May 14, 2024 • 45 mins
A deep dive into the process of creating the soundscapes and music of Hookergate. Host Lindsay Byron interviews her creative partner, Guy Kelly to discuss his inspiration and techniques.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey be warned.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The following behind the scenes interview contains major plot spoilers
of hooker Gate Season one. Yo, It's me your girl,
Lindsey Byron, and I am your host of hooker Gate.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am here with the second member of this two
man band, that is Guy Kelly. All of the music,
the soundscapes, the sound effects, this whole audio world that
has been created has been created by him. So today
(00:46):
I want you, dear listener, to get to know Guy
a little better. Very rare does anybody willing to be
roped into my artistic projects. But if there's ever any
who is willing to be riped into my artistic projects,
it's you, man.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I fucking love you. You're a great friend, and I just
respect the hell out of you. I mean that, dude, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
That means a lot to me. I've worked with a
lot of people creatively, and you are the easiest person
I've ever collaborated with. We're on the same creative wavelength.
And if this has been the most fun I've ever
had on any project, it's also been the most difficult
creative project of my life, of my career. But I
(01:33):
couldn't think of anybody better to do it with than.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
You dude, Thank you man, beast of a project Saga.
I'm going to get into some questions about your art
and your craft. Who are the top three influential musicians
on your own art?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
That's a really tough question because I like a lot
of different types of music and a lot of musicians.
But I can definitely pin down three top ones. One
is a band called Fugazi. I think you're probably familiar
with them. A lot of people aren't familiar with them,
but they were kind of the biggest punk rock band
(02:11):
in the nineties. In the time we all think of
his grunge and alternative, those were punk bands that were
getting signed up by the major labels, and the biggest
of those bands was Fugazi. But they refused to ever
sign a major label deal. They had their own record label.
They booked their all of their own tours. They were
pushing new ground. When you think of punk rock, you
(02:31):
often think of really fast, kind of, for lack of
a better term, dumb, you know, three chords. This is
not what they did. They had really complex music was
still that punk rock attitude. Second, I would definitely have
to say would be James Brown. His ability to just
you know, to make you dance was just incredible. And
(02:53):
my third top influence is a man named Dave Paho.
The band that he's most well known for is called
But what really influenced me was he started putting out
albums in the late nineties where he recorded all the
instruments by himself. He did drums, guitar, bass, vocals, everything
all by himself. And when I heard those one I
(03:14):
love the music, but it also inspired me to think, hey,
I can play different instruments, and it sort of led
me on the journey where I am now, where I
have this self contained solo music studio where I do
everything myself without him, and hearing what he could do
all by himself, I'm not sure if I ever would
have thought to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, you know, that's a great segue to what I
was going to ask next, because you know, I'm not
sure if people realize, but this whole podcast is a
two man band. You know, I'm the writer and the narrator,
but all of the music and sound, all of it,
all the instrumentation and the composition is being done.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
By you, dude.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
So my question is, how are you creating the music technically?
How much of the music is instrumental, and by that
I mean you know you're playing it on a guitar
or keyboards, and how much of it is digital, meaning
you're creating it on software on a computer.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Generally, if you're hearing a guitar on the podcast, I
have played that on a guitar. There's a few exceptions.
When I got into like the second and third episode,
and I realized I wasn't just going to be able
to reuse the same music for every episode. I was like,
this story is too complex. I wrote a ton of
music for the first episode, and then the second one comes,
I'm like, damn it, I need to write a bunch
(04:41):
more music like this is hard, And a couple episodes
in there was a part that I knew needed some guitar,
but I needed to get it done quick, and so
I did get a guitar like sample software because it
would be easier to plug it in and I didn't
have to set up microphones. I could do it late
at night or whatever. But generally, if you you're a
guitar on the podcast, I actually played that. Basically everything
(05:04):
else is a digital version of some sort. So I
have my studio at home, I have a computer, I
have a few microphones, I have like eight guitars, and
I have a digital drum set. But I have a
couple keyboards that are just MIDI controllers, And what that
means is they don't actually make sounds on their own.
They control the software that I use, and the software
(05:27):
that I have can basically I can pull up any
instrument that you could possibly think of. So when there's
a piano on there, I didn't record a physical piano,
but I played those parts. But the beauty of MIDI
is that I can record in the parts and then
I can change the notes around. Either if I make
a mistake or I need to do another part, I
(05:48):
can actually use a mouse and click in MIDI notes.
That makes it sound like I'm playing piano. A lot
of the textural sort of drony kind of stuff that
you might hear that was played with a keyboard, usually
while I'm listening to the words, so that I can
build when things are a little more tense or things
you need to get quieter, I can play off of
(06:10):
your words as I change the notes to help move
things a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So it's not just a simple cut and paste job.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
It is not a cut and paste job. I wish
it was, because that would be a lot faster. I
think some there are ways that I could have done that.
We have, you know, access to stock music libraries that
are vast and high quality, and some people do really
amazing work taking pre recorded music and fitting it to
(06:40):
podcast or videos or whatever. But that's not what we
wanted to do, and so to some extent I was
doing it the hard way, but it was very rewarding.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, I'm glad that you've done it the hard way.
I remember listeners may or may not be aware that
I have a previous podcast call strip Cast True Stories
from a Stripper with a PhD. And you listen to that,
and I remember you saying to me in the past,
(07:11):
these people are doing you a disservice because they're just
plunking down, yeah, backing tracks without any real engagement of
the narration or movement of the scenes or the story.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yet, how I always thought of my job was how
how are we telling the story? It's not just the mood,
it's not just background music. It's is what is the
music and the sounds doing to help you understand the story.
The music plays such an important part in tension and drama. Yes,
(07:49):
And if you don't line it up with what's going on,
it's meaningless. It's just background noise.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Sometimes even the music or sound reveals the plot.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, like action.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The more I have become accustomed to working with you,
the more I have started to step back and leave
sections where I do allow the sound to tell the story.
In the last episode, we end with our hero Rodney
(08:25):
is shot at and bullets fly over his head and
they explode the window, the big pane window that I
talk about a lot in his office. I wrote this
so many times and I just could not get that
pow like I wanted to end this episode on just bam.
(08:51):
But any way that I wrote and then the window
exploded just didn't give that crisp like slow app in
the face. And so what I've done with my script
for that is I'm going to allow the sound of
a gun, of a car speeding off of shattering glass,
(09:14):
and the listener is going to know what that is.
M Now, if I wrote that episode six months ago,
I wouldn't have even known that such a thing were
an option. To allow the sound to tell the story
in that way. You know, I've often wondered if I
could be a fly on the wall in this studio
of yours, what am I going to see?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
It would actually be really boring. It can be a
really long, tedious, frustrating process. And what I find when
I'm working on music, it sounds terrible until the very
end when it doesn't sound terrible. I can't imagine anyone
enjoying watching me do what I do. Sometimes I'm a
little bit in the zone, you know, and I'm listening,
(09:55):
and I've got the keyboard in front of me, and
I'm playing the notes to try to move things along.
