Hayes Bradley Finished His Album, Thanks to This Joan Didion Book

Composer, producer, and DJ Hayes Bradley is excited by a lot of things: geeking out about scoring indie films, long runs in L.A. fueled by podcasts, and memorizing every line of dialogue from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 

But as he tells ShelfMAG over Zoom, right now, he’s most looking forward to walking over to Amoeba Music and buying his new record Audience, the soundscapes of which which are informed by a chaotic mix of influences, like the intense movie he’s almost scared to recommend and formative works in the California canon. Below, he also shares the paperback that inspired a song on his new album, the surprisingly dark podcast that gets him in a creative flow, and the action thriller too good for the Hollywood reboot machine.

Mare of Easttown

“I was born in Philly, and my grandparents and cousins are out there. Spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in the suburbs, it’s that kind of mindset of grinding at a pretty shit job all day, everyone's family is super-tight, and the second you come home, you grab a beer. A lot of these shows, nowadays, don't do a lot of research into what the actual place is like, [but this] was spot on. When I'm missing my grandparents, even though it's a pretty gnarly show, I like rewatching it. The dewy leaves and the smell, there's not a lot going on, just going to the bar with your friend, and there's a show at a coffee shop. It’s the opposite of what my life is now, but I really miss it. I hope one day my job allows me to live anywhere, so I can move to the woods.”

Heat

“The best movie of all time. The ending song [‘God Moving Over the Face of Waters’ by Moby] is probably my favorite song. The ending scene with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, he's like, ‘I told you I'd never go back.’ They're at LAX, and I'm from L.A., so the whole movie is very important in my day-to-day life. De Niro and Pacino are kind of the same guy. Their demeanors, their values, their morals are very similar. I'm kind of bummed they're remaking it. That doesn't need to be touched.”

Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion

“An ex-girlfriend gave me that book, and it's incredible, I just find myself opening random pages a lot and going back to it. One of the songs on the album is named ‘Play It As It Lays,’ and I remember I had this [bass] loop. It was always on my computer, and I kept going to studios trying to finish it, and I could never really dig into it. Then I remember being on a plane, and for some reason, I had Play It as It Lays in my bag. I was flipping through some pages, and it got me feeling like, ‘I should finish that song.’ I started working on it, got home, [went] straight to the studio, and I was like, ‘This song has to be called ‘Play It As It Lays.’”

S-Town

“If Netflix was smart, they would just do every single story. [S-Town episodes are] always these killer kinds of [stories]. But I go to Idyllwild a lot to do writing trips. I always listen to it driving up there, and it sounds dark, but it gets me in the right zone to shut my brain off and work on music.”

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

“I grew up in the Palisades and went to school in the Valley. There wasn't a lot of outside influence; I would go to track and field practice and then come home. Reading that book made me feel like there's more shit out there. I knew some of it was based on things that actually happened. [It inspired] me and my friend to be like, ‘Let's take the Route 9 bus downtown and go to a punk show’ junior year.”

Irreversible

“There's one of the gnarliest scenes in cinematic history in it. It's Gaspar Noé, who did Climax and Love, and it's just a movie about a night out, but it's backwards. So it starts off very bad and it ends very beautifully. I found out about this movie because I was DJing at this random warehouse in Chicago named Club Rectum. I'm like, ‘What the fuck is that name?’ And they're like, ‘Oh, it's from this movie Irreversible.’ Then I watched the movie at 5 a.m. when I got home, and it was the craziest thing. A cool way of finding out about a movie, and [Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk] scored it.”

What else is Hayes Bradley is into? Get real-time updates at shelf.im/hayesbradley.