We were lucky to catch up with Liam Ray III recently and have shared our conversation below.

Liam, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

In October of 2021, I was taking every job I could get as a composer and as I worked on building my resume, I wanted to reach out to a company I’d recently fallen in love with – a company where it was always Halloween: Witching Season Films. Initially, I had only intended to write to them as a fan, but I took a stab in the dark and offered my musically macabre services. I honestly expected to receive a polite decline or even no response at all, but only a short few days later, I got a kind-hearted, thoughtful reply from the company’s founder, Michael Ballif, who not only entertained the idea of a collaboration, but encouraged it and, after sharing my reels and CV, he generously hired me to score his short horror film, A Night At Lyc-Inn, which was nothing short of a horrific dream come true. This short film has since been featured in Witching Season’s newest feature film, He Never Left and I’ve had the pleasure and honour of working with Michael several more times to this day from his audio series, Witching Tales Of Halloween to him having a cameo in my directorial debut, Here And Now. Working on Lyc-Inn also connected me with filmmaker, Dylan R. Nix, who had acted in the short. With the success (or perhaps luck) I’d had with Witching Season Films, I similarly reached out to Dylan and wound up scoring (and writing five original songs for) his film, The Demon Of Serling, which marked my first time scoring a feature-length film. Likewise, I’ve also formed a collaborative partnership with him spanning three short films, a web series, and soon to be two feature films.
It seems to me now like a bold, overly confident move to have directly contacted Michael Ballif and his company with so little in my “oeuvre” at the time, but it was a risk that somehow worked and paved the way to myriad creatively rewarding opportunities as a composer. And just earlier this year, I took the same kind of risk in reaching out to filmmaker, Kris McMenamin, as I was so intrigued by his forthcoming film, Misfits, and I felt/proved I could deliver his desired mix of a traditional score and punk rock which once again got me the job along with Kris’ wonderfully welcoming attitude toward his cast and crew. So I suppose the point here is that if you’re working hard and can back up your inquiry with proof (even if it’s quality over quantity at the time), just take the risk and know that it can never hurt to ask, because you just might be surprised how often the answer can be “yes”.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a filmmaker, theatremaker, writer, and teacher-to-be, but my primary field is as a composer under the moniker, “Gory Rory”. I’ve been writing music for roughly the last fifteen years, though I’ve spent the last six becoming more prolific and professional, especially after becoming friends with Los Angeles filmmaker, John Gonzales, who truly gave me my first stab at scoring quality works. Since then, I’ve scored for feature films, short films, and theatrical productions including The Sawyer Massacre (2022), The Demon Of Serling (2023), Waltz (2024), 10/31 Part IV (2024), Here And Now (2024), Unknown Caller (2021), Halloween 63 (2023), A Night At Lyc-Inn (2021/2024), She Kills Monsters (2023), and The Crucible (2024). My preference lies in the horror genre, but I’m versatile and adaptable as I’ve always been able to match a director’s desired style and vision whilst adding my own and also playing a balancing act of scoring like a sound designer and working hard to revive the art of memorable melodies. On top of that, I’m fast at my work, yet never at the reduction of quality, which guarantees my employers high-standard music whilst keeping them on schedule, if not ahead of it. Most importantly, though I take my work and the work of those I collaborate with seriously, my goal is to be the William Castle of composers as I try as often as I can to use gimmicks from weird instruments like a Theremin or kazoo to featuring the film’s director whistling or singing in the score – something fun and unique for each film.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to write music for movies and from 2009 to 2014, I wrote original music but had nowhere to go with it. It was just these amorphous collections of cues that were more like experimental albums than anything specifically written for a visual medium. Despite my aspiration and small library of compositions, I had no experience and couldn’t get jobs to gain that experience. So, I switched gears and persued my other goal at the time, which was to make my own short films. As I did this, it occured to me I should jus try scoring those for practice, but that practice turned into my earliest artist reels and eventually, my first real job as a composer. There is something to be said for patience in waiting for good things to happen, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to help make them happen yourself.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I grew up listening to composers like Jerry Goldsmith, Shirley Walker, John Carpenter, Christopher Young, Vangelis, John Frizzell, and David Newman for fun and though I still do, I now get to listen to them for research. It’s like music school at home where I get to really dive into their work, study them, and reverse engineer it all to better myself at my work whilst gaining a deeper appreciation for theirs. In short: I get to listen to music I love for “work”.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goryroryiii
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoryRory
• Other: The Slasher App @GoryRory

Image Credits

Liam Ray III
Lily Arney
Molly O’Blivion