interview with Dean Cameron
He was mostly known as Chainsaw, the gore-loving Leatherface-wannabe from the 1989 Mark Harmon/Kirstie Alley comedy Summer School.
After Rockula, he went on to star in the semi-popular (at least among late-night cable afficianados) Ski School movies.
Mr. Cameron is best known for his funny and wise-cracking characters, but he has also shown his dramatic acumen in movies such as Sleep with Me. He is also a writer and musician. He currently plays bass with an LA-area band, The Ducks. He also writes and performs for an independant theater troupe in LA, in addition to his writing efforts on the yet-to-be-released Hollywood Palms.
Rockula Online: What was Rockula's theatrical release like?
Dean Cameron: It had a limited release, which means they open it in a couple of theatres and if it does well, open it in a few more. Coincidentally, it played in my hometown of Norman, Oklahoma. Go figure. I think it opened on a whopping total of three screens.
Did you do any press for the film?
There was an EPK (electronic press kit) done and it showed up on MTV the week before the movie was released in Norman and wherever else. Tawny Fere and I also did some weird sort of promotion for video distributors, I think. It was me as Rex Reed and her as some weird female movie critic. It was truly weird. Never saw either of them. I just heard that the EPK showed up on MTV.
How did you hear about the film? What made you want to do
it?
Well, I'd done two movies, Summer School and Bad Dreams and they were both ensemble movies. After Summer School, I landed this big deal at Paramount where a movie and tv show were to be developed for me. Nothing came of that except a big, fat check.
So, obviously, I wanted to star in movies. I got the script for Rockula from my agents. I went in and met the director, producer and cinematographer. I talked about how I liked cheap trick and how I hated movies that tried to be serious.
It was a sweet script and they were very nice.
It was about a month from when I met them to when they actually made the offer. I was really excited. It was the first acting gig I got that I didn't have to audition for and that was a neat feeling.
Plus, I got to play guitar, write and sing. Every actor thinks they could be a rock star and vice versa.
I know you're a musician, so how involved were you
with the songs you performed?
I don't sing really well, I'm a passable singer, so they hooked me up with a vocal coach, John Bangle, who put me through my paces. Some of the songs had already been written by a guy named David Aronson and the director, Luca Bercovici's musical genius brother, Hilary Bercovici. I went in and recorded the vocals for By My Side and He's Rockula. I was pretty nervous about doing those. I didn't like He's Rockula very much and By My Side was sort of silly and lousy. Any song that has "heart" and "start" rhyming is just sorta lazy and dumb. Blah, blah.
They had the slots for Rapula and and end credit song open. "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper" was popular at the time, so the producer, Jeff Levy, suggested lyrics with some sort of story. I was reading Dracula as research so I pounded out some lyrics for Rapula based on that. Penn Jillette thinks that "you can read the commentary by William Safire; he's the DJ, I'm the Vampire" is one of the finest lyrics in modern music.
I had a Tascam 4 track and I did a demo of that at home.
The producer also wanted an ending song with a Bo Diddley beat. I wrote The King is Back in about 10 minutes and did a demo of it on my 4 track over a weekend. I got this really cool compressed snare sound with a compressor pedal and my drum machine. Very neat. They dug the song and the Dave Aronson guy was sorta bummed because he thought he was going to get rich off the music.
I ended up starting a really lousy band with him a couple of years later.
You had two character parts (Ralph and his mirror self) and were involved with the music, so would you say you were more creatively involved with Rockula
than any other movie you've worked on?
My joke at the time (and still today, I guess) is "I'm working with my favorite actor!" Haha. Isn't that the funniest fucking thing you've ever heard?
More creatively involved? No. Not at all. Hollywood Palms, the movie I co-wrote with Patrick Labyorteaux has a lot more of me in it. But, at the time, Rockula was a big deal for me because, again, I was carrying a movie and that had been a goal since I was a little kid.
Rock musicals are very few and far between in Hollywood, and they seem to become cult favorites over time (like say Grease 2 or Shock Treatment), does it
surprise you that Rockula hasn't received more attention?
I think MGM picked up the Video Release of the movie and they had this promotion that was "Kids Of All Ages Love Rockula" or something like that. I guess that's probably the best audience. It's really a kid's movie. It's pretty stupid. Obviously, I would've preferred that it wasn't "culty" and was a big, mainstream release and hit, but no one really has any control over that, do they?
Are you a fan of this kind of "cheesy" rock musical?
Not especially.
Do you think it helped or hindered your career?
I don't think it did anything at all, either way. It may have added to the "Hey, you're that guy" aspect in the last 5 or so years as it's been showing up on cable more frequently.
What are your feelings about the movie some ten years later? Do you look back and go "my god, what was I thinking?" or is it more like, "hey, that was pretty cool"?
I haven't seen it in about five years, but I think that it's about as good as it could be. I'm certainly glad that I was in it and that I got the opportunity to be in it. A few months ago, I showed my girlfriend, who doesn't know movies very well, the "King is Back" clip. She said "What's that from?" I said "A movie I did called 'Rockula'..." to which she replied "Rockula? A movie called Rockula? ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!"
I think that I wasn't as loose as I could've been. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be really good, and by doing that, I think I wasn't as good as I could've been. There's one scene with the funhouse mirror that I recall as being nearly unwatchable.
I don't think I've ever looked better in a movie. The make up and hair people were really miraculous, turning me into as handsome as they possibly could. No mean feat.
It's fine. It's Rockula, ferchrissakes.
You do a pretty good Elvis impression at the end of the film, had you done Elvis before?
In eighth grade. At a talent show. On a dare.
Are there any feelings or moments that stand out when you think about your co-stars?
My fondest memories were:
When Thomas Dolby made the whoosh sound with the hambone. I laughed for a long time.
Bo Diddly cooked ribs for lunch one day.
When we shot the King is Back, I heard Bo Diddley say "This movie may be good after all!" You can interpret that however you like.
Thomas Dolby was very cool. He gave me a good performance tip for the songs: Try to look everyone in the audience in the eye.
Tawny and I messed around a lot in our trailers. That was interesting and fun, too.
