Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology has returned to Netflix with a chilling third season that explores the origin and influence of Ed Gein, whose horrifying crimes inspired Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. To support Monster: The Ed Gein Story and help navigate the project’s blend of true-crime spectacle, social commentary, drama, and horror, Murphy tapped frequent collaborator, composer Mac Quayle, for the score. An intimate, organic work, Quayle utilizes aching melody with unnerving extended techniques to peek past the headlines, grounding Ed in reality, with hideous echoes of what he becomes. The result is music that keeps you at a measured distance, then quietly pulls you in, so you’re horrified and unsettled, and sometimes even, oddly moved.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story stars Charlie Hunnam as the notorious graverobber-turned-murderer, Ed Gein, and Laurie Metcalf as Gein’s mother, Augusta. The eight-episode series traces Gein’s descent in 1950s Wisconsin, zooming in on his isolation, mental illness, and the intimate domestic horrors that shaped him, while also offering a meta commentary on how American culture consumes, constructs, and mythologizes monsters.
Rather than announce the horror, Quayle lets it creep in. An Emmy winner whose credits include Mr. Robot, American Horror Story, Feud, and Pose, Quayle employs quietly insistent themes that build and stretch into uncanny sonic shapes. The result is music that both supports Hunnam’s unsettling performance and navigates the series’ tricky tonal line of honoring the true-crime material’s weight while still leaning into horror’s sonic vocabulary.
Dread Central recently caught up with Mac Quayle to dig into his music for this installment of Monster even more. Read on to hear Quayle discuss how themes were born, why he avoided an overtly “period” sound, and what it means to compose music that makes a monster feel tangibly human.
Dread Central: You’ve been one of Ryan Murphy’s go-to composers for years now, which I would imagine comes with a lot of mutual trust. What’s your creative shorthand like at this point? What were the early conversations like regarding a musical approach to this Ed Gein series?
Mac Quayle: When it comes to music, and a lot of the aspects of the stories that he tells, I like to think of Ryan as a big picture type of person. He speaks to me about the overall feeling he wants to get from the music, to help tell the story he’s aiming to tell. He’s not typically very involved in the minutiae of the music and exactly what style, or little exact moments that it has to hit or anything. It’s more about the big picture of it.
For the Ed Gein story, what he said to me is that there are kind of two sides to this story. One, it’s a drama about this person’s life. And then the other is its horror. He wants it to scare people, and he wants that horror aspect. But in the dramatic aspect, he was hoping to portray Ed as a human. He’s a monster. He did all these horrible things, but he’s also a human, and he’s damaged. He’s not well. Can the audience maybe feel a little bit of compassion for him, as well as being horrified by all the things that he did? That’s pretty much all he said to me about what he was looking for, and for the music to help him do that.
DC: When you first learned you’d be scoring a series about Ed Gein, a figure so embedded in American horror mythology, what was your initial instinct? Was there something that gave you your creative in?
MQ: The idea that it would be an organic score was discussed, using traditional instruments, such as strings, maybe some woodwinds. But not using a large ensemble, but have it be more intimate. And so that was the beginning of the idea of what it might sound like. And I started by writing two themes, one for Ed and one for his mother. The first pieces that I presented to Ryan were those; it was the Ed theme and the mother theme, done with a cello, violin, some percussion, and piano. And he loved it. We were off and running.
DC: It’s a tricky thing, scoring a series based on a real person like this, and one of the things I really appreciate about your music in this series is how observational it feels. Rather than a more internal score like Mr. Robot that lets us into Elliot’s head, there’s a distance here that feels intentional.
Can you walk me through how you built the sonic architecture for him, and how his sound evolves throughout the series to mirror his journey, for lack of a better word?
MQ: I think it all comes back to that initial approach of trying to have Ed’s theme. There are versions of it in the series that are, or my intention was for it to be, creepy and scary. And then there are versions of it where it’s meant to be sad and emotional. Hoping to either scare people or to have them feel something other than scared for Ed and these situations. Perhaps with this duality to the theme, maybe that’s what gave it the distance that you’re talking about. I’m not really sure. It wasn’t intentional that I wanted to make it observational, but it’s interesting to hear you had that experience a bit.
