The 71-year-old is out on the road playing his score for the 1985 cult horror film Demons live for the first time, but he becomes a bit nostalgic during our chat, recalling the early days and the staying power of the meta-zombie film he’s become synonymous with.
“It’s incredible. I can’t believe it. If someone would have told me in the ’70s that I will be playing this music after almost fifty years with big success and tours in America, Canada, Australia and Japan, I would have said, ‘No, you are joking. That’s impossible,’” Simonetti says. “Now, it’s just incredible. I’m having more success now than in the ’70s.”
With more than seventy soundtracks under his belt, the founding keyboardist of the Italian instrumental prog-rock band Goblin is best known for his long partnership with director Dario Argento, the fellow countryman responsible for brutal supernatural and psychological thrillers such as Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977).
Simonetti points to Goblin’s first opportunity to work with Argento — on Deep Red, which he calls “a beautiful film" — as his and the group’s big, unexpected break. After writing and recording the score for Argento in one 48-hour stretch, what turned out to be the band’s debut went on to sell over a million copies in Italy alone within a year of the film’s release.
“That was incredible for this kind of music in the ’70s,” Simonetti shares, as if he’s still surprised by the reception.
“When we recorded the soundtrack for ‘Deep Red,’ we were never supposed to have this big success, because in Italy it was 1974, ’75, and all the popular songs then were pop songs. Songs like what was on Deep Red were out of the music system and norm.”
Prog rock at that time, despite several up-and-coming popular bands including Yes and the Nice, was still a niche subgenre comprising heady multi-instrumentalists who were interested in learning and wielding new musical technologies such as synthesizers. “We started in the ’70s doing prog music, and there was a lot of prog music, but it wasn’t very popular," he adds. "It was still underground, even though we had a lot of very good prog bands."
Goblin, featuring Simonetti’s synths, explored a previously untapped territory and staked its claim within the nascent genre via suspenseful soundtracks within the burgeoning Italian horror scene.
After Goblin officially split up at the end of the 1970s, Simonetti again teamed up with Argento, who produced the Lamberto Bava-directed Demons. The script centers around a mysterious midnight showing of an unknown film, but once the unsuspecting audience is locked inside the theater, some viewers are turned into flesh-eating zombies similar to the demons showcased in the unnamed movie, while the others are forced to fight them off. The score, which also includes heavy-metal hitters from Mötley Crüe and Accept, was Simonetti’s first solo composition.
“Every night I do a joke to the audience. I say, ‘Tonight, you will not escape,’” Simonetti says, adding that Demons is similar to Dawn of the Dead (it was released under the title Zombi outside of the U.S.)
“Demons was more or less the same thing of evil characters,” he continues. “The idea of the movie and that they’re enclosed in the cinema and can’t escape. It’s a great idea.”
It also adds to the ambience of Simonetti’s concert. Will a hellish horde of fang-toothed terrors rip everyone to shreds? If so, check the lobby for a dirt bike and katana (you're welcome). The over-the-top premise of Demons, including the coke-sniffing punks who stumble into the massacre and the helicopter crash kill scene, paired with the contemporary-turned-classic soundtrack, makes it a must-watch for any horror aficionado.
And the fact that Simonetti and Goblin are bringing it to life in such an unprecedented way for them makes the upcoming show a can’t-miss event, as well, and Simonetti is loving it so far. “For Demons, it’s a special experience for me, because I haven’t played it before,” he says, even though he’s performed many of his other soundtracks live before. “I didn’t know what to expect from people, but people have been having a lot of fun. This is sincerely one of my favorite films to play live because the music, sometimes it rocks, sometimes it’s electronical, sometimes it’s suspenseful. It’s nice.”
Before conjuring Demons in Cleveland, Simonetti takes a moment to explain his process behind the spooky score.
“Demons was 1985, so it was a big period of dance music and electronical. That’s why I decided to give Demons this sound that was modern at that time,” he concludes. “I used electric drums, drum machine, a lot of samples, all new instruments of the ’80s. I tried to experiment doing something new.”
Claudio Simonetti's Goblin, 8 p.m. Wednesday, October 18, Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place. Tickets are $25-$49.40.