But you know, I might re record a guitar line
fifteen times to get it right, or play a bunch
of wrong notes and got to move them around. I
always say, whenever I'm making music, it sounds awful up
until the point where it doesn't can relate.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, one hundred percent. Same with my writing. And when
I am writing these episodes, my process is to first
I just get the content down. By that, I mean
what needs to happen, Like I put bullet points. This
scene needs to convey that there's trouble in paradise in
this relationship, that there is domestic violence, et cetera, any
(10:41):
sort of plot points, and I just write that content
with no concern to style or poetry. And frankly, I
think that's where the majority of writers stop.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah. Yeah, It's an important part of the creative process
of not caring about what it's like. Yet you know, like,
that's so true. A carving of a statue has to
look like a bunch of chunky rock before it can
look like David.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It absolutely does all of the hours of unglamorous, ugly writing,
ugly music, chunky rock that you have to be willing
to do in order to ever get to the beautiful
thing at the end. And I think you will probably
(11:32):
agree with me in that even when you get that
beautiful thing that you're done, a couple months later, you
look at it and you're like, damn, I should have
left that out, I should have fixed this. It's still
not what I want it to be.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
It's the artist curse of never being satisfied with what
you've done.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
By the way, particularly considering the fact that you are
sitting there listening to my words and composing according to
my words. If I want to make major revisions, I'm
kind of fucking you, you know, And I'm sorry, okay,
And I try not to do much of that because
of that knowledge. And what that means is I have
(12:12):
to be willing to put out into the world some
things that aren't exactly as perfect as I would want
them to be. However, I do believe also that the
quest for absolute perfection is another barrier of entry, and
that trying to make something absolutely the way you want
(12:32):
will prevent you from making something at all absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, it's a constant battle. Where's the line between perfection
and getting it done? Yes? I could work on thirty
seconds of music for years and never get it right
or where I want it to be. And I can't
spend that kind of time if I actually want to
put something out in the world. But also, at the
(12:59):
same time, if it's not good, why would anyone listen
to it? Yes, we have to make it amazing, but
also have to let go sometimes of where we wanted
to be.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, by the way, put the pin down.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
By the way, you can send me re revisions anytime
I'll put in the work, I'll redo it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yes, thank you. I'm trying to go too hard with that.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
But there's a few things I'd like to change on
some earlier episodes.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
To that point, I have learned so much about this
that I think, should I just redo the first episode
because I didn't know what it was going to become
until we did it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I want to read it, and you know, in a.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Few maybe you're finding out here that we actually did
a second version of the first episode. That might be happening.
It sounds like, but you know, as as I create
figure things out how to build this world and how
to put things together, I'm like, you know, I should
have done this earlier, but I didn't know to do
(13:57):
it until we actually started creating it.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And thus is the nature of the Beast.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And that's the thing that'll kind of pish you off
because the first episode is so important. You know, you
got to get the people in, but the first episode
is when you are just learning to swim.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah you know.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, Okay, another question, can you recount for our listeners
the first time you ever heard about this project?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I do know that I got a text from you
and you're like, I want to do this with you,
and it was a link to the iHeart competition that
we entered and won. You just said that you had
a really amazing story and that you're going to call
me later and tell me about it. So I do
remember you calling me and we had a conversation, and
I immediately was just like, this is a pretty cool story,
(14:48):
and I could immediately hear the potential for it. And
I do remember very clearly you had a vision immediately
from the very first conversation. What you wanted it to
be is basically what we have done. You know, you said,
this isn't just a podcast. It's going to be like
a TV show or like a movie. There's going to
be sounds, you know. I want sound effects and original music,
(15:12):
a whole soundscape, a whole world built around this. And
I was so excited because it was exactly the kind
of project I have always wanted to do and that
I was looking for. And I was thrilled that you
were asking me to help you with it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I couldn't do it without you, man, And it's just
been a huge blessing to have you in my life,
to be to be available for these things. Listeners may
or may not know. You also designed my memoir. I
did cover and the inside. So we just keep finding
new ways to work together. And folks, do you want
us to release an album. L you know, I sing
(15:52):
a little bit. You know, we'll see.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
We have a couple unreleased tracks.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
We do some rap song angry man. We write them
shits at some dark times in our lives.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Boy. Okay, So guy, I recorded all of my vocals
for this podcast at home and then would send the raw,
unedited vocal recordings along with the script to you. What
was your process for taking these recordings and this script
and turning it into a full episode.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It was a really complex process, and like I kind
of mentioned before, I had to kind of figure it
all out on the fly. So I've never done a
full podcast before your most recent podcast, When We Could Touch.
I did the theme music for that, which was really fun,
(16:48):
but I didn't do any of the other episodes or
any of the editing. So this was my first time
doing a full on podcast episode, and for sure my
first time doing a full on scoring soundscape sort of
project like this. So what I would have to do.
There were basically three main jobs that I had. One
(17:08):
was as a composer, that's the one that I kind
of talk about the most. But there's also sound designer,
which is creating the soundscape. So the worlds and the
sound effects. And then there's the audio engineer aspect, which
is just assembling all of the pieces into a final
file that sounds good, which involves chopping up your vocals
(17:31):
that you sent because you would have directions to me
or you might mess up a little bit. Also, there's
just breaths and mouth clicks that I have to get
rid of. I have to process the audio because when
you record audio into a microphone, it actually doesn't sound
very good, so it needs a lot of processing so
that it sounds good when you listen to it on
your headphones. And those are all very distinct stages. And
(17:52):
what I realized is that I had to compartmentalize to
some extent, because when I would sit down and think
about everything that I had to do, it was so overwhelming.
I couldn't do anything. Yeah, So I would always start
with pulling up the track, just editing it down into
just the vocals that are going into it. What that
did also do is allow me to at least start
(18:13):
getting a sense of what's the story and what's going on.
From there, I would then start with the music next.
And that was a dance between chopping up your vocals
for pacing versus creating pacing with the music. So sometimes
I might move words here or there to speed things
(18:35):
up or slow them down to give room for the music.
Other times I would be fitting the music to the
words as they were, and it was just kind of
an interplay, you know, there was no real It wasn't
a science. That was just kind of had like, oh,
this part needs to speed up or slow down, or
I need to move this word or whatever. And you know,
so that was a long process that doesn't even include
(18:55):
the part of actually writing the music, which is kind
of a separate process of its own. And then the
last thing I would do is start doing the sound effects,
because that was kind of like the candy the courtroom
Ambiyonce all of that and that was always the last part.
And then after all of that's done, I have to
then adjust all of the levels. The music would be
(19:17):
too loud in one section to quite in another section.
That stomp right there was way too loud, you know,
got to turn that down. So then got to smooth
all of that out. That's more of the audio engineer
aspect of it, making it actually sound like a high
quality audio file in single piece.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, you knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And the candy that you refer to is really just
delightful and some of my favorite parts those sound effects
that you add in there, just sounds of, say, a
woman crying for the church was one of my favorite scenes.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That you created. Okay got most of.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Your experience as a musician has been in writing songs
in a band or as a solo artist. How different
is the process of writing the score to a podcast
compared to writing a traditional song.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It almost feels like a completely different discipline. I'm obviously
able to use my knowledge of music and a music production.
That skill that I've developed over time transfers the same.
But the biggest thing that was different and the hardest
thing to deal with, was that sometimes the music does
need to fall into the background. It can't get in
(20:32):
the way of the story. And when you're writing a song,
you want the listener to be engaged, you want the hooks,
you want it to be awesome all the time. I'm
looking for that energy. This was one thing I learned
when we did the pilot where there were certain times
where I had some people I think you might have
even said this too. It's like well, you know, the
music's a little too good. It's kind of distracting me.
(20:53):
I'm listening to the melody you've got in the background,
and I'm not listening to the words, and that's a problem,
you know. So with the way we built things, we
would introduce a new theme that needed to sound good
and needed to have a hook, but it also had
to be able to go into the background when it
was necessary. So all of the themes had to have
(21:16):
sort of repetitive, drony, kind of simpler parts so that
it could still give that feeling but not distract from
the words. That's the hardest part, is not distracting from
the story.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So on that note, I you know, when we first
started talking about this project, I told you write out
the gate that I had certain groupings of characters.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Let's say, for example, the Pimps.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I told you, hey, I would like for each of
these character categories to have a musical theme to help
the listener know when they hear this song, draw they know, okay,
here we are we're dealing with, say the pimps.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
How did you develop these themes?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
So it would always start with what's the mood and
the feeling of the different characters, you know. So the
Pim's theme, you know, I was like imagining that it
starts out with those that stomps. It's actually like fifteen
kick drums, but I kind of wanted it to sound
like footstomps, and then there's the claps it does, and
I was imagining some down home boys throwing back a
(22:24):
few beers and singing some songs together and stomping and
clapping together. We're having fun, you know, We're getting down
and dirty kind of guys. You know, that was sort
of what was in my mind what Originally I wrote
it as the Prostitute's theme, but I kind of more
think of it as Buckeye's theme, just very arpeggiated guitar.
