We met Gerardo Preciado, guitarist and musician from Chihuahua, Mexico via email and instantly took a liking to his music, artistic talents, and his storytelling. We were able to sit down with Gerardo last September and discuss what was his current project at that time, “My Little Slasher” – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
We also discussed his talent for storytelling and his upcoming documentary, “Cult of VHS”. Here’s an excerpt from that interview.
Dalia: So your web comics, “6C” and “El Cid”…they’re messed up and I love that. Totally messed up. “El Cid” was the Western. He’s a Spaniard, a hired hand. I find it interesting that for your Western, you have him being a bad guy, the devil. Was that intentional?
Gerardo: Yeah, actually this story came along, both comics that you mentioned, I created with a friend. His name is Daniel Bayliss and he makes the covers for the albums I made, like “My Little Slasher” and the other albums.
He came to me with that idea. I thought it was a folk tale about this guy, El Cid. I didn’t know about him so I said “ Okay, let’s do this.” So we just made it. I love short stories and twists and what I do with Daniel, it brings out a very dark side. Everything I do with Daniel, which is called Moonhead Press is kind of very dark.
Alma: Can you tell us a little about the comic, “6C”?
Gerardo: I like silent comics, without dialogue. People think that dialogue equals stories, but to me stories are more about what happens. That comic book was actually a dream. Normally when you have a dream, it is like you are experiencing things. In that dream, I was a fly on the wall in an apartment. It was very intense for me.
Alma: And your short film, “The Shape”, was that a dream as well? Sleep paralysis?
Gerardo: Yes, I made that when I studied architecture. When you don’t sleep for many days when you study architecture, you’re exhausted and stressed out. So we made this two minute story and we wanted to create a sort of little mythology behind it…in under two minutes.
My brother directed that short, and that little monster that comes out is my little sister.
Dalia: Oh my god, I love that.
Gerardo: My brother, sister, and mother created that monster. It’s a little bit Jim Henson, 80s type monster. When I wrote the screenplay and worked with my brother, we had many ideas. But that’s what they came up with.
Dalia: That’s so funny you say that, because when I saw it, I thought it felt very “Dark Crystal” and “Dark Crystal” scared the crap out of me when I was little. Okay, so can you tell us about the documentary you’re working on, “Cult of VHS“?
Gerardo: My brother is the one who is editing and I’m making the music for it. We made a Kickstarter for it last year, and now because of the pandemic, I think it was an advantage because a lot of people just sent us their stuff. We didn’t have to travel, which was the intention.
My brother is the horror guy in my house. When I was growing up I was like “He’s four years older!” But now it’s not a huge difference. When he was like 10 and I was six, there was like, he was a grownup. So I watched every horror movie, and of course we rented the VHS from the video store.
With the documentary, because we’re from Mexico and we have an outsider view of things, we were trying to portray that. Also a lot of the stuff we are focusing on is the weirder films that didn’t make it in theaters, they went straight to VHS.
They had some very cool artwork that tricked you into renting it. Then the poster had nothing to do with the actual movie. We also have a chapter on video nasties.
Alma: And you’re doing the music?
Gerardo: Yes. Daniel, the artist that I make comic books with, and I were in a band when we were in our twenties. And I’ve just kept doing the music thing. Even when I was in a band, like a rock rock band or alternative band, I always tried to have instrumental things. Like my take on the sort of Halloween kind of themes.
When that band broke up, I went full ahead into synthesizers and stuff like that. I always wanted to make film music. And this was before seeing that synthwave was a thing. Now it’s a whole culture behind it.
You can listen to the full podcast interview with Gerardo Graciado here.
Follow Gerardo on his linktree for news on all his projects.
Listen to Ancient Order of the Droids on Spotify.
