Music In Hell

BRATS IN HELL was written on a steady diet of Satanic inspired music. Though the story is horror comedy, Frank J. Edler felt keeping the tone of hell required maintaining a certain mood while writing the parts in Hell. This is an exposition of the music that inspired the the underworld of BRATS IN HELL.

I don't normally write with music on. I find it distracting. But for some reason, when it came time to write BRATS, I felt I needed some extra oomph to stay in that zone. True, I was writing a comedic version of Hell, but I still felt the story needed to keep this misfit, chaotic mood for these demons to exist in.

I though about how I saw the demons in my head. I honed their visage from metal album cover art. Two particular albums lent themselves heavily to how I saw these demons and the world they existed within. First is Rob Zombie, particularly White Zombie era Rob Zombie art. I always loved that type of demonic/satanic art. Its colorful and vibrant and conversely gross and disfigured. The Hell that exists in BRATS IN HELL is like that. There are several 'species' of demons which are identified by their primary color and their behavioral demeanor.

More over Rob Zombie type demons, I really saw my demons as the demons from a lesser know cover, Dangerous Toys "Pissed" album. They are a little trickier to pick up on. They are crawling out of the corners from the central image of the Dangerous Toys iconic clown. If you owned they album you saw bigger, isolated images of these demons on the inside folds of the liner notes. These demons were more sinister looking. They were were green and purple and red but they were darker shades of those cover. And they had a mischievous vibe about that. Also, they also had a sense of coming from a communal place where as Zombie's demonic figures are very singularly identified.

So these were the demons I saw in my mind as I wrote the story. I played a lot of Rob Zombie and Dangerous Toys as a result. I found it helped keep me in the zone of the atmosphere of Hell.

I took to Spotify and began to see out more Satanic, creepy, dark music. I knew to go to Venom's "Evil In A League With Satan" which was probably played the most during the writing of BRATS.




But BRATS IN HELL isn't a deeply dark story. I found Twisted Sister's "Burn In Hell" fit the mood of the book perfectly. Anyone familiar with the song probably recalls it being played in the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure . The song, a dark, growling anthem stands in stark contrast to the silly mood of a Pee Wee Herman movie. If there were a soundtrack to BRATS this would be the lead song on the album.




Those who've not yet read BRATS IN HELL may not realize the book not only takes place in Hell but a good chunk of the book also is set in Heaven. For those more pure moments I turned to more "heavenly metal" to put myself in the proper state of mind. So in order to shift gears from Hell to Heaven I had to find a way to cast the devil out of my mind. The answer was simple, play Stryper's "To Hell With The Devil"




Before I sat down to write BRATS IN HELL, I found trying to listen to music, any music while writing a complete distraction. For BRATS I felt I really need to sink myself into a frame of mind while writing in the setting of Hell. The only way I figured could help that would be to listen to dark chugging heavy metal music with Satanic sounding lyrics.

I don't know if that mindset poured out onto the page but without a doubt it helped me chug though the writing and held my normally jocular, upbeat psyche down in a dark space for a little longer than it cared to linger.

I haven't written anything since that I've felt I needed to force a state of mind for. I do listen to music as I write from time to time. I try to play stuff I'm not familiar with so I don't start focusing on the lyrics and get distracted and start singing along. It's nice to have something in the background sometimes and serves the dual purpose of being able to discover new music at the same time.

I wonder, do you play music while you read? I thing that would be an even bigger distraction that listening while writing. What songs do YOU think would make a great BRATS IN HELL playlist?

The Time I Hung Out With a Rock Star - Twisted Sister Edition

I lived some prime years of my life through the decadent age of hard rock and heavy metal that dominated the music landscape in the 1980's. It was an incredible time. The music was loud, the clothing was loud and the hair went all the way to 11. Anything worth doing was worth overdoing.

I followed those bands with the big hair and the black leather and the flashy guitars like they were a religion. I bought the rock magazines and studied the articles. I tore the glossy photos from the rags and plastered the walls of my bedroom with them. I bought cheap mall knockoff rock star clothing and frequented every local music store dreaming of the day I would be able to afford a sexy looking $700 guitar that would make women melt without even playing a single note.

My dedication to the music, the bands and the scene led me on many great adventures. I frequently sought out the bands when they were in town. I would stalk their tour buses and wait for the opportunity to hang out with anyone from the band.

