Creating the Music for Doom: The Dark Ages with Composer Duo, Finishing Move | The AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook

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Hi, I'm Austin Wintory and this is The Game Maker's Notebook.

Today I'm talking with Finishing Move, a.k.a.

The Bryans, Brian Lee White and Brian Trifon, who as a duo have recently worked on Doom the Dark Ages.

So, of course, we unpack that and get all kinds of pearls of wisdom and get to hear their insights into scoring this with a very kind of old school thrasher metal quality. which was totally delightful and fascinating to listen to.

And of course, leading up to that discussion about Doom, they walked me through their individual histories and rather inauspicious beginnings into the world of game music and game audio, how they became a partnership and how they tag team and work together today.

So a really wonderful chat with two lovely guys and two big talents in the world of game music.

So I hope you enjoy. Welcome to The Game Maker's Notebook, a podcast featuring a series of in-depth one-on-one conversations between game makers providing a thoughtful, intimate perspective on the business and craft of interactive entertainment.

The Game Maker's Notebook is presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, a member-driven organization dedicated to the recognition and advancement of interactive entertainment.

The Notorious Bryans. How are you guys? Yes, deeply infamous.

Good. Stoked to be doing this with you guys.

I was trying to remember when we did, I think the first time that we met, unless I'm forgetting, was at the Game Sound Con where we were on a panel together, which feels like approximately 6,000 years ago.

Yeah, what was that, like, pre-pandemic?

It was before they moved it to Burbank, because it was at the hotel, the Millennium Biltmore in downtown LA, which definitely puts, like, at least four or five years ago mark on it.

But I don't think we had met, am I forgetting, like, maybe been passing at GDC or something, but I feel like that was the first time I ever got a chance to... hang with you guys.

It's certainly the first chance I got to kind of hear your thoughts on all this stuff.

Yeah, I think maybe, I mean, we were at GDCs prior to that, but I don't think we'd actually, you know, spent time chit-chatting before that.

So, yeah, that was the one, I think. I think so, too.

Well, you guys are someone who I had, our mutual friend of Christopher Melroth is someone who was always excited to sing your praises.

Uh, so I, I, it's one of those kinds of parasocial things where I felt like I knew you better than I actually did because I would regularly hear such nice things.

Um, but here's where we're going to get it all blown out into the open.

Uh, I'll, I'll ask all the, the questions that I, that I actually don't, that I don't know the answer to.

I haven't, I haven't had occasion to really get from you.

So, um, I tend to pick this off, even though it's perhaps slightly clinical.

Nonetheless, I'm always interested to know kind of where all this began.

Individually, your inroads into being musicians, composers, producers.

I have all kinds of questions about the dynamic of a partnership, which remains this fascinating sort of inexplicable thing.

But obviously, I'm assuming... You had independent paths that led to that.

So I'd love to pick whoever wants to kick it off.

But then, yeah, I'd love to kind of know that road.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, so I'll start. I guess, you know, for me, the journey with music really embarrassingly enough, I feel like it started with hearing Metallica on the radio as like a 10 year old.

And just being like, what's supposed to be embarrassing about that?

That's like, that's like, I don't know, being your in road.

It's like, okay, one of the best groups of all time.

I think it was, but you know, it was because, okay, so if you're like, you know, really into Metallica or metal, like the first thing I heard was the Black Album.

And that's sort of the peak of what people consider when they started to sell out. and not be cool anymore.

But that was anyway, for me, that was my introduction to like Metallica and to just really falling in love with music.

Um, and I heard that. And at that time, like my ear wasn't developed at all.

And it just sounded like a block of sound.

I didn't understand the separation of like guitars and bass and what's what, but just that heavy chugging sound, you know, I was like, I need to do that.

Whatever that is. I want to be a part of that.

I was probably like 10 or 11. All right.

Yeah. And so this is because this is probably, you know, 1991, 92, that around then.

And so, yeah, that around that that age, I begged my parents.

They rented me an electric guitar. I started taking lessons.

I was not very good, but still maintaining the payments on that rental today.

Yeah, exactly. And And yeah, but I took it really seriously.

I was determined. And so I ended up, you know, that's I kind of fell in love with guitar, took it really seriously all the way until, you know, I ended up getting into USC's their studio guitar program for college, which is was like a good a good program.

When I got there, I realized how good the other students were, like my classmates.

I was really at the bottom of that sort of cohort of folks.

And yeah, that sort of when light bulbs started flickering of like, oh, maybe I'm not cut out to just be a guitarist because it was sort of my ambition to just be like a guitar hero or a studio guitarist.

And I started to recognize that. wow, the people that do this are really, really good.

And sort of what sealed that fate was I was fortunate enough, I got an internship at Fox at the recording stage, at the Newman recording stage.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And so I watched all the sessions.

They were doing like the Matrix Revolutions.

They're doing Seabiscuit. Um, Thomas Newman was the mixer on the, yes, he was on the board.

Yeah. And it, Armin Steiner mixed a lot of that stuff.

Um, and, um, flawless. Yeah. He was just sounding hybrid score still to this day.

Yeah. And there's just like mixing, like on the console, like doing it live, basically it was, it was crazy.

Um, and yeah, amazing. But for me, the, the thing was seeing the studio guitarists in there, like George Deering, um, and Dean Parks and all of these people.

And they just play perfectly. They'd get the sheet music in front of them.

And the story with most guitarists is if you want them to stop playing, just put a sheet of music in front of them.

They're notoriously bad at sight reading.

And I'm definitely included in that bunch.

So seeing these people studio musicians, guitarists, and they were just incredible, recognizing like, truly, I'll never get there.

Like, I could spend my whole life, I'll never get there.

And at that same time, like I had, you know, I, as a freshman at USC, I started to think like, I need to explore other things as well.

I was interested in music production, I was interested in electronic music.

And so interning at Fox, watching the sessions, watching the session musicians was where I was like, all right, I'm definitely, this is like not going to be what I'm doing because I'm not cut out for it.

And so I started to like- George Deering is a very brutally unfair comparison to make to yourself as a freshman, because it would be literally like, I put my first pen to paper to write an orchestra piece.

I'm going to go sit next to John Williams now and just get this, this wide gulf is so big. ridiculously unfair to hold yourself to as you were what, 19 or something at the time?

Yeah. Well, it's a savage thing to do to yourself.

To be fair, this is probably my third year of college, like going into the senior where I was interning and watching the sessions.

But yes. Okay. So yeah, 21 or two. Yeah.

You were over the hill. I retract my statement.

You should have been held to the highest possible standard that a human could be at that age.

But my point is, is that like, you know, you do have to see like, what is the top of the mountain, right?

And, and then, and then it's like, if that's an area where you want to be like, especially a competitive field, and that you want to work in, like you either have to have a really specialized niche where you have a competitive advantage, or you have to be competing at that, that level.

And I just knew that wasn't gonna happen.

So Um, fortunately I had other interests and, and I think also experiencing that, like seeing these musicians that are at the absolute peak, you know, made me think about like, well, what, you know, what is the purpose of doing this?

Like, what do I care about music? Is it just to be, you know, like, uh, of the best and to, you know, or is there something else with music that I'm trying to say with it? that matters more.

And I started thinking about music that I love, you know, and it's not always the best musicians that make great music.

Like, uh, this is not an insult to some of my favorite bands, but like, I, you know, I really like new order.

I like joy division. I like the cure, but if we stick with joy division for a moment, they could kind of barely play.

Like it's, it's, it was there. It's on the verge of falling apart.

Um, and that's no disrespect to it. Cause I, The music is fantastic and I love it and it's extremely powerful.

And what they have to say is sometimes a hundred times more powerful than, you know, another guy who I love, Yngwie Malmsteen, you know, like shredding on the guitar.

Sometimes Joy Division sloppily playing a part out of time, but that with, you know, the right energy and the right feeling, it expressed a lot more in a more sincere way than something that's perfectly executed.

And so, you know, it made me think about, you know, what is it with music that I'm trying to say and to really dig into what it is that I care about with, with music.

And so that, I think going through that experience, um, you know, I started to switch directions into music production and, uh, and then, you know, um, From there, I was fortunate enough to then work.

There was a film composer, but he's mainly electronic musician, named BT.

And I worked for him after I graduated USC.

And that was a good learning experience in the sense that I was developing the music production skills.

I was also able to work on some films and things that he was working on. and then also further hone my own sound.

Um, and while sort of working professionally and seeing like, how does, how does a professional operate?

And then with him, it was seeing kind of also how he lived out his personal life and his professional life and some of the mistakes he made too.

And I learned a lot from the mistakes he made of, you know, like he's a extremely competent guy and very capable, but he would push the limits of things.

And, you know, like he could be very reactive.

