Filmmakers have collaborated with popular artists before, but rarely do they sing with them. Patrick Wilson worked with the popular Swedish band Ghost for Stay, a cover of a 1992 song by Shakespeare Sister that will be featured in the credits of Insidious: The Red Door. The film continues to be a significant piece of the actor’s career as it is his directorial debut, but now we will see what he did as a director and actor and hear what he can do as a singer as well.
This comes in as the second collaboration Blumhouse has done with the band. Before Patrick Wilson got his chance with Ghost, they had their song, Hunter’s Moon, off their latest album, Impera, featured in Halloween Kills. As a big fan of the band, this was a collaboration beyond the newly acquainted director’s dreams.
How Patrick Wilson Worked With Ghost for Stay in the Latest Insidious
Speaking with Bloody Disgusting, Patrick Wilson talked about how he managed to get to work with Ghost. The Grammy-winning band is busy touring and promoting their cover EP, Phantomime. Behind the spooky curtain, he kept the information to as few people as possible. He wanted “a really cool song” to feature in his directorial debut. As Blumhouse worked with Ghost before, he contacted his friend, Tim Bickford, who works with the band. After some time throwing out ideas, Bickford came to him with the nearly completed cover of Stay. With a quick pitch of singing and getting sent the track, the collaboration came together swiftly.
“Because I said, ‘And my dream is to sing on the track,’ because I think it would be one, probably not since John Carpenter and singing Big Trouble Little China. I don’t know if a director has sung on their own track on their own album or their own movie. So, he sent me the track, and the lyrics blew me away. Then he said, ‘Tobias [Forge, the singer of Ghost] would really be down for you doing the two verses, and then he comes in like, basically the devil’s presence.'”
By keeping this as a surprise, Patrick Wilson was “done asking for stuff” when he started down the path of his collaboration with Ghost. It surprised the people at Blumhouse, leading to an influx of responses from surprised people initially thinking the film had no original end-credits song.
You can hear Stay during the credits of Insidious: The Red Door, which is now in theaters.