Kyle McConaghy and Joe DeBoer synthesize tragic horror for SXSW
Kyle McConaghy and Joe DeBoer know their way around the guts of an analog synthesizer. Back in their days as part of St. Louis-based band Jumping Towers, DeBoer said, “Synths would break, and we’d have to open them up and get in there.”
That onscreen hunt for the perfect emulator was reflected in the duo’s own efforts to replicate how keyboards sounded in the ‘80s. McConaghy explained, “We were always in big pursuit of certain sounds.” They were hugely influenced by synthesizer pioneer Wendy Carlos, electronic punk pioneers Suicide, and most especially the synesthesiac sounds of British Goth innovators Joy Division.
Filming in Los Angeles made more practical and budgetary sense, and the duo praised production designer Payton Jane for reviving an authentic, lived-in, beige and brown ‘80s. That included McConaghy’s own, more modern bathroom, which becomes the prison in which Trent stashes Josh , the keyboard engineer who becomes the object of his obsession. “We wallpapered it and I spray painted the floor,” McConaghy said.
McConaghy grinned: “Every time I had a new guest over, I’d have to be like, ‘I promise you, I have to keep this up because we’re shooting pickups next month, but I will not use it.”