There are few musical themes as pervasive in popular culture as John Carpenter’s main theme for his own film, Halloween (1978). A simple ten note refrain, which plays over the film’s opening titles, manages to cut to the heart of the menace and horror inflicted by the film’s antagonist, the knife-wielding slasher Michael Myers. In a few notes, Carpenter soundtracked a thousand nightmares. Regularly composing the music for his own films, such as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Christine (1983), and Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Carpenter had no formal musical training. In his own words, a lack of money saw him become his own composer. But while films like Halloween and The Fog (1980) led to Carpenter becoming a pioneer of horror cinema, it was his scores for these films, with their moody and unsettling synth sound, that equally made him a hugely influential name in music.

Carpenter hasn’t directed a feature film since 2010’s The Ward, but his musical output has been prolific. Beginning in 2015, Carpenter, along with his son Cody and godson Daniel Davies, has produced four albums of improvised synth music under the title Lost Themes. His latest album, Lost Themes IV: Noir was released in May 2024 and was partly inspired by the themes of classic 1940s noir films. The Lost Themes series has found a huge fan in another horror music icon, Claudio Simonetti. Simonetti, who was a founding member of the pioneering prog rock band Goblin, is best known for scoring the majority of Dario Argento’s films, including Deep Red (1975), Suspiria (1977) and Tenebrae (1982). An equally trailblazing horror composer, Simonetti’s scores are thumping and bonkers, but have a shared distinction with Carpenter’s scores in establishing the synth as the trademark sound of horror.

Claudio Simonetti: Hey John!
John Carpenter: Claudio, you’re looking younger all the time. [Claudio laughs]. Are you in Rome?

CS: Yeah, in Rome. Are you in LA?
JC: Oh yeah. Hollywood Hills my friend.

CS: Great. I was in LA a month ago.
JC: Oh really? What was going on?

CS: I did a concert, I played Dawn of the Dead live for the first time. Maybe next September or October I will be back in LA. I will meet Cody [John Carpenter’s son and musical partner] in Japan next month.
JC: Are you going to meet him there? Great!

CS: You know, I met him for the first time when he was fifteen-years-old, with Adrienne Barbeau [his mother] in Brussels.
JC: I know, he was enthralled with Goblin and your music.

CS: I saw you choosing my records on What’s In My Bag [Amoeba Music’s series featuring artists sharing their favourite records], thank you so much, I was really honoured.
JC: Look, I’ve stolen from you for many years.

CS: And me from you! I love your music. I love your films. Maybe you are a complete man because you are a director and a musician, not many directors play music.
JC: That’s true. Directors really don’t know about music. They don’t know how to talk about it. How did you start making music?

CS: My father was a very famous composer. I was born in Brazil and lived there until I was eleven-years-old. My father was very popular in Brazil and then he returned to Italy where he was a very famous musician and a TV entertainer. I grew up with music all my life. How did you start with music?
JC: I grew up in a household filled with music. My dad was a music teacher and he played the violin. When I was eight-years-old he started teaching me the violin and then I went from there to keyboards, to guitar. I played in a band when I was a kid, you know, the typical American path. But I ended up going to film school because that was my love.

CS: So it was music before the movies?
JC: Yes, I went to the movies all the time but it was the soundtracks that I listened to very carefully. I grew up with all these amazing soundtracks. Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann, just amazing composers. One of the biggest influences on me was a movie called Forbidden Planet. The Barrons, Bebe and Louis, they did an electronic score, the first one [for a commercial film]. They used all this really primitive equipment and the score is amazing.

CS: Did they use a theremin? [Claudio does an impression of a theremin]
JC: I don’t know, I don’t know.

CS: Maybe it was War of the Worlds I remember, the Bernard Herrmann.
JC: The Day the Earth Stood Still?

CS: Exactly! The Day the Earth Stood Still!
JC: That became synonymous with science fiction in the 1950s, the theremin. You can’t really use it anymore because it brings a smile to everybody’s face the minute you hear it. But that’s how I started, you know, I was a film student, we had to make student films and we needed music. Well, we didn’t have any money to hire a composer. So what happens? I compose it. And that’s what happened when I got into making features. No money for music? Hey, John’ll do it.

“Well, we didn’t have any money to hire a composer. So what happens? I compose it.”

CS: Maybe if you had the money, you’d have never recorded your scores.
JC: That’s it. And that’s how Halloween’s score came about. Back in those days, I don’t know about you, I had like a day or three days to do the whole score. What was your first movie?

CS: My first movie was Deep Red.
JC: Oh, wow.

CS: I started with a band, Goblin, and we played this kind of gothic prog music. And Dario [Argento] was looking for a band. In the beginning, he had asked the producer for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Pink Floyd, but I think they were too expensive. So our producer said to Dario that maybe he would like us. Dario came into the studio where we were recording and he said, “OK, I like these guys.” So we started with Deep Red. It was incredible, I was 22 years old.
JC: Really!? Dario is my friend and I love him.

