We had a great opportunity to interview Steve Schiltz, the member of the one man band Hurricane Bells and the artist of Monsters on the New Moon Soundtrack!

1. We’re just going start with the most basic question fans usually want to know. Did you ever heard about or perhaps even read the series before you became involved with the Saga? If so, what was your first encounter with the twilight world?

i really was pretty unaware. i had heard of “twilight”, but i had never read any of the books or seen the movie. i found out about my song being selected for the soundtrack, and my friend gave me the first two books and said, “you need to read these”. i am halfway through “new moon” now.

2. As you probably have guessed by now, the twilight fandom is pretty intense (in the best possible way). Have things changed for you at all after track listing came out?

a little bit, yep! i have a record called “tonight is the ghost” that i have been planning to put out, and the soundtrack has changed those plans…i think we may release it sooner now, and perhaps with a real label, as opposed to my putting it out myself. so it’s very exciting.

3. The soundtrack for the first album was very successful. An anomaly in the music business, if you will. How did you get involved with the New Moon soundtrack? Were you contacted by the music director or did you directly pursue the project?

well i have a publisher that pitches songs of mine for me. it was basically done through them. i am not sure how much work went into getting it done. i don’t like to know about those things until they are certain….it can be heartbreaking otherwise, if things don’t actually happen.

but i do know that a lot of people i know were also trying to get songs into the movie, as well…

4. As for the song itself, is there anything you can tell us about it? For example, was it written exclusively for the movie or if you were inspired by certain characters, relationships etc.

no, i had it sitting around for awhile. i left it off of my record because i didn’t feel like it fit somehow. the song is a kinda catchy, up feeling song with some darker lyrics. there is a lot of fuzzed out guitar, and a pretty ripping guitar solo. it was only after i thought about it a bit that i could see how it might fit into the movie.

another thing about it was that i recorded it myself, in my band rehearsal room and my apartment. i mixed it in my friend’s basement. so there were no big studios, and no one else involved except me. no record label. i played all of the instruments, it was like an obsession. so it is pretty amazing to me now that it sits on a record alongside the killers and thom yorke, etc.

5. Were you inspired by anything non-twilight related for the song?

hmm, i just liked the idea of the words, some downer words with this happy little melody.

6. Could you give us a little teaser of the lyrics to your song?

sure, the main line is, “wait, you gotta look before you go, deep into the darkness where i hide”. the song is called “monsters”.

Posted by Kimmy on Monday, October 19th, 2009 in: HisGoldenEyes Exclusive, Music: New Moon Soundtrack. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.