A Love-Letter to Horror: Jeff Whitmire’s Stabby Road
Jeff Whitmire, also known as the “Weird Al of Horror,” creates comedy-based parody songs and original music. For his second album, Stabby Road, he leans into his love of horror with twenty-two parody songs and three original tracks. He describes it as “a love-letter to horror and comedy music.” I describe it as absolutely hilarious and well-crafted.
Music To My Ears
When I start my interview with Jeff Whitmire about his newly released album Stabby Road, I decide against going with the opening line I have written down. This man is funny, funny. What if I say this and he doesn’t laugh?
What I do not say: “Long time listener, first time caller. Honored to be in the Zoom where it happens.” What I do say: I have no idea because I forgot to hit record on the Zoom until a few minutes in. Having ADHD is like that sometimes.
If you’re a fan of his music, you’ll catch the reference to the album’s 15th track, “The Zoom Where it Happened” ft. Seylan Baxter. The song is an homage to the Shudder original movie Host (2020) set to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “The Room Where It Happens”. Yes, Whitmire took on a Hamilton song and actually created an equal-caliber parody.
If you’re not a fan of his music, it’s only because you haven’t listened to it yet. Stabby Road is filled top to bottom with smart and funny homages to horror movies as well as The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. He pays tribute to a diverse selection of horror subgenres, ensuring there is a song for every type of horror fan out there.
Set to Random
When I ask how he chooses songs to work with he says, “I always try to keep people guessing.” Explaining one part of his process he goes on, “I’ll switch stations in the car and just try and hear a song and let the movie idea just jump into my head and I’ll go with it.” This creates an album that parodies everything from The Offspring to Aqua to Rusted Root. And of course, the album’s namesake – the “Abbey Road Medley” from the Beatles.
Whitmire reveals the name of Stabby Road came well before the creation of the songs which parody “Abbey Road Medley”. When it was brought to his attention the album did not yet have a Beatles song on it, it was proposed, “What if you do the entire melody?” Whitmire says he responded with, “That sounds absolutely insane, I’m not going to do that.” So, of course, he did it.
Whitmire explains how he got into making parody music as: “I’ve always considered myself more of a lyricist and writing lyrics. So parody was kind of nice because, you know, then I didn’t have to come up with the melodies… But then I’ve been trying to branch out a little more and do more original stuff.” His lyricism shines on the album, with each parody track both a summary and a toast to its respective film.
Play It By Ear
“Cenobite”, track 2, is Whitmire’s favorite song on the album “from a parody standpoint.” It is a parody of “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down and makes reference to Hellraiser 1 & 2. He describes its creation as “one of those lightning in a bottle moments,” and says it is the song where he and co-collaborator 2 Sleeps “really broke through.”
The song is one of my personal favorites from the album. I cannot stop myself from singing “I got it wrong, this ain’t a game. I solved the box and then they came,” whenever I hear “Kryptonite” on the radio. Whitmire’s lyrics on the album have a sneaky way of replacing the original song’s lyrics in your head.
As a testament to his talent with original songs, the three featured on the album do not feel out of place alongside the parodies of smash hits. Two of the original songs are The Drive-In focused. “Hey, Joe Bob!”, the sixth track, is the song he is most proud of on the album from an original standpoint. The song is more personal in nature and describes, “what The Drive-In means to everyone and what [horror] meant to me growing up.”
He is passing along his love of horror to his family. The fifth track, “Don’t Fall Asleep,” was written after watching the entire Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with his son. Finding comfort in something others find uncomfortable may have influenced his decision to parody “Creep” by Radiohead for the track. Just like with “Cenobite,” it’s impossible now to not sing “Don’t fall asleep, feel him near though.”
Changing His Tune
Whitmire’s switch to focusing on horror content is relatively recent, only happening in 2020. Stabby Road is not his first album of parody songs, but as he puts it, “The way things have worked out, a lot of the horror community don’t realize that.” His first album is Deep Fried Superhero and he describes it as, “wide-open genre wise.”
He recently took the stage at FuMPFest, which was born out of The Funny Music Podcast (known as The FuMP). The FuMP is co-hosted by Devo Spice and Luke Ski, and you can listen to their interview with Whitmire here. “They’re really where I got my start in doing [comedy music] so being invited to do that was awesome.”
Despite fears that his horror based songs would turn-off fans of his earlier music he says, “They were into it, they bought in.” He explains the gap between horror and comedy is larger than some may think. “That mixture in the middle is a very weird one that I do.” Stabby Road serves as a perfect bridge for those who may not enjoy comedic horror but do enjoy being able to laugh about horror.