CS: I know, he told me a lot about you. It’s been about two years since I’ve talked to him. This year he’s 84 years old.
JC: Wow!

CS: He’s older than us.
JC: [laughs] The score that impressed me the most was Suspiria, of course. I can still hear it in my head every day. [John starts humming the main theme to Suspiria]

CS: You know that was my voice on the theme?
JC: Very good, very good.

CS: If you come to my show, I play a medley of Halloween and Tubular Bells together.
JC: Oh my god.

CS: I love Halloween, when I play it the audience becomes crazy. I will send you a video. When I play live, I always tell the audience these are my two favourite soundtracks. I know all of your stuff, I love every film.
JC: Thank you. I remember the movie that impressed me so much, Dario didn’t direct it, was it Demons?

CS: Demons, yes, that was by Lamberto Bava, the son of Mario Bava. But it was produced by Dario Argento.
JC: I love the score! I’ve listened to it over and over, I can’t tell you how many times.

CS: Yes, Demons was my first film without Goblin, just me. Actually, no, Phenomena was one year before. I went on tour with Demons in the States last year, where we played the score live during a screening of the film. I love Demons, it’s very funny.
JC: What do you listen to now?

CS: Oh, I don’t know, I listen to any kind of music, I don’t have a preference. Soundtracks, pop, dance music, I love dance music. What kind of music do you listen to?
JC: Same here. Everything. I say, in terms of soundtracks, my favourite composer, who’s not one of us, is Hans Zimmer.

CS: Ah, Hans Zimmer is a genius.
JC: Very, very good. Very nice man. He has a big studio out in the middle of nowhere, in Santa Monica I think. It’s an amazing place.

CS: He made one of the most important films of maybe the last fifteen or twenty years.
JC: What’s that? Pirates of the Caribbean?

CS: [both laugh] No, Gladiator is beautiful. But I love many others like James Horner and John Williams. Are you playing live again?
JC: Yeah, we’re thinking about it. We have a new album that’s stirred some interest in people and yeah, we may play again. I’m old now Claudio, I’m old. It’s harder.

CS: If you do this kind of music and films, you’re never old.
JC: That’s true, that’s absolutely true.

CS: And our music will survive, I hope forever.
JC: So how many people are in Goblin now?

CS: Now we are four. Actually, none of the original members. But the new band are exceptional.
JC: What happened to the original members?

CS: The co-founder, Massimo [Morante] passed away two years ago. The others are doing different things, they don’t play together, they play with other people. When I play live I play all the Goblin stuff but also music I wrote for different films without Goblin. The thing that surprised me is… [the new band members] are very young. They are big fans of this style of music, the prog music of the 70s. Many, many young people love our music and, it’s probably the same with you, when we play concerts we have people of different ages in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. I don’t know why young people love this vintage kind of music. Maybe because we have something different compared to the new musicians. We did something really different.
JC: Well, you did. I just copied you.

CS: We have to do something together sometime.
JC: I’d love to! That would be fun.

CS: People would love it!
JC: I think so. You said it was hot over there, are you experiencing a heatwave?

CS: The very hot weather started two days ago, but it has been cold and hot, cold and hot. Now today, I don’t know what it is in your degrees, let me check. [Claudio types off-screen] Today it is 95°.
JC: Oh wow that’s hot.

CS: But actually, I played in Austin a month ago and it was 95° as well.
JC: We’re going through a big heatwave in the United States now, it’s huge.

CS: In Los Angeles especially, no?
JC: Well, we are actually spared, it’s the rest of the country.

CS: I love California weather.
JC: Why don’t you come and live here?

CS: I would like to, maybe one day.
JC: OK, name me five of your favourite albums.

CS: Oh, wow. Of course, I’m very tied to my generation. I loved Keith Emerson, he was my hero. Tarkus is one of my favourite albums. But also In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson. Of course, many albums by The Beatles. But I only started to appreciate The Beatles after, not during the 60s, I preferred The Rolling Stones. But with time, I love The Beatles. Do you have five?
JC: Well, I too love The Beatles. So I would say, probably, Revolver. What’s the one with Norwegian Wood on it? I don’t remember, old age is here. I too love The Rolling Stones, I love The Doors, The Doors were especially great to me.

CS: I love Genesis and The Moody Blues, remember The Moody Blues?
JC: Oh, really well!

“I’m telling you, the sounds nowadays that you can get on a computer, it’s unbelievable.”

CS: They had a really beautiful sound, and they used a Mellotron. They had an album they made with an orchestra, it’s one of my favourites.
JC: Rubber Soul was the album I was thinking of. But soundtracks, I love soundtracks from the old days.