DC: Yeah, I think it was the melody. It felt very unpredictable in a way, and I think maybe that’s why it gave me that impression. The actual notes jump around a little bit, which I felt really beautifully captured this person’s enigmatic nature and the fact that there’s something else going on here, simmering beneath the surface.
MQ: It’s one of those things that may have occurred a little bit subconsciously. In my work, there’s a little bit of magic that happens. I take all these ideas from the people I’m collaborating with, and we talk about what we want to do, and then I go in and try to do it. But then, I end up at a place. I’ve arrived somewhere with the music, and it’s been informed by all these things, but then there’s something else there too. It’s hard to necessarily describe it or know where it came from and but hearing your impression of it, it makes a lot of sense.
With the melody, I was trying to do something unexpected and not follow a typical thematic sort of journey with it. And I think maybe it does; it just describes Ed, as you just really don’t know what’s coming next with him or what he’s all about. And perhaps that’s why the melody turned out the way it did.
DC: I wanted to ask you about Charlie Hunnam, because I can honestly say, I’ve never seen him in a role like this. What was the actual process like for creating the score for this series? Were you able to see everything all at once? One ep at a time? Did his embodiment of this person at all influence how you scored him as Gein?
MQ: I did see it one episode at a time. So I knew where the story was going, but I hadn’t seen it. It was unfolding for me just like the viewer in a way. And I think his performance definitely informed the score. There’s this childlike quality to his character that can, at times, make you feel like there’s an innocence there, and we can feel sorry for him in a way. And then the next moment, of course, you’re absolutely repulsed and horrified by what he’s doing.
I do typically start at the beginning anyway, and at least in the first episode, the first cue I wrote was the opening cue. And then the next cue I wrote was the theme for his mother, which was the next scene. I’ll start like that because it, I don’t know, it feels like it draws me into the story, to be right at the beginning. But then I start jumping around, and it really just depends.
There’s not really a pattern. I’ll move around, and I will do some big scenes if I think that what is needed for a big scene will contain elements that I’m now going to use in a lot of different places. I’ll do them in the big scene first, and then I’ll have those elements that I can scatter around as needed. But yeah, it just flows depending on what I’m feeling, really. And the story and the editing, all of that, that pacing, it’s all an influence on the music, for sure.
DC: Since the series takes place in early, mid-century rural Wisconsin, did you take inspiration or integrate any instruments or sonic cues from that era or environment? Or did you aim for a more timeless sound?
MQ: Part of the initial conversations with Ryan and the director of most of the episodes, Max Winkler, who was also quite involved in creative input and decisions, there was someone who mentioned, “We don’t want to make a score that sounds like it’s from the 1940s and ‘50s.” That was not the idea.
There’s plenty of source music and needle drops that are in there that capture that period. They’re from that period. And so the score did not need to do that. We also knew we didn’t want the score to sound really modern. It needed to have a little bit of a timeless feel to it, where it had organic instruments, but there’s almost nothing electronic in the score at all.
It’s all been played by a very talented group of players. And, maybe compositionally, there’s a little something modern to it where it breaks some rules and does some unusual things, but other than that, I view it as being a little bit timeless. And I have done other scores where it was intentional. Like, let’s do an ‘80s synth score for this story that’s taking place in the ‘80s. We want to date it, and we want it to sound like that, but that wasn’t the case here. It was something that would complement the source material of the period, but would not be particularly influenced by it.
DC: Speaking about the idea of source material, Gein’s story has influenced so many classic horror characters — Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill, which we see in this show. And each of those related movies has a really iconic score. How did that added storytelling element impact you and what you composed? Or, did it?
MQ: Not intentionally. I have done some scores in the past that you might call an homage to Bernard Herrmann; where I’m very much trying to write in his style. And I’ve read something online since the show came out where someone said that this score had some Bernard Herrmann influence, but it definitely wasn’t intentional.