It felt like that was something that needed something a
(22:46):
little more introspective, not necessarily innocent, but innocent adjacent if
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Well, we have to mention Rodney's theme. Yeah, yeah, So
can you tell us a little bit about that and
why you designed it the way you did the typewriter?
Oh yeah, yeah, that was such a brilliant move, dude.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
That was actually the first idea I had for anything.
I remember, right after we found out we won and
we were going to do a whole season. You called
me and we were talking and you were like, really,
driving home, we need themes for everything, for all the
different characters, or I'm going to jump around a lot
and everything, and you're telling me about Rodney. At this point,
(23:32):
you hadn't interviewed him yet, and so you were just
telling me about him, and you were like, this is
what he's going to be like, this is his character,
this is going to be like and he's so focused
on his journalism career. And I was like, ah, I
think I even told you on the phone that day.
I was like, you know what, I could make a
beat to start it off that's made out of typewriter samples.
(23:53):
A funny story, I actually found a mechanical typewriter on
Facebook marketplace and bought it for twenty five dollars so
that I could sample that and make a beat. But
then when it actually came down to it, I just
downloaded typewriter samples into the bub Well.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
It's effort, though a for effort, it sounds great.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And as a side note, Rodney is just the most
likable son of a bitch too.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I shouldn't even call him an sab I love that dude.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Interviewing him in real life loved him even more and
it was really a joy to center him. Yeah, so, guy,
which is your favorite of the themes?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Which one is the biggest banger?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I actually like Buckeye's theme is probably my favorite. As
far as a musical piece. The best banger, I think
is the Pimps theme.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
It's such a banger, dude.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
My favorite one, though, is actually Whitehead's Joe Whitehead's theme.
It's really simple, just those kind of dark slide guitar
lines and then the parts where I bring in the
piano at the And that was like a game time decision.
When I was doing the first episode, I had written
everything other than that, and at the very end, I
was like, you know what, what if I added some
(25:09):
dark piano here at the end. And when I was
done with it, it was one of those moments where
it's like it's terrible until it's not terrible. But I
was just like waving my hands in the air like, yes,
I did it. Yes, sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Okay, so listeners wouldn't know this, but I do.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You have a fine arts degree and most of your
career has been spent as a graphic designer. In fact,
that's why I enlisted you to design my book Too
Pretty to Be Good by Lucy Byron, available where all
books are sold. Dude, how has your experience as a
(25:48):
visual artist help prepare you for this project?
Speaker 3 (25:55):
One thing I learned pretty early on as I started
my career, I really learned the process of being creative professionally,
which is very different than just being an artist and
doing it for the love of it. This was the
biggest struggle I had when I first got out of
college is learning how to be creative on demand. It's
so difficult. In college, I would have like one project
(26:18):
and we'd have like three weeks to work on it,
and then you get into the workforce and they're like,
we need this today, or we need this two hundred
page book in two weeks or whatever the time is.
I eventually moved on to magazines, where I would literally
lay out one hundred page magazine in a week, so
there's no time to wait for inspiration. Like I have
(26:39):
to manufacture creativity and that's a really hard thing to do,
and it took me a really long time to do it.
But now I'm really good at that. And that was
the biggest benefit of all of those years working as
a professional creative, even those in graphic design. I know
how to make myself be creative. It may not be
great at first, as we've mentioned, but I can sit
(27:02):
down and get work done when I need to get
it done, whether it's design or music or whatever creative
enture it is, I know how to do that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Absolutely can relate.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And I think that's another barrier of entry for many
would be artists is so many people believe that they
have to wait for inspiration to strike.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, and inspiration striking is, you know, fairly rare.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
What you really need is discipline and you got to
sit down at that fucking desk and whether whatever mood
you're in, you got to make it happen.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah. If you're just making art or music just for
yourself and there's no stakes, you know, you don't care
if anyone ever hears it. You can wait for inspiration
and that makes you happy. That's great, But you know,
when you're doing something as a professional, can't You can't wait.
You have to manufacture that inspiration.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
So you know, in this podcast, bro, I'm presenting you
with any number of scenes, and I have my favorites
you know, for example, I really enjoy the diner mm hm,
the Edgewood Diner.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
What a vibe?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Oh yeah, Well, of course the court we see over
and over and by the way, season two that's about
to be very court room heavy because we're going into
the trial. With season two, we have a number of
scenes that the brothels, the truck stop brothels, which also
what a vibe. How are you envisioning these soundscapes?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
What is your process? What it always has to go
back to is a personal experience. Yes, sometime where I
have been in a situation that I can I feel
is similar to that. So courtroom, you know, my only
real experience, So the courtroom is about ten years ago.
(29:02):
I had to do jury duty once and I was
in a jury pool, didn't actually get selected for the
final jury. This was in Cincinnati, and you know, courtrooms
are going to look different everywhere, but this one that
I have a very vivid memory of. It was all wood.
There was no plush anywhere. The floors were wood, the
benches were wood, lots of creaking going on, very echoey,
(29:24):
and so that's kind of reflected in the courtroom scenes
that we have here. There's lots of reverb on the vocals.
It's really one of the few places where I made
all of the vocals have reverb on them because I
really wanted you to get a sense that you were
in that room. And then I just start thinking, how
do I communicate that you're in a room when the
(29:45):
talking is going on without being overwhelming, but get that across.
So you know, there's the obvious stuff like the gavel,
and then I started imagining, what else might you hear
while you're in a courtroom like that? So somebody leans
back in their seat, there's a little chain creek. I
don't know if you notice that, but there's chair creaking.
A lawyer's got to look through his notes, and so
there's some paper shuffling. Somebody off in the distance coughs yes,
(30:09):
or you know, those kinds of things to set the stage.
They usually start at the very first court scene would
usually start with some chatter, you know before like people
are talking, then there's the gavel, or like everybody's be
quiet because we're getting started on the trial again, those
kinds of things to build you into that world for
(30:29):
the For the diner, A lot of my memories go
back to my time growing up in Springfield, Kentucky, which
I often think is very similar to Danville. I've never
been to Danville, but the way you describe it, it
reminds me a lot of the town that I grew
up in. So there was a little diner that my
parents would take me to sometimes, and so I just
kind of imagine being there and just the general noise
(30:52):
that's going on of chatter and clinking dishes, spoons being
stirred in coffee, that kind of stuff. The church was
another fun one. I also I grew up going to
church a lot, and so that one also kind of
felt easy to do. And the truck stops I would
think about. There was a gas station right by the
Bluegrass Highway, which was just outside of Springfield, this really dusty,
(31:15):
gross gas station truck stop kind of place, and I
would think about that and like imagining, you know, the
light bulbs humming when they're walking outside of the truck stop.
It's gravel, because I imagined in the seventies in rural Virginia,
they're not going to have a paved parking lot in
their gas stations or truck stops. You know, those kinds
of personal memories that sort of led to the decisions
(31:38):
for how to develop the sounds.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
On that note. You've never been to Danville. By the way, folks,
if you rearrange the letters in Danville, it spells evil Land.
It's just one of the best little kernels of trivia
of my life.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I discovered that when I was a teenager and I've
carried it with.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Me ever since. Really, bro, what does Danville sound like
to you?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
The first word that comes to mind is twangy. The
main theme for the intro that we always do this
the cold open, but then there's the intro part. That
was the very first thing I ever wrote for Anything Like,
because the first thing we did was the trailer for
the competition. In order to even get selected to do
(32:29):
a pilot, we had to do a one minute trailer.
And the way you described everything, you use the phrase
dark bluegrass, and I know a lot about bluegrass, but
I've never played bluegrass before, but I know that there's
a lot of what's called hammer on and pull off.
That's sort of one of the techniques that sliding the fingers.
So that little first line I plucked the string once
(32:51):
and then some of the notes are just played by
my fingers pressing down and pulling off of the strings
by themselves, and that when you do that really fast,
gives that sort of twangy sound. And so that was
kind of the basis for everything after that, building off
of that vibe.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Once you dropped that first song, you know, when we
were the very early stages of this, straight away, I
was like, nailed it. I think that is such a
compelling and I dare say, catchy cold open.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I'm glad you say that because that was the point.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, it is, it is, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Lindsay just I don't know what the right word to say,
mouthed out that guitar line, right, she's saying that guitar
line there. One of my favorite things when I would
get Lindsay's vocals for each episode is that's whenever she
would finish with the cold open, she would do exactly that.
