Interview: Murder By Death’s Adam Turla

A few years ago, I found myself in Kansas City to see The Reverend Horton Heat at Grinders. One of the opening bands was Murder by Death, a band from Indiana that I’d not heard of before. As they set up on the stage, an unusual instrument took my attention: an electric cello. Immediately, I was intrigued. As Sarah took her first foreboding draws on the bow, and Adam’s powerful vocals and folk-guitar style filled the hot summer evening, I was blown away by a performance that to this day sends shivers down my spine. The cellist, Sarah Balliet, played the cello and keyboards with such mastery and force that it could rival even the most excited metal guitarist. At vocals, Adam Turla’s deep booming voice and guitar had such power and raw emotion that it could be compared to Johnny Cash in his later years. The old Western, Gothic-Americana style that the band played was reminiscent of Ennio Morricone and the classic Westerns I’d grown up watching with my father.

A few months ago, I caught them again at The Waiting Room in Omaha, Nebraska. This show was even more impressive, as they were playing their desert series albums, 2008′s Red of Tooth and Claw and 2003′s Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them; by far some of the best narrative music I’ve heard. The two albums act as one narrative, and the entire journey that the performance takes the audience on is one of the most powerful, evocative performances seen today. During the show, the screen at the band’s back was playing snippets of classic cinema. Due to the time since the show, the only one that springs to mind is Nosferatu, in addition to some old World War II black-and-white movies.

Most recently, I’d heard the band’s first track from Red of Tooth and Claw, Coming Home, on the trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Almost instantaneously, I recognized the song and told my little lady. The strong ties to movies that the band had presented, with the album titles  Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them, Like the Exorcist but More Break Dancing, and the track Theme for Ennio Morricone ;the band’s interest in film was pretty self-evident.

Luckily, I managed to catch Adam during the band’s current adventure, recording the soundtrack to a science-fiction novel. Any other band, I’d be surprised, but given the band’s history of straying from the pack and burning their own trails, the two seemed to fit each other perfectly.

Michael Cook: I’ve seen you guys a bunch of times before, and there’s a bunch of visuals and some real heavy themes in there. And even the album titles, Who will Survive and What Will be Left of Them?,  Like the Exorcist, But more Breakdancing, and Theme for Ennio [Morricone], there’s a pretty obvious tie to movies in there…

Adam Turla: Yeah, we’re big movie lovers.

Cook: Are there any particular movies that have influenced the direction of the band, and your sound?

Turla: Well, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know if we would specifically think about movies as inspiring us, but a movie I recently saw a couple years ago that we thought really sort of… the producer who did our third record, J. Robins, actually bought us a copy of the movie The Night of the Hunter, because he thought the movie was sort of similar to the mood we’re going for, and we saw the movie and just fell in love with it. But then again you know, it’s like we like the artsy movies, we like great movies, but then we also have movies in our van such as Big Trouble in Little China, which we’ve seen probably you know, a hundred times. So we’re fans of every movie. We also have what we call the Schwarzenegger collection in our van, which is every movie Schwarzenegger has ever been in. We have like a giant Tupperware full of all the VHS and DVDs.

Cook: Right on. So I totally jumped over the preliminary question, for those that don’t know who Murder By Death are, I’ve seen you guys a handful of times in concert, but I know there are still people out there that haven’t…

Turla: Sure.

Cook: Describe yourselves, for people who don’t know Murder By Death.

Turla: Always a tough question. For those who have never heard us: we’re from Indiana. We have Sarah, she plays cello and keyboard, and we just have a guitar-drum-bass lineup, and then I’m the singer. We never really know how to describe our band, but we always describe it as a little dark sort of rock and roll, maybe some Americana in there. We’ve heard it. We’ve been described as just about everything. We have a love of the theatrical, so we have a theatrical flair, and we have a love of film and literature.

Cook: Awesome. I read in your bio that you guys had degrees in Religious Studies and Anthropology. Do you guys use that at all?

Turla: I read a lot of sort of religiously influenced stuff, we’re not like religious people, but I went to school to study religion just because I thought it was fascinating. So that comes up sometimes in the songs, good versus evil, sin and the devil, all that sort of stuff.

Cook: Right, and then the biggest thing and the reason for the phone call, actually, is recently heard Coming Home in the Inglourious Basterds trailer. How did that happen? How did that work out for you guys?