And there were things where I was like, oh, wow, that didn't work out like anybody hoped for, you know?

So it was, it was a really- That's a very, just to put a little parenthetical on that, sorry to cut you off, but that's a- No.

That's a, I think an underappreciated- thread when talking about our formative experiences.

We always tend to tell those stories that kind of valorize our heroes and show us, you know, that moment that I realized I could do this too and all that sort of stuff.

But I suspect a lot of us have had those moments where we got a glimpse of sort of things that we didn't want for ourselves, either because it seemed objectively bad or just because it wasn't the right fit.

And I certainly had my share of those as well, where I would meet a composer and say, oh, wow, you kind of represent the things I don't want to be.

And not as a I'm better than you way or anything remotely like that.

It's just like, it's a valuable, it's a counterexample, you know, versus an example that we would aspire to.

And I feel like that's something we don't, we don't talk about particularly often in our, you know, in the panels and interviews and all that kind of stuff that we do.

But that's a very, you know, without obviously digging into the details of what you mean, just knowing that that was educational in some sense in that way is pretty illuminating.

I mean, you can, you know, obviously you learn best from your own mistakes, but hopefully you can learn from some of the mistakes of others.

And also, of course, there's a lot of things that he did right that I learned from it as well.

So basically, to continue on from there, at some point, I realized I wanted to just work on my own.

I wanted to make my own music. And so I stopped working for him. after, you know, I think it was like 2007 or so.

And I started my own electronic music project that was called triphonic.

And I spent a year lived back at my parents house and made a record and along with my brother.

And yeah, and I put that out and I was like, Okay, this is this is where things I can kick off my own career.

And it's like, and so I put out this first album called emergence and like, absolutely nobody cared because I put it out myself and I didn't know what really what to do with it.

Um, and, uh, yeah, but I, I believed in it and it was, and it was like, there was things that were good about it.

And, uh, it just, it just like, it didn't, I didn't know how to get it out there.

So then I had to start, working, and I started doing jingles.

And this is also where Brian White comes involved.

We were friends, and we started working on some of these jingles together for the same company.

And then while that was all brewing, my trifonic music started to bubble up in the background.

Some producers started to discover it, other musicians.

But it took like two years before it caught on.

So I had to just like work, which was which was good.

And so, you know, we're working on these commercials.

I was also teaching. There's a school in San Francisco.

I don't think it exists anymore. It was called Pure Mind.

And I was teaching like music synthesis classes.

Does it not exist anymore? It's funny. I haven't heard anyone mention it in a while, but I didn't think it was gone.

That's a good question. I'm not sure. I think they might.

They just sold their last building. I think it exists maybe only on the internet.

I know they recently sold their last piece of property in San Francisco.

Yeah. It might still be on the internet.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So- Um, you know, but yeah, I just making ends meet.

We're just doing, doing whatever. And, and so like Brian and I were working on, on commercials, um, as teaching a pure mind.

And, and that's also where I met Paul Lipson, um, who's, you know, a game composer and now like, you know, audio executive, uh, kind of person.

Um, and so, you know, through like the friendship with Paul and, um, you know, and then just the reputation I'd started, I'd built with my electronic music with triphonic, it started to be some opportunities with, with games, which was not something that was on my radar at all.

Um, and so, you know, for the, basically the first opportunity pretty much was, uh, the, the, the 10th anniversary of halo, like halo combat evolved the first one, um, pure mind, like got that project, like Paul, you know, he, he was, um, doing that project.

And he's like, Hey, can I bring you in to recreate all of the, like, uh, the synth parts that, that Marty and Michael did for it, you know, for this basically updated version, the 10 year anniversary of Halo.

And then, you know, that's, I brought in Brian White to help me with that too, just cause you know, it was a lot of work and it was, this was like a good opportunity.

And, um, so that was sort of, uh, our. primary entrance into games.

And so we, we did a really good job with that.

That's actually where we met Christopher Melroth was, was on, on that project.

And he was really impressed because we figured out basically how basically they didn't know exactly how the audio engine worked, uh, for the original halo when they were recreating it, they, they, they sort of like they, it was split up into all these little loops and they couldn't, they weren't exactly sure how the parts fit together.

Cause they were all these like different cross fading loops that, that you could do in any order.

And they're trying to just figure out like, how is this?

It wasn't in wise. It was the original. It was because they just like, they were just remastering the graphics and they just had to use the original audio engine that existed like in 2000, whatever one, when it came out.

Isn't it crazy how fast, in games, suddenly things become this kind of like archeology where you, you, something could be five years old and it already is something where you're going, we, we need the equivalent of a Rosetta stone to even know what the hell we're looking at here.

Yeah. Like Halo to the 10th anniversary.

Halo is such a hilariously short amount of time, but yet this is such a recurring motif in the industry, you know, of, of how the hell do we just even just, especially if you go back to, you know, any game even slightly not modern before people started thinking about this more conscientiously, there was no documentation or anything like we would typically have today also.

So yeah, that's funny. I knew you guys worked with it, but I didn't realize this part of it.

I hadn't even thought about the idea that it would be this giant mystery.

Well, yeah. Cause I mean, basically that was not even, you know, our responsibility.

Like it was, you know, but then it sort of, we started to figure it out and then, and, and, uh, Because it was Paul, and then Tom Salta, Lenny Moore were all in the project.

And then we were just doing the, just recreating the synth parts, trying to make them more modern, make them, you know.

But everybody was kind of struggling with this weird format of the loops that were all, where these crossfades were embedded.

So sometimes at the start of it, it's like these sounds would appear out of nowhere, trying to figure out how to all work together.

And so like Brian and I really dug in there and figured it out and figured out how to recreate them and bake in the crossfades into it.

And so then we did that, like with all of the assets that everyone did was sort of get them in the same format so we could drop them into this 2001 audio engine and just have them work.

You know, we just named the files exactly the same.

It's a new asset, drop it in and it worked.

Um, and so I think Christopher Melroth was very impressed, uh, by that and so after that project, because that was 2011, so in 2013, that's when we started Finishing Move, because Brian and I talked and we're kind of like, hey man, maybe we should team up, start working together on everything, like for real, and start a company and try to take on bigger things.

Because prior to that, we were just, again, doing jingles, which was, yeah, it was not that fun. and doing like subcon like session work subcontracting work for people um and we wanted to try to just like what what can we do that's that's our own um well so then let's let's uh let's narratively construct this like uh you know last of us too so we've got to the moment of your head on head collision with one another and we will now then warp back in time to retell the story in parallel uh of alternate Brian path into this collision course.

My story. We're zooming back. We're going back in time.

So when I was a five-year-old boy, my dad showed me Star Wars and I said, I want to be a composer.

No, I'm just kidding. That's not how it happened.

I was so excited for the hard opposite side of the tracks approach.

No, no, no. Yeah, I grew up in a really musical family.

My family still owns a music store in my hometown of Tehachapi in the mountains of, I guess that's like central California.

Never heard of that town. It's like two hours from LA.

Wow, how big a town is that? Like population-wise?

I would say it's like, when I was growing up, it was less than 5,000 people.

It's probably like more like 20 now but uh crazy you know like when i was a kid there was like no actual big grocery stores kind of thing and then we got our first big grocery store and it was like oh my god this is this is living we have a supermarket Now it's got a Walmart and a lot of people doing meth, so it's come quite a way.

Yeah, it's not the same place I grew up, but the music store is still there.

So yeah, I just grew up in a really musical family.

We were always having family bands, and I started on piano... because they figured like, hey, that's what a little kid should start on.

And I kind of like quickly moved away from that because I thought guitar was way cooler because that's what my dad played or still plays.

And so I was kind of like, no, the piano is just lame.

I really wish I would have like kept playing.

What kind of music, like, playing as a family is so intriguing.

That's one of those things I so wish I could relate to that.

I always love those kinds of stories. But what sort of music?

So, yeah, like like my dad kind of like fancied himself.

He was kind of like a band leader and he had a lot of different bands, but it was always like R&B bands.

He was kind of like think Blues Brothers.

Like he really thought he was like Johnny Otis or something like that.

And so it was always that kind of like, you know, R&B bands with a horn section, you know, like that kind of thing.

You know, amazing. Wilson Pickett, you know, that that kind of stuff like Motown band. you know, R and B soul, uh, James Brown, that kind of stuff.

So yeah, like really like eclectic, you know, mix of, of stuff.

Uh, did you gig around town and stuff, uh, or, or like an, an elsewhere or like, in other words, was this treated as a hobby?

You know, we, we jam in the garage or was it like, no, no, we, we were going to go out and do stuff.

So, uh, I mean, my, my dad certainly did when I was a very young kid, he had several bands that he would like go, play shows with and stuff like that around sort of like the area, I guess you'd say, because it was a small town.

