Exclusive Interview: Austin Galante (Sanguine Teeth on a Driftless Road, The Fairfield County Four)
You have produced music with legendary icons like Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Cee Lo Green, and KRS-One. How did you first break into collaborating with these major hip-hop figures, and how has your background as the frontman for the punk-rap band Bad Fathers shaped your production style?
I’ve always liked a lot of different styles of music, even though I make a lot of different styles of music, I’ve made hip hop music since I was in high school. My musical journey is so long and varied that I could easily write a book about it. Playing with Bad Fathers we toured and opened for a lot of famous bands and rappers. Ja Rule, Michael Franti’s Spearhead, Slick Rick, Lil Jon, Shock G, Cee Lo Green Pharcyde, Rakim, Atmosphere, 8 Ball and MJ G, Swollen Members, #0 of Slipknot Djed a couple shows for us and many more. Later in our time as a band we would connect with some of the artists we liked and ask about working on a track together. Every scenario has been different. We hung out with Cee Lo, but did most of the song work through email and phone calls, Slim Kid Tre from Pharcyde came to the place we lived and recorded in our studio. #0 of Slipknot would come over and hang out and he would lay down scratches on tracks. Some artists like Snoop, it’s just paying for a verse but I never met him. Every situation is different.
You frequently cross your music expertise into your films, even getting Snoop Dogg and KRS-One on the tracklist for your movies. When you are writing a feature, are you actively thinking about the beat and composition of the soundtrack, or does the musical identity of the film develop entirely in post-production?
It varries. For the Snoop track, I made it and then wrote the scene around the song. I’ve done that for a number of songs; knowing what I would use and working around that. But many times, I build the track after the scene is cut and a lot of times I use a track from my catalogue that I feel fits the scene. I have probably close to a couple hundred tracks I can choose from that I have already made. I have trip hop, dubstep, roadhouse blues, metali-ish songs, piano music, hip hop, punk stuff, drum N bass, I’ve even made a couple country songs to fit for certain scenes.
Your second feature film, Sanguine Teeth on a Driftless Road, is a unique, R-rated arthouse-horror comedy centered around four Black vampires on a road trip. What inspired you to mash up an absurdist road-trip comedy with classic vampire tropes, and how did you balance the social commentary with campy dark humor?
Honestly, I think that’s just how my brain works. I like fucking with social norms and examining them. I like ridiculous humor. A number of my friends happen to be black and I was originally thinking of an idea that would be fun while including them. I ended up just making it about a group of black friends and thought it would be funny to put vampires on a road trip. I didn’t want it to be like every other vampire story so I kind of looked at it like what if a few vampire friends really existed in today’s society and dealt with normal everyday issues. Vampire stories tend to romanticize the brutal nature of vampires and make them sexy and seductive. But really if you take that away, they are doing some awful shit. So I took that vail away and tried to coat it with humor and the rawness of the situations.
The film won several festival awards—including Best Comedy and Best Director—and found success streaming on platforms like Fawesome TV. What advice do you have for indie filmmakers attempting to navigate micro-budget production and distribution completely outside of the major studio ecosystem?
Unless filmmaking is just dripping from every fiber of your being, go find something else to do. Unless you just can’t help but think about film making all the time and you will feel a void without it, don’t waste your time and ours. If you are doing it for fame or money, you’ll probably find disappointment. Only about 5 percent of indie movies under $100,000 ever make their money back. The playing field is packed and it’s extremely time consuming and costly. If you’re a rich kid, then that’s a different story. Then you have all the runway in the world to fuck up and still keep going. Money is the biggest hurdle for just about every filmmaker. Money solves most problems, and not having money always leads to problems.
That being said, learn how to do every job on set and off set. The more you understand about the entire process, the more you can make things line up. If you write for your locations and actors available, if you shoot for the edit, if you know how to schedule, you can then make the next step easier, you can write for the schedule; etc. When you know how to do everything, you can look ahead in your mind and recognize what problems choices will cause and plan for them.
