Once a symbol of Medieval horror, the vampire’s fangs have sunk deep into pop culture. This Halloween sees the release of Creeper’s fourth album, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, their second vampire rock-opera. In 2026, on the wings of bats, season three of AMC’s The Vampire Chronicles, where Anne Rice’s heartthrob vampire, Lestat de Lioncourt, pursues the career of a rockstar. The Vamps, Vampire Weekend, and Fearless Vampire Killers all represent a bloodline that runs as deep as rock itself.
As soon as vampires entered Western consciousness, music about them began to be made. Originating in Eastern European folklore, the vampire first entered Western publishing with the 1819 short story “The Vampyre” by John Polidori. Just nine years later, German composer Heinrich Marschner adapted it into the opera, Der Vampyre.
The earliest association between vampires and rock music dates to the late 1950s. Under the influence of Vampira and Universal Studios’ 1957 syndication of their horror catalogue, a new wave of television hosts hit the small screen. These “horror hosts” introduced horror films, generally taking on roles of original characters.
One of these was John Zacherle, who played “the cool ghoul” Zacherley. The husband of a vampire, one of his defining elements was cutting himself into films, including Dracula. In March 1958, he released the novelty single “Dinner with Drac” in the nascent rock ‘n’ roll style, which peaked at number 12 on the Billboard chart. Soon, this style of novelty horror rock song became a trend, including Bobby Bare’s “Vampira”, Bert Convy’s “The Monster Hop,” and, of course, Bobby Picket’s “The Monster Mash”.
The next step in this progression was Ghoulardi, a later proponent of the horror-host trend, who joined Cleveland’s WJW TV-8 in 1962. Once a radio host, Ghoulardi was fired for playing too many novelty horror songs. As a horror host, between films, he frequently used the sounds of primitive rock musicians —Eddie Cochran, Duane Eddie, and Booker T —furthering a relationship between the genre and horror.
An alternate association arose in 1972, with the release of Alan Gibson’s horror movie, Dracula A.D. 1972. Seeking to modernise their classic horror style, Hammer Films transposed Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula into a contemporary setting. It followed a group of dandy mods in London, as they dabbled in the occult and, at one point, danced to the band Stoneground. Rather than being an active crossover of rock culture and vampirism, the setting was using the 1970s occult revival, the Youthquake, and the Highgate Vampire media sensation as an advertising tactic. The film was a critical flop.
The same year, a number of famous regulars at the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Los Angeles formed the costumed drinking club The Hollywood Vampires. This name was coined by the staff when they jokingly put up a plaque in the loft where the club resided, reading “Roost of the Hollywood Vampires”. This was because they were only seen at night and drank excessively.
The group’s elected president was shock rocker Alice Cooper, and, relevant for this discussion, also included Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr. This may be the first example of rock stars self-identifying themselves as vampires outside of novelty; however, it remained tongue-in-cheek. Nilsson played into this on his eighth album, Son of Schmilsson (1972), referencing Robert Siodmak’s Son of Dracula (1942). The front cover featured the singer dressed as a vampire.
A few months later, Starr approached Nilsson about acting in a film he was producing, which would later be called Son of Dracula. Released in 1974, Nilsson starred as Count Down, the titular character, who, instead of wanting to take over his late father’s role as King of the Netherworld, prefers to fall in love and play rock music in his band the Count Downs. Nilsson originally believed this invoked Son of Schmilsson, but Starr had not known of the album.
“I just think that if Dracula were around today, he would be into rock,” explained Starr, in a 1972 interview with Cinema and TV Today. The film was also a critical flop.
Soon, however, the punk movement enfranchised many young people who had grown up exposed to horror hosts. The Misfits grew up with Zacherley, while the Cramps grew up with Ghoulardi.
“Zacherley and Ghoulardi. To say they were just horror hosts, they were much more than that,” said Lux Interior, vocalist for the Cramps, in a 1997 interview with Gravy Zine. “They were somewhere between a horror host and Hitler. Ghoulardi was just way out of control, always causing trouble, always in trouble, but he was so powerful that he could get away with it. Kind of like Elvis Presley shaking his hips on television”.