So you're kind of bouncing around between different spots.

But yeah, when we was like my brother and I, my brother's a drummer when we were kids, like we would always like perform for the family functions and stuff like that.

So we would kind of like do little set lists and and then we would all kind of play at the I have a really big family and everybody lived there in the small town.

So it was one of those things where, you know, I had like a ton of cousins and aunts and uncles, like both my mom side and my dad's side, it was like five siblings each.

And so it was big, big family and everybody pretty much lived within an hour of there.

So there was a lot of, you know, like that kind of, uh, like big family functions and we would always, uh, play audience supply.

No, it was great. Yeah. I was like, it, it was, it really helped like kind of build my confidence, uh, you know, being on stage and, and, and kind of getting a taste of, of, of performing because I would go on to play in bands and high school and middle school and stuff like that.

I switched to guitar, uh, probably like around 10 or 11 and, uh, right around kind of like when Nirvana and Metallica and all those bands were like really kind of hot on the charts.

And it was like, okay. Cause a lot of those songs, the cool thing about a lot of that early nineties stuff is that it was pretty simple for like a new guitar player to learn.

And it was like really exciting, you know, cause you could play like, you know, Metallica unforgiven or nothing else matters or something like that.

And you could kind of, you could get the essence of the main riff and like feel pretty cool.

Like even as a seventh grader, um, Or Nirvana, like Smells Like Teen Spirit or something like that.

Like, you know, bar chords and power chords.

And you could really kind of like feel like you were a part of culture without, you know, a lot of, you know, production or fancy, you know, technical ability or anything like that.

So I think it was like a super exciting time, at least for me and a lot of my friends, like learning guitar and playing guitar because it was always like, you know, something would come on the radio and it'd be, you know, guitar oriented and you could most likely play it, you know, or learn how to play it as like a guitar player that's been playing for like a year or two.

So it was definitely like a great era I feel like to come up in as you know, like someone experiencing an instrument but just having that interest that's outside of your parents' interest in you learning music, you're really like, I want to learn this and then I want to start writing my own songs.

That's how I really came into it. It's just being in a musical family, playing in bands in high school.

I played in jazz band in high school. So that was kind of like my first introduction to, I guess you'd say like formal music education.

Like I didn't, I didn't play in band earlier because I was a guitar player and that was kind of the first opportunity that you would typically have in school to play in, in, in band was, was jazz band.

And it was funny because school was so small and the band was so small that, uh, they didn't have jazz band all, you know, four quarters of the school year.

And so everybody in band had to be in marching band in football season, like no matter what, even if you, even if you play guitar and I didn't get to play guitar in marching band, I got to play auxiliary percussion.

So that was like a humbling, like, uh, have no idea how to be a percussionist.

And I was in ninth grade, because I had joined Jazz Band.

I had tried out as a middle schooler. And so I started right in ninth grade as a freshman.

And my first experience with band is not playing guitar, which I was very competent at that point in my playing career at.

I was playing crash cymbals, the most loud If you screw up, you're the most obvious.

I've seen that many times. And the thing that I, yeah, I learned really quick that it's, unlike guitar, there's an inertia to cymbals, and you gotta start... about an eighth or a quarter note before the beat that you want to land.

So there was a lot of like, you know, I would have one part in the whole song and it would be at the end, like the crescendo.

And I mean, like, you know, the, like, I would do that in front of a whole football stadium, like a fricking asshole.

But that, yeah, that was my, That was my first humbling experience of interacting with a new instrument.

Presumably the next step for you was to apply to USC's studio Crash Symbol program and see if that could be the path for you.

It was definitely, yeah, definitely the path for me.

I definitely, I would say like when I got to play the triangle, I preferred that.

That was a little bit more tactile. Uh, but they, they never let me play the timpani or, or, you know, uh, snare drum or anything that was for their actual drummers.

They got to play the cool drums, like the, the like nerd guitar.

Cause the bass player also in jazz band had to like do something during marching season.

And it was usually something embarrassing, like a tambourine or, uh, that kind of thing.

But, um, but yeah, I, I played in, I played in bands, um, both in school and, and just like, like actual punk and hardcore bands and, and, uh, in high school that we would form.

I feel like we formed a new band every week.

It was that kind of thing where you spend a lot of time figuring out the name of your band and then you'd practice once and then you'd, You'd form a new band.

The cool thing was, though, because of the music store, we had a huge rehearsal space in the back that I just had access to 24-7.

So I could go and be loud and jam with all my friends anytime I wanted to, which was kind of a huge thing.

Living in a small town, there's not a lot of stuff to do.

So you're either going to get in trouble, which we did plenty of, or jam at the music store. which is called Lee's House of Music.

Lee is my dad. That's where I get my middle name, Brian Lee White from.

And yeah, then I went to school and you'd think that I was so keen on music that I would go to music school.

I did not. I went to UC Santa Cruz and I started as a computer science major.

That was way too hard. They like the math.

I was like, okay, not doing this. So after my first quarter, I said, We're going to do business and economics.

And so I stuck with that. And I ended up taking the path of becoming a CPA.

So I got all the credits from accounting.

So I was going to be an accountant. I even interned for a big public accounting firm in Silicon Valley.

And yeah, I did this internship. in my either third year or right before my my fourth year I did an internship where you actually go and you work there like for a couple months during the summer and it's like full-time like immersion kind of thing and I hated it I was like oh my god like this is I cannot do this I had like a full-on like quarter life crisis existential meltdown uh at that internship I'm glad I did it because I wouldn't I would have not known yeah sure as soon as I hit my like fourth year um I was like hey I got to do something different like this isn't this isn't going to work and at the same time my brother was kind of just like milling around not doing anything like really having like no direction and they were like oh why don't we send him to like music production school or like or you know like a full sale kind of thing and i remember like like seeing the brochure i'm like dude why does he get to do this like like i want to do this this sucks like like like don't waste money on him he's he's a lost cause and I didn't end up going to one of those schools, but what I did do is I decided I am not going to be an accountant.

So I graduated early, and then I just went and interned at studios.

I gave up this job. In the Bay Area, Silicon Valley kind of area?

In the Bay Area, yeah. The first one was in San Jose.

I found this studio, and... uh, I moved, I like, I moved there to San Jose to, to work at this studio.

And I kind of like my way in was, uh, your typical, like kind of like it kind of stuff like back then, like, people didn't really know how computers worked.

I feel like they still don't know how they work, but studio tech back then was like, you had, you know, console tape machine, but then computers and pro tools were, were very much a thing.

This was 2004. But like when they broke, they really broke.

Yeah. And so the tech on those things, like when things broke, you know, they had cards in them and it was like the drivers and everything had to be just like, We're so lucky these days that we can just put stuff up and it mostly works.

So yeah, I basically made myself super useful by doing a bunch of tech stuff.

And that was kind of my way in. And I still tell people this day, I'm like, figure out how to make yourself useful.

If you want to be part of something... uh, you know, what are you, what can you offer?

Like, obviously I couldn't come in and mix records.

I couldn't come in and like, you know, start being a studio musician or anything like that.

Uh, I just didn't have, you know, I was like 22 years old.

I didn't have, you know, the ears or the knowledge.

What I did know is I didn't know how to use computers and I knew how they worked and I could read a manual and I could spend, I could stay up all night, you know, figuring something out and, uh, that basically like just allowed me to hang around and, you know, get more responsibilities and, uh, start doing sessions, you know, like they would start putting me on like the late night hip hop sessions.

And the dude, this was talk about like, like crazy stuff.

Like imagine like a very timid 22 year old little white kid.

And he's there's like, Bay Area hip-hop hyphy session.

There's, like, 10 dudes. The weed smoke is, like, just permeating the studio.

Couple of guys have, like, guns on them.

And I'm just, like, from a small town. Like, and I'm the only one in the studio that's, like, part of the studio.

And I'm, like, I guess I'm here. Like, I gotta make sure that, like, nothing gets broken or stolen or no one gets killed.

Um... But that really like that just leave without locking the doors, I imagine, would be like, you know, the biggest risk.

You just, of course, in the haze of it all, you're just just leave.

That's always my biggest fear. Oh, yeah.

I mean, dude, locking up the studio was always like my most nervous time because there was a big alarm system and it was like.

And it was in this warehouse. You know, you've been to studios that are always in like somehow they're always next to like a brick in like a shop or something.

Yeah, exactly. Like a chop shop or like a tire factory or something like that.

And something where there's definitely a front for some money laundering scheme. exactly it's it's they're always in these like weird industrial areas because it's the only places that they'll let you build out and do cool stuff right and where you have the square footage reasonably cheaply to actually build something that can have like separation and you know all that kind of exactly like it's the only place you could like build rooms within a room right because your typical office spaces just don't don't have that so yeah i just started like working in studios uh i also at the same time started teaching a bunch like that was a a big way that I kind of like upped my knowledge and kind of like funded my existence.

