You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
In 1978, John Carpenter wrote, directed, and scored the film Halloween.
It was made on a $300,000 budget and ended up grossing over $70 million,
making it one of the most successful independent movies ever released.
The main theme to the film became one of the most iconic pieces of cinematic music ever made.
Halloween went on to become a franchise, with 10 more Halloween films since the original.
In October 2018, a new Halloween film was released, directed by David Gordon Green.
And for the first time since the first film, John Carpenter composed the score.
That included remaking his theme song for the new film,
this time with the help of his son, Cody Carpenter, and his godson, Daniel Davies.
In this episode, the three of them break down how they did it.
First, a little history.
Here's John Carpenter.
Well, when we made Halloween back in 78, we didn't have any money for a composer.
So I always knew that I was going to be the composer.
We had three days at a recording studio, a sound art studio in central LA.
I knew I was going to do the main theme to Halloween, and I had that down pretty much.
Everything else, I was going to fake it, just improvise it.