Digglering Up Mr. Bateman…

Grave Diggler wasn’t listening to Huey Lewis and the News in 1987, but Patrick Bateman was! American Psycho arrived in bookstores 35 years ago, in March 1991, and the film adaptation followed 26 years ago, in April 2000. In honor of those two anniversaries, Spencer looks back on “Hip to be Scared” and how the great Huey Lewis himself came to be credited as a cowriter on the song.

Inspired by author Bret Easton Ellis’ crazed satire of overachieving excess, “Hip to be Scared” casts Spencer as American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, the obsessive, psychotic antihero famously brought to life by Christian Bale in the cult classic movie adaptation, directed by Mary Harron. The film’s incredible cast includes Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, and Chloë Sevigny, among others.

“In middle school, my friends and I snuck into the mall movie theater to see American Psycho,” Spencer recalls. “It’s a film that just hits you. In subsequent viewings, I saw new layers of depth to it.”

“Hip to be Scared” also pays homage to an ‘80s pop classic beloved by the murderous Bateman, who famously asked, “You like Huey Lewis and the News?” Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix guests.

“You can’t think about that movie without Patrick Bateman’s Huey Lewis monologue,”
Spencer told Revolver Magazine late last year. Even before I really sat down to write
that song, it was obvious that we had to do some kind of ‘Hip to Be Square’ homage
during the Paul Allen kill scene.”

The homage was perhaps too on the nose. “I’d gone to great lengths to interpolate that hook, so it wasn’t the exact same progression as ‘Hip to Be Square,’ but Fearless said it was still too close.”

Thankfully, Huey heard “Hip to be Scared” and signed off on it. (He’s credited as a
cowriter.)

“The ‘80s were a fascinating period, during which so many of my favorite slasher
movies were made,” Spencer points out. “The fashion, the music, all of it was so wild
and interesting.”