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Danny Elfman and Richard Patrick apparently missed the meeting about aging gracefully into an acoustic guitar. Backstage at Louisville’s Louder Than Life, the two separately spoke with Kyle Meredith about keeping the distortion cranked while juggling new records, movie scores, and creative impulses. Elfman previewed his follow-up to Big Mess and its accompanying cinematic head trip, while the Filter frontman detailed The Antidote and the industrial punishment of his project A Place to Kill. Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts.
Elfman’s return to the stage began with an unlikely seduction at Coachella, where the video screens convinced him there was fresh trouble worth making. Now his sets scramble Oingo Boingo, film music, and abrasive solo material into what he calls “a mishmash of my brain.” His next album, which he says is due at the beginning of 2027, expands that approach into an accompanying film featuring Caleb Landry Jones, Slash, and Thundercat. “It’s kind of a fanboy David Lynch homage.” Meanwhile, scoring Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire meant chasing experiments with harp, bass, and percussion, and Tool’s Fear Inoculum supplied the anesthesia for his tattoo sessions. “I don’t even know the name of a single song,” he admits, “’cause I’ve only listened to the entire album about 40 times.”
(Editor’s Note: Elfman is also a big fan of Nirvana, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Nine Inch Nails, as he revealed in our polling for our 100 Best Bands of All Time list.)
Patrick has his own patron saints of racket. Fresh from watching Ministry side-stage, he credits their industrial attack with helping shape Filter’s sound, tracing his friendship with Al Jourgensen back to his Nine Inch Nails days. “I’m getting heavier as I get older, like meaner,” he says, a claim backed by A Place to Kill, which he neatly describes as “Skinny Puppy with hooks.” Filter’s The Antidote, targeted for the first quarter of 2027, grew from the momentum of The Algorithm, with room for both punishment and prettier melodies. Movie scoring scratches a different itch, requiring him to serve someone else’s story, but the compulsion stays the same: “I have to be working on some kind of music whatever it is.”
Listen to Danny Elfman and Richard Patrick talk about their upcoming albums, film scores, and more in the new episode above or by watching the video below. Keep up on all the latest episodes by following Kyle Meredith With… on your favorite podcast platform; plus, check out all the series on the Consequence Podcast Network.