It worked many, many times and I have these stories to tell. Like this one time when I hung out with Twisted Sister:

It was 1984. Twisted Sister was the biggest thing in rock and roll coming off the strength of their hits We're Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock. The Sisters were doing this big homecoming show at the Nassau Collesium out on Long Island. It was a small venue as arena's go and the place was going to be packed.

Everyone who owned a pair of acid wash denims, a bandanna and either black motorcycle boots or well-worn Converse were going to be there. I had to get in but I couldn't scrape up enough money for a ticket before the show sold out.

I was determined to be there to see Dee, Jay Jay, Eddie and AJ in all their drag queen-on-acid glory. I scraped enough money together by the day of the show and prayed it would be enough to buy a scalped ticket.

I ran into several people trying to scalp tickets. I wasn't just going to buy from just anyone, there was an art to this. You had to know what you were doing or you were going to pay too much money, buy a fake ticket or just flat out get robbed.

I ignored several shady guys asking if I had an extra ticket. They were definitely scalpers but I could tell they were working the crowd as a team. One guy distracts you haggling over ticket prices while another stands out of view. The decoy gets you to show which pocket your money is in and then, BAM, the pickpocket is gone with your money and you can't even feel it. They are good, I'll give them credit.

I found a small group of people all huddled together. They looked harmless and were asking the requisite scalper question, "Do you have any extra tickets?" They looked very innocent, like good church going people. I approached them.

"I don't have an extra ticket," I said, "I was hoping maybe one of you do?"

I couldn't have known this was a trap. One I was not prepared for. They began attacking me, their weapon: guilt.

"Don't you know scalping perpetuates impoverished people!?" One of the group barked at me.

"Scalping is degrading to women! You're a chauvinistic pig!" another cried.

"You're promoting a capitalist agenda. The rich are getting richer and the poor get left behind!" Yet another chided.

I was blindsided. The last thing I was expecting in this transaction was to be pummeled with political and social agendas. I didn't even give a shit, I just wanted to see Twisted fucking Sister rock.

They kept laying into me with their accusations and judgments. My head swirled. People were starting to look are me with disgust as they walked by the scene.

I heard a group of really hot girls all dressed in the tightest and shortest mini skirts and stiletto heels call me a xenophobe. I had no idea what that even was and I wasn't sure they did either. It still cut my ego just the same.

I could feel myself changing. I felt myself growing socially progressive views on feminism, race relations and the absurdities of a trickle-down economy. Only moments ago I only wanted to rock, not caring a thing for my fellow man and their plight on this Earth. Now I wanted to grab someone by the collar and browbeat them with my feminist agenda.

I was ready to promote my new social awareness when I was pleasantly surprised to find myself surrounded by five large women. I felt proud that these women who were taller and uglier than the social norms would dictate felt comfortable enough in their femininity to cast off the hateful stares of bigoted men and proudly strut their beautiful bodies for the world to see.

And then I realized the five women were Twisted Sister.

Dee Snider slapped me hard across the face, "You're not an SJW!"

Then the rest of the band shouted, "You're an SMF!" in unison.

Jay Jay French tore off my jeans and ripped open my shirt. AJ Piero lifted me up and Jay Jay slid me into a pair of skin tight spandex with pink leopard print. My bulge stood our prominently in them. Eddie Ojeda came up from behind me and tied a feather boa around my neck and some pink and neon green scarves around my waist.

Then the five of them jumped me, pinning me to the ground. They were all attacking my face. Finally the attack stopped and they picked me up. Dee held up a mirror to my face. I looked like a street walking whore. I had heavy blue eye shadow, black eye liner, fire engine red lipstick on and beaming cherry blush rouge on my cheeks. 

I never felt so manly in my entire life. I looked like one of The Sisters. They made me a rock star! They made me a sexy mother fucker. I was an S-M-F!

They gave me tickets to the show. I got to see them from the third row. There was also a backstage pass laminate and I go to go hang out with them after the show. Dee Snider is a really cool guy, smart as hell. We talked about male pattern baldness, the rate of fluorocarbons getting into our ozone layer from the heavy use of AquaNet and we even discussed feminism and how much he loved and supported women in his own special way.

I didn't know what a social justice warrior was in 1984. Nobody did. I came face to face with a monster that nobody realized existed. Fortunately Dee Snider and Twisted Sister were there to fight them off and teach us what was really important... Rock N' Roll. 

It was a magical night hanging out with a bunch of dudes dressed up like a bunch of women. Nobody slapped a label on it or cast any judgement other than it was a good time. I miss those days.