“It’s much less tension and pressure than directing a movie... It’s kind of our first heavy metal album”: John Carpenter on why he’s happier making music than films these days

A gloomy cathedral at night.

It’s been a long while since horror doyen John Carpenter made a movie. But since The Ward in 2010, Carpenter has started up a second career as a musician. He’s released four albums of ‘Lost Themes’ via Sacred Bones, and now he’s about to put out a joint graphic novel/ album project.

It’s called Cathedral and as he’s told Spin, both novel and album are based on a nightmare the 78-year-old had that he couldn’t shake from his psyche. “It was so cinematic and vivid,” he said about the dream that involves a succession of murders near an old church. “I thought, ‘I have to score this.’”