I started teaching pro tools and logic and sort of production software kind of stuff as part of this training school that they ended up like making me an owner of because the other owner, he was my mentor And he was the one that owned the studio that I first started working at and everything like that.

And he I in hindsight, he definitely was like, I can definitely bail and I will leave these other guys with this bag of this kid who is pretty smart, but he will be loyal to them and not, and I can bail.

And so he like bailed and I was like 24 years old.

And they're like, you have to run this school.

And I'm like, ah, okay. Like, cause these other two guys were just investors.

They were just like, they weren't on the technical side of things.

And so this other dude was, you know, like he is a veteran recording engineer.

I had been doing it forever, making, making records and everything like that for like, you know, 30, 40 years.

He was kind of like over it. He wanted to bail out of the school situation.

And he trained me and basically was like, OK, see, yeah.

And so now I'm running the school like just like on my own, doing like pro tool certification and stuff like that.

And and that's actually how I met Trifon.

Like that's that's so I I was running the school and we had some other teachers and it was kind of my job. to make sure that like, we, you know, like hired teachers and had, you know, qualified people there.

Cause I couldn't teach every class. It was like, for a while I was like working every day.

Like we're talking about like nine to five, like teaching like all day.

And I would just crash out. Cause my voice would be just completely toasted.

And, uh, yeah. And I, we lost a teacher, um, uh, uh, He's just like, yeah, I got a job.

I got a real job. It's funny. He actually got a job like at doing Guitar Hero programming at Activision.

And so I talked to a friend who I was making a bunch of music with at this time.

At the same time, I was just making records and mixing records and kind of like trying to pursue a career as a music producer, mixer, engineer kind of thing while running this school to pay the bills.

And the guy I was making a record with at the time, a friend, Quinn Walker, I was like, do you know anybody that maybe could come and teach here?

And he's like, yeah, I have this friend, Brian Tryphon.

He was working for BT down in LA, but now he's back in the Bay.

He's, you know, making, he made a record and he's trying to promote it and he definitely needs work.

And I was like, sick. And so I, I talked to, I talked to Trifon.

I'm like, do you know how to use puzzles?

I asked him if he knew how to use Pro Tools, and he was like, not really.

And I'm like, well, I could teach you. That was the best part.

He's like, hey, do you know Pro Tools? I was like, not really, like a little bit.

And he's like, oh, that's fine. You can teach it.

Well, I knew that he knew Logic, and that was part of our program there.

And I knew that he had experience, like actual experience, working on films and records and stuff like that.

And so... that was like more important to me in terms of finding someone to come in and, and, and, you know, mentor people and stuff like that.

It was like, okay, like this is someone who's has experience to share.

And you know, the, the technical, the, the, the software is software.

Like, I mean, it, it all does the same stuff, you know?

And so it's mostly about like, how are you using the software and like what anecdotes you could kind of share with with these people because these were all this was all sort of career level training not um these weren't children these were kind of like adults coming to yeah hobbyists and adults trying to either start a career or you know maybe they like you know their church is sending them to like get certified and in an avid you know kind of program or something like that um right of course sure yeah and And so, yeah, we started he started working at the school and that's kind of like when we, you know, first started working together and stuff like that.

And so like fast forward to like 2008 financial crisis, like the school lost all of our state funding.

So like we used to be able to give grants and loans to students.

And that was like half of our business model was like people would come in and they'd be like, hey, I don't have any money.

And we go, okay, the state will give you a loan.

And we would, you know, we would get money from the state.

The financial crisis happened and they basically came in and said like, okay, like half the schools on this list, you're all off, like you're cut from funding.

So you no longer, so we no longer had an option other than just like, pay us cash to come to the school and that cut our business in half and like within a year or two basically it was like yeah this is this is not gonna happen anymore like we didn't have enough enrollment to like keep the building so I started like teaching uh out of my like home studio and stuff like that and just kind of like totally frittered out at the same time that's kind of where our Brian and I started picking up the work, uh, in the ad world.

Like we worked for a couple of music houses doing, um, like corporate background music jingles.

Like, you know, I wrote a commercial for men's warehouse, uh, mattress company, uh, you know, the, the live in the dream.

Um, but the, the cool thing about that I would say is, is while we, uh, grew tired of that fairly quickly.

That was like the first time I think in my life where I sort of recognized that, okay, I could do this composing thing and like, I can make money at it.

You know, before then I'm like trying to make records.

The records don't do well. I'm trying to get work, you know, with, with more famous artists.

And then, and then that's a struggle, like trying to get paid from them.

And, you know, it's, it's always just like this crazy, like, you know, sometimes you're working, sometimes you're not.

We started working with these music houses and I was like, man, like we, you know, like I can make a couple thousand bucks like doing this or that.

And it was like, it was crazy. It went from kind of being like, you know, loser engineer, you know, music producer to like, Oh, like this, there's something here, you know, there's like, I could see like a career happening from this just because of the, you know, this, the stability of the work.

And like, they were actually like paying us like pretty good.

And I think at the time, the reason we were successful was I think we both have a, had an ability to kind of like, do a lot with a little in terms of production and sound wise.

So, you know, this was pre YouTube, you know, where you could literally learn how to get any sound at any time now.

Like you can, like, if you want to like sound like, you know, John Williams, you can type up and there's a guy on YouTube, like teaching you the orchestration and the mock-up.

Download the John Williams chord packs. Download the chord packs.

Yeah. And you could say that with any band.

You want to have drums like Nirvana. You want to have guitars like this band.

Now it's a chat GBC away or a YouTube video away. back then that just that there were no resources like that and so you know in in the commercial space as you know everybody's wants to do sound alikes and they want to you know they're like hey we can't afford the black keys can you do something that sounds like the black keys and can you have it done you know by tomorrow uh and so we were really good at kind of like Distilling a lot of what made those things sonically unique or compelling in terms of production, whether it was drum sounds or synth sounds or guitar or a vocal or something like that.

Just kind of able to mimic that good enough.

It definitely wasn't the Black Keys, but it was good enough for... to play in the background of like a network router, corporate, you know, like corporate presentation in Las Vegas.

I did a share of those two back probably around those same years, you know, like 2007, eight kind of, you know, give or take the thing that I'm assuming production music and libraries essentially wiped out that whole kind of, industry of the idea of hiring a composer specifically for one of those but i i definitely did my share and they were it was it's awful it's just like it's always the same type of actor who they're like did you know that we're expanding into the pacific northwest and it's very a lot of exciting opportunity it's like there's a certain kind of vibe to those little you know industrial or corporate training video type things it's the corporate yeah it's the it's they would yeah it's like corporate spiritual sound.

I mean, a lot of it was like taking you, like you two as the template, but like taking any of the like sort of edge, not the guitarist, but like the, like smoothing out the, the, the edges on it that like make it like kind of like kind of cool.

Yeah. And then, and then just like keeping sort of the, like that, that uplifting feeling and oh yeah.

Yeah. Bad. It was, it was, I, the way I, basically maintain sanity during that period was a, I was getting paid like regularly for the first time in my life.

So it was like, okay, like I can, I can, I can kind of compartmentalize this and be, it was exciting to like have like, you know okay you've got four hours and you got to like find how to make this sound like how do you produce this how do you how do you distill or get close enough that it's going to be able to work in the background of one of those things and that was always like you know even though the music ended up being pretty lame and tame and not very inspiring but like the process of like again like kind of like having no tether you have no information you can't go look up like how did they do this?

And you're just there with, you know, your sample libraries and your whatever, like 2007, 2008 state-of-the-art computer technology was trying to figure out like how, you know, how do we make, how do we make this work?

And I think it, it helped. I think it helped shaped a lot of kind of like what we ended up becoming known for as composers and, you know, in the game world and stuff like that, just that kind of doing a lot, with a little, like doing a lot of sound, doing something that sounds really cool, but not necessarily, you know, like say having an orchestra to record or having a bunch of session musicians to record, just kind of like relying on ourselves.

Um, that's also when I kind of like had to like get back into playing keys again.

Cause it's like, not everything is a guitar, you know?

And so like figuring out like how to program and, and, uh, do that kind of stuff.

It kind of really set us up, you know, for success, you know, later, um, when we, when we kind of joined forces after the, after the halo thing.

Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, it was cool to just, um, you know, start collaborating on stuff and, uh, and, uh, you know, I think we, we work really well together.

And, and there was always like, if, if it wasn't something that like I could do, he could do.

And if it wasn't something that he could do, I could do.