She'd go baron you and I it won. It was hilarious,
(33:50):
but it also made me feel really awesome. I was like, hey,
I actually wrote something that's kind of catchy there that
she likes and can remember and sing song it like that.
You know, so oh it's an earworm.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I mean I could hear it him asleep. You know,
all of the vocals of mine that you had to process.
I mean, my apologies and my gratitude. There's so many asides.
It is so much of me being like this fucking dog,
like I can't believe the lawnman is here. Yes, also
(34:25):
a lot of just direct instructions where I'm like, okay, guy,
I'm about to do this, and a lot of me going.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Start over.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
When I first started this project, I didn't I don't
know why. I didn't realize how much of my role
would involve acting.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, I've been a storyteller my whole life, but
I had to full on act.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I didn't even really think about that until an episode
or two in. I was just like, man, she's not
just the writer, she's not just the host. She's a
voice actor. And it caught me by prize too. But
that's absolutely such an important part of the process and
of what you do. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It was a trial by fire, my friend, because I
have no experience voice acting.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
But it's been fun.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Okay, Now, this is a question I really want to know, dude,
who is your favorite character from Hooker Gate.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
H That's a really tough question, but I I think
it's got to be Joe Whitehead. I've always been kind
of a you know, when I was a kid, I
liked Darth Vader. Yes, you know, I liked the Cobras
in the g I Joe's you know, like the bad
guys were kind of like, that's who I like more.
And I'm not like a bad dude, like I'm so
(35:45):
like rule following and straight laced, but I always kind
of gravitated towards the bad guys and their stories. I
think that's why I loved shows like you know, Breaking Bad,
where the main character was the villain, you know, which
has been so popular in the last couple of decades.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
You know, I wonder sometimes you're the only person right
now and I by the time you guys are listening
to this, you guys know this story, but at the
time of recording, Guy is the only other person who
knows this story, has any investment in these episodes, has
listened to any of it front to back. I mean,
(36:25):
not even my husband, not even I would say my
best friends, but Guy is one of my best friends.
Only you're the only one who knows these characters, who
knows the story. I have wondered, how do these people
come across to you, so, like, let me just ask you.
For example, if you were to describe Joe Whitehead to
(36:48):
a stranger, how would you describe this dude?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
I would say privileged to a fault would be one
of the biggest things. Someone who has never really had
to struggle in life and therefore has been able to
become kind of a shitty person because they come from
good stock and don't have to grow up. You know.
(37:13):
I think about certain people that I see who come
from a well to do family, and they might be
in their forties, fifties, sixties and are terrible people. And
I think that's somebody who when they were eleven or twelve,
never had anyone that was just like, no, you can't
do that. I'm not going to let you do that.
You don't get what you want. And when you don't
get that at that age, you never mature in to
(37:35):
an adult and you can become a maniac.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Absolutely, did any of the female characters stick out to you?
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Janet? Janet and Thomas's relationship was the one that resonated
with me the most. I wrote specific music for theirs
because it felt a little more intense and dreamy at times.
You know, if you can remember the acoustic guitar lines
and that are very ethereal, you know, so there is
(38:05):
guitar and that that's the that's the part that it's
actually a sampled digital guitar because it needed to be
very loose and that was going to it's going to
take me forever to record that physically. But that one,
that was kind of one of the moments where I
was like, I can't just reuse the buckeye theme as
I'm calling it now. I can't just use that over
top of this storyline. It's not going to fit. It
(38:28):
needs something slower and also that can build into something
more dramatic, which it often did, would start in one
way and then build into suspenseful parts.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
You know. I would mostly build those characters based on
the way they acted in court.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
And both of those women, Robin and Janet, just especially
Robin by the way, just had this.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Kind of fuck you attitude that I liked.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
And I have news clippings featuring photographs of Robin and
she's in court looking beautiful, by the way, with just
this fuck you grin. You know, it's like, I dare you,
and that woman shows up in my dreams, and I
(39:27):
wonder is she alive. I couldn't find her, and Robin's
not her real name. I couldn't find Janet either. But
if y'all are listening, I hope I did my best
to depict you in ways that depicted you as complex
human beings. If I miss the mark, I'm my deepest apologies.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Reach out.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
I would love to hear from you, guys. So, final
couple questions. Guy, if scoring this podcast could lead to
anywhere professionally or artistically, where would you want it to lead?
In a dream world the right person? Here's hooker Gate.
What happens for you?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Well, plan A is scoring the TV adaptation of hooker
Gate while you produce that. I think that's both of
our plan a. Yeah, but I have to say I
really enjoy the process of scoring. It's, like I said,
very different than writing songs, and I think I might
actually like it more. And so I would love to
do more of this, whether it's a podcast or film
(40:37):
or TV. I'm really planning to springboard this into further projects.
Anytime you've got one, I'm on board. I'm ready to go.
That's kind of what I think I'm going to focus
on is scoring and composition moving forward.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Hell yeah, I agree entirely with your plan A, and
I maybe buy. But I think that this story, and
indeed this podcast, the way that we have created it
from the jump, is just ripe for television adaptation for sure.
I mean, this whole time I've been writing it has
(41:17):
been visualizing scenes. Sometimes I think this story is like
if Breaking Bad took place in a truck stop brothels
in the Deep South, you know, like I just think
it is. I think the world is ready for this
(41:37):
kind of story.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
When I was doing my research prepping waiting for the
vocals to get started, you sent me some podcast references
and I listened to a bunch of those. But I
actually found that I started watching and analyzing the scores
of TV shows, and I started picking up that because
that really was more of the vibe we were going
for a TV show without the big you. I actually
(42:01):
picked up a lot of little tricks one thing I noticed,
and a lot of TV shows where they would at
the very end of a scene, you didn't realize it
was the end of the scene, but some different music
or some different sounds would start playing, And what that
actually was was the intro into the next scene, and
it's a way of leading you into it. And so
I actually did that in a few times where like
(42:22):
at the very end of a scene, the music starts
to drop out, there's a little bit of talking, and
then a little bit of music or a beat starts
coming in, and that's actually the beginning of the music
for the next scene as you're moving in.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And that's the kind of practically subliminal clues that most
listeners are not going to consciously pick up on, but
subconsciously it's getting them prepped for what's next.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah, And I actually I find that what I was
most interested in were the things you weren't going to notice,
the little swell of a frequency that comes up. I
did that in a few times where there's a frequency
that just goes up as there's a climax, and you
may not even hear it or notice it, but if
it wasn't there, it wouldn't have the same impact.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
But like this, really you're gonna feel it.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, yes, Okay, final question, who is Guy Kelly.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'm a dad, I'm
a husband. I'm a person who cares about the world
passionately and wants to try to do the right thing
most of the time, whatever that means. I think being
kind to people and helping them is the greatest thing
we can do, and I think that pretty much sums
(43:42):
me up.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Guy. It has been a pleasure talking with you as always.
