John Patrick Brennan [Interview]

Hello Folks! Welcome to the 2020 edition of our Month of Horror. It’s almost humorous that we are showcasing the motion pictured displays of horror when it seems as though we simply have to look around us to see the natural horror that is enveloping our daily lives. But nevertheless, a quick escape from the surrealism of our daily lives is often appreciated. In this vein, we honor these wonderful folks who seek to only entertain us with a good scare and a break from the actual horror that is all around us. We have assembled a wonderful batch of actors, writers, directors & beyond, who have worked on so many different projects that you know and love. I am beyond excited to share them with you all throughout the month of October. Enjoy!

Today’s guest is the amazing filmmaker & musician, John Patrick Brennan. John has done some wonderful work in the world of horror, specifically for one studio that we have talked about and featured guests who work in it literally dozens of times now, the great Troma Studios. Think of a project you love from the Troma world from recent years, John has probably worked on it in some capacity. He is also the man behind the theme song, and other works, of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs which airs on Shudder that you should all be watching.

So Folks, please enjoy some kind and interesting words from the great John Patrick Brennan!

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What inspired you to get into the world of entertainment? Was it an early aspiration you can always remember having since your youth, or did you just find yourself in this world one day?

On Movies: When I was very young, 5 or 6 years old, in the 80s, my parents rented a video camera to capture our family’s New Years Eve festivities. It was brand new technology at the time; a heavy, clunky camera that recorded directly onto VHS tapes. The first thing I asked was, “Can we make a movie!?” I wanted to film something with karate fights in it. I tied toilet paper around my head, wrists & ankles (because I must have seen something similar on TV at some point) and tried to direct. Unfortunately, I have a very large family – nine aunts and uncles on my mother’s side, with countless cousins – so my karate movie didn’t come to fruition that day. The rest of the family ended up hogging the camera. But, this, along with my love of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, was the spark.

Then, when I was in high school, my parents bought a Hi-8 camera and I basically confiscated it on day one. My friends and I taped hundreds of hours of skits, parodies, and performance art over the next four years. I still have a lot of that material safe and secure in my personal archives. We had so much fun. It’s why I decided to pursue the arts for a living. After that I went to film school. From there, post graduation, I moved to LA to become a screenwriter. I failed miserably in that endevor and returned to NY eight years later. That’s when I got involved with Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Entertainment, and the real “shitstorm” soon began!

On Music:  My parents had excellent taste and started me out young on the good stuff. I had a 45 of Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” and played it on repeat for hours on end using my Fisher Price vinyl record player. Still my favorite song. When I grew up a little, getting to grammar school, I became obsessed with Heavy Metal. It was the heyday of MTV and my favorite show was “Headbangers Ball.” Then in middle school I got really into rap. Cypress Hills, Black Sheep, A Tribe Called Quest. Music is the best! My top six favorite musical acts are: Ween, Frank Zappa, The Beatles, Wu-Tang Clan, Stevie Wonder & Madonna. As far as learning to play music, I had three guitar lessons in the 6th grade. The teacher taught me bar chords, first thing. Later, in high school, I taught myself open chords from a book of Beatles tunes. With that foundation of bar chords and open chords I started writing my own songs. I’ve written around 700 to date, 42% of them might be enjoyable. I home recorded music as a hobby for about two decades, until finally getting the chance to write and record the theme song for “The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs.” It’s been a blessing working on the show!

What was your first paid gig in the world of entertainment? And were there any kind of lessons learned from this project that still affect your work today?

My first paid gig came about during my senior year of film school. I was hired to produce a documentary for an insanely rich man, who had made his fortune in software. He wanted to make a documentary about heroin addicts switching over to methadone in order to get themselves clean. It was kind of the dawn of digital video back then, so affordable editing software was able to run on home computers for the first time ever. I got to learn as I worked. The subject was very interesting to me. New York City’s mayor at the time, Rudolph Giuliani, had come out and said he wanted to abolish methadone clinics, which caused a huge uproar for an entire community of people in recovery. I put a small crew together and we interviewed local politicians, clinic workers, recovering addicts, and addicts that had sadly relapsed.

The shoots went smoothly and we purchased a bunch of stock footage from local news sources to fill in the information blanks. Unfortunately, about two weeks into editing many months worth of material, the rich man showed our Final Cut Pro timeline to his friend who was visiting from Texas. Unfortunately, my co-editor and I weren’t present. The two of them couldn’t make heads or tails of it, mainly because we were at the dawn of the edit. We needed at least a month to get a watchable rough cut together. Instead, I received a phone call from him saying he wanted to try and edit it himself. That was that.

About a year later I received a VHS tape of the finished product. There was literally no editing on the final product at all. The entire piece was just raw interviews with no discernable theme, context, or cohesion. He sold maybe a dozen copies. I guess the lesson here is that people with money can do whatever the hell they want, right or wrong! I was simply too young and inexperienced to argue with the guy. I do sometimes wish we’d been given the time to properly put that project together. It was a juicy and compelling subject. Could have been an interesting documentary.

In your own personal opinion, what do you believe it is that makes the horror genre special? What sets it apart from other genres you have worked in?

What makes the horror genre special is that it takes a shit load of imagination & skill to create, produce, and execute the best ones, but even the worst ones usually have some redeeming qualities (great special FX work, schlock, etc.). This isn’t true for all genres. A bad romantic comedy is just BAD. A bad horror movie is most likely watchable.