews sounds so much better. Due to the nature of the way things work, most of them are via phone, and I have the ability to record off of that. They turn out fairly well and I clean it up a little bit production-wise and get rid of some of the hiss, but it still doesn’t sound as good. Those are usually the ones that I try to break up more, just so you’re not listening to two people talk in a low-quality landline for 20 minutes straight.
That’s the other thing, I try to keep the shows right around half an hour. That’s purely a personal thing, where I know there are certain podcasts that I’ve stopped listening to just because I’m like, “Oh you drop twice a week and they’re an hour long. I don’t have that much time.”
TQ: I think of them almost being commute-length. If you have a 15-minute commute, you don’t want to have to spend four commutes-worth listening to an episode because you can’t keep up with that.
The last question I have is, where do you see the future of this podcast going? Will it always be a serious hobby for you, are you looking to do more with it, is it hopefully going to lead to something else?
NS: Ideally, I’m going to keep doing it for as long as I can, because it’s a lot of fun and it’s introduced me to a lot of other people with similar interests. It lets me talk [outside of] what I normally get to do in terms of writing about music and film. There is always the idea of how to get more listeners. I’ve got some friends who have a podcast network, and it seems that every time they add a show it reinforces all the other shows, so I’m looking into that as well.
I mean, I would love for this to lead to, obviously, work. There’d be nothing more fun than to get to do music supervision on a small indie film or something like that. That would be a nice result, but it’s not the goal. The goal is just to get guests that are interesting to talk to about films that I enjoy. If nothing else, I would like it to get to the point where I can get bigger guests. It’s strange, there are obviously people that at some point would be perfect for the show, but I am not Mark Maron. But the reason I do the podcast, the reason I do interviews, is that I just like to talk to the people who make the joy and find out interesting stories behind it. I get so much out of that that it’s a reward in and of itself.
Transcription provided by Shea Fitzpatrick.