But what I want to know is where can we
find more of your work?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Well, if you want to go to my website, Guy
Kelly dot com, that's g U y k E l
l y dot com, you can find links to a
lot of my music. I've produced a lot of music
over the years under different artist names that you can
find on streaming services. I've done a lot of design
work that you can see and can find links to
(44:15):
all my socials and everything there. That's a great place
to go. Be on the lookout. If you like the
music that you've heard in this podcast, you can find
a lot of that music on streaming services. We are
collaborating for a soundtrack album. If it's not there already,
it will be very soon, but you can definitely find
the links for that at Guy Kelly dot com and
(44:36):
you'll be able to listen anywhere where you stream music.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
So friends, thanks so much for listening for real. We
really appreciate your attention both to this episode and of
this whole podcast. Tune in next time when the homie
guy Kelly interviews yours truly and I try not to
incriminate the hell out of myself, which is one of
(45:07):
my bad habits.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Thank you,
Hey be warned.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The following behind the scenes interview contains major plot spoilers
of hooker Gate Season one. Yo, It's me your girl,
Lindsey Byron, and I am your host of hooker Gate.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am here with the second member of this two
man band, that is Guy Kelly. All of the music,
the soundscapes, the sound effects, this whole audio world that
has been created has been created by him. So today
(00:46):
I want you, dear listener, to get to know Guy
a little better. Very rare does anybody willing to be
roped into my artistic projects. But if there's ever any
who is willing to be riped into my artistic projects,
it's you, man.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I fucking love you. You're a great friend, and I just
respect the hell out of you. I mean that, dude, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
That means a lot to me. I've worked with a
lot of people creatively, and you are the easiest person
I've ever collaborated with. We're on the same creative wavelength.
And if this has been the most fun I've ever
had on any project, it's also been the most difficult
creative project of my life, of my career. But I
(01:33):
couldn't think of anybody better to do it with than.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
You dude, Thank you man, beast of a project Saga.
I'm going to get into some questions about your art
and your craft. Who are the top three influential musicians
on your own art?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
That's a really tough question because I like a lot
of different types of music and a lot of musicians.
But I can definitely pin down three top ones. One
is a band called Fugazi. I think you're probably familiar
with them. A lot of people aren't familiar with them,
but they were kind of the biggest punk rock band
(02:11):
in the nineties. In the time we all think of
his grunge and alternative, those were punk bands that were
getting signed up by the major labels, and the biggest
of those bands was Fugazi. But they refused to ever
sign a major label deal. They had their own record label.
They booked their all of their own tours. They were
pushing new ground. When you think of punk rock, you
(02:31):
often think of really fast, kind of, for lack of
a better term, dumb, you know, three chords. This is
not what they did. They had really complex music was
still that punk rock attitude. Second, I would definitely have
to say would be James Brown. His ability to just
you know, to make you dance was just incredible. And
(02:53):
my third top influence is a man named Dave Paho.
The band that he's most well known for is called
But what really influenced me was he started putting out
albums in the late nineties where he recorded all the
instruments by himself. He did drums, guitar, bass, vocals, everything
all by himself. And when I heard those one I
(03:14):
love the music, but it also inspired me to think, hey,
I can play different instruments, and it sort of led
me on the journey where I am now, where I
have this self contained solo music studio where I do
everything myself without him, and hearing what he could do
all by himself, I'm not sure if I ever would
have thought to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, you know, that's a great segue to what I
was going to ask next, because you know, I'm not
sure if people realize, but this whole podcast is a
two man band. You know, I'm the writer and the narrator,
but all of the music and sound, all of it,
all the instrumentation and the composition is being done.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
By you, dude.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
So my question is, how are you creating the music technically?
How much of the music is instrumental, and by that
I mean you know you're playing it on a guitar
or keyboards, and how much of it is digital, meaning
you're creating it on software on a computer.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Generally, if you're hearing a guitar on the podcast, I
have played that on a guitar. There's a few exceptions.
When I got into like the second and third episode,
and I realized I wasn't just going to be able
to reuse the same music for every episode. I was like,
this story is too complex. I wrote a ton of
music for the first episode, and then the second one comes,
I'm like, damn it, I need to write a bunch
(04:41):
more music like this is hard, And a couple episodes
in there was a part that I knew needed some guitar,
but I needed to get it done quick, and so
I did get a guitar like sample software because it
would be easier to plug it in and I didn't
have to set up microphones. I could do it late
at night or whatever. But generally, if you you're a
guitar on the podcast, I actually played that. Basically everything
(05:04):
else is a digital version of some sort. So I
have my studio at home, I have a computer, I
have a few microphones, I have like eight guitars, and
I have a digital drum set. But I have a
couple keyboards that are just MIDI controllers, And what that
means is they don't actually make sounds on their own.
They control the software that I use, and the software
(05:27):
that I have can basically I can pull up any
instrument that you could possibly think of. So when there's
a piano on there, I didn't record a physical piano,
but I played those parts. But the beauty of MIDI
is that I can record in the parts and then
I can change the notes around. Either if I make
a mistake or I need to do another part, I
(05:48):
can actually use a mouse and click in MIDI notes.
That makes it sound like I'm playing piano. A lot
of the textural sort of drony kind of stuff that
you might hear that was played with a keyboard, usually
while I'm listening to the words, so that I can
build when things are a little more tense or things
you need to get quieter, I can play off of
(06:10):
your words as I change the notes to help move
things a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So it's not just a simple cut and paste job.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
It is not a cut and paste job. I wish
it was, because that would be a lot faster. I
think some there are ways that I could have done that.
We have, you know, access to stock music libraries that
are vast and high quality, and some people do really
amazing work taking pre recorded music and fitting it to
(06:40):
podcast or videos or whatever. But that's not what we
wanted to do, and so to some extent I was
doing it the hard way, but it was very rewarding.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, I'm glad that you've done it the hard way.
I remember listeners may or may not be aware that
I have a previous podcast call strip Cast True Stories
from a Stripper with a PhD. And you listen to that,
and I remember you saying to me in the past,
(07:11):
these people are doing you a disservice because they're just
plunking down, yeah, backing tracks without any real engagement of
the narration or movement of the scenes or the story.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yet, how I always thought of my job was how
how are we telling the story? It's not just the mood,
it's not just background music. It's is what is the
music and the sounds doing to help you understand the story.
The music plays such an important part in tension and drama. Yes,
(07:49):
And if you don't line it up with what's going on,
it's meaningless. It's just background noise.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Sometimes even the music or sound reveals the plot.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, like action.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The more I have become accustomed to working with you,
the more I have started to step back and leave
sections where I do allow the sound to tell the story.
In the last episode, we end with our hero Rodney
(08:25):
is shot at and bullets fly over his head and
they explode the window, the big pane window that I
talk about a lot in his office. I wrote this
so many times and I just could not get that
pow like I wanted to end this episode on just bam.
(08:51):
But any way that I wrote and then the window
exploded just didn't give that crisp like slow app in
the face. And so what I've done with my script
for that is I'm going to allow the sound of
a gun, of a car speeding off of shattering glass,
(09:14):
and the listener is going to know what that is.
M Now, if I wrote that episode six months ago,
I wouldn't have even known that such a thing were
an option. To allow the sound to tell the story
in that way. You know, I've often wondered if I
could be a fly on the wall in this studio
of yours, what am I going to see?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
It would actually be really boring. It can be a
really long, tedious, frustrating process. And what I find when
I'm working on music, it sounds terrible until the very
end when it doesn't sound terrible. I can't imagine anyone
enjoying watching me do what I do. Sometimes I'm a
little bit in the zone, you know, and I'm listening,
(09:55):
and I've got the keyboard in front of me, and
I'm playing the notes to try to move things along.
