DoT EP93: Horror Author Nathan Ballingrud On His Creepy Fun Collection "Wounds," plus New Music from Bernard Fowler

Nathan Ballingrud has a wonderfully demented imagination. He has a way of reaching into your brain and finding all of those creepy little corners where you hide the things that make you cringe and make your skin crawl. In his first collection of stories, North American Lake Monsters, there was a bit more realism in his stories and characters. Hulu has optioned that, and will start shooting an anthology series this summer.

In Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell, he goes for broke, to the point where he was worried he might be going over the top. Not worried enough, though, to pull anything back. In “Atlas of Hell,” a decapitated skull allows a mob lackey fetch demons and objects from the underworld. In “The Diabolist,” a young girl is left alone in her scientist father’s mansion when he dies with an imp trapped in a tank, and starts to fight back against the town that has always ostracized her.

In “Skullpocket,” flesh-eating ghouls sponsor a deadly fair for children. In “The Visible Filth,” which is now a film called Wounds on the festival circuit starring Armie Hammer, Dakota Johnson, and Zazie Beets, a bartender in a New Orleans dive fights his own jealousy and a mysterious stranger who contacts him through a phone left behind at the bar after a fight. Nightmare creatures attack a town and flay its inhabitants to make giant, singing skin structures in “”The Maw,” and pirates take, quite literally, a journey to the shores of Hell in “The Butcher’s Table.”

I talked to Ballingrud about his inspiration for these stories, which included Stephen King and Mike Mignola, how they’re all connected, the new film, and more. He finds all of this creepiness quite fun, which is good for us, because he’s got more stories on the way, and a full-length book he’s working on to release in 2021, which he says is set on Mars in 1930. You can find out more about his work on nathanballingrud.com and find him on Twitter under @NBallingrud.

Our featured track this week is a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” from their longtime backup singer Bernard Fowler. This is a spoken-word version of the song, as are all of the Stones covers on the new album, Inside Out. Fowler has been singing with the Stones for more than three decades now, and had the idea that he could put the lyrics up front by covering the songs in this style. He started doing it at soundchecks on tour with the Stones, and told Mick Jagger at one point he planned to cut an album. Jagger apparently gave his blessing, and the album was born.

Fowler is getting ready for the new Stones tour now, and I caught him before a rehearsal to talk about his album and his history with not only the Stones, but Herbie Hancock, Bootsy Collins, and more. Tune in next week for that. If you want to check out more of his work, you can find it on Spotify and check out his site at bernardfowler.com.