ESB: I know too, that like me, you’re into cryptozoology and Crypto-Horror. What are your favorite books/movies about those kind of monsters? LB: Well, obviously The Legend of Boggy Creek is one of my favorite movies. I did a lot of hunting as a kid, so when I saw that movie, it was pretty scary to think that a creature like that might be living somewhere in the woods not far from where I hunted. That kinda sparked my interest in cryptozoo creatures at an early age. Other Bigfoot-type movies that I like are Creature From Black Lake, Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot, Clawed, Paper Dolls, and Savage. I have a large collection of non-fiction cryptozoology books on everything from Bigfoot to lake monsters. Some of my favorite writers are Loren Coleman, Ken Gerhard and Nick Redfern. As far as fictional crypto-horror, there’s a book I really love called The Loch by Steve Alten and, of course, I love the Bigfoot War series by Eric S. Brown - you may have heard of him. ESB: And you likely knew I was going to ask this one when you agreed to this interview. Your song “Death of Jonah Hex,” what was the experience of writing/performing that one like? How has the fan response been? LB: That song was one of the first Ghoultown songs I wrote. The first recorded version was released in 1999 on a compilation and then we re-recorded it for
our first CD, Tales From the Dead West back in 2000. I’m a huge fan of the DC Jonah Hex series, from the Weird West titles to the Jonah Hex series, so it was something that seemed perfect for a Ghoultown song. I guess in some ways, Jonah Hex influenced the band as a whole since he’s such a dark western figure. Fans seemed to really like the song. It’s remained in our set list all these years. I’m working on a new Ghoultown release called The Unforgotten, which will contain all of our hard-tofind songs and some rare live cuts. It will have the original version of “Death of Jonah Hex” on it, since the compilation it was on is impossible to find now. ESB: What has been your personal greatest moment so far as a writer/singer? LB: Getting to work with some of my horror and music heroes, such as The Misfits and Elvira. ESB: What are the biggest challenges you face doing both? LB: Time. It’s really hard to keep up with all the demands of both the music and writing. Ghoultown is pretty much a labor of love, so everything I do there has to be worked around the demands of making a living and my extra writing projects. Last year when I added book writing to my list, I had to take time off from playing live with Ghoultown in order to do that. I already have offers to write more books, so now I really have to consider how to make this all work. ESB: And I ask everyone this, if you could only pick one, would it be Marvel or DC? LB: If you would’ve asked me this several years ago, I would have said Marvel without question. But in the last few years, I really like where DC has gone with some of my favourites like Batman, and of course they have Jonah Hex, so today I will say DC.