It started with a text: “Ba Da Pa Pa.”
Game creator Sam Lake received those syllables in a Twitter message following the release of his 2010 video game “Alan Wake.” Those beats refer to the song “Haunted,” created by singer-songwriter Poe, who had reached out after Lake’s game featured the song in its soundtrack.
“I answered, I feel like I’m being haunted,” said Lake with a chuckle as I sat in the back room of Amoeba Music in Hollywood in front of him and Poe, following an autograph session on Tuesday. The occasion was for the release of the second edition of Poe’s new vinyl record of “This Road” — a song made for “Alan Wake II.”
Poe’s text to Lake would lead to years of collaboration, and a musical journey born of artistic rebellion.
“Haunted” is part of an album of the same name, a companion piece to the book “House of Leaves,” written by Poe’s brother Mark Danielewski; the book would in turn be cited as an inspiration for “Alan Wake” by Lake. The 2000 album was the second by Poe. Her first, 1995′s “Hello,” broke onto the Billboard 100, and despite “Haunted” almost doing so as well, Poe went on hiatus shortly after its release.
The reason — a corporate merger by her label left her stranded and soon after, she faced messy legal battles surrounding her management and representation. For about two decades, Poe did scattered live performances, collaborations and charity work. Only recently did she finally emerge from the woodwork with a new solo.
She would follow “This Road” with “6 Deep Breaths,” which was most recently featured in November on “Alan Wake II’s” expansion “The Lake House.” The game’s story centers on a writer trapped in an eternal purgatory trying to claw his way out: a feeling Poe knows too well.
“It feels, I’ve been in the ‘Lake House’ for a super long time, but there was no doorway out of the [it] back here,” she said. “It really was surreal. It sort of was like there were all these doors locked, and suddenly this door opened […] and there was a way back that couldn’t have existed almost without that game. It’s incredible.”
In returning from a Dark Place of her own, Poe has found her footing working alongside Lake, the Finnish creative director of Remedy Entertainment best known for his work on “Quantum Break,” “Control” and the “Alan Wake” games. He is also famous for his distinctive scrunched up scowl that serves as the face of Max Payne, the protagonist of the hit 2001 game of the same name.
In between the releases of the two games, Lake and Poe began chatting about collaborating, with Poe creating original work for “Alan Wake II” rather than merely licensing existing work.
“Music is a really, really important inspiration, and has always been to me with the mood,” said Lake. “Part of the mood, but also lyric-wise, tells other aspects and perspectives into the story. I feel that this game was a big leap forward, obviously we were doing these musical sequences starting with ‘Alan Wake,’ and it’s been searching and evolving, and I feel that we got somewhere with having the songs really be part of the story.”
Lake cites how the song “This Road” can be interpreted from the perspective of Alan Wake’s wife Alice, who was also trapped in the game’s Dark Place, yet still ever present. The lyrics read, “And some say that it loops forever,” with similar lyrics playing out through the entirety of the song.
There are also no less than four versions of the song that appear throughout the game. In the development of these musical works, Lake discussed being hands off on their creation.
“I think the whole starting point was that we are very much in sync, and I just felt that Poe would be perfect for the whole Dark Place side of things,” Lake said. “I felt that not much direction was needed because we were already in sync for the tone and style.”
To Poe, her latest work serves as a testament to her refusal to follow the trend. The loops were actually recorded over 10 years ago, and yet she instantly felt that they fit into the atmosphere of the game.
“We are living in this world where there’s a lot of pressure to conform, a lot of people are going ‘the algorithm wants this, the algorithm wants that,’ and that has just been the antithesis of anything I can authentically respond to,” Poe said.
Over the past few years, Poe had also released cryptic, Lynchian videos on YouTube lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute. While most would brush it off as mere “teasers,” Poe believes they are more than that.
“There was an interview who was like, ‘you only put out this 32-second thing. When are you going to put out a song?’” she said. “I was like, ‘you and I have a very different idea of what a song is.’”
That experimental style has been a staple of her work for years. Many of the tracks on “Haunted” sampled audio letters from Poe’s late father, film director Tad Danielewski, and thus seamlessly blended with her original work to craft an album both reflective of her own experiences while telling its own story in and of itself.
Her approach to her work on “Alan Wake II” was no different.
“Some things are complete in and of themselves, that song was never gonna be a verse, chorus, verse, it just isn’t that,” she said. “It’s coming from a deep desire to feel the shape of time, which isn’t what we all think is ever, and when [Lake] gave me that freedom, it suddenly turned into this seven minute thing.”
She explains how “This Road” was actually recorded in one take, featuring a band of acclaimed instrumentalists including Brockett Parsons, who plays keyboard for Lady Gaga, and bassist Dan Seeff, who had worked with the likes of Eminem and Jon Batiste.
“All of us were like trapped animals that were suddenly set free like this is what we’re born to do. We’re not born to sit in front of our computers like accountants, which I love accountants, but I don’t want to do that job,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t believe we all stayed together, even the [intentional] delays that were being triggered […] I really hope other powerful creators learn from what Sam is doing with art and music, is to just let it fucking breathe.”
From Poe’s last album to now, there has been a 23 year wait. Between the releases of “Alan Wake” and its sequel, it has been a total of 13 years. For Poe and Lake, this was a moment of catharsis to unleash their vision into the world.
“It is hard to try to do something original and different, and you will have to fight to get it done,” said Lake. “I think that the big thing for both of us was a long time to build up pent up artistic energy for getting these things done […] you don’t necessarily know while you are in that situation what’s gonna happen and what’s gonna come and it’s easy to be frustrated, but then looking back, it was perfect.”
For Poe, it was definitely worth the wait, especially now, with the release of “The Lake House” expansion. The side story takes a detour from the main plot of the game to center on Agent Kiran Estevez, a member of the fictional Federal Bureau of Control investigating a facility that seems to be harboring artists in the hope of utilizing their abilities to bridge our world and the Dark Place. The result of these experiments, naturally, are monsters born of the human imagination.
“The whole idea of any artist, and maybe everybody is an artist, we all create things, right? But one of the most disturbing things I think can happen to anyone is when you feel like the best intention is suddenly being utilized, somehow maliciously, to hurt somebody else,” said Poe. “It feels just profoundly accurate and universal that we all get trapped inside stories that we tell ourselves, and there’s a kind of melting away of your ego that’s necessary to start to see windows open.”
In separating the ego from the art, Poe feels that it is also necessary to have those who can support you — people who can keep you going in that neverending time of waiting. She says that while today, fame can be made temporarily through social media, fostering a tangible connection is the only thing that can keep it sustainable.
“Real communities are everything — they’ll support you when you have a bad year and when you make bad art, they’ll support you,” Poe said. “That sort of keeping the lid on that creativity when the outlet doesn’t feel right, which I’ve done for a long time, just developing my craft in different ways and having it be visible to only a few people, but never stopping.”
But what does this pair of creators hope for next?
“More art,” said Lake.
“Ditto,” responded Poe.