But you know, I might re record a guitar line
fifteen times to get it right, or play a bunch
of wrong notes and got to move them around. I
always say, whenever I'm making music, it sounds awful up
until the point where it doesn't can relate.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, one hundred percent. Same with my writing. And when
I am writing these episodes, my process is to first
I just get the content down. By that, I mean
what needs to happen, Like I put bullet points. This
scene needs to convey that there's trouble in paradise in
this relationship, that there is domestic violence, et cetera, any
(10:41):
sort of plot points, and I just write that content
with no concern to style or poetry. And frankly, I
think that's where the majority of writers stop.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah. Yeah, It's an important part of the creative process
of not caring about what it's like. Yet you know, like,
that's so true. A carving of a statue has to
look like a bunch of chunky rock before it can
look like David.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It absolutely does all of the hours of unglamorous, ugly writing,
ugly music, chunky rock that you have to be willing
to do in order to ever get to the beautiful
thing at the end. And I think you will probably
(11:32):
agree with me in that even when you get that
beautiful thing that you're done, a couple months later, you
look at it and you're like, damn, I should have
left that out, I should have fixed this. It's still
not what I want it to be.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
It's the artist curse of never being satisfied with what
you've done.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
By the way, particularly considering the fact that you are
sitting there listening to my words and composing according to
my words. If I want to make major revisions, I'm
kind of fucking you, you know, And I'm sorry, okay,
And I try not to do much of that because
of that knowledge. And what that means is I have
(12:12):
to be willing to put out into the world some
things that aren't exactly as perfect as I would want
them to be. However, I do believe also that the
quest for absolute perfection is another barrier of entry, and
that trying to make something absolutely the way you want
(12:32):
will prevent you from making something at all absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, it's a constant battle. Where's the line between perfection
and getting it done? Yes? I could work on thirty
seconds of music for years and never get it right
or where I want it to be. And I can't
spend that kind of time if I actually want to
put something out in the world. But also, at the
(12:59):
same time, if it's not good, why would anyone listen
to it? Yes, we have to make it amazing, but
also have to let go sometimes of where we wanted
to be.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, by the way, put the pin down.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
By the way, you can send me re revisions anytime
I'll put in the work, I'll redo it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yes, thank you. I'm trying to go too hard with that.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
But there's a few things I'd like to change on
some earlier episodes.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
To that point, I have learned so much about this
that I think, should I just redo the first episode
because I didn't know what it was going to become
until we did it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I want to read it, and you know, in a.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Few maybe you're finding out here that we actually did
a second version of the first episode. That might be happening.
It sounds like, but you know, as as I create
figure things out how to build this world and how
to put things together, I'm like, you know, I should
have done this earlier, but I didn't know to do
(13:57):
it until we actually started creating it.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And thus is the nature of the Beast.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And that's the thing that'll kind of pish you off
because the first episode is so important. You know, you
got to get the people in, but the first episode
is when you are just learning to swim.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah you know.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, Okay, another question, can you recount for our listeners
the first time you ever heard about this project?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I do know that I got a text from you
and you're like, I want to do this with you,
and it was a link to the iHeart competition that
we entered and won. You just said that you had
a really amazing story and that you're going to call
me later and tell me about it. So I do
remember you calling me and we had a conversation, and
I immediately was just like, this is a pretty cool story,
(14:48):
and I could immediately hear the potential for it. And
I do remember very clearly you had a vision immediately
from the very first conversation. What you wanted it to
be is basically what we have done. You know, you said,
this isn't just a podcast. It's going to be like
a TV show or like a movie. There's going to
be sounds, you know. I want sound effects and original music,
(15:12):
a whole soundscape, a whole world built around this. And
I was so excited because it was exactly the kind
of project I have always wanted to do and that
I was looking for. And I was thrilled that you
were asking me to help you with it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I couldn't do it without you, man, And it's just
been a huge blessing to have you in my life,
to be to be available for these things. Listeners may
or may not know. You also designed my memoir. I
did cover and the inside. So we just keep finding
new ways to work together. And folks, do you want
us to release an album. L you know, I sing
(15:52):
a little bit. You know, we'll see.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
We have a couple unreleased tracks.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
We do some rap song angry man. We write them
shits at some dark times in our lives.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Boy. Okay, So guy, I recorded all of my vocals
for this podcast at home and then would send the raw,
unedited vocal recordings along with the script to you. What
was your process for taking these recordings and this script
and turning it into a full episode.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It was a really complex process, and like I kind
of mentioned before, I had to kind of figure it
all out on the fly. So I've never done a
full podcast before your most recent podcast, When We Could Touch.
I did the theme music for that, which was really fun,
(16:48):
but I didn't do any of the other episodes or
any of the editing. So this was my first time
doing a full on podcast episode, and for sure my
first time doing a full on scoring soundscape sort of
project like this. So what I would have to do.
There were basically three main jobs that I had. One
(17:08):
was as a composer, that's the one that I kind
of talk about the most. But there's also sound designer,
which is creating the soundscape. So the worlds and the
sound effects. And then there's the audio engineer aspect, which
is just assembling all of the pieces into a final
file that sounds good, which involves chopping up your vocals
(17:31):
that you sent because you would have directions to me
or you might mess up a little bit. Also, there's
just breaths and mouth clicks that I have to get
rid of. I have to process the audio because when
you record audio into a microphone, it actually doesn't sound
very good, so it needs a lot of processing so
that it sounds good when you listen to it on
your headphones. And those are all very distinct stages. And
(17:52):
what I realized is that I had to compartmentalize to
some extent, because when I would sit down and think
about everything that I had to do, it was so overwhelming.
I couldn't do anything. Yeah, So I would always start
with pulling up the track, just editing it down into
just the vocals that are going into it. What that
did also do is allow me to at least start
(18:13):
getting a sense of what's the story and what's going on.
From there, I would then start with the music next.
And that was a dance between chopping up your vocals
for pacing versus creating pacing with the music. So sometimes
I might move words here or there to speed things
(18:35):
up or slow them down to give room for the music.
Other times I would be fitting the music to the
words as they were, and it was just kind of
an interplay, you know, there was no real It wasn't
a science. That was just kind of had like, oh,
this part needs to speed up or slow down, or
I need to move this word or whatever. And you know,
so that was a long process that doesn't even include
(18:55):
the part of actually writing the music, which is kind
of a separate process of its own. And then the
last thing I would do is start doing the sound effects,
because that was kind of like the candy the courtroom
Ambiyonce all of that and that was always the last part.
And then after all of that's done, I have to
then adjust all of the levels. The music would be
(19:17):
too loud in one section to quite in another section.
That stomp right there was way too loud, you know,
got to turn that down. So then got to smooth
all of that out. That's more of the audio engineer
aspect of it, making it actually sound like a high
quality audio file in single piece.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, you knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And the candy that you refer to is really just
delightful and some of my favorite parts those sound effects
that you add in there, just sounds of, say, a
woman crying for the church was one of my favorite scenes.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That you created. Okay got most of.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Your experience as a musician has been in writing songs
in a band or as a solo artist. How different
is the process of writing the score to a podcast
compared to writing a traditional song.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It almost feels like a completely different discipline. I'm obviously
able to use my knowledge of music and a music production.
That skill that I've developed over time transfers the same.
But the biggest thing that was different and the hardest
thing to deal with, was that sometimes the music does
need to fall into the background. It can't get in
(20:32):
the way of the story. And when you're writing a song,
you want the listener to be engaged, you want the hooks,
you want it to be awesome all the time. I'm
looking for that energy. This was one thing I learned
when we did the pilot where there were certain times
where I had some people I think you might have
even said this too. It's like well, you know, the
music's a little too good. It's kind of distracting me.
(20:53):
I'm listening to the melody you've got in the background,
and I'm not listening to the words, and that's a problem,
you know. So with the way we built things, we
would introduce a new theme that needed to sound good
and needed to have a hook, but it also had
to be able to go into the background when it
was necessary. So all of the themes had to have
(21:16):
sort of repetitive, drony, kind of simpler parts so that
it could still give that feeling but not distract from
the words. That's the hardest part, is not distracting from
the story.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So on that note, I you know, when we first
started talking about this project, I told you write out
the gate that I had certain groupings of characters.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Let's say, for example, the Pimps.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I told you, hey, I would like for each of
these character categories to have a musical theme to help
the listener know when they hear this song, draw they know, okay,
here we are we're dealing with, say the pimps.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
How did you develop these themes?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
So it would always start with what's the mood and
the feeling of the different characters, you know. So the
Pim's theme, you know, I was like imagining that it
starts out with those that stomps. It's actually like fifteen
kick drums, but I kind of wanted it to sound
like footstomps, and then there's the claps it does, and
I was imagining some down home boys throwing back a
(22:24):
few beers and singing some songs together and stomping and
clapping together. We're having fun, you know, We're getting down
and dirty kind of guys. You know, that was sort
of what was in my mind what Originally I wrote
it as the Prostitute's theme, but I kind of more
think of it as Buckeye's theme, just very arpeggiated guitar.
It felt like that was something that needed something a
(22:46):
little more introspective, not necessarily innocent, but innocent adjacent if
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Well, we have to mention Rodney's theme. Yeah, yeah, So
can you tell us a little bit about that and
why you designed it the way you did the typewriter?