Throughout his career, Dave Vanian, the frontman for English punk pioneers the Damned, incorporated every staple of vampirism into his image, including black lipstick, eye shadow, upturned, flared collars, Victorian-inspired attire, the occasional pointed ear, and veneer fangs. His stage name is a play on “Transylvanian”. He had been pursuing this image since he was 14 (around 1971), having been exposed to gothic fiction and expressionist cinema at a young age.
“It wasn’t really about looking like a vampire,” he explained in a 2019 interview with GQ, “I liked Victorian architecture and mourning rituals. Film noir was a big influence on rock ‘n’ roll.” The Damned’s 1979 song “Plan 9 Channel 7” is even a fictionalized account of a lover’s affair between Vampira and James Dean.
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Patricia Morrison was a formidable force in the Los Angeles punk scene, a member of the Bags and punk blues pioneers the Gun Club. She made a name for herself with her own vampiric fashion, which dates back to 1975.
“She always told me she based it on Vampira,” said Gun Club drummer Terry Graham in Phantoms (2019). Morrison blossomed into one of the most influential women in goth upon becoming the bassist of UK trailblazers the Sisters of Mercy. She was also named by Vampira as her heir, and coincidentally, married Vanian.
Most overtly, Bauhaus released “Bela Lagousi’s Dead” in 1979, a dark, nine-minute song that would later be seen as the origin point for the gothic rock genre. Their image is associated with German expressionist cinema, which included early vampire film, Nosferatu.
“Bela Lagousi’s Dead” was used in the opening credits for Tony Scott’s film The Hunger (1983), which featured vocalist Peter Murphy performing in a club surrounded by early goth proponents. It is the first example of these two strains interacting.
The interaction was finally solidified with S.P. Somtow’s 1984 novel, Vampire Junction. The story follows Timmy Valentine, a 2,000-year-old rock star castrato who was vampirized at the age of 12. It employs an experimental form, consisting of multiple brief scenes with minimal transitions, drawing inspiration from MTV’s programming. Within the novel, vampirism is a vehicle for critiquing the predatory nature of the music industry, through the sexualisation and commodification of Valentine, and the musicians themselves, with Valentine using his status to lure his victims.
The following year, Anne Rice released The Vampire Lestat. The book was a sequel to her 1975 novel Interview With the Vampire, which had overhauled the vampire genre by introducing a sympathetic view of the creature. In her new novel, the antagonist and love interest of Interview, Lestat de Lioncourt, tells his own perspective of the events after having been raised from the grave and then pursuing a career as a rock star. The book debuted at number nine on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
In a 2010 interview with Vulture, Rice cited the primary influence for rockstar Lestat as Jim Morrison of the Doors: “It always sounded to me like Jim Morrison. That was the band I based it on — Jim Morrison’s voice, physical beauty, and the sound of that band in a song like ‘L.A. Woman’.”
In the following years, vampires as proponents of rock and its associated subcultures permeated the horror genre: the gutter-punk vampire of John Skipp and Craig Spector‘s novel The Light at the End (1986); the new-wave fashion of Joel Schumacher’s supernatural vampire horror movie, The Lost Boys (1987); the Western-meets-1970s-punk of Kathryn Bigelow’s body horror vampire movie Near Dark (1987).
Spike from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series(1997-2001) was based on Sid Vicious and canonically lived as a punk in 1970s New York. In addition to goth, vampires became a staple of every element of emo, from pg.99 to My Chemical Romance to A Great Big Pile of Leaves. The French collective Les Legiones Noires developed “vampyric black metal”, a microgenre of raw black metal that endures today with Vampirska, Blood Countess, and Lamp of Murmuur.
The ageless mythological vampire still lurks in music as diverse as Olivia Rodrigo’s chart-topping single “Vampire” and Creeper’s bloodletting “Sunset Strip” sleaze. The irresistible folkloric monster flitters just beyond today’s blazing stage lights, returning to feed, again and again, on the artful creations of the living.
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