How important is music to a show’s success? Just ask the creators of Netflix’s supernatural success story Stranger Things. An official teaser fo the fervently anticipated show has received approximately 2.6 million plays on YouTube since being uploaded by Netflix in early June. By contrast, a random video of the haunting, synth-heavy score posted a month later has now received almost just as many. Everyone from Tangerine Dream to Wiz Khalifa (138k and 1M plays respectively) has taken on the score that Austin’s relatively obscure, synth-obsessed four-piece S U R V I V E created after the show’s creators randomly stumbled across their cassette and vinyl releases a few years back. It’s too early to tell whether their score will end up rivaling the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween theme or Goblin’s one for Dario Argento Suspiria, but it has certainly reaffirmed our faith in the ability of a soundtrack to live on once the credits have rolled.
The two members of S U R V I V E who worked on Stranger Things, Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, definitely weren’t trying to replicate the success of Carpenter or Goblin. “Personally I haven’t listened to many soundtracks lately,” Kyle tells us over the phone. Actually he finds horror films themselves “kind of shitty” a lot of the time. And though he certainly appreciates those late-70s legends, he would prefer to talk about the 12″ vinyl recordings released under the AFX alter ego of wildly innovative electronic mastermind Aphex Twin. While Stranger Things wears its nostalgically 80s influences on its sleeve, S U R V I V E’s own synth-driven sounds are squarely of its time. Austin, though often called the Live Music Capital of the World, has a thriving synth scene driven heavily by Holodeck Records (which S U R V I V E co-founded) and epic modular synth haven Switched On (where Michael occasionally helps out). As the band officially releases its own album RR7349 today, we talked to the guys about their favorite remakes of the Stranger Things score, balancing scary with sentimental, and what fans can expect when the band kicks off a massive three-month tour today.
Austin has quite a vibrant experimental synth scene. Do you think there is anything unique about the city that has helped breed?
Kyle Dixon: Austin is the only place that I would ever want to live in Texas. I think a lot of other people feel the same way, so it attracts a lot of younger people. I think people living in Austin are willing to experiment. Not to say that people living in other cities aren’t open minded, because we have trends all over the states, but I think Austin tends to attract people who are looking for that kind of stuff.
You’ve been playing for over half a decade, including large festivals and tours with dancier synth acts like Com Truise. How has your music, and in particular your live shows, been received outside of Austin up until now?
Michael Stein: The people who come have always been really receptive and given us great feedback. It’s just a matter of how large the attendance is — who we can reach out to. This time around, we’ll have broken into a new market of people who will like it as well. It’s just a matter of them getting to hear the music. I have a pretty positive feeling about it.
Are there any IDM artists you’re particularly inspired by?
Kylie: We grew up listening to Aphex Twin and Rephlex Records and all that stuff. That’s what we grew up on — Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Warp Records.
Do you have a favorite Aphex Twin album?
Kyle: I really like all AFX Analord 12″s. But of course there are the classic albums like Windowlicker & Richard D. James.
Michael : And “The Tuss.”
Kyle : “The Tuss” is cool. I really like the new EP, Cheetah. It’s in the direction that I hoped he would go.
I was reading an interview with Rich Vreeland of Disasterpiece, who soundtracked the 2014 horror film It Follows. He was talked about how he wasn’t really a fan of horror films but would listen to the scores of Goblin and John Carpenter. Have you guys always been fans of the genre?
Kyle: The soundtracks are the main reason that I like the movies. A lot of the time they’re really just shitty, kind of cheesy movies, in my opinion. Some are better than others. Even a lot of the Argento stuff is a little cheesy, but the soundtracks are great.
Michael: I personally do enjoy the films. But I don’t usually consciously go into them thinking about wanting to make a horror-type song. It just kind of happens.
Was there any particular film that made you aware of a soundtrack’s ability to stand on its own rather than just fill a scene with weird ambient sounds?
Kyle: I really like the Tenebrae soundtrack.
Michael: When I heard the Pi soundtrack, which came out when I was about 15 years old, that was one of the first times that I thought the music did something. It came out, and I was like, “This is weird.” Now, obviously, I watch classics and stuff.
Tangerine Dream have been cited as a source of inspiration for the Stranger Things soundtrack. What was your reaction when you heard that had taken on your score?
Kyle: We were like, “What?” Who’s even into Tangerine Dream any more? There aren’t even any original members. But it’s cool, it’s flattering. I did some Kickstarter funding thing for a Tangerine Dream documentary. There are going to be holograms of Tangerine Dream playing live and stuff. It sounds pretty cool.
Michael: I got into them through academics, like the Berlin School [of electronic music] stuff, and that style of sequencing. Then I found all their scores, which were quite a bit different than that early minimal sequencing stuff.
Kyle: I found out about them through looking at old prog records and dark Italian psych stuff. I found out about them pretty late in the game actually, and realized that they had so many albums. They were a good band.
Have you heard any of the other covers? Even Wiz Khalifa has sampled the score. Do you have a favorite interpretation?
Kyle: I don’t think I have a favorite. I think our original version is pretty good. The Tangerine Dream one is probably the best one I’ve heard.
Michael: I like the one performed on “hardware synths.” That’s good [laughs].
Have you seen the Luke Million one? The now-viral video is pretty cool, it’s basically just showing off his insane synth collection.
Michael: The funky 80s one? It’s kinda goofy, but it’s pretty good. It’s funny because he got more plays on that than we have.
Kyle: It’s kind of weird to see that happen, you know I’ve never made a song then have 100 people remake it on a guitar or an accordion. It’s a weird experience. It’s entertaining — every time I see a new one I’ll listen to it, then it breaks into some grime or festival trap style. I want to hear somebody play a bassline version, that would be good. That would be an entertaining thing to hear.
Maybe you guys can do it for Stranger Things 2.
Michael: Yeah, when the kids start going to clubs. That will be weird, when the kids get old enough to start partying and go to college.
Soundtracking a spectrum of different moods for the soundtrack must have been very different to making a S U R V I V E studio album. How did you manage to encompass a wider range of emotions than just the dark scary stuff?
Michael: At home we’ve always made a lot of music that ventures into all those realms, but there was no outlet for those kinds of emotions.
Kyle: S U R V I V E has an aesthetic and there’s a line that we will not cross with regards to how happy or sentimental something sounds.
Michael: We’ll delve in and try to sound as sentimental as possible without crossing a certain line. There might be a certain amount of reserve to the melodies, or we’ll try to keep them a little more sparse. We don’t go over the top in any way.
Kyle: It’s kind of a democracy, regarding what gets to come out. There’s four people who get to say, “No, I don’t like that part enough.”
Michel: [With the soundtrack] we did that with the two of us. It’s nice to have someone else to bounce ideas off of. We’d clear it between the two of us before submitting it.
You’re going on tour at the end of this month, and playing the Good Room in Brooklyn on Halloween. What can we expect from that show?
Michel: A bunch of Elevens running around.
Kyle: There will be a lot of people wearing Stranger Things-related costumes! That will be a good [show] to get pictures at.
At least not everyone will be a Pokemon.
Kyle: Yeah [laughs]. It didn’t even cross my mind until maybe a few weeks after the show came out. I was like, “Goodness gracious, Halloween is going to be so weird.” Just in general, I know there will be so many costumes that are Stranger Things-related.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Photography Dylan O’Connor