Oh yeah, yeah, that was such a brilliant move, dude.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
That was actually the first idea I had for anything.
I remember, right after we found out we won and
we were going to do a whole season. You called
me and we were talking and you were like, really,
driving home, we need themes for everything, for all the
different characters, or I'm going to jump around a lot
and everything, and you're telling me about Rodney. At this point,
(23:32):
you hadn't interviewed him yet, and so you were just
telling me about him, and you were like, this is
what he's going to be like, this is his character,
this is going to be like and he's so focused
on his journalism career. And I was like, ah, I
think I even told you on the phone that day.
I was like, you know what, I could make a
beat to start it off that's made out of typewriter samples.
(23:53):
A funny story, I actually found a mechanical typewriter on
Facebook marketplace and bought it for twenty five dollars so
that I could sample that and make a beat. But
then when it actually came down to it, I just
downloaded typewriter samples into the bub Well.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
It's effort, though a for effort, it sounds great.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And as a side note, Rodney is just the most
likable son of a bitch too.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I shouldn't even call him an sab I love that dude.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Interviewing him in real life loved him even more and
it was really a joy to center him. Yeah, so, guy,
which is your favorite of the themes?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Which one is the biggest banger?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I actually like Buckeye's theme is probably my favorite. As
far as a musical piece. The best banger, I think
is the Pimps theme.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
It's such a banger, dude.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
My favorite one, though, is actually Whitehead's Joe Whitehead's theme.
It's really simple, just those kind of dark slide guitar
lines and then the parts where I bring in the
piano at the And that was like a game time decision.
When I was doing the first episode, I had written
everything other than that, and at the very end, I
was like, you know what, what if I added some
(25:09):
dark piano here at the end. And when I was
done with it, it was one of those moments where
it's like it's terrible until it's not terrible. But I
was just like waving my hands in the air like, yes,
I did it. Yes, sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Okay, so listeners wouldn't know this, but I do.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You have a fine arts degree and most of your
career has been spent as a graphic designer. In fact,
that's why I enlisted you to design my book Too
Pretty to Be Good by Lucy Byron, available where all
books are sold. Dude, how has your experience as a
(25:48):
visual artist help prepare you for this project?
Speaker 3 (25:55):
One thing I learned pretty early on as I started
my career, I really learned the process of being creative professionally,
which is very different than just being an artist and
doing it for the love of it. This was the
biggest struggle I had when I first got out of
college is learning how to be creative on demand. It's
so difficult. In college, I would have like one project
(26:18):
and we'd have like three weeks to work on it,
and then you get into the workforce and they're like,
we need this today, or we need this two hundred
page book in two weeks or whatever the time is.
I eventually moved on to magazines, where I would literally
lay out one hundred page magazine in a week, so
there's no time to wait for inspiration. Like I have
(26:39):
to manufacture creativity and that's a really hard thing to do,
and it took me a really long time to do it.
But now I'm really good at that. And that was
the biggest benefit of all of those years working as
a professional creative, even those in graphic design. I know
how to make myself be creative. It may not be
great at first, as we've mentioned, but I can sit
(27:02):
down and get work done when I need to get
it done, whether it's design or music or whatever creative
enture it is, I know how to do that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Absolutely can relate.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And I think that's another barrier of entry for many
would be artists is so many people believe that they
have to wait for inspiration to strike.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, and inspiration striking is, you know, fairly rare.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
What you really need is discipline and you got to
sit down at that fucking desk and whether whatever mood
you're in, you got to make it happen.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah. If you're just making art or music just for
yourself and there's no stakes, you know, you don't care
if anyone ever hears it. You can wait for inspiration
and that makes you happy. That's great, But you know,
when you're doing something as a professional, can't You can't wait.
You have to manufacture that inspiration.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
So you know, in this podcast, bro, I'm presenting you
with any number of scenes, and I have my favorites
you know, for example, I really enjoy the diner mm hm,
the Edgewood Diner.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
What a vibe?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Oh yeah, Well, of course the court we see over
and over and by the way, season two that's about
to be very court room heavy because we're going into
the trial. With season two, we have a number of
scenes that the brothels, the truck stop brothels, which also
what a vibe. How are you envisioning these soundscapes?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
What is your process? What it always has to go
back to is a personal experience. Yes, sometime where I
have been in a situation that I can I feel
is similar to that. So courtroom, you know, my only
real experience, So the courtroom is about ten years ago.
(29:02):
I had to do jury duty once and I was
in a jury pool, didn't actually get selected for the
final jury. This was in Cincinnati, and you know, courtrooms
are going to look different everywhere, but this one that
I have a very vivid memory of. It was all wood.
There was no plush anywhere. The floors were wood, the
benches were wood, lots of creaking going on, very echoey,
(29:24):
and so that's kind of reflected in the courtroom scenes
that we have here. There's lots of reverb on the vocals.
It's really one of the few places where I made
all of the vocals have reverb on them because I
really wanted you to get a sense that you were
in that room. And then I just start thinking, how
do I communicate that you're in a room when the
(29:45):
talking is going on without being overwhelming, but get that across.
So you know, there's the obvious stuff like the gavel,
and then I started imagining, what else might you hear
while you're in a courtroom like that? So somebody leans
back in their seat, there's a little chain creek. I
don't know if you notice that, but there's chair creaking.
A lawyer's got to look through his notes, and so
there's some paper shuffling. Somebody off in the distance coughs yes,
(30:09):
or you know, those kinds of things to set the stage.
They usually start at the very first court scene would
usually start with some chatter, you know before like people
are talking, then there's the gavel, or like everybody's be
quiet because we're getting started on the trial again, those
kinds of things to build you into that world for
(30:29):
the For the diner, A lot of my memories go
back to my time growing up in Springfield, Kentucky, which
I often think is very similar to Danville. I've never
been to Danville, but the way you describe it, it
reminds me a lot of the town that I grew
up in. So there was a little diner that my
parents would take me to sometimes, and so I just
kind of imagine being there and just the general noise
(30:52):
that's going on of chatter and clinking dishes, spoons being
stirred in coffee, that kind of stuff. The church was
another fun one. I also I grew up going to
church a lot, and so that one also kind of
felt easy to do. And the truck stops I would
think about. There was a gas station right by the
Bluegrass Highway, which was just outside of Springfield, this really dusty,
(31:15):
gross gas station truck stop kind of place, and I
would think about that and like imagining, you know, the
light bulbs humming when they're walking outside of the truck stop.
It's gravel, because I imagined in the seventies in rural Virginia,
they're not going to have a paved parking lot in
their gas stations or truck stops. You know, those kinds
of personal memories that sort of led to the decisions
(31:38):
for how to develop the sounds.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
On that note. You've never been to Danville. By the way, folks,
if you rearrange the letters in Danville, it spells evil Land.
It's just one of the best little kernels of trivia
of my life.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I discovered that when I was a teenager and I've
carried it with.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Me ever since. Really, bro, what does Danville sound like
to you?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
The first word that comes to mind is twangy. The
main theme for the intro that we always do this
the cold open, but then there's the intro part. That
was the very first thing I ever wrote for Anything Like,
because the first thing we did was the trailer for
the competition. In order to even get selected to do
(32:29):
a pilot, we had to do a one minute trailer.
And the way you described everything, you use the phrase
dark bluegrass, and I know a lot about bluegrass, but
I've never played bluegrass before, but I know that there's
a lot of what's called hammer on and pull off.
That's sort of one of the techniques that sliding the fingers.
So that little first line I plucked the string once
(32:51):
and then some of the notes are just played by
my fingers pressing down and pulling off of the strings
by themselves, and that when you do that really fast,
gives that sort of twangy sound. And so that was
kind of the basis for everything after that, building off
of that vibe.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Once you dropped that first song, you know, when we
were the very early stages of this, straight away, I
was like, nailed it. I think that is such a
compelling and I dare say, catchy cold open.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I'm glad you say that because that was the point.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, it is, it is, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Lindsay just I don't know what the right word to say,
mouthed out that guitar line, right, she's saying that guitar
line there. One of my favorite things when I would
get Lindsay's vocals for each episode is that's whenever she
would finish with the cold open, she would do exactly that.
