'New Moon' soundtrack: Hurricane Bells singer explains how he got the gig

There it is, track No. 10 on the New Moon soundtrack lineup: Hurricane Bells, “Monsters.” Up until the full New Moon soundtrack details were revealed yesterday, almost nobody had ever heard of an artist by that name. Steve Schiltz, the sole member of Hurricane Bells, tells the Music Mix that he only got around to creating a MySpace page for the project about three weeks ago. “There’s like a couple hundred plays on each song,” Schiltz laughs. (Those play counts are a little higher today, of course.) “I made a record myself without telling anybody. It’s a complete stroke of luck that one of the songs ended up being on the soundtrack.“

“Monsters” is one of several leftover songs that Schiltz recorded under the Hurricane Bells moniker when they didn’t work for his main band, Longwave. “It’s a little more rocky, up-tempo, than the stuff that’s on the Hurricane Bells MySpace page — it’s got some fuzzed-out guitar,” he says. Schiltz’s manager quietly got the tune placed on the New Moon soundtrack, keeping him in the dark until approximately last week. “I got an email from the director [Chris Weitz] saying that he wanted to use it as maybe the first song in the film, and I started kinda s—ing my pants!”

Schiltz’s next move was to borrow a copy of the first Twilight book from a friend. (He’s never seen the first movie, either.) So far, he’s enjoying the read: “I like the vampire idea.”

So what’s next? Schiltz already has Hurricane Bells’ full-length debut recorded and ready to go. The album, Tonight Is the Ghost, features 10 songs, though not “Monsters.” “It’s going to be interesting to see,” he says. “Whatever happens, it does seem that there’s going to be more people that will notice when I put it out.” Right now Schiltz plans to self-release Tonight Is the Ghost in conjunction with his music publisher around next February, since Hurricane Bells remains unsigned. But you tell me, Mixers — how long can that last now that the Twilight machine has come knocking at his door?

More from EW’s Music Mix:
New Moon soundtrack lineup announced
On the scene for Pink’s Funhouse tour in L.A.
Chromeo, “Night By Night”: Music Mix exclusive
Thom Yorke releases “Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses”/”The Hollow Earth” single