And I mean, as you’ve seen, they’ve used actual footage from Hitchcock, from Psycho, from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. They’ve used the actual score from both of those films. And I think that the use did the work. Like, there it is. We’re hearing Bernard Herrmann in the show. I didn’t need to then try to do my version. Which was a relief, actually. Because when I knew that Psycho was part of the storyline, I was dreading that. They might ask me to do something that sounds a little like Psycho, but they didn’t, because they actually had Psycho in there.
DC: So often with music, it’s not just what is being played, but how it is being played. Were there particular techniques, extended techniques, or other creative choices you were able to employ here to emphasize Gein’s complex nature?
MQ: It has become, probably for a while, it’s been part of the language of music for horror and other genres to use these extended techniques and to take string instruments or woodwind instruments and play them in ways that one might call, not musical, but are creating discordant and disturbing sounds with them. And yeah, the cellist and violinists that I worked with had a lot of fun getting some, coaxing some, quite crazy sounds out of their instruments.
And I thought it was very effective where it needed to be and a nice contrast to the parts that were more melodic, and where everyone was playing their instruments as nice classical musicians that are following the rules should play their instruments. So it’s really fun to mix up those two types of sounds in the show.
DC: This is a very stylized Ryan Murphy show, but it is also very much a true crime story, with some really shocking and disturbing moments of horror. And, the score has a lot of power in how those moments are received. When scoring scenes of violence or dread in a true-crime context, how do you approach them and navigate those delicate emotional complexities?
MQ: At this point, I’ve been doing this for a minute, and so I’ve developed some instincts. So I would take a scene, and I would do my thing, and emphasize the various elements that I thought needed to be emphasized as the scene unfolded or progressed. Then, I would send in my version, and then Ryan, or Ryan and Max, would react to it.
And best-case scenario, they were like, “This is exactly what we wanted.” Other times, they were like, “No, this needs to be more intense. This needs to be less intense. We want to be very subtle in this section.” They would guide me to what they thought was going to help them tell their story. That kind of collaboration would be going back and forth, throughout the series, and that’s where the final score came from.
DC: Was there a particular moment, or cue, or scene that was especially challenging to crack?
MQ: I think it was only in the first episode, so we were still, in a way, in development. That very end scene in Episode One, when he digs up the first body and takes it back to his house, I know that we did a few rounds on that to really capture what they were looking for. The idea was to speak to the horror of what he was doing, but also the emotion that this was the first time he was discovering this thing that he’d never done before.
It was obviously exciting to him. This, digging up a body and now playing with it and doing things, which led to much more of that. So to get the music to speak to that in a way that underscored this exciting thing for him, but also have it still be creepy and scary, it took us a few rounds to get that to what I think is the right place.
DC: Like you’ve said, you’ve been at this for a minute. And you’ve explored a lot of different shades of darkness in different ways. How has your relationship to tension and dissonance evolved over time? What still surprises or challenges you as a composer when you sit down to score something like this?
MQ: I’d like to think that I’ve developed some instincts that I didn’t have in the past. That I will watch a scene, and I will instinctively have some ideas as to how I think it should be approached, rather than just, “Oh no, I don’t know what to do here.” Something will occur to me rather quickly on what I should do. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be right, but there’s just something where I feel confident to say, “Oh, let’s try this. I’m going to try this.”
After so many projects doing this and so many different ways of trying to build tension or tell these stories that have dark elements, I like to try and challenge myself to find new ways, new sounds, or a different way to do something. While also still using the vocabulary that I’ve used in the past, that others have used and developed, to try to incorporate all of that and do something new as well. It is always a fun challenge.
DC: I know that you have a bit of an improv background from your developing years as a musician, and I’m curious if you think that has influenced your composing style and tackling the intimidating blank page that comes with every new project.