And so it was, it was like this kind of mutually beneficial collaboration.

And, and I think it was, it was, we, we, you know, I think we both, you know, you went to guitar school, Brian, not, not production school.

And I didn't go to any sort of music school at all.

And we kind of learned, like how to compose and do all this stuff kind of on our, on our own.

Right. Like, no, not a lot of formal training.

And, and, uh, and so I think at that time it was, it was really nice to just be like, man, like, like, let's not just put it all on myself.

Like let this, let's have a, a, like a partner that it's like somebody else to like share the anxiety and the, and sort of the like, you know, we can both, you know, fake it till we make it together, you know, kind of thing, as opposed to just kind of like being out there on your own.

So that, that kind of, that brings two, two questions sort of having now, you know, reconverged on your colliding, moment here.

It is interesting how it's very plainly obvious how complimentary your skills ended up being teed up to be just by the random luck of the lives that you led, basically.

But at the same time, It does seem like if you think of it as the two of you as circles in a Venn diagram, there's a pretty healthy amount of overlap.

It's not like one of you was this hardcore East Coast jazz musician or something who just never thought once about technology or whatnot.

You clearly have a healthy amount of overlap at the same time, which I can only imagine has been really helpful and important to kind of fluidly speaking the same language.

So two... Two questions I'm curious for you guys to bat around is, first off, a question that invariably comes up with this sort of thing is, actually, you know what, I'll ask that second because it'll be a perfect road forward from there.

The other question was this finding a dynamic as a partnership between I have very little experience with this.

I've, I've done kind of collaborative co-writing in a few instances.

And, and it's always a little bit, it's, it's, it's kind of like finding a dance partner on the dance floor, as opposed to like someone, you know, already, you know what I mean?

There's a certain sense of, there's a certain sense of we can make this work.

That's kind of like the optimal approach. uh, thing because it's just, you know, it's like dating or at its best, it's still a little awkward because you're getting to know each other.

That's just the nature of human interaction.

Um, so I'm always fascinated by these like long running partnerships where clearly it transcends that, you know, it's, if one is dating, this is closer to marriage where you just are, you really, you really know a lot about each other's instincts and all that.

So what I'm driving at in terms of my thing I'm curious about is, um, a thread that's in both of your stories that was interesting is that you kind of were picking up skill, but a little bit restless with just using the skill in a very kind of almost the musical equivalent of like manual labor way.

You both seemed to kind of yearn for something more, right.

And to be expressing yourselves and to actually kind of, channeling what you were learning into something more meaningful than commercials and corporate videos and things like that.

And so that's what to me highlights what's interesting about the idea of forming a partnership, because that desire for self-expression would seemingly be at odds with forming a duo.

Because it's kind of like, oh, I really want to do my thing.

I don't want to just keep doing these Black Keys sounded like, you know, so I'm curious how that reconciles.

Is it clear? I feel like I'm kind of rambling in my attempt to articulate the question.

Does it make sense what I'm what I'm driving at?

It does. I mean, I think it was it was very natural.

I mean, partially, like I'd say, at least from my perspective, is that, you know.

We were different. in terms of work speed too.

Like I am not prolific. I'm pretty slow and Brian White is very fast.

And so, you know, that was like, you know, just working together that, that speeds up the whole thing, you know?

And, and so it was, maybe he would say it slows it down.

Well, yeah, maybe, but like we, we had complimentary skills in the sense that like, you know, I feel like, one of the things I've, I've always been good at is like just having a unique sound.

I'm good at like special sauce stuff, but then sometimes like just like cranking stuff out, I really get hung up, like get lost in the details and, And, you know, so to have somebody that can work really fast and then I can put some special sauce on it, or he can be like, bro, just like, stop, move on from those four measures and like, just crank this out.

And, you know, like somebody to push basically.

And it goes both directions, you know, like we can push each other to just to one, make things better to, to get things done faster.

And then it was also just that, you know, like, um, you know, Brian White also has an exceptional mixing skills too.

And so that was something that like, you know, as we started working together more, we just, you know, developed into like, well, okay, he's going to do the final mixes on everything.

I don't need to waste hours, like trying to do a good demo mix when he can crank out the mix in 20 minutes.

And it's going to sound way better than, than me spending hours trying to get it somewhere.

So it's like, you know, it's the complimentary skills I think is, really what made that work.

I think the other thing that is probably interesting about our story, I feel like maybe not a lot of people know this, but there was this kind of moment where we were both working...

Like this was like early, I think in the first Halo thing.

So we were both kind of like that. The game thing had kind of like started or at least the, the, the, okay, this is a, this is a pathway.

Cause it was like doing the synth programming and you had done some like, like guitar work for Jesper and stuff like this was like 2010.

And then we were both also doing like, pop music production for a big producer down here in LA.

So like doing like actual writing sessions and stuff like that, doing the music side of, of, um, pop music writing.

And it was kind of like, I think there was this point where I was, you know, we were getting pretty busy in both of those.

And, and it was kind of like, okay, like we know we're, we work well together and we know, um, we're we've got something here like let's just like let's take the thread that is the most successful right and so like we kind of almost like hedged our bets right where we're like okay we're gonna do this game thing we're gonna do this pop music thing both like kind of like had you know pretty cool looking pathways because it was like some of the people we were doing like sessions for it was it was like britney spears beyonce like these were big acts that we were uh doing writing sessions for, uh, with this producer in LA and Halo is obviously a big video game.

And so it was kind of like, we need to explore both of these threads.

Um, we can't, you know, like, if we give both of these threads our full attention, we can kind of maximize our potential outcomes.

Because we had this idea of forming a company, forming a partnership, and that kind of thing.

Because we knew we worked together and we knew we just like, but we wanted more than the commercial stuff, like you were saying.

We wanted to really have a voice, really be creative.

And so these kind of two paths were in front of us.

Um, and we worked them like real hard and the game one just ended up being the one that, you know, yielded the best fruit, the pop one kind of like it, it, it was fun for two years.

It was a grind, but it ultimately kind of just like fizzled out and blew up.

Does that mean that you, you kind of let those paths in a sense, decide for you?

In other words, like you, you thought that you sat down one day and said, okay, column eight, is the game industry column B is pop production and just kind of hash it out.

You're saying it felt more like the pop thing ended up just sort of not marching onward while games meanwhile were.

Yeah, it didn't really pan out. Yeah, so we just went in the direction of like where things led, you know?

It's interesting. I remember years ago going to a concert, you know, the film composer, Elliot Goldenthal, he did like interview with the vampire and all these big movies.

And he, especially in the 90s, I remember I went to a concert where they were playing music of his and he came out on stage and he has this very, very intense classical training.

He had studied with Aaron Copland and stuff.

And I remember the conductor said, given your background, I'm curious why you chose to focus overwhelmingly your creative time and energy on writing film scores.

And he goes, it's really simple. Go where you're wanted.

Uh, and I always, that always stuck with me of just like, it's so pragmatic.

And he's like, yeah, you know, people, people had money burning a hole in their pocket and somehow my name ended up on the memo line of those checks.

So I became a film composer and it sounds kind of similar.

You're like, oh, well, It definitely seemed to like us at Microsoft and elsewhere.

So it was, yeah, it was where, where we wanted and what, and also like, what's cool.

Like, I mean, we had sort of like cool opportunities and like, what was the cool opportunity that also wanted us, you know, and, and it was, and, and was willing to reciprocate.

And, and I think just like, we've always been that way, like super open about how, like we never sat out to be video game composers or even composers at all, but, but we were always open to, you know, let's explore this.

Do we like this? Yeah, this is pretty fun.

And then, you know, doing the ads, it was like, I like this, but I don't like working for these people.

But I like the music and the production and everything that, you know, like maybe we can take it Over here.

Okay, pop music. Okay, I also don't like these people.

They don't treat me very well. Okay, games.

This is really cool. And the cool thing that we discover with games is like, I mean, it's such a cool industry.

And I think that it was... they're so open, you know, unlike at the time film and TV music was a little bit more rigid, like that, that games were just so open to like new voices and, and different approaches.

And it was just like the people working in the music and the audio were cool people like Chris, Chris Melroth and Paul Lipson, like just like cool guys that you could not like Hollywood guys.

Right. You're like, dude, these guys are cool.

Like, I just want to hang out with them.

Like, it's cool to work with these people.

And like, and games was, you know, like having that taste of that.

It was like, this is really cool. Like we can be creative, we can make music.

Um, and they welcome like our crazy ideas and stuff like that.

But it's also like kind of a pretty cool, uh, work environment, I guess.

I mean, obviously there's crunch, but it's like, I, you know, I think you'd agree that like, you know, like audio directors are usually pretty chill people.

And, uh, it's, and plus anytime I've ever found myself, you know, crunching pretty hard.

