The 36-year-old songwriter from Akron, Ohio, identified heavily with the new show, which depicts the repeated incarceration of Wisconsin native Steven Avery, first for a violent sexual crime and attempted murder (for which DNA evidence later exonerated him), and later for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach.
The song, called Lake Superior was released along with a note from the band, which read, “It’s like Billy Childish says, ‘We live in troubled times.’ Last week, we got a sneak peek at what goes on behind the curtains of our criminal justice system. A few sleepless nights later we gathered in the studio and wrote this song. Written, recorded, mixed and mastered in 2 days.”
A groovy beat driven by dark guitar overdubs, Auerbach’s vocals float cleanly over the top of the new track, a head-bobbing number which ends up feeling like a perfect theme for the show.
All proceeds from the new work will benefit the Innocence Project, a group whose efforts are focused on getting those wrongfully convicted out from behind bars for good — action which, at least according to the Netflix series, is often much harder than putting them there in the first place.
Making a Murderer, much like the first season of last year’s NPR-created true crime podcast Serial, has been making big waves since it premiered, with some fans going so far as to circulate a petition to have Avery released from prison.
The show was the result of long term research and shooting my two filmmakers, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, who first heard of Avery’s case while graduate students at Columbia University in New York. It is currently available for streaming on Netflix.
