I don't think when I started off that I was expecting to become so specialized, but what happened is that when my career started, I didn't pick my first film. I was picked to do it, and it happened to be a horror film.

Usually when I am approached to do a score for a horror movie, it's to attempt a repeat performance of what I did way back on 'Hellraiser' or 'Jennifer 8' - one of those really orchestral scores.

I'm into horror pictures because I love the fear of being alone in the dark, and I'd recommend that to any composer who wants to work in this genre.

Psycho' is probably the best known example of a horror film whose exclusive sound was strings, and since then, it's been hard to avoid that. The minute you have strings as your primary voice, the comparisons are always made.

We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order - poetry; and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible.

I'm just a middle-class farm boy from Dodge City, Kansas. And I always thought that acting was art, writing was art, music was art, painting was art, and I've tried to keep that cultural vibe to my life.

I'm an optimistic guy. I'm one of those big dreamers. I'm one of those kids with that annoying imagination.

I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They're the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa.