We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Paul Counelis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Paul below.
Paul, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
The first time that I understood what an actor did was an epiphany for me. I was watching Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein with my dad, I was very young, probably 7 years old or so. I was mesmerized (and a little creeped out), but the realization that there were people pretending to be the monsters, throwing themselves so into the roles that you could believe in The Wolf Man, in Dracula, in the Monster, that became deeply fascinating to me. I realized that they were wearing makeup and that someone was “pulling the strings” so to speak…I didn’t really have the term “director” for it, and I assumed that whoever was filming the movie also wrote it. But I knew that the vision came from somewhere, and I immediately began thinking of writing my own movies.
Paul, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I began as a professional singer with my band Free Will in late 1992 in downtown Flint. We had varying success around town and the surrounding Michigan area, eventually becoming fairly well known there and playing consistently over the next 15 years. When the band started slowing down, I started to look back to writing and filmmaking, having once again become intrigued by the horror genre. I started pitching ideas to Rue Morgue Magazine (basically begging for them to publish my work because I loved them so much), and eventually I had an article on Lon Chaney accepted for publication. I had also written a children’s book around that same time, “Kendall Kingsley and the Secret of the Scarecrow”, and was gaining confidence to branch out even more.
From Rue Morgue I learned PLENTY (sometimes the hard way, with hurt feelings and gnashed teeth); how to whip an article into publication ready shape, the discipline of a deadline, the necessity of multiple edits and more. At first, I was dismayed by the number of rewrites that were needed to have a piece truly ready, but when I saw the results in the mag, it became a point of pride to make sure everything was up to par. I began to pitch articles to other magazines in the horror and Halloween genres, and in addition to the work on the RM mag, I became a columnist for the Rue Morgue website. Not long after, I began writing for the Michigan and Ohio Halloween paper Fear Finder, a super rewarding experience that lasted until the pandemic (sadly, they stopped publishing then). I had been writing books and magazine articles for several years when the desire to perform creeped back up on me (also, I was driving my wife bananas), and I co-created the band Lords of October with my very creative friend David Stashko, a fellow horror and Halloween fiend, and my talented son Zak on guitar. We did the cliche thing and found our brilliant drummer, Matt, on Craigslist.
David and I had met through the Flint Horror Con, which was a convention in the Flint area that we helped to organize for four years with our other friends. This rekindled my interest in making movies, and I completed a feature documentary about Scarriage Town (our home haunt) called Voices of October. I also wrote and directed several short films before then, one of which, “Hey, You Ever Heard of Rob Zombie?” won the Audience Choice award at the Scream Factory Short Film Fest.
Lords of October began playing a lot of shows, branching out around the area and out of state. Playing conventions and horror related shows is our specialty, and one of the many highlights so far is playing Joe Bob Briggs’ Jamboree in Pennsylvania. That was a professional and creative win and something very cool to all of us. I can’t say what I’m most proud of, really, because Rue Morgue, my feature film, several books, and many Lords shows all come to mind. But I guess I’m happiest that I’m able to express my creative impulses in so many rewarding ways, and that there are a few people out there who enjoy the work.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I think one of the hardest things for many people to understand is just how much work goes into pretty much any creative endeavor that’s worth anything. I think that sometimes people have a view of writers or musicians that is skewed by the fun we seem to be having, but the work that leads to these completed projects or to any show are probably overlooked.
Also, the road to getting to a stage or a bookstore or a streaming service or whatever is very long and has multiple branches, from the very first moment it occurs to you that you might like to try to do something in one of the arts. Society in general does not think of this stuff as work. I can tell you, if you want to be good AT ALL, if you want something you do to be rewarding in any way, this is work, work, work.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Rock stars will tell you that they had to drop everything and go all in on the music, which in a way is true, but it’s easy for Nikki Sixx or someone to say, “If you want to make it, it has to be all that matters.” That was quite a damaging statement to me as a young creative, because when Free Will didn’t “make it big”, despite my relentless drive and nonstop, 100% locked in attitude, I became depressed, and as I looked at my situation, I saw that I had done nothing to have anything to fall back on.
So yes, you have to bet on yourself! But you also have to be smart about things. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is an adage that became a well-known expression for a regretful reason.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lordsofoctober.com
- Instagram: paulcounelis
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/PaulCounelis
- Twitter: paulcounelis
- Youtube: @twistedsistersandbrother
