With album titles such as Blood Lust, Mind Control and this year’s The Night Creeper, and an overall aesthetic that mingles Hammer grand guignol, acid-fried, post-Altamont meltdown and the covers of all those Penguin horror collections that you had to put face down on the night-stand when you were a kid for fear of completely freaking yourself out, it’s little wonder that Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats frontman Kevin Starrs is a something of a fan of horror and exploitation films.
“I remember watching Nightmare On Elm Street at a young age and being amazed by the whole idea of it. I always remember being really drawn to the artwork of all those ’80s horror films when I’d go to the video rental shop. Films like Fright Night, Evil Dead 2, The Return Of The Living Dead… they all had really great covers that made you want to pick them up.”
It’s an obsession that has informed the band’s music in myriad ways. Be it their reliance on the sludgy riffs first popular in the aftermath of the great hippy failure of the late-1960s, or their use of the kind of eye-gouging graphics that used to scream from the flea-pit cinema hoardings in murkier times. It’s also affected their latest album in a more overt manner. Indeed, The Night Creeper is nothing less than a full-blown concept album, taking in homeless stalkers, brutal murder and noir-ish atmospherics.
“It’s something I’ve always tried to do but this is the first time that it’s really all come together. It just makes things easier for me to see the fuller picture when I start writing an album. I’ll start with a rough idea of a theme and a story line, but it will always evolve as time goes on and more songs get written. You end up thinking of different ways of taking the story in another direction.”
We got in touch with Starrs to discuss his 13 favourite horror and exploitation classics and to chart their influence over Uncle Acid’s music.
The Night Creeper is out now on Rise Above Records. Click on the image below to begin scrolling through Kevin’s 13 choices