Face The Music
Whitmire was also recently invited by Shudder to create the closing credits song for V/H/S/85 (2023). He and 2 Sleeps joined forces under the band name Bathed in Blood to create the song “Doppelganger.” Since he spoils the movies within his songs, he was able to pre-screen an unfinished version of the movie as part of the creative process.
He says V/H/S/85 is his favorite of the franchise. They were going for a fitting, “Alice Cooper vibe,” with the song. In my opinion, they nail it. Others seem to agree, with the reception online being very positive.
Whitmire laughs when he recounts finding the song on YouTube quickly after the movie’s release. “We’ve got permission,” he says about filming a music video for it. It will be released on a new YouTube account separate from his existing account to differentiate the projects.
Beating The Drum
Speaking of YouTube, I would be absolutely remiss to not mention the incredible creative quality of Whitmire’s music videos. Each video is full of loving references to the films – even going so far as to include filming on the same location.
Whitmire says he is nowhere near close to being out of ideas for songs. He acknowledges, “I still have like 7 songs on my YouTube channel that don’t have an album yet.” Some, if not all, of those songs will be featured on his upcoming third album Direct to Video. I’ve got my hopes up that “You’re Gonna Float,” which parodies Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat,” will make the cut.
He reveals he is also working on a “serious, non-horror” album of original songs. “It’s been on my back burner forever.” Whatever he’s got cooking up, I will be listening.
Strike The Right Note
Whitmire’s philosophy towards his horror parody songs is: “I just really love music. Just like I really love horror movies.” If you also love music and horror movies, Stabby Road is 100% the album for you. It is an album that will make you smile, if not laugh outright, and appreciate the genre we all love so much just that much more.
My rating for Stabby Road:
(5 / 5)
Jeff Whitmire can be found on the platform formerly known as Twitter as @JeffWhitmire1 , on YouTube as @jeffwhitmire47 and on bandcamp as Jeff Whitmire. His co-collaborator 2 Sleeps can be found on the platform formerly known as Twitter as @2sleepsmusic.
I just wanted to post a brief shoutout to Linda Gould of the Kaidenkai to say thank you for including my Around the Campfire story. Feel free to follow this link and give it a listen. I especially love how Ed’s voice is conveyed. You really feel as if you are on the camping trip with everyone.
Around the Campfire sets the tone for the month of August wherein authors are invited to participate in telling tales as part of a whole campfire series, kind of like it did here originally on Haunted MTL in 2022.
I am among the authors who read their own works as well, with The Fur Coat. You can listen to my own reading on the Kaidenkai here. You can also read along with the original as posted here to Haunted MTL in 2020.
We have reached the last episode of the podcast, Dolores Roach. No, this really is the end. There are no more episodes unless they’re hidden away on some Patreon page I don’t have access to.
The reason I’m being clear upfront about this is because, after you listen to this episode, the fact that there are no more episodes is going to be both confusing and infuriating.
The story
This episode begins with Dolores in a tunnel, being chased down by a train. She barely manages to escape, jumping onto a subway platform and then boarding the train that almost hit her.
Dolores is in a state of panic. She just escaped the tunnels. She just saw Mother Cleats killed. Now, she’s on a subway train, surrounded by people she doesn’t know. And she is a mess. She hasn’t showered since going down in the tunnel, after all. She probably doesn’t smell great.
Dolores rides the train to Coney Island and gets off. She walks to the ocean and gets in the water to wash herself. And when she comes out, she’s recognized by an old friend, Georgie.
And it is then that we realize that it’s been Georgie she’s been telling this whole story to.
Seeing the state Dolores is in, Georgie insists that she come home with her. She gets Dolores some clothes and something to eat and makes her tell her everything that happened down in the tunnels.
And then, Georgie’s son comes home. A seventeen-year-old son who looks exactly like Dominic.
That’s where the story ends.
What worked
I had a hard time finding much to like about this finale. If it hadn’t been the last episode it would have been great, but it was.
However, I did like the shift in perspective that takes place when it’s revealed that Dolores has been telling this whole story to Georgie this season. Because of course, up until now, it’s felt like she was talking to us and only us.
What didn’t work
This episode had a lot of problems. For one thing, I didn’t trust Georgie from the start. And that distrust just got worse the more we saw of her. She’s a true crime writer who just happens to find Dolores when she comes out of the tunnels after two months. No, Dolores isn’t buying it and neither am I. And inviting a woman you have reason to believe is dangerous into your home is stupid. No one in their right mind would have done that. No parent would have allowed Dolores within the same block as their child. The whole thing was unbelievable.