Funny enough, very apropos your story, the literal words that I have said a thousand times is, look, if I'd wanted normal hours and to be an accountant, I could have done that.

I've used that exact phrase a hundred times of, you know, if this stress is not for me, there's other things I could have done.

And obviously the point being, I would so much rather take crunch and whatever stress that comes with this like at its worst days, this is still a dream job.

And so amazing that we get to do this, that bring on, bring on the tough days, you know, and yeah.

Plus the added bonus that you're usually in the trenches with people that are pretty terrific.

And that makes all the difference. Yeah.

They're crunching too. Right. That's, that's what I always felt like special about games versus some of the more like Hollywood centric stuff is just like, like how the person that you report to, they're, they're in there with you.

They're like in freaking wise, stressing out, like trying to ship a game, fixing bugs.

And you're there like trying to like crunch minutes and like get stuff in and make sure it all works versus the, like, it's not like an executive going like, I think this could sound a little bit more, you know, and then like taking off.

Oh man. I, I, I don't want to, I don't want to derail you here, but I, I, I once probably around that same time, actually like 2009 or 10, a composer buddy of mine called me in a panic, a movie he had been hired to score had totally fucked its post production schedule and basically found itself in a situation where they were seven days away from like a full orchestra recording session that, you know, union job at the Warner brothers scoring stage at Burbank, uh, two days with an orchestra and, one week away with no music.

And the movie was like not even really edited together.

It was kind of a scattershot of individual scenes with a copy of the script to try to understand how they fit together.

And my buddy calls me and goes, there's no physical way I can write this in time.

Can you, can you help me? And we'll tag team.

It was just kind of like each pick a scene when you run out of music, find the next scene.

And so I did it coming on. I, you know, it was 90 minutes of music that had to be turned around in basically five days and then scores and parts made to be ready to go on the stand.

So it was five as the, to this day, it's the most extreme crunch I've ever, cause it was five consecutive all nighters.

We worked 120 hours sprint without stopping.

And I think it would kill me physically if I did that today.

Like once, once, once I got into my forties, the body was like, if you pull that shit again, it's truly a one way trip.

And so I, But, you know, at the time, there is a kind of a thrill knowing that it's like it's for a real movie and blah, blah, blah.

So that was the worst movie ever made. But all of which to say, you know, we're in the thick of this writing.

You know, we I wrote like 30 minutes. He wrote an hour.

And then I orchestrated essentially all of both of our chunks so that it could all be on the stand in time and.

It was so insane. And I remember the director, just to make it as if the incredible schedule foobar of this was not bad enough, because it did not need to be this way.

They didn't actually dub the movie until like three months later.

There was no reason for us to be crunching like this.

I found out after the fact. Um, and, but on top of all that, the director, we would be sending cues, you know, okay, I just finished one.

It's 9 PM. Next one's coming in at 10 30.

Next one after that's going to be at 1 AM or whatever.

And he just would not respond between, you know, nine o'clock at night and nine o'clock in the morning.

At one point, We call him and we're like, dude, we have all these queues stacked up.

We need to know if we can move on or not because we can count in minutes how much time is left before we got to be ready to go.

And I remember he goes, I just don't really like to work late.

And we were sitting there going, what the fuck, man?

It's got to be one or the other. We're either all in it or not.

And so we decided, you know what? All good.

You do you. If it's 10 o'clock and a cue's done, it's just approved.

And that just needs to be the name of the game.

And yeah. Anyway, so yeah. I have never had that experience.

To your point, I've never had that experience in games.

If it's one of those that I'm at 2 in the morning, I guarantee you I could go on Slack and hit up the audio director and they will be at their computer in that exact same moment.

And yeah. And I'm not one to sort of... Trash Hollywood.

I think that I think it has a little bit of a bad rap, sometimes unjustifiably.

But then the story I just told, I know a lot of other people have their own stories just like that.

So it's maybe a little bit justified. But but yeah, in any case, long winded way of saying I feel you.

I totally know what you mean. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's like just the game stuff like felt right to us.

It was like kind of it was like the, you know, really clicked as like, OK, like we can make a serious run at this.

Like this is this is cool. And so, you know, we formed we had to form the company.

The reason we had to form the company is they actually like Paul Lipson had a project for us at Microsoft where he just wanted us to just kind of like take on the whole thing like uh as as a vendor and like run do the score supervision and be a composer and you know like run the orchestra um you know like which project was that it actually got canceled project it was a canceled project um it was a canceled project And, uh, it was, it was, it was a cool project.

We were going to be co-writing with, with, uh, Bear McCreary.

It was, it was awesome. We did some recordings at Skywalker and, uh, that's actually how we met Steve Kaplan.

And he, you know, became our score engineer and, uh, after that.

And, uh, but yeah, we like, it was like a big deal.

It was a new IP. It was like going to be, you know, crazy, you know, like this new, like sci-fi kind of thing.

And, uh, we worked on it for like, what, like a year?

Yeah. 16, 18 months. Yeah. Like we, we, we did a bunch of music.

There were some pivots where they decided to change the style of the music, like completely like a, like we're not going to Disneyland.

We're going to magic mountain kind of like style.

Uh, and so we did, we were like, okay, like, well like let's go this is our big you know this is our big break right this is our this is our big thing and like we had formed the company for this because we you know we needed a corporation and we needed like insurance and all this like you know kind of like big boy business pants stuff and uh yeah and like in that game and they're like this game is canceled not because of music uh but you know games get canceled because of the score everybody's fired uh they just yeah they decided to roll that into like another uh ip and use the tech and just kind of like close down and and not follow that but thankfully like they were you know like paul was super impressed with like how we handled because we did do like recording sessions we we contracted the AFM orchestra we did we were signatories we did all the whole union stuff and like got all whatever insurance and payroll and all that kind of stuff that we needed to do like thankfully for my accounting background I was able to kind of like reuse ready to go some of those skills and it wasn't scary.

It was just kind of like, okay, like I, I know how to do this.

It's not a big deal. Uh, but because of that, like he was just like, Paul was super impressed.

Um, and he's like, well, we're doing halo two anniversary.

Like, do you guys just want to like do the whole thing?

Score supervised, like the whole thing. Here's the big budget. like this is how many minutes of music we're doing.

Like we're going to record a Skywalker, you know, all this kind of stuff.

And yeah, we were, we were kind of like already in the system and set up and we'd already known the process of the synth and the, and the system.

Cause it was the same system at the time that we had sort of cracked the code on.

And so he kind of brought us back for that, but also like, Hey, like, why don't you just handle like, like you do the whole, you know, score supervision thing.

And, and so like we've subcontracted Lenny Moore and, and Tom Salta and, and, and they did a lot of like the orchestral stuff and the orchestration and everything like that.

We still did kind of like the rock and the synth programming.

We had to like negotiate with Steve Vai to get him to come back with his, with his management.

So we had to like, it was like, really trial by fire, like throw you right into the deep end.

Like now you're like negotiating fees with like these artists.

It was really going from zero to one, you know, like it just thrown into fire and it was, it was, but yeah, like hiring Steve Vai.

And then, you know, we had the issue of there were some songs on the original soundtrack that were, there's one by Incubus and one by Breaking Benjamin that only had like a couple of years for the license.

So they tried to, you know, renew the license, but it's just way too expensive.

So then, you know, we had to find, you know, new artists to replace that.

And, you know, so we brought in our- And like contract the new artist, yeah.

Yep. So we brought in our friend Misha Mansour from this metal band Periphery, who's like, he's like one of the current era artists guitar heroes to, you know, do a couple tracks to replace the Breaking Benjamin and Incubus one.

And so, yeah, that was all like a pretty big success for us as far as the first actual, I mean, besides the canceled one, the first project completed.

And, you know, we were very fortunate to just have that opportunity to be like, okay, we're going to throw you a whole bunch of responsibility and And, you know, we just had to figure it out.

And, you know, and we did. And then, you know, from there, that really, you know.

I mean, that was a Mario warp whistle. Like, again, like kind of like the serendipity of like having worked on the first one and then kind of, oh, you guys figured this out.

That's cool. Like, we can trust you there.

And then like this canceled game where we, you know, kind of like had to do all this contracting and all this biz side of, of, of the composing process.

Like we were able to like show competency there.

And it was just kind of like, you know, let's go.

Like, and we were like, okay, let's go, you know?

And it, and it really like, you know, that, that really sort of like helped kind of like launch our career, um, into kind of like serious, like, okay, these are serious guys that like are working with serious budgets on serious IP and you know, they're, they're ready to go.

And yeah, it was like, it was very, it was very quick.

It was like, I think at the same time we were also sort of an aside, a fun fact, you know, our first touch point, even though we did not meet you, we both worked on a game called drop cord around that time.

