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[0:00] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Hi, I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper.

[0:02] Joe Iconis: And I'm Joe Iconis. And on today's episode of the ALBUM PODCAST, we're going to be talking about Haddonfield, 15 Years Later, For Judith.

[0:11] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: This is a tune that was inspired by the John Carpenter Halloween film series and the character of The Shape, aka Michael Myers. And you're going to hear all about that and more on the podcast. This is a song that was not written for Smash, but did almost appear in Smash and was in the concert version of Hit List, as performed on the album by the great Jared Weiss. It is a song that you may have heard him sing in concert, but the album version, which we've been performing recently live, is huge and big and a showstopper. And like, you've never heard it yet.

[0:48] Joe Iconis: Yeah, and I think that out of all of the songs in the album, this one definitely has one of the more interesting backstories. And so give it a listen. Find out. Happy Halloween.

[0:58] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It's not Halloween.

[1:00] Joe Iconis: It is in my heart.

[1:03] Joe Iconis: Labor still all look the same. They peer from back behind a drape. To them I do not have a name. Haddonfield, 15 Years Later, For Judith.

[1:17] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Correct. One of the most cumbersome titles on the record.

[1:21] Joe Iconis: I didn't realize you like the name Judith, because that's also a character in Love and Hate Nation.

[1:24] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I do. I love the name Judith. But this, the Judith in question is Judith Myers. So I did not name her. But yeah, so this song is a song that is, like many on the album, inspired by a film. And it's a horror film. And it is Halloween. And I wrote the song. I wrote it specifically for my Halloween concert at the Beachmen. And I wrote it for myself to sing at the top of the show.

[1:45] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: A costume probably falling off of you or something.

[1:48] Joe Iconis: With the costume falling off of me for sure. I don't remember what. Oh, I was, I was a pilot. I was a pilot for a few years of the Halloween show. My Halloween costume was whatever they had left over at the Penn Station Kmart the morning of Halloween. And so that year I got pilot.

[2:06] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Makes sense.

[2:07] Joe Iconis: And, and so Haddonfield is essentially told from the point of view of The Shape, aka Michael Myers, who has come back to Haddonfield 15 years after he murdered his sister and then was sent to an asylum. And it's, it, you know, it's, again, it's not like I think Halloween should be a musical. It is not like, even if it was a musical, this is a song that would be in it. It's just sort of this, this idea of, of, it's using the framework of Halloween and the, the character to, to, you know, tell a story about someone returning home after a long time.

[2:45] Joe Iconis: And so like, this is another song that feels like just as autobiographical for me as, you know, some of the ones that, that are about like musical theater writers writing, you know? And so it's just this idea of like going back to the place where you're from. And, you know, in the case of the song, and in my case, the suburbs, returning there and having it feel the same but different, you know? And after having sort of a seismic life change or event or something, and you go back and it's like, what are the things that you're still obsessed about? And what are the things that have moved on without you? And, and the sort of, again, the kind of like the, the toll that, you know, nostalgia and, and, and, you know, looking back takes on the on the present.

[3:54] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: One thing I love about the history of this song is that Josh Safran, who is someone we collaborated with a while back, and who I love very much. This was a song when he was show running the second season of Smash, and he discovered Broadway Here I Come and the Goodbye Song, put them in it. And you know, that story has been well documented by you and I and other people elsewhere. But Haddonfield 15 years later, for Judith was another song of yours that he really loved that I know he tried to find a place for in Smash somehow, and it didn't ever really quite fit in to the plot that they could use it for in season two of Smash. And then when we did Hit List at 54 Below as like a concert of like the fictional musical, it was in it and Chris Rodriguez got to sing Haddonfield as part of Hit List, which I think was something Josh wanted all along.

[4:55] Joe Iconis: Yeah, yeah. And I love that he so responded to that song. Because it is it's a, you know, it's such a weird one, this song, because as much as it, you know, it is about all the things that we're talking about. And it is about, you know, sort of returning to a place where you used to live and, and your relationship to it and the places relationship to you. It is also like literally about the movie Halloween, you know, it's like it really does work in both ways. And it's the you know, the sort of what happens in the in the song is really it's what happens in the movie where Michael Myers escapes from the asylum, and he puts this mask on, a literal mask, and he goes to Haddonfield.

[5:36] Joe Iconis: And, and, you know, the line, the line, the, where he talks about the neighbors, you know, as they look at him, he says, you know, I'm not a man, I'm just a shape. Which, you know, literally in the world of Halloween, like the name of that character is actually the shape. That's what they call him. And so yeah, so it was I, it actually like Josh, digging the song so much and relating to the song so much was one of the things that made me feel like, okay, what I'm trying to do is actually working, you know, like this thing, my intention with this, which wasn't just bullshit was to actually write a real song that that if you happen to know the movie Halloween, great, and could be excited about how it relates, but you don't need to in order to like get the song him like, you know, it's like, Okay, I'm, I think I'm doing something. All right. Yeah. With this.