MQ: Yeah, I mean, it really varies from project to project and the style of music. But on a number of scenes and cues in the Ed Gein story, I would take an improvisational approach to it. Yes, this was ultimately done all with organic instruments, but a lot of the initial ideas and creativity were using my technology. I would come up with a sound, and I would just play it against the scene. I would just improv something. And then I would go, “Oh! I think there’s something to that. It’s sloppy. It’s not refined, but there’s something there.” And then I would just pull up another sound and play it along with that.
I might do that with three or four sounds, just do this messy improv, and then sit back and go, “I think there’s a good idea here.” And then I’ll just put it away, and I’ll move on to another piece. I’ll pull it out the next day and see how it hits me. And if I think that there is something good in there, I’ll start going in and editing and refining it and hopefully pulling it together to be the actual idea that will get recorded or be used in the show.
DC: Music, it can be so personal. Even when it is created to support a larger project. Have you ever had to wrestle or contend with the idea of “killing your darlings,” where you felt really good about something, but ultimately had to scrap or revise a piece of music? Is developing a thick skin part of the gig?
MQ: That’s a great question, and to me, that is a core issue around being a composer. You are creating for others what they want for their project. I feel like I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with some very talented people on some really interesting projects, and I’ve had a lot of experiences where we discuss what they want, the general idea, I go in, I’m creative within these parameters that we are starting to define, and I will create something. I’ll create a piece of music, a piece of art, that I think is working, and I will give it to them. And yes, they might say, “No, that’s completely wrong.” Or they might be like, “That’s really nice. What if we do this?”
And now, with the collaboration, it starts to become this thing that will work in the project. And so often, most of the time really, I’m getting to express myself. I’m creating something for them, but it has a lot of me in it. And, on a show, and films as well, there’s a lot of music needed. Monster has eight episodes. So if I create something in Episode One and the initial response is “No, that’s not working here,” the piece doesn’t just get thrown in the garbage; it goes into the library. And now, maybe in Episode Three, there’s a better place for it, and it gets pulled out and put up against a different scene.
So very little goes to waste. And it’s nice, because that does soften the blow of it getting rejected in the first place. Because even if you have a thick skin, we’re human. We prefer it when they like the piece that we write. But yeah, I think about this a lot. It’s part of the daily job. And it does help to know that there’s a chance this piece will find a home in some place rather than just getting tossed.
DC: I’m glad you brought up the collaboration idea, because I feel like there’s still this lingering misconception of composers working alone in a dark studio, pumping out music on their own. Granted, some work that way, but for many, scoring is one of the most collaborative parts of filmmaking. How important is your team on something like this? Can you touch on the various roles involved in creating a finished, final product? Pull back the curtain, so to speak, on this idea.
MQ: Yeah, for sure. And the collaboration I’ve mentioned so far has been with the people who have hired me to help them tell their story. But then there’s all this other collaboration that’s happening on this project. I had a number of musicians who performed, and some of those musicians also collaborated with me on composing some of the pieces.
On something like this, we had a pretty tight deadline, so there’s a lot to get done, and I needed the help. I needed other people to help me get all the music done. It’s very valuable to have team members who can collaborate with me in that way. Plus, they’re also helping to expand what it is that I’m doing. So it’s not just coming from me. Now they help, they bring in their part to it, and then we end up with this piece, which is greater than the sum of its parts.
There were three additional composers who worked with me on the show. My assistant is invaluable in helping organize everything, get everything delivered, receive parts, and help keep us all on track. And then I have a score engineer who records and mixes.
I also have to mention the music editors because they’re an important part of the process too. They’re helping to take some of the music that’s already been written and recorded and adapting it into new scenes and making adjustments to picture changes, so they’re a very important part of the team as well. Everyone pulling together really gets the job done.
‘Monster: The Ed Gein Story’ is now streaming on Netflix. You can also stream Quayle’s music for the series on all major streaming platforms. Quayle’s other upcoming projects include ABC/Hulu’s ‘9-1-1: Nashville,’ composed alongside Todd Haberman and Justin Barnett, Netflix’s ‘His & Hers,’ and season 2 of Apple TV+’s ‘Dark Matter.‘
No comments:
Post a Comment