CS: There are so many soundtracks. My favourite films that I’ve written the soundtrack for are Deep Red and Suspiria, but I also love Dawn of the Dead. Of course, I love Halloween. You know, you don’t play many notes but it works for your films. You have a minimalist sound. I love it very much. It’s not easy because many musicians like to use a lot of instruments, but you find the simplest way and all your soundtracks remain in your mind.
JC: The reason why they’re minimalist is simple — I had no money! I don’t have great chops, so I’m barely able to keep up. I can’t play the Halloween theme anymore, my son has to do it, it’s too hard. When you play live, let’s say you’re playing Suspiria, what instruments do you guys use?

“I went to the movies all the time but it was the soundtracks that I listened to very carefully.”

CS: When I play my music I always try to keep the same original sounds, I don’t want to change anything. In Suspiria, the original arpeggio was made by the celesta, of course I don’t have the original celesta but I have many keyboards that imitate it. I play the church organ, the Hammond organ, of course with digital keyboards but I don’t change too much.
JC: Boy I’m telling you, the sounds nowadays that you can get on a computer, it’s unbelievable. I didn’t have that available to me when I was making music. I worked with my USC [University of Southern California] synthesiser teacher. He had a little studio and he had all these old-fashioned synths that you had to tune up. I would say to him “OK, give me a bass sound” and he’d tune it up, “Give me a string sound”, I was at the mercy of those old synths. Nowadays, you can sound like the BBC Orchestra. [John’s doorbell rings] Oh, there’s somebody coming in the door.

CS: Don’t open the door! [Both erupt with laughter]
JC: What do you use when you compose?

CS: I use Logic.
JC: Me too!

CS: It’s the best. And I mix with Pro Tools. I have a lot of instruments. I have a Moog, a Mellotron, a Hammond organ, but sometimes, of course, it’s more simple to use the plug-ins. For example, if you want to record the Hammond organ you have to set up the microphones and all that. In the beginning, if you remember, we didn’t have many instruments. I just had the Clavinet, the Hammond organ, the Fender Rhodes piano, the Minimoog. I bought my first Minimoog in 1971 and it cost a lot of money. I paid for it for many years. But we were able to do good music with not many instruments. Are you making a new film?
JC: I don’t know.

CS: We are waiting for a film!
JC: I’m so happy doing music and relaxing. Movies are stressful, Claudio, they’re stressful. They age you. It’s an unhappy, grim life. You have to be driven to do that.

CS: Now, I think the time is different, you know? I remember when you made a film or Dario made a film, people would be like, “Wow, a new John Carpenter film!” But now it’s different. People don’t care anymore.
JC: They don’t care. It’s a different world out there. I’m not sure I like that world. When you’re beginning to compose a song, do you write the notes out or how do you do it?

CS: I actually studied music in a conservatory in Rome. I studied composition, orchestration and piano. But, I prefer to record and play. I don’t write too much, I don’t like to write.
JC: See, you know what you’re doing, I don’t. I have no idea. Everything’s improvised and it’s on the spot. Turn on the recorder, play. That’s how I write.

CS: Sometimes I’m in front of the computer and I find a strange sound and I start composing with that sound. Today, that’s possible.Sometimes in my car I listen to your Lost Themes album.
JC: Yeah?

CS: I love it, I love it. Why did you call it Lost Themes, did you write them before?
JC: That’s the record company making that up. Cody and I improvised that first album and my music lawyer sent it in and I got a record deal. It came out of nowhere. But I’m going to ride it all the way to the end. We just had a new release, the fourth one, Noir. It’s kind of inspired by film noir, movies of the 40s and 50s, we’re having a great time doing them. We’re thinking about some new concerts later this year or early next year. I haven’t made my mind up yet. Are there any new directors you like?

“You should listen to some of the music generated by AI. They have Frank Sinatra singing Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

CS: You know, I see many films and I’ve seen some very well done films but actually, I don’t remember the names of the directors. [Both laugh] There are so many! Maybe you know better because you are a director, of course.
JC: Not necessarily. There are some directors who stand out but it’s just a different time, like you said. It’s a different era.

CS: Now the director is a different figure, it’s like a technician. For example, when you see a TV series on Netflix and every episode is in the same style, the same cut, but every episode has a different director.
JC: It’s going to be worse because of AI. Are you familiar with some of this stuff?

CS: Yeah, a little bit.
JC: You should listen to some of the music generated by AI. They have Frank Sinatra singing Smells Like Teen Spirit. It’s incredible. It sounds just like him. They have Johnny Cash singing Barbie. It’s really hard for me to tell the difference.

CS: I think that maybe this is the end.
JC: You think? Really?

CS: Yeah because everyone can do anything. If I want Dean Martin singing my song, I can have it. This also happened with the record cover. You go to AI and you can have a hundred different covers in five minutes.
JC: It’s unbelievable, it’s unreal. I’m astonished by it. Well, listen my friend, it’s great to talk to you. Let me know when you’re going to be in Los Angeles.

CS: I would be honoured to have you at my concert.