The Last Immortal Rock Star
How ‘The Vampire Lestat’ is resurrecting the archetype of the sexy, sweaty rock frontman.
The Vampire Lestat, the AMC television series based on Anne Rice’s eponymous 1985 novel, opens with an extremely exclusive art auction. A series of master recordings belonging to its title character, a vampire and rock star, are being sold off to a small group of well-appointed bidders. The lot includes Lestat’s 2025 self-titled album, session recordings, and handwritten scores—the kind of one-of-one ephemera that wealthy acolytes would buy, evoking the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who express their desire to own lucrative IP by telling everyone what huge fans of music they are. Also included in the auction lot: “A song cycle in the classical vein set to the poetry of Baudelaire.”
No one ends up getting the lot—before bidding begins, the auctioneer clicks a switch and the tapes are lit aflame, a fuck-you reminiscent of the real-life 2018 auction in which a Banksy print was purchased for $1.8 million, but went through a shredder the moment it was sold. This action, plus the Baudelaire song cycle, is meant to tell us something about the Vampire Lestat: That he’s self-important, self-destructive, and more than a little sadistic.
