Hellaverse fans were ready for some musical mayhem out on the final afternoon of Twin Cities Comic Con, crowding around the Hero Stage for their hero, Hellaverse composer and lyricist Sam Haft, who was greeted onto the stage with cheers akin to a rockstar at a concert. The enthusiasthic fandom for Sam and the Hellaverse was only appropriate, as Sam’s band The Living Tombstone was also born out of fandom, particularly the Brony and Five Nights at Freddy’s communities. Sam even has a tattoo of the last four bards of the song My Ordinary Life.
Sam recounted his origins as a composer. He started out by using the Cakewalk software, which was introduced to him by his Hellaverse co-composer Andrew Underberg, who was two years his elder and mentor in his High School’s Big Brother, Little Brother program. Because of this experience, he muses how “I can make music, and it’ll feel like video games.” Early on, he was doing more composing than songwriting, but he was insufferable theater kid. He used to listened to showtune soundtracks and comedy albums while going to bed every night. One of his favorites was Batboy the Musical, composed by Lawrence O’Keefe and based on a book by Keythe Farley, an Off-Broadway writer who also worked in television, particularly on several Klasky Csupo cartoons. The premise of the musical is about the Weekly World News making up stories like the Batboy, which the message being about tolerance in heartland American and abusive fathers, and considering the crossover in themes he unsurprisingly recommended it to fans of Hazbin Hotel.
When asked what it’s like to write for Broadway stars as a longtime theatre kid, Sam gushed about Daphne Rubin-Vega and Keith David in particular, calling them two of the most unmistakable voice in theatre. He recalls he met Daphne at a benefit concert camp, and was excited to meet her on Hazbin as a peer rather than a fan. But with actors with such distinctive voices, he always keeps in mind he has to write for that voice. He consumes as much of their singing as possible and plots out the range of notes they can hit on his keyboard, to see what they’re working with and to create melodies. He also pays attention to their vowel pronunciation, which is important when crafting rhymes.
On how composing for the Hellaverse differs from his other projects, Sam notes that he and Yoav Landau have much more delineated roles in The Living Tombstone, where Yaov is the producer and Sam does the musical stuff. In contrast, Sam shares every part of the composing process with Andrew, so their work on Hazbin is shockingly egalitarian, which is mainly because of the time constraints they’re working under. Because Sam went to school to be a playwright, he thinks of himself more as a storyteller. Though all of their ideas have to be developed asap because of how tight their schedule is. As such, Sam and Andrew iterate and trade off on each others’ work and ideas. For example, “Respectless” was a song that Andrew had started, and 60% of it was done by the time Sam got involved with it. He had a burst of inspiration, and was really able to capture Velvet’s voice. Vivienne Medrano usually gets involved and gives notes on the songs once there’s a listenable demo. A lot of her notes involve story editing or stylistic preferences, because while Viv is very music-brained despite not being a musician herself, her notes are focused on whether the songs are staying true to her characters and the story.
Reflecting on his favorite lyrics, Sam notes that his comes from the first song he and Andrew wrote together, “Klown Bitch,” particularly the very simple but telling lyric “money can’t buy happiness but it can rent you paradise,” a line which he feels perfectly encapsulated the feeling and essence of the song. Expanding on the song later on during the Q&A, Sam expressed that doing a K-pop sounding song was really exciting for him to work on. Most pop songs in shows are showtunes masquerading as pop, but “Klown Bitch” felt like a genuine K-pop song. The group chorus is the most K-poppy part because it’s so big and a musical passage, and there’s an off-themed final note that lies between pitches. There was a lot of baseline refrain, as he was trying to stick to the genre. He also noted the use of double-word rhymes, where the second word stays the same, which is not done in most musical theatre. Having words become compound and two-syllable is more common in pop music than in musical theatre. Sam promises they’ll release a Helluva soundtrack some day, and when they do, he wants them to include a cover of “Klown Bitch” by a real K-pop group.