The cast features unique personalities, including Kill Tony winner Charlie Mac and international touring comedian Jason Rouse. How much of the quirky dialogue was strictly scripted versus letting these professional comics improvise and play off one another?
The script I wrote for Sanguine Teeth is around. 120 pages. I say around, because I wrote a 90 page script and then ended up adding like 3 more scenes as I went along. The movie is 2 hours and 15 minutes long, so it’s a scripted movie. I do however let the actors play around and improv. It’s usually 10 or 30 seconds here and there where somebody keeps going or something random happens and we play off each other. I keep some of the unscripted stuff when it’s funny. But I like to give actors the ability to play around and feel like they have some room to breathe within it. Sometimes the exact words are very important and sometimes just getting close turns out even better. I like to do anywhere from 2 to 6 takes for each scene. It allows room to get some takes very close to the script and then kinda just play around a little bit. Some actors are great at improv so it’s good to be aware of that and give them time to play.
In Joshua Brucker’s 2026 found-footage horror film The Fairfield County Four, you take on the on-screen role of an influencer investigating a werewolf urban legend. As an established director yourself, what is it like relinquishing control behind the camera to strictly focus on acting under another filmmaker’s vision?
I love just acting and not worrying about the million other things going on for a production. It’s a difficult task to have a lead part in a film and direct, run cameras, lights and deal with other things all at the same time. Which I have done numerous times. It’s good training and there is a lot to learn from it, but it does make everything much harder. I just played the main antagonist in All About a Check 3 and all I had to do was worry about acting. Somebody else tells me what they want and I try to land there for them. I also enjoy getting to do drama or thrillers. I enjoy doing different types of acting besides comedy.
Found-footage movies rely heavily on natural, grounded, and seemingly unscripted interactions to build tension. What was the onset dynamic like when filming The Fairfield County Four, and how did you prepare to make the influencer-vlogger persona feel entirely authentic to the audience?
I just treated the part like any other part. I want you to believe I’m really an influencer-vlogger, so that’s how I talk to the audience.
The film features horror host icon Joe Bob Briggs (John Bloom) as the group’s lawyer presenting the recovered footage. Did you have any memorable interactions with him during the production, and what was it like being part of a project attached to such a legendary figure in the horror community?
I never met him. I think it’s always exciting when I get to act in something that talented and celebrated people are a part of. Of course it’s more fun when I am working directly with them and get to watch them work, but it’s still neat to just be a part of it.
You’ve mentioned that you like “looking into the darkness, coating it with candy, and luring you in” to discuss hidden real-world norms through fiction. How do you ensure that your heavy thematic narratives stay entertaining and universally accessible without losing their analytical bite?
I’d be lying if I said I’ve always nailed that, but I think I’m getting better at it. Most people are more fucked up than they let on. I find a lot of people aren’t very self aware and or try to pretend they are more wholesome than they really are. Most people either strive or blindly fall into the row of their own cultural ethnocentrisms. I just enjoy looking at those ideas and dissecting their value or lack thereof. I also love comedy, so it’s a great way to hold the mirror up and bring light to heavier issues.
You shot back-to-back features (What Have We Won and What Have We Won: Deuces) starring Robert LaSardo, while simultaneously booking starring roles in upcoming indie features. How do you manage your creative energy while bouncing so rapidly between directing, acting, and music scoring?
Multi-tasking. I’m constantly working on 10 things. I rarely do activities that aren’t linked in some way to furthering my goals in film, music, and entertainment. I’m always using my time to do one aspect or another of these things. It gets daunting at times. I try to set some deadlines and also give myself breaks. For example, I tell myself that in 3 months, I’m going to just go relax and drink beer for 3 or 4 days. I usually still end up working on pre production or something, but I’m giving myself permission to be useless if I feel like it. I usually can’t shut it off though and I end up running lines, developing scene ideas or something else like reaching out to people. The cool thing about doing a lot of different aspects in film and music is that I don’t really get bored with it. Things kind of go in cycles. For example, writing for a month, going out and filming for a few weeks, editing for a few months, making music for a few months, etc. It keeps it exciting instead of just doing the exact same thing over and over again year after year.