Mac Quayle’s – Composer Mac Quayle says he built a “creepy theme” for Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story—then remixed it to fit both funeral gravity and later uplifting moments.
A theme can do more than set the mood—it can carry a character’s shadow from scene to scene. For composer Mac Quayle. that job was personal in every sense of the word as he worked on Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story. a series that tells the terrifying true story of Ed Gein. an American murderer and body snatcher whose crimes helped inspire films like The Silence of the Lambs.
Quayle knew early that he needed a musical signature equal to Gein’s notoriety. “I just was like. ‘Okay I need a creepy theme for Ed and his mother.’ And I’m hoping it’s going to be able to do some other things. ” Quayle said during IndieWire’s Craft Roundtables. “The creepy part is what I started with, and that’s what I presented to Ryan.”.
At the roundtable, Quayle wasn’t the only composer bringing his own sound to the conversation. The panel also included Jeff Russo, the composer for Alien: Earth; Brenton Vivian, from The Madison; Kris Bowers, from Spider-Noir; Amanda Jones, from Murderbot; and John Paesano, from The Boroughs.
Quayle described how cracking the main theme for Gein gave him something sturdy to reshape as the story demanded. Once he had the throughline, he could reinterpret it for different key moments rather than restarting from scratch each time. The result: continuity that doesn’t feel repetitive—because the theme transforms.
He put that idea to the test on a funeral scene. “Sure enough. I took it for a funeral scene and I made it said. and I was like ‘Whew. it worked.’ It was dramatic. ” Quayle said. Then he went back in, hearing the same musical idea but reframing it for the emotional opposite of dread. “Then, later on, I needed an uplifting version. I reharmonized it, a few major chords, and boom, it worked. So I kind of lucked out that the theme could do all those things.”.
The sequence was straightforward in Quayle’s telling—start creepy for Ed and his mother, lock in a main theme, then stretch it into funeral weight and later uplift by reworking harmony—so the show could keep moving forward without losing its musical identity.
The panel is available as part of IndieWire’s TV Craft Roundtables, now streaming on @PBSSoCal and the PBS App as well as IndieWire.com and the outlet’s social channels. For Quayle, the takeaway is clear: the right theme doesn’t just haunt. It adapts.
Mac Quayle Monster: The Ed Gein Story Ed Gein Ryan Murphy Craft Roundtables IndieWire TV composers theme song TV score Jeff Russo Brenton Vivian Kris Bowers Amanda Jones John Paesano Alien: Earth The Madison Spider-Noir Murderbot The Boroughs