Humorously, Sam’s interviewer grimaced every time Sam said “bitch” or another cuss, which he apologizes for, but then just kept saying it through the rest of the panel. For whatever reason, Twin Cities Comic Con decided to let the Hellaverse panels be all-ages despite how profane and explicit and very much not for kids they are. Though then again, when I was leaving the convention I was in an elevator with a mother and her preteen daughters who were singing “It stars by saying sorry…,” clearly inspired by hearing Sam sing it during his panel, so the audience for the shows undoubtedly includes kids who have parents unbothered and no scandalized by the profanity and vulgarity of its content.
Responding to the interviewer’s final question, while he was reluctant to give much away, Sam noted that acclaimed actor Patrick Pages is involved in Helluva, and while he can’t say his role or outright whether he’ll sing, he called him a tremendous talent and hyped fans for his performance, saying “you’re in for it.”
The mic was then turned to audience questions from fans who’d lined up and been patiently waiting to ask them since the panel started almost 20 minutes prior. The first question was about Sam’s cringiest moment as a theatre kid. Sam mused that he was such a cringey theatre kid in High School that he and his cringey peers thought they were going to put on the greatest High School production of Les Miserables and were constantly quoting and singing it in public.
The next question was whether Sam would write a song about how much Blitz loves horses, focusing on a particular expression of that love. Sam clarified that while Bltiz loves horses, he doesn’t think he loves them like that. But he is always on team “give Brandon more songs!”
Sam reflected that “Oops, Look at This!” was a challenging to write, being a three-minute song that had to keep someone’s attention while conveying no communication of what is happening in the scene. Sam worked around this by having the song constantly change genre from accordion music, a signature of all of Fizz’s songs, to circus to techno to metal to a fake italian crooner song, etc. He compared the crooner song bit to “Amore S’cuse Me,” a song he’s always loved and wanted to homage, especially because their are “Italians in flavor” in Helluva. But he hasn’t written enough in his favorite genre to write in, which is early 00’s punk rock, some real Fountains of Wayne style stuff, or nu-metal songs, even though a lot of people look down on the genre as a dark age for music after the grunge era.
Sam reminisced how, as a kid, he wanted to be an architect but was too bad a student. He was also interested in animation, and eventually he went to school to be a playwright, and then worked as a screenwriter pitching and doing punch-up for many years. After starting The Living Tombstone, he had an identity crisis as a writer, and wouldn’t say outright that he was a songwriter because he felt that saying that would be like admitting that he failed, so he hoked that for a while he was a songwriter in denial, wounded over a broken dream. He muses that if he hadn’t embraced becoming a composer and songwriter and found work on the Hellaverse, then he would probably still be an unhappy, unsuccessful screenwriter.
Sam cries a lot at his own songs, like “More than Anything (reprise),” and jokes he should be a free frozen yogurt with how many times he has. He particularly gets misty-eyed at anything involving character relationships. The lyrics in “More than Anthing (reprise)” come from a place of selfishness; admitting that I need you, and I will be broken to pieces until you will acknowledge that you are my world. It’s about the vulnerability of lettering your partner know you need something from each other. It’s admitting that I have this wound that needs to be healed by you acknowledging that you are my everything.
Season one of Hazbin has one scrapped something, “When You Apologize,” which eventually became “It Starts by Saying Sorry.” The original song focused on how pathetic Pentious was, and his self-flagellation by calling himself riciuclous names, and Charlie trying to tell him it’s about “the first step to being a better person is admitting you were wrong.” Sam didn’t know what voice Alex would do for it at first. While the lyrics were funny, they felt it was not right for this scene, because they needed the scene to be sincere. The goal of the music in the show is to underline the sincerity of the characters. The reason why we care about the characters so much is becau eof their sincerity and earnestness while singing. We’re not supposed to be laughing at Pentious, but with him, because we know him. These songs are an opportunity to really get to know these characters.
A sharp-eared fan asks about the “A Devil Went Down to Georgia influence on “Hell’s Greatest Dad.” “Hell’s Greatest Dad” was the first instance of them getting session music on the soundtrack. The reference was intentional; they knew they needed to reference “A Devil Went Down to Georgia” and that Lucifer needed to fiddle battle with Alastor. Sam particularly loves the fiddle and piano battle part of the song, and in particular the shot of Lucifer angrily fiddling at Alastor like he’s so angry he doesn’t even have the words to sing. Sam notes that a lot of electro-swing sound similar, and the song also incorporates some of the theme of the Pink Elephants song from Dumbo.
