Two Octobers in the past, on Friday the thirteenth, Creeper launched their third album, Sanguivore, a sprawling, electrifying glam-rock idea report centring on vampires. This Halloween, they’re following it up with Sanguivore II: Mistress of Demise. Writing a sequel was new territory, particularly for a band who, very like their chosen subject material, tends to kill off and rebuild their creative iterations after every report. “I think about Creeper like American Horror Story,” guitarist Ian Miles tells Guitar.com. “It’s the identical solid, however a distinct theme per season. And that is Season Sanguivore.”

Sanguivore II doesn’t proceed the primary report’s storyline, however as an alternative pivots to exploring a distinct set of characters inside this fictional universe. Set in opposition to the backdrop of the Satanic Panic, Sanguivore II follows a hedonistic vampire rock band, performed by Creeper, as they’re chased by a vampire hunter referred to as the Mistress of Demise. Bodybuilder Sarah Web page takes on the character of the “anti-hero,” as Miles calls her. “We had been very typical cliché rock stars, and so it’s the Mistress’s job to hunt us down and finish our reign of terror,” Miles elaborates. “Will [Gould, frontman] was actually eager on the concept of it being a strong feminine to show that function on its head.”

Creeper usually play with conventions – significantly concerning gender and sexuality – of their music and visuals. “We’re not a severe political band, however we wish to problem once we can,” Miles explains. That comes from the hardcore scenes they grew up in. “Ethics has all the time been deeply ingrained in every part we do. However that’s not what we’re telling you,” Miles laughs. “What you’re getting is foolish homosexual vampires dressing up and operating round and consuming vials of blood like they’re cocaine.” He’s referring to the music video for Blood Magick (It’s a Ritual), which subverts rock’n’roll extra.

Within the opening of Blood Magick, after the swaggering guitars, and earlier than the verse kicks in, “There’s that little bike revving guitar half, after which a squeal,” guitarist Lawrie Pattison particulars. It allowed him to faucet into a selected sound. “I simply have a whole lot of enjoyable doing that form of shit,” Pattison explains. “That’s the place the virtuosos I received into after I was a teen – like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and Frank Zappa – that’s the place these guys come into my enjoying model a bit bit extra. That’s what works very well for this report, as a result of it’s that eighties steel vibe.”

Sanguivore II leans into that period and embraces larger, pop-style singalong choruses than its predecessor. “We wished to make this report extra anthemic, extra of a tough rock report,” Miles says. It additionally marks a shift in tone between the 2 Sanguivores. “We’ve gone from a jack-o’-lantern to a plastic pumpkin,” Miles laughs.

They’ve dialled up the humour, which has all the time been integral to Creeper. “On this band, we’re a bunch of goofballs, aren’t we?” Miles asks his bandmate. “We’re a bunch of idiots.”

“When the six of us are collectively, it’s simply chaos, however very foolish,” Pattison agrees. “It appears like a bunch of children in a playground.”

Pattison had been a session participant for Creeper since 2021 and joined the band full-time shortly after the discharge of Sanguivore. “After touring Sanguivore I with Lawrie recent within the band, we felt like we unlocked a brand new a part of Creeper with twin guitar work,” Miles says. “We by no means actually had that earlier than.”

They had been then capable of take Creeper’s guitar enjoying to a different stage. “We’ve labored on harmonized components collectively purposefully constructed for the reside setting, to attempt to put fucking these massive guitars again in rock music,” Miles enthuses.

Having two guitarists opened up a whole lot of new potentialities, whether or not it’s enjoying on the similar time or extra of a back-and-forth, like for the solo on blistering single Headstones. “It seems like a question-and-answer, that traditional call-and-response factor,” Pattison provides.

For Sanguivore II, and enjoying reside with Creeper, Pattison has caught to Charvels. “The primary time I performed the Charvel, will need to have been a pair years again now, [I] simply had a fast little go on one within the music store, and was identical to, ‘Man, I really feel prefer it’s been customized constructed for me,’” he elaborates.