Brian double fine. You know, I was going to bring that up because I also demoed against you on massive chalice and law.

Okay. And it's, it's, it's always been one of my favorite.

That's like one of my favorite, you know, recurring themes is, is I was literally, I just had this student just graduated Berkeley over here yesterday who was asking me questions about the industry and all that sort of stuff.

And, And she was saying, kind of to your point, she said, film feels kind of cutthroat.

Like people tend to kind of step over each other's dead bodies a little bit, whereas games don't feel that way.

And I was basically saying, you know, again, I've had a lot of really positive experiences in film, but I can definitely tell you it's a recurring pleasure to find myself in the ring with familiar faces time and again, because on the one hand, it's sort of a cool measure of your, of your career progress.

When someone you would really admire, you realize, Oh, you're up for the same job, you know, where you, you like that either their careers in decline or mine is on the ascent.

You know, that's, that's, so that's like, that's cool that, that, you know, people that, that, you know, are good.

You're being sort of seen in similar light.

And then also because it's just more or less continually a revelation that, that folks who stick around for more than five minutes tend to all be really good people.

You know, it's, it's hard to be a total asshole and, and have a longevity to your career.

So there's also that thing of like, I remember meeting with Brian and, and Brad, the game director at double fine.

I was already such a huge, like I, I, I, uh, My religion growing up was the LucasArts point-and-click adventure, so Double Fine for me was sort of sacred territory insofar as Tim Schafer carrying the torch forward of what were my pinnacle gaming experiences growing up.

And so there's a certain sense of... There's a nice feeling that when you're up for a game, it's exciting, it goes another way, but knowing...

Good folks, they chose good people. So the fan in me also sort of rests easy that this is being looked after by a good group of people.

You know what I mean? There's a certain...

I never feel like, oh, great, that game is – what a shame because some asshole has inherited the keys to the kingdom.

I really – I can't think of having really ever felt that way, particularly when – it's been one of those situations where I demoed against somebody and And they took it home, you know?

So anyway, yes, I don't know if you knew that, that I was in the ring on that one.

I have the faintest memory of what I wrote.

I have no idea. It clearly wasn't anything to write home about.

I remember a lot of people were, though.

That's the one thing I do. I didn't remember specifically who.

I remember... they're because they said like a lot of people demoed for it um oh really i didn't yeah the only yeah the only the only person i remember that that i knew demoed for it was our friend david earl because he straight up told us he's like motherfuckers you guy got me uh it was funny but yeah like that's i mean i only knew because because he's like damn like got it but he's he was also the same as you like super supportive and like like that's awesome you know kind of thing because he he's did a bunch of work for double fine too like before he went to apple um but yeah that was a what was that like 2014 when that game came out or trying to remember that sounds about right it was it was definitely more than 10 years ago that the demoing would have taken place Oh yeah.

Way, way, way more than 10 years ago. But I mean, that was a, I feel like that was one of the, like, we still use this in our pitches to this day.

Like, like specifically, like we'll just be, no, not, not that.

I'm just saying this technique of like, I remember on that one, we're just like, dude, we're just going to have to be like freaking weird and whatever we, you know, like our own personality.

Like we still use kind of that, I remember thinking like, I don't know, even know if we have a shot for this game.

I don't even know like why, like we pitched for it because we did the double fine on the, the drop cord stuff.

So Brian knew us from drop cord. Cause we did a bunch of EDM tracks for that.

And he's like, you guys are cool. Do you want to pitch for this?

Like fantasy, like turn-based, uh, you know, strategy game.

And I'm like, is this going to be like Lord of the Rings?

Like, are we even like, Is this something like that?

Can we even do that? And I and I and I knew I was like, we're just gonna have to be friggin weird.

And that's like, on the pitch, we were just like, we're just gonna have to be weird, because that's the only way that we're gonna, like, stand out just because like, and that's just like, kind of been our whole career, right?

Like, because it's like, you know, like, how do we how do we stand out and like be ourselves and like, you know, make a strong statement.

And, and, and that was kind of like our, one of our first lessons in like that works, you know, if you kind of like, you just, it works both ways because they might, if you make a thing that is sort of just decidedly not what they're looking for, you've also saved everybody time.

You know, it's sort of like, I've always felt it's, there's no shame in sort of instantly getting yourself kicked off of a candidate list by being weird because you're just true to yourself, which is good.

But also, you know, you've, you've, you've done the score supervising admin.

Like when you have a bunch of options of talented people and stuff in front of you, it's actually pretty agonizing.

It's really helpful if somebody is like, ah, here's, you know, I've decided to do the mustard flavored ice cream approach.

And you're like, okay, I'm sure that's for somebody.

It's not what we're looking for here though.

And that, that, I think that's actually a net win across the board to, to, to do that.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, you know, we've, you know, and in more modern times, like the most recent game we did, Doom the Dark Ages, you know, with that pitching process too, we were, you know, asked pretty late and, you know, they had asked tons of people and obviously that has a reputation of like, okay, this music is, you know, like, like Mick Gordon's music is this awesome thing.

And so we're like, okay, we have to sort of pull it.

If we're have any chance, we know there's a million people that are going to do the Mick Gordon thing.

It's like, we have to go in a different direction.

You know what I mean? That's a perfect segue.

Obviously that's sort of the catalyst for this conversation.

It's worth acknowledging, you know, like Callisto protocol and some other really big noteworthy games that you did, but, I don't want to run out of time having not talked about Doom.

And I appreciate that you kind of jumped straight into the inevitable discussion point.

It's a challenging position to be in because you've got a game that is effectively synonymous with this, you know, with mix music.

You know, you have two examples to step into.

I see it as very analogous to Gordy stepping into star Wars where you go take the most famous example of its type of music that exists and now run with that, you know?

And when I had him on here, that was a big part of our discussion as well as how do you, how do you reconcile the, the knowledge that, you know, unless you manage to just full on clone him, you're, you're never going to, you're never going to win that battle.

And even the cloning thing, wouldn't even really work, but it's like, it's, but that's sort of, there is an incentive.

There's sort of a fear based incentive, not necessarily an admirable incentive, but there's like always going to be a voice in your head going, well, you know what, what would they do in this situation?

That's just going to be pushing one direction.

And then there's that other voice in your head that you already just acknowledged of, well, smarter or wiser would be to find a different thing.

Um, and, and, and so, you know, step me, step me through, you know, walk me through the story.

You said, first piece of information is that you came in somewhat late.

I gather. I didn't know that. I mean, so yeah, basically late in the pitching process, not late.

Yeah. Just, Oh, I see. I see. Yeah. Yeah.

So the, the pitch process, they had, you know, reached out to tons of people, like lots of like famous, like metal producers and bands and things.

And, you know, I don't even think we were on their radar for that sort of music at all.

I happened to sort of be acquaintances with Chad Mossholder, who's, you know, their principal audio designer there.

Through the world of like electronic music and sound design, he's really into that.

We both use this hardware software thing called Kyma, for designing sound.

So like we knew each other through that world.

But anyway, for my 40th birthday, my wife bought me this like Yngwie Malmsteen Strat.

And so I started just posting pictures of it all the time on Facebook and just endlessly.

And I think it kind of clicked in Chad's head that it's like, oh, maybe these guys like do some metal stuff too.

And so he just messaged me. Anybody that was posed in a photo on Instagram must be good at the thing that they're posing in the photo of.

And he was like, well, you know, we're still looking to take a shot.

So he sent me a message on like Facebook and he's like, Hey man, uh, do you guys want to pitch like some really heavy music for something?

And, uh, you know, I was like, yeah, sure.

We'll try it. Right. Exactly. And so, you know, um, at the beginning, you know, Brian and I talked about it and we were just like, Our original discussion was kind of like, is this even worth doing this demo?

Like, we have no chance. Like, that was our feeling.

And it was like, is it worth spending the effort on this?

And then, you know, we started to think about it and talk about it with our team, too.

There's like Alex Klingle and Jay Wilson who are, you know, they're part of our crew of Finishing Move. you know, we all just kind of discussed like, all right, let's do a demo for this.

But like, you know, we need to take our own approach, you know?

And, and so we sort of figured out, you know, like we knew it was obviously for doom, the dark ages, we had a couple of pictures of like concept art and, and so it's like, okay, let's take this to sort of, you know, an older version of metal, like, like kind of like back in the original doom where it was influenced the music at the time, the like early nineties thrash metal.

Um, so sort of because it's a prequel, so we can go back in time instead of it being like this more modern industrial metal as the focus, like, like let's focus on older styles of metal, thrash metal, power metal, groove metal.

Um, and then, um, also the sort of ancient type of sounds.