Sam reflects that the thing that gets in the way of most songwriters is not writing a bad song. He recommends giving yourself grace and permission to write something crappy. Every great song comes from a bad song that was not fully-formed at its inception. He personally doesn’t second guess himself while writing. Instead, he goes back to make the good song after finishing writing the bad one. You need to allow yourself to make something sloppy.
Sam reflected on how “Poison” is the song that has gotten the most personal reaction from viewers. He revealed that both songs in Hazbin episode 4 are very personal to him as a survivor of sexual assault himself, a revelation met by the crowd with silent shock. “Poison” is about Angel’s self-blame for his abuse and his escape into disassociation to cope with it. Sam reflected on how there’s a tendency to romanticize what a mess you are, especially as a creative, where it feels like a part of your creative DNA. The song explores Angel’s mind going elsewhere, in that there’s a disconnect between the heaviness of the lyrics and the pop-yness of it. He started work on Hazbin with writing “Poison.” The script described the song as an up-tempo pop song about his life being darker that he realizes. Sam likes throwback pop like the The Weekend and Dua Lipa, which were influences on the song. He notes how The Weekend marries 80’s danceable pop with dread like in the “After Hours” album. He wanted to marry a sense of dread with a bouncy beat, something that as he wrote lyrics came second after the vamp. The lyrics explore Angel’s thoughts to himself like “why did I get myself into this situation” and blaming himself because the world is cruel and all he can control, all he has control over, is himself.
Sam’s songwriting process is like being a summer camp and working in a highly concentrated space of time. He wrote all of Hazbin season one’s songs in 10 weeks, and found the elements of making art with friends fun. He especially adores working with the actors, and love their sense of play in writing songs and in the voice booth. A lot of the actors’ ad-libs make it into songs, like Alex’s “Guitar Solo Fuck Yeah!” In the script, that moment was just described as “Jack Back” guitar sounds. It was Alex’s idea that he would be so dumb he’d describe it outright.
Songs of his Alex would like to see covered include the aforementioned “Klown Bitch” by a k-pop band. At lunch with Morgana Ignis, they daydreamed the idea of having a SKA act cover the I.M.P. theme. Sam doesn’t usually listen to fan music, but has enjoyed genre-bent covers and covers of “You Will Be Okay,” which Sam did his own grunge-y cover of.
On songs he would’ve liked to have included in the show, Alex would have inserted a song in Hazbin episode 2 that would have had musical introductions for the Vees in Vee Tower. Regarding demos, the one he’s most proud of is “Klown Bitch.” Normally, demos are just for actors’ reference. He started putting his demos up now on Spotify to show how the sausage is made, but then really started singing in them when he realized were really listening to them. “Klown Bitch” was the first demo he made with people recreationally listening to it in mind.
Sam ended the panel reflecting on his personal growth adjusting to success of Hazbin and all the fame and attention directed his way. Though this year has been a big one for the Hellaverse, it’s been a tough one for Sam. After Hazbin came out, for a couple week he was at his lowest point mentally because of the overwhelming fandom attention and the brain-breaking feeling of seeing people talking about you without knowing you. As a people-pleaser, he wants people to like him, so seeing people talking about him like he was a fictional character outside his control. He saw a clip of Bo Burnham talking about having to adjust and accept that fame was out of his control, and found that was helpful. “If you believe the good things, you believe the bad things.” Sam needed to know how to cope with people talking about him in a way he can’t control, having to take a step back, readjusting his relationship to feedback and social media, changing how he interacted with them. He knows Yoav from The Living Tombstone deals with that as well, as do many online creators. He even talked with Viv about it, and they saw a play called Mystic Pizza that Krystina was in. Viv told him the same advice that he told the crowd today. He’s realized he doesn’t need to tether himself to people’s feedback and validation.
Sam, now comfortable with the attention directed at him, seemed genuinely happy to have participated in the panel and interact with fans, and genuinely appreciated the applause and love shown to him as the panel ended and he walked offstage, a lovely finale to the Hellaverse celebrations at Twin Cities Comic Con.