Miles alternated on his alternative for guitar. “There was one thing about holding that white Gibson James Hetfield Explorer within the studio, and many the rhythm, the massive chuggy components, I used to be identical to, ‘Oh, this feels good,’” Miles says. He opted for his Gordon Smith on the lead components.

And the album does function some intense lead components. The practically six-and-a-half-minute epic album nearer, Pavor Nocturnus, showcases Creeper at their most expansive – it has an interlude that runs shut to 2 minutes, going from sweeping piano accented by strings to a wailing guitar solo to dramatic choir vocals. “The outro was going to be shorter, after which we had been each identical to, ‘We’d like extra time for our solos,’ as a result of we felt like we had been speeding them,” Pattison recollects. “Initially, we simply went as soon as across the chord development every and we had been each like, ‘Nah, we’re gonna should double this,’ double each of the guitar solos, double the piano solo as properly.’”

It’s a suitably grand conclusion for the album, capturing the band’s all-out strategy to music, in addition to narrative and worldbuilding. In the identical spooky blood-soaked vein, we requested Miles and Pattison to choose their 5 favorite scary information for Halloween:

Misfits – Well-known Monsters (1999)

Miles: “The primary visible illustration [of Misfits] I noticed after I was youthful was the video for Scream! which is clearly massively Halloween-coded. It’s the primary video I ever noticed with blood in it. In order that was a giant first look into… horror music generally. And seeing that video after I was youthful, I used to be like, ‘Oh my god, that is like all of the B films that I grew up watching secretly away from my mum’s eye.’”

Slipknot – Iowa (2001)

Pattison: “I bear in mind seeing Slipknot movies on TV after I was a child, and it was earlier than I actually knew their music, and this was when a few of their movies may solely be proven previous 10 p.m.

“I turned the TV down a bit bit as a result of, you recognize if you’re watching a horror film, and also you’re like, ‘If I flip the sound down, it’s not scary anymore’? I don’t know what age I might have been, however I bear in mind seeing it and being form of freaked out… It’s simply so hectic, visually. To be truthful, that was in all probability earlier than I’d actually gotten into horror films generally. It’s bizarre to suppose that it was in all probability bands extra so than films that turned a gateway into horror films for me.”

Nick Cave and the Unhealthy Seeds – Homicide Ballads (1996)

Miles: “That flips what we’ve been speaking about on its head when it comes to, aesthetically, it’s just a few dudes sporting fits, however the music on that report – you don’t want a visible… It conjures up the picture in your head, and it lets your creativeness do the work. And the content material of the songs is frightening. I bear in mind [the] first time, listening to that report. I simply needed to cease and sit and take heed to the phrases and be like, ‘Oh my God. He’s getting away with writing lyrics like this? They’re actually all about killing individuals.’ And a few of them are so superbly refined as properly. That report is aggressive, scary, darkish and timeless.”

AFI – All Hallow’s EP (1999)

Miles: “They simply opened my eyes to a complete new view of music, somewhat than it simply being one thing that I might sit and take heed to and luxuriate in sonically, it added a brand new ingredient of visuals to it for me, which has grow to be, clearly, tremendous essential with the place we’re as a band… Marrying the picture and the audio is one thing that resonated with me from being a giant film nerd as properly and it’s like, ‘Oh, individuals try this with music.’”

Honourable Point out: The Cramps – Off the Bone (1983)

Miles: “I listened to The Cramps [for the first time], and I used to be like, ‘That is fucking sick.’ And I may see why the likes of Tiger Military and AFI reference The Cramps, as a result of you may hear it of their music, the extra psychedelic surf-rock and the fucking punk rock perspective that The Cramps have.”

Creeper – Sanguivore II: Mistress of Demise (2025)

Pattison: “I feel the stuff that I do like about Halloween is the stuff I appreciated about Halloween after I was a child, and it’s the extra kitsch, foolish, enjoyable issues, somewhat than the actually horrific horror stuff. And I feel that’s the cool factor about this report, is that it’s simply enjoyable… The video for Prey For The Night time does that so properly, as a result of it’s enjoyable and it’s foolish, however you may nonetheless see the horror components in there. It’s nonetheless a vampire story.”