Doctor Dark

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Doctor Dark
Artist	The Residents
Released	February 2025 (TBA)
Recorded	ca. April 2022 - October 2024
Residents release chronology
Previous	TBA
Next	TBA
Residents recording chronology
Previous	Dookietown (2024)
Next	TBA

Doctor Dark (likely stylized as Dr Dark or Dr. Dark) is an upcoming studio album and "modern theater piece/opera" currently in production by The Residents. The album is said to have been completed by October 2024, and is expected to be available for pre-order in November, with a planned release date of "late February" 2025. A tour (and/or theatrical adaptation of the album) is expected to follow in late 2025.

The opera's plot is said to revolve around "two... or... really, three" primary characters, "a couple of heavy metal kids and an insomniac Russian physician". The concept was inspired by an unsuccessful 1990 civil action in which heavy metal band Judas Priest were sued by the family of James Vance, a teenager in Reno, Nevada, who had attempted suicide by shotgun after listening to the band's music, as well as the life of Armenian-American pathologist and euthanasia activist Jack Kevorkian, who assisted in the suicides of 130 terminally ill people, and was often referred to as "Dr. Death" at the time of his murder trial and conviction in 1999.

The Residents had wanted to use the Vance story as the basis for a project for thirty years, and began actively pursuing the idea in 2021. By June 2022, The Residents had recorded "about an hour's worth" of demo material for the project, and were developing the project with classical conductor Edwin Outwater, current musical director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The album is said to have been completed by October 2024.

History

Background

James Vance and Jack Kevorkian

The Doctor Dark project was first inspired in the early 1990s when The Residents saw the documentary film Dream Deceivers, which tells the story of James Vance, a young man in Reno, Nevada, who had attempted suicide with a 12-gauge shotgun in December 1985 after drinking heavily, smoking marijuana and listening to the English heavy metal band Judas Priest. Vance survived the attempt; horribly disfigured by the shotgun blast to his face, he died three years later.

In 1990 the incident became the subject of an unsuccessful (and now infamous) civil action brought against Judas Priest and their record label CBS by the families of Vance and Belknap, which alleged that the band had hidden subliminal messages (such as "try suicide", "do it" and "let's be dead") in the song "Better By You, Better Than Me" on their 1978 album Stained Class. The suit was ultimately dismissed, however the case cost Judas Priest $250,000 in legal fees, and CBS were made to pay $40,000 to the plaintiffs' attorneys.

The Residents had wanted to do "a piece" based on the story for the three decades after having first seen footage of the disfigured Vance in Dream Deceivers, which Homer Flynn of The Cryptic Corporation compared to "a train wreck that you can't take your eyes off of".

In March 2023, Flynn explained that the project was additionally inspired by the life of Jack Kevorkian, an Armenian-American pathologist and proponent of physician-assisted euthanasia, who is said to have assisted in the deaths of 130 terminally ill people between 1990 and 1998, using self-devised euthanasia devices, which allowed users to administer fatal drugs, chemicals or gases to themselves. Between May 1994 and June 1997, Kevorkian was tried four times for assisting suicides; as his notoriety grew in the media, Kevorkian was often referred to as "Dr. Death".

Development and recording

In December 2020, Homer Flynn noted that ideas developed by The Residents while recording the soundtrack for their feature film Triple Trouble had "opened up a door for what they might want to do with the next album". By December 2021, The Residents were discussing producing the opera with classical composer and conductor, Edwin Outwater. Outwater, a "huge Residents fan" and the current musical director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, had considered working with The Residents one of his primary goals since moving to San Francisco at the start of the decade.

By June 2022, The Residents had recorded approximately one hour of demo material and backing tracks for the project, with Flynn stating that the material would "almost undoubtedly" form the basis for their next album, as well as a "modern theater piece/opera", planned to premiere in 2024 or 2025. In June 2023, The Residents were said to be "working out and spending hours in the gym in preparation" for the album's upcoming recording sessions, with "producers and collaborators [having] been assigned their official identification numbers". By the end of the year, the album was said to be in post-production, with an anticipated release in the summer or fall 2024.

While many presumed that recording had been completed, this period of "post-production" instead seems to have been the beginning of a "brief break" in the sessions, apparently to "accommodate various schedules and extra long lie-ins". During this period of time, The Residents secretly recorded a separate and conceptually unrelated EP titled Dookietown, which was "in the can" by June 2024, and has since been announced for release in November as an "election day souvenir" (presumably preceding the anticipated release of Doctor Dark).

The Residents are said to have returned to work on Doctor Dark by February 2024. By the end of June, "orchestral arrangements [had] been arranged and recorded", with a choral accompaniment also being prepared. By late July, The Residents had booked "final recording sessions" for Doctor Dark, with the group planning to "get this fucker finally finished" over the summer. In October 2024, Cherry Red Records announced that The Residents had completed the album, and that pre-orders would be announced the following month.

Concept and style

Doctor Dark is said to be an "extended narrative" project in the form of a "modern theater piece/opera", which revolves around "two... or... really, three" primary characters, "a couple of heavy metal kids and an insomniac Russian physician". The "eclectic song cycle", said to feature "more songs about guns than the average Residents album", will be accompanied by a libretto.

Describing the sound of the album, Flynn has said "part of it is kind of punk-ish, and part of it is kind of classical-ish. So you have those... two different forms... in a way kind of clashing with each other" as "part of the idea of the album". It will also feature contributions from as-yet-unspecified "guest artists", to bring "fresh energy and more perspective in terms of the different parts" of the album.

Cover art

Doctor Dark's album art is being created by Homer Flynn of The Residents' long-time graphic design company, Pore Know Graphics, with the use of "controversial" generative artificial intelligence. Flynn revealed in February 2024 that he has used AI to create particularly visual representations of the album's three lead characters, saying "I've been pretty successful with it. I've been happy with it."

See also

• James Vance
• Jack Kevorkian
• Triple Trouble (album)
• Edwin Outwater
• San Francisco Conservatory of Music
• 50th Anniversary secret show
• Dookietown

External links and references

• The Judas Priest subliminal message trial at Wikipedia
• Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest at IMDb
• Jack Kevorkian at Wikipedia