Cause in the imagery, it, you know, it had the doom slayer with the like mace and like his fur cape, you know?

And so it's like, okay, let's, we want that kind of sound too.

Um, and like, you know, more cinematic sort of like, uh, kind of like, yeah, more of that cinematic, you know, kind of Conan the barbarian kind of crazy.

Like, cause that, the imagery was a lot like he was wearing like a fur cape and, and it had like, a lot of that.

So we're like, okay, you know, we, we formed this idea of like, okay, well we, we can't sound like Mick.

That's just not like, we just decided that that's not going to work because you know, like there's a million other people that are good at being, we have Mick at home and you know, like we just didn't want, we just didn't want to do that.

That's the perfect description though, because he's so singularly good at what he does.

I remember I was in the room at his like famous GDC talk and, about doom 2016 and i it's the only time i was yeah i love it we're just perpetually we're like it's like forrest gump we can find each other in the background of all these photos of each other's photos i uh i i think literally the only time i've been to gdc a thousand times and been to a lot of talks and it's the only time i ever felt like my jaw was kind of just permanently on the floor the whole time and i kept thinking i rarely feel like i've just learned an hour's worth of an onslaught of new information.

Normally, best case scenario, once you've been in it a while, is, you know, oh, that was cool.

I'll have to remember that. That was a neat trick.

And then 20 minutes later, someone says the thing again.

Oh, yeah, that's actually, that's a clever way to solve that problem I hadn't thought about before.

And it's cool and it's interesting, but you don't walk away just feeling like you've had an entire, you know, college education in an hour.

But I remember feeling that way at his, where it just felt like one inventive brilliant idea after another and and i was so blown away um so yeah i i think it's the perfect description we we have that at home um it's not anybody can just like I was talking about this total tangent but I was talking about Andor recently with somebody I don't know if you've watched it but it's the most brilliant thing ever made and someone I saw like people online going okay Disney you know you see what Tony Gilroy and co made here more of this and I thought the thing is you can't just ask for more.

It's so, it's so dependent on the exact people who made it.

It's so specific to their interest in their talent.

It's not just about the aesthetic or the choice of subject matter.

It's like that person has to be the one, if that's the specific thing you want.

And, and, you know, it's, it's that you're just not going to duplicate that.

And so it will at best be the, we have that at home thing. you know, the discount fucking name, like generic Kroger version, you know, and, and it's just never going to be the same.

So you're, you're so wise to just fully take that off the menu straight out of the gate.

Yeah. So like that, basically we decided, okay, we're going to go old school prequel.

We're going to do, cause it had to be metal.

Like that wasn't, there was no, it wasn't going to like not be a metal prequel. influence score like that was still like this is you know because you go back to like bobby prince and and the you know doom one and two it's you know that was metal midi metal but it was uh dude but it's still so i mean every time you find one of the little toys and you hear that little taste of of yeah and i was it was it one of them i remember one of them what you could like go into, or am I, am I confusing it with Wolfenstein where you like triggered the old actual original game and you could play it as like a mini game within the game.

Pretty sure that was one of the, and one of the recent Wolfenstein, it's like a different Mick.

Yeah. Old. But it was, but it's the same thing where you, there's like this iconic fragment that was done and it's clearly metal in its gesture, even though, It doesn't sound at all like in its production, as it were.

But anyway, continue. No, so basically we knew it was going to be metal.

We just sort of decided, okay, but it's not going to be sort of like that specific kind of flavor that was in 2016 or Eternal kind of thing.

Because that had been done, and it had been done to just the most immaculate level.

And so we were like, we're moving on. We're going to do...

Kind of like old school with a bunch of inspiration from kind of like medieval sounds and times and kind of a more cinematic vibe.

And we actually did four pieces for our pitch, even though we were asked to just do one one-minute piece.

I shouldn't give up this secret, but you can always...

You can kind of always do a little bit more if you want to.

But I can tell you I've pitched on projects before where I did similarly.

I way over-delivered, and I still didn't get the job because I was – apropos we were saying a minute ago, I still was kind of choosing a weird novel angle knowing the mayor may not like it.

So it's one of those that even though you did more – you clearly got the job because it was, it was the right and more, it wasn't just more, you know?

And like, so you wouldn't have landed it on just brownie teacher's pet points alone.

You know what I mean? No. And we, we were specific about kind of like, we did some different, like, cause we weren't sure what they wanted and we weren't sure what we wanted.

And so we kind of did like a few flavors of ice cream, like within this kind of like, you know, uh, uh, uh, fence post of what we had decided you know some were more kind of like swagger metal and then one was like very cinematic and very almost kind of just like you would find in like a marvel movie or something like that kind of thing and and even though like we didn't use any of the pitch pieces they didn't actually make it into the score which is that's that's pretty common you kind of like you have this early development where you kind of really figure out what you're doing but It was this one, it's just this one kind of like very cinematic piece we did that Hugo was like, this is the game that I want to make.

Like we're making, I don't want to repeat games.

That's like, Hugo's very big on like, he's the lead creative at id.

And he's like, basically he is modern day doom.

He's kind of like the visionary and he doesn't like making the same game twice.

So like 2016 is different than eternal and eternal has different mechanics than dark ages.

And he's very much like, They really committed to that.

I mean, every review, every player, every Steam review are all, you know, like the pacing of the game is so different and it's almost borderline open world in a bunch of spots.

That's like, again, very different way of approaching a game like this.

They deserve major credit for that because when a franchise reaches a certain size, the risk-taking tends to start to vanish.

And that's not the case here. No, Hugo is like, I mean, talk about just like an amazing creative, first of all, and a visionary and like just a rock with his vision.

And especially in like what you're saying is like could be potentially dangerous.

It could be, you know, it's a big franchise. are people going to be mad?

And he always takes this, like, they're always mad for a little while.

They always come around, you know, and like this, you know, it's like, it takes a month or two.

And, and, uh, that really helps us like feel confident, you know, because, you know, I think contrary to a lot of people's beliefs about kind of like how composing works is like, it's a big collaboration with the creative stakeholders and like, their vision is like, it's a, it really influences like what you're going to bring to the table.

Like, yeah, we, you know, like we're creative, we're actually doing the writing, but like, they're giving us kind of like, you know, what I like to call it, it's like the fence posts that kind of mark our playground, you know, our, our sandbox of like, this is, this is kind of like, you guys can like build sandcastles and do whatever the fuck you want and this little box here and be crazy.

But like, here's kind of what we're, you know, like this is what we hired you for.

And I think just like having his vision be so clear, like that is so helpful.

Like in terms of like, he was always just like super supportive, but always very clear and like, okay, this needs to be like this. let's do let's try more of this and and um just having like the lead creative like in your meetings about music was like that was crazy because he was in our he was in our meetings like weekly stand-ups like just having the lead guy you know i don't think that's very unusual i don't think we've experienced that on any other project like usually the lead creative they might like one time kind of like introduce themselves.

And then you're, other than that, you're kind of dealing with the audio director and then they're sort of sending it up the chain every once in a while, or they're making the decisions on it.

And Hugo was in every single, just weekly boring meeting.

Just, you know, with like, guys are pretty boring.

So truth. I mean, it's, it's, it's music is so important to, to, to the game, it honestly makes sense.

It's awesome that just in the scope of what undoubtedly his responsibilities were, it would have been easy to not make time for it, even despite knowing the importance of music, just because there's a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of fires to be putting out, all that kind of stuff.

Normal game dev just demands this whole point of having delegated directors to audio directors and the cinematics director.

That's kind of the whole reason for that structure is But still, it is pretty cool to hear that that was baked into the process.

And honestly, it shows that it makes sense.

I was hoping to beat the game before we chatted.

I made it about two-thirds of the way through it before my own schedule sort of ate me alive a little bit.

But it's really integrated into the rhythm of the gameplay.

Like the kind of rise and fall... it's not just, it's not just locational and it's also not just, um, you know, like bad guys have spawned cue the drums, you know, like it really feels like it has a really organic blow to it that it, it, it's almost like there's just kind of a record playing that I, you know, in the, in that sort of wizard of Oz dark side of the moon, like I've, I've just sort of magically timing it to the gameplay, uh, which is, which is pretty awesome because, uh,

I think the risk with a thing like this is that because it calls out for such a wall of sound, like ferocious metal vibe, that it's easy to become monotonous as a result.

And it really isn't. It's actually really, it's got huge dynamic range.

And I can only imagine that that comes from being so interwoven.

Sorry, go ahead. I'm so glad you appreciate the dynamic range because that's actually kind of like some of the like, why isn't it just loud all the time?

Like kind of thing like that was some of the early critique.

Like, why isn't it just like a rock concert all the time?

And it's like, that's not the game Hugo wanted to make.

Then that wasn't