[6:23] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: At some point, we should have a Halloween though, where we watch all the movies that you've written songs that are inspired by, because like, I haven't seen half the movies either. Like to me, like Norman is my jumping off point, you know, for it's, it's great that they work out of context.

[6:38] Joe Iconis: Yeah. If you haven't seen the movie, I think so.

[6:40] Joe Iconis: And I mean, I also like, you know, the movie, so in the movie, the movie, all of these movies inspire the songs, but you know, with Halloween, especially it's like the, you know, and the, the, the Halloween theme is, is obviously, you know, referenced in the, in the sort of underscore of the song, the orchestration of the song. And, and the sort of lurking dread of that movie, I love that movie so much. And what I love about it is the way it makes, it makes the community feel simultaneously comforting and sinister.

[7:17] Joe Iconis: Half Halloween takes place in daytime, it takes place Halloween day, and you sort of get the like, you know, these, these teenage girls, they're in their car riding around, and they're, they're smoking pot, and they can't let the dad see, and people are going to the market, and they're shopping, and you sort of get this like, this small town life. But even though we know it's a horror movie, you, you're sort of seduced by it, and it, and it feels comfortable, and it feels really, it feels really nice. And it's, and it, you know, when I look at it, it, it, it makes me, you know, it makes me nostalgic for, you know, my own, you know, high school experience, even though I did not have that high school experience. You know, I look at Halloween, and I'm like, oh man, remember when we were just, you know, driving around? And it's like, I mean, I did drive around, but I didn't have that. But it feels like that.

[8:06] Joe Iconis: And then it's, then you see those same streets, and the same houses feel like, feel like haunted houses. Like they, you know, it's the, the, the thing that's lurking under the surface comes to the forefront. And so that is, you know, in the song, it's, it, you know, it sort of starts in this bright way, and it, and it feels like a song about like, you know, like a college kid returning home or something. And then it gets gradually darker, and darker, and darker, and darker, until all of the stuff that used to, that, that did exist, you know, bubbling underneath the surface. By the end of the song, it's, it's, that's all there is. It's just the, the, you know, we've like flip-flopped.

[8:51] Joe Iconis: And, and that's kind of why the, the, the end of the song totally turns into something else, you know? And it's like the, there's a gospel choir at the end, because it feels like this guy who's singing, that's, that is what, that is what it feels like to him, you know? It's like, that is what this whole thing.

[9:12] Joe Iconis: Like it. He's just one man. He's just, you know, just a shape, you know, wandering these streets. But inside of him, you know, he's got the power of the power of 40 people, you know, scream singing and clapping and... Right. Like they do at him in the performances.

[9:34] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Do you want to talk about the performance on this track?

[9:39] Joe Iconis: I do. Yeah, the performance by Jared Weiss is it's one of my favorites. Jared is someone who I've known since he was a student at NYU. He went to school with a lot of people who I love and who I've worked with for many years, like Lauren Marcus and Will Rollins. He and Lauren were in the amazing John Simpkins NYU performance production of Merrily. They were. That was my first exposure to them and they were amazing.

[10:05] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. I mean, I saw that's the first time I ever saw Lauren Marcus and it's the first time I ever saw Jared Weiss. Like I experienced them together.

[10:17] Joe Iconis: And, you know, Jared is such he's such a character as a man and he can do so many things. And something that I love about him is there's like a real tension to his performances because he is such a skilled classic musical theater performer in a way that is, I think, surprising because he, you know, Jared Weiss has like the best head of hair in the whole stinking world and he plays guitar and he feels like contemporary. He feels like, you know, you look at him and you're like, oh, that's like a cool sort of like rocker guy. But he's just like he is like Mr. Musical Theater. Like he has this gorgeous tenor voice and and he can do legit stuff so well. And so he has that going on. And then he also is like a total loose cannon and he has this like explosive stage presence and he's, you know, and he's sort of all over the place.

So he's always in his in his performances. I feel like he's always so, you know, beautifully doing this dance of negotiating this really controlled musical theater performance and sound and idea with this like absolute, you know, wild human dynamite thing.

[11:36] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And those two things coexist, I think, in most of the stuff he does, but especially in this tune, which just feels like, you know, the most appropriate for this character.

[11:50] Joe Iconis: And then, you know, at the end, I just love his like, you know, his laugh. It's like his maniacal ish laughs. And that was something that we kind of came up with in the studio because the gospel choir, which is amazing and I can't even believe that we have it on the album. And it's the gospel choir is arranged by the great Joel Waggoner, who I worked with on many projects, Broadway Bounty Hunter. And he arranged Broadway Bounty Hunter and he was in Be More Chill. And he's a multi hyphenate, multi, multi, multi hyphenate. And so his arrangements are just stunning. And he came and conducted the choir. And it's really unreal. But we knew we're going to have this choir. And so it was like, which we don't really have in performance.

We, you know, we've we have people singing, but it's not quite as, you know, not as much of a moment as we knew we wanted to do for the album. And so it's kind of like, you know, Jared typically would just sort of sing over. But when you have like, you know, 30 voices singing, you know, very exciting, intricate harmony, it's like one lone voice isn't going to cut through. And so we were kind of like, what could you do? And I was like, you know, just sort of ad lib and maybe just talk a little bit and mutter and, you know, scream or something. And then we kind of found him doing this laugh. And I think it sounds like so many different things to me. You know, it succeeds as like a, you know, the laugh of a masked killer.

It succeeds as the, you know, the laugh of, you know, a bemused man sort of, you know, feeling like this place where he's come back to is not, you know, not all that, right? It feels like the laugh of childhood that's echoing. And I think like all of those things kind of coexist over top this, you know, passionate, full-bodied gospel choir.

[13:51] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, it's such a like dangerous feeling and like explosive feeling performance and song live and also in the studio. But I just remember, and we haven't talked about this in a while, like Jared coming in to record and how crazy it felt for all of the performers that like, not only had they not performed like a concert or really like with other people, but it was like to do a song like this after like we had all kind of been locked inside, not performing or doing anything.

[14:16] Joe Iconis: Yeah, he really like, you know, killed it, but it was a tall order like for just not having performed in so long.

[14:24] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, no, I mean, the fact that these performances on this album sound as great as they do is it's really amazing and just a testament to all these people. Because it's like everyone was, you know, out of practice for a very long time. I also like the laugh thing because it reminds me of like growing up and listening to couch recordings and being like, oh my god, I'm obsessed with how that person does that syllable. It's so funny. And just people picking up on the little moments.

[14:46] Joe Iconis: Yeah. And you know, something that I really love about it at the end of the song is like, it's so dense. There's so much going on. There's like almost too much going on, but in a way that I really wanted to do because, you know, typically in certainly musical theater and really in, you know, like my live performances, you try to, for the sake of clarity, to kind of boil things down to their most necessary components. Because, you know, if you have too much going on, it's hard to hear the lyric. It's hard to understand what's happening. Something that I love about recorded music is you don't need that clarity. You don't need to have things totally make sense on the first listen. And in fact, like many albums that I love are albums that reveal themselves over time because just by nature of what it is, you're supposed to revisit things.

And the hope is that you hear more and more things the deeper you get into something. Because the more you start, you know, you're familiar with this vocal line or this melodic line or something that allows you, it frees you up to hear this other thing that's been happening the whole time. It's been right there, but you just heard it. And so there's lots of moments like that on this album where if it was on a stage, if it was a musical, I would want to strip it back and, you know, and simplify. But for the album, you know, there's a lot of moments where it's like more and more and more and more and then let people like piece it together. You know, it's like it's the only thing I've ever worked on where it's like there are moments where I intentionally, you know, we mixed it and added. So it felt like people would listen to it and be like, what did they say? What just happened? Like, it's like, that's like, yeah, you know, I want that. And that's very much the case with this.

[16:35] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Very, very Lacusa Wild Party.

[16:37] Joe Iconis: Yeah, yeah. You know, dance.

[16:39] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, yeah.

[16:40] Joe Iconis: Pile it on. I do have to say, I have to pat myself on the back that I am one of my favorite things in the song is the at the end or the almost end is until the night when she comes home to me. That's a reference to the tagline of the original movie Halloween, which was the night that he came home.

[17:07] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Wow, I never knew that.

[17:08] Joe Iconis: Yeah. And so I've always been really happy. I'm really pleased with myself that I was referencing not just the movie, but the tagline.

[17:17] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: As you were starting the campaign explanation, I was like, why would that reference the last five years, which is what that reference is for me. And now that we're back here.

[17:26] Joe Iconis: But now I'll have to learn more about Halloween.

[17:28] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[17:29] Joe Iconis: Halloween.

[17:30] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Haddonfield.

[17:32] Joe Iconis: 15 years later.

[17:33] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Poor Judith.

[17:36] Joe Iconis: Hey, thanks so much for listening or watching to my podcast. Do me a favor and go to wherever you just listen to or watch this thing and subscribe or like or give us a great rating or review and then head to bpn.fm slash album to find out even more information about this podcast, more ways to watch, more ways to listen and check out my album album. Thanks so much for hanging out.

[17:59] Joe Iconis: Album podcast is executive produced by Liz Armstrong, produced by Dori Berenstein, Alan Seals, Kim Garris and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network. Be sure to visit bpn.fm slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to album.