She'd go baron you and I it won. It was hilarious,
(33:50):
but it also made me feel really awesome. I was like, hey,
I actually wrote something that's kind of catchy there that
she likes and can remember and sing song it like that.
You know, so oh it's an earworm.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I mean I could hear it him asleep. You know,
all of the vocals of mine that you had to process.
I mean, my apologies and my gratitude. There's so many asides.
It is so much of me being like this fucking dog,
like I can't believe the lawnman is here. Yes, also
(34:25):
a lot of just direct instructions where I'm like, okay, guy,
I'm about to do this, and a lot of me going.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Start over.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
When I first started this project, I didn't I don't
know why. I didn't realize how much of my role
would involve acting.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, I've been a storyteller my whole life, but
I had to full on act.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I didn't even really think about that until an episode
or two in. I was just like, man, she's not
just the writer, she's not just the host. She's a
voice actor. And it caught me by prize too. But
that's absolutely such an important part of the process and
of what you do. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It was a trial by fire, my friend, because I
have no experience voice acting.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
But it's been fun.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Okay, Now, this is a question I really want to know, dude,
who is your favorite character from Hooker Gate.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
H That's a really tough question, but I I think
it's got to be Joe Whitehead. I've always been kind
of a you know, when I was a kid, I
liked Darth Vader. Yes, you know, I liked the Cobras
in the g I Joe's you know, like the bad
guys were kind of like, that's who I like more.
And I'm not like a bad dude, like I'm so
(35:45):
like rule following and straight laced, but I always kind
of gravitated towards the bad guys and their stories. I
think that's why I loved shows like you know, Breaking Bad,
where the main character was the villain, you know, which
has been so popular in the last couple of decades.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
You know, I wonder sometimes you're the only person right
now and I by the time you guys are listening
to this, you guys know this story, but at the
time of recording, Guy is the only other person who
knows this story, has any investment in these episodes, has
listened to any of it front to back. I mean,
(36:25):
not even my husband, not even I would say my
best friends, but Guy is one of my best friends.
Only you're the only one who knows these characters, who
knows the story. I have wondered, how do these people
come across to you, so, like, let me just ask you.
For example, if you were to describe Joe Whitehead to
(36:48):
a stranger, how would you describe this dude?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
I would say privileged to a fault would be one
of the biggest things. Someone who has never really had
to struggle in life and therefore has been able to
become kind of a shitty person because they come from
good stock and don't have to grow up. You know.
(37:13):
I think about certain people that I see who come
from a well to do family, and they might be
in their forties, fifties, sixties and are terrible people. And
I think that's somebody who when they were eleven or twelve,
never had anyone that was just like, no, you can't
do that. I'm not going to let you do that.
You don't get what you want. And when you don't
get that at that age, you never mature in to
(37:35):
an adult and you can become a maniac.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Absolutely, did any of the female characters stick out to you?
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Janet? Janet and Thomas's relationship was the one that resonated
with me the most. I wrote specific music for theirs
because it felt a little more intense and dreamy at times.
You know, if you can remember the acoustic guitar lines
and that are very ethereal, you know, so there is
(38:05):
guitar and that that's the that's the part that it's
actually a sampled digital guitar because it needed to be
very loose and that was going to it's going to
take me forever to record that physically. But that one,
that was kind of one of the moments where I
was like, I can't just reuse the buckeye theme as
I'm calling it now. I can't just use that over
top of this storyline. It's not going to fit. It
(38:28):
needs something slower and also that can build into something
more dramatic, which it often did, would start in one
way and then build into suspenseful parts.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
You know. I would mostly build those characters based on
the way they acted in court.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
And both of those women, Robin and Janet, just especially
Robin by the way, just had this.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Kind of fuck you attitude that I liked.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
And I have news clippings featuring photographs of Robin and
she's in court looking beautiful, by the way, with just
this fuck you grin. You know, it's like, I dare you,
and that woman shows up in my dreams, and I
(39:27):
wonder is she alive. I couldn't find her, and Robin's
not her real name. I couldn't find Janet either. But
if y'all are listening, I hope I did my best
to depict you in ways that depicted you as complex
human beings. If I miss the mark, I'm my deepest apologies.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Reach out.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
I would love to hear from you, guys. So, final
couple questions. Guy, if scoring this podcast could lead to
anywhere professionally or artistically, where would you want it to lead?
In a dream world the right person? Here's hooker Gate.
What happens for you?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Well, plan A is scoring the TV adaptation of hooker
Gate while you produce that. I think that's both of
our plan a. Yeah, but I have to say I
really enjoy the process of scoring. It's, like I said,
very different than writing songs, and I think I might
actually like it more. And so I would love to
do more of this, whether it's a podcast or film
(40:37):
or TV. I'm really planning to springboard this into further projects.
Anytime you've got one, I'm on board. I'm ready to go.
That's kind of what I think I'm going to focus
on is scoring and composition moving forward.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Hell yeah, I agree entirely with your plan A, and
I maybe buy. But I think that this story, and
indeed this podcast, the way that we have created it
from the jump, is just ripe for television adaptation for sure.
I mean, this whole time I've been writing it has
(41:17):
been visualizing scenes. Sometimes I think this story is like
if Breaking Bad took place in a truck stop brothels
in the Deep South, you know, like I just think
it is. I think the world is ready for this
(41:37):
kind of story.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
When I was doing my research prepping waiting for the
vocals to get started, you sent me some podcast references
and I listened to a bunch of those. But I
actually found that I started watching and analyzing the scores
of TV shows, and I started picking up that because
that really was more of the vibe we were going
for a TV show without the big you. I actually
(42:01):
picked up a lot of little tricks one thing I noticed,
and a lot of TV shows where they would at
the very end of a scene, you didn't realize it
was the end of the scene, but some different music
or some different sounds would start playing, And what that
actually was was the intro into the next scene, and
it's a way of leading you into it. And so
I actually did that in a few times where like
(42:22):
at the very end of a scene, the music starts
to drop out, there's a little bit of talking, and
then a little bit of music or a beat starts
coming in, and that's actually the beginning of the music
for the next scene as you're moving in.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And that's the kind of practically subliminal clues that most
listeners are not going to consciously pick up on, but
subconsciously it's getting them prepped for what's next.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah, And I actually I find that what I was
most interested in were the things you weren't going to notice,
the little swell of a frequency that comes up. I
did that in a few times where there's a frequency
that just goes up as there's a climax, and you
may not even hear it or notice it, but if
it wasn't there, it wouldn't have the same impact.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
But like this, really you're gonna feel it.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, yes, Okay, final question, who is Guy Kelly.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'm a dad, I'm
a husband. I'm a person who cares about the world
passionately and wants to try to do the right thing
most of the time, whatever that means. I think being
kind to people and helping them is the greatest thing
we can do, and I think that pretty much sums
(43:42):
me up.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Guy. It has been a pleasure talking with you as always.
But what I want to know is where can we
find more of your work?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Well, if you want to go to my website, Guy
Kelly dot com, that's g U y k E l
l y dot com, you can find links to a
lot of my music. I've produced a lot of music
over the years under different artist names that you can
find on streaming services. I've done a lot of design
work that you can see and can find links to
(44:15):
all my socials and everything there. That's a great place
to go. Be on the lookout. If you like the
music that you've heard in this podcast, you can find
a lot of that music on streaming services. We are
collaborating for a soundtrack album. If it's not there already,
it will be very soon, but you can definitely find
the links for that at Guy Kelly dot com and
(44:36):
you'll be able to listen anywhere where you stream music.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
So friends, thanks so much for listening for real. We
really appreciate your attention both to this episode and of
this whole podcast. Tune in next time when the homie
guy Kelly interviews yours truly and I try not to
incriminate the hell out of myself, which is one of
(45:07):
my bad habits.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Thank you,
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com