Turla: Well, we got an email from Harvey Weinstein, asking for permission to use that track for the trailer, and we just jumped out of our seats, because we were already excited about the movie. We’ve loved everything Tarantino’s done , so he’s one of those directors I think… him and Rodriguez have a style that I really appreciate, because they’re making movies in a style that no one else does today, which is a style that used to exist more commonly.  Just sort of like the creative action film. The B-movie that ends up being really, really watchable. And I love that style of film, so it’s great to see these guys that are still making those kind of movies. We were already planning on going and seeing the Inglourious Basterds, and then to get asked to be involved, even in this small way, it really was definitely an honor.

We’re really excited about it. There’s been a really positive response from our fans, too. People just writing in, we’ve got so many emails, and comments on our websites just saying stuff like, “oh, this is so great for you guys, I’m so excited, it’s a perfect match,” you know, it’s just a very thrilling to have your music go to a whole different genre, to be involved in film, which is a passion, but has never been something in the field of. Someday, hopefully, we can score films in their entirety.

Cook: Now, with your storytelling in both the two albums The Desert Series [Red of Tooth and Claw, Who Will Survive and What Will be Left of Them], I saw you guys here in Omaha, Nebraska a couple months ago, where you performed both albums continuously, and it had a very strong narrative. Is that an option for you guys? Is there going to be any more of The Desert Series, or something similar?

Turla: Oh, probably not for a while, if  ever. I hadn’t even thought about it. We’re actually in the studio right now recording an instrumental soundtrack to a science-fiction book. It’s pretty cool. It’s going really well. It’s improvisational; We basically just locked ourselves in the studio, and are just writing it as we go along and it’s coming out extraordinarily well.

Cook: Do you guys get out often to see movies, anything like that? You guys are always touring.

Turla: We often go see movies on our days off, it’s just a nice way to relax.

Cook: Was there anything coming out you were looking forward to?

Turla: Seriously, Inglourious Basterds is the movie I’m most excited about right now. Still kind of a weak summer for movies this year. I felt like there weren’t many great summer blockbusters; nothing was particularly awesome this year. But I remember last year, it particular was a good year for movies. But I don’t know, is there anything? I’m trying to think of if there’s anything coming out that I really want to see. Nothing springing to mind, but I really want to see The Hobbit that Guillermo Del Toro’s doing. I’m excited about that. That’ll be interesting.

Cook: If you could name five movies that were important to you, like, landmark movies, what would they be?

Turla: Um, well, I’d say my list is like, I actually have a list that I wrote in my phone for when people ask me this question, but the one’s that comes to mind, my favorite movies is: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the Terry Gilliam movie. It’s got everything: it’s funny, it’s got an incredible adventure story, it’s just absolutely magical and insane. On the same hand, I absolutely love the movie Three Amigos, I have to say, it’s one of my favorite comedies, just because of its absurdity.

I really like the Hitchcock movie Spellbound. It’s really cool, it’s got Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, who are two of my favorite classic-era actors. Plus, its got a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali. I also absolutely love Big Trouble in Little China. John Carpenter when he’s on, makes the greatest, most fun movies. And the last one, oh let’s see, I don’t know what the last one would be. I really like The City of Lost Children. And you know, what I’m going to have to throw in a sixth one, Total Recall. I mean, Schwarzenegger… what a movie!

Cook: That’s totally all over the place; I was expecting more consistent selections.

Turla: No, that’s the nature of our band, is that we are not consistent.

Cook: Now, the Theme for Ennio Morricone, does he know? Has he caught any of that?

Turla: You know what? I haven’t heard anything, but I think a lot of people have done tributes to him that I don’t know about. He has a career that’s  reached so many different generations of people. He’s quite old now. I haven’t heard if he’s heard of the song. It’s  more like a small, small tribute to him. I like the idea he’s an Italian guy writing themes to westerns. I like the element that he’s out of. He’s not from the area, he’s not an American guy from the Southwest, but yet, he’s the man who’s remembered for these landscapes of sound that describe these areas. I think that’s really fascinating.

Cook: Well, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, was there anything else you wanted to say, anything you felt needs to be detailed a little bit more, anything like that?

Turla: Not really, we’re hoping to get involved in film more. We’ve always wanted to score a film somewhere, and we’re working on someday hopefully doing that.

Just being able to talk to Adam was an experience of itself.  There are no words for how interesting and different a Murder by Death show is. I’d like to thank Adam for his time again, and to all the people that helped make this interview happen. Anyone reading this should check out Murder by Death the next time they’re near your town. Anyone within spitting distance of Omaha, we’re lucky enough to have Murder by Death in town at the Sokol Auditiorium on September 11th, so get your tickets.

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