But that complaint pales to the largest issue I have for this season finale. For this episode that is, as far as I can tell, a series finale.
I say that because I cannot find another episode listed anywhere. If I were to have just listened to this episode without knowing that, I would have assumed this was just a mid-season twist.
Because that’s what this feels like, a mid-season twist. It answers nothing. It wraps up nothing. It gives us no satisfaction at all. And that is more than frustrating. It is infuriating. It ruins any joy we might have gotten from the rest of the season.
The ending of Dolores Roach was, in short, not an ending. It stopped in the middle of the story, there’s just no way around it. And this episode came out in October of 2019, almost five years ago! I know that podcasts are rather notorious for having long periods between seasons. Mine is no exception, season three of AA will likely not see the light of day until 2025 at the earliest. But after five years I think we can all safely assume that we’re not getting any more episodes. And so Dolores is always going to be in limbo. We are never going to know whether or not Georgie was telling her the truth. We’ll never know what happened to Ginger or Ephraim. We’ll never know what Dolores does, standing in her old friend’s house with what appears to be Dominic’s seventeen-year-old son standing in front of her.
We will never know, because the show is taking an entirely different turn. And so, I’m afraid I have to add Dolores Roach to the same infamous list as Lime Town or The Black Tapes. This podcast was great until they decided to just not end it.
If you’ve waited this long to see if you should listen to Dolores Roach, here’s my advice. Listen to season one, it had a reliable and satisfying ending. But season two should be left in obscurity where all half-finished stories belong.
(1 / 5)
If you’re a fan of my work, please check out my latest story, Nova, on Paper Beats World. New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
We’ve reached not only the second to last episode of this Dolores Roach season but the series as a whole. If you’ll recall, last episode we were riding the high of a great new villain. We had an unexpected and shocking story arc.
Now, after listening to this second-to-last episode, that high is gone. And we are left with disappointment, lamenting what might have been.
The story
We begin our story with Dolores being shown to her new home. The home she’s to share with Ephraim is considerably smaller than the home they were sharing before.
Ephraim is thrilled. He’s read Mother Cleats’ treatment and is all in.
This doesn’t make sense to Dolores. To her, this place seems like a downgrade. But for Ephraim, it’s a chance to belong. A chance to feel safe, to not fear hunger or violence.
Dolores has no illusions of being safe from that, though. And she’s not thrilled with being drafted as the Chain’s new killer and cook.
She tries to get Ephraim to run with her. Even prison would be better than what she’s facing. But he doesn’t intend to go anywhere.
Next, Dolores tries to get Ginger to go with her. She points out that having a baby in a tunnel instead of a hospital is probably not her ideal birth plan. But Ginger has some sort of strange fit and screams at her.
Dolores is lost, unsure how she’ll ever fight her way through all of these people to get out of the tunnels. But at the last moment, she gets unexpected help from a very unexpected source.
What worked
Let me begin by saying that it’s honestly hard to say that anything worked in this episode. Which isn’t to say that it was bad. The acting was as wonderful as it’s been the whole series. The sound editing was wonderful.
But everything that did work suffered from the pacing. We’ll discuss that more later.
This episode was full of sudden yet inevitable betrayals that I love. I don’t want to ruin the fun for you. But it’s safe to say that no one is on good terms with anyone at the end of this. At least, the people still alive.
I also appreciated the setup for a pivotal death. Early in the season, Ephraim told us that the middle rail was certain death to touch. I think we all knew that this was going to come up eventually. That we would, sooner or later, see someone’s eyes melt out of their sockets. And yes, I’m pleased to say that did happen.
What didn’t work
If the podcast Dolores Roach has a flaw it is in its pacing. And that flaw came very much to light in this episode. Because this should have been at least two episodes.
It was not as fun to see the ending of this episode as it would have been if there had been more build-up. An important character betrayal didn’t mean as much as if there had been more of a build-up.
Overall, this story would have felt so much richer if there had been more room to breathe and experience them. It was as if we were to be served a wonderful meal. And instead of savoring it, we shoveled it down without truly tasting it. And that’s a shame. This seemed like a delicious story. I wish we could have tasted more of it.
Even though there should be more, there is only one episode left of Dolores Roach. And I don’t know how to feel about that. They’ve done everything they set up to do already. So, what’s left for Dolores now? That’s the only question we have left to answer.
(3 / 5)
If you’re a fan of my work, please check out my latest story, Nova, on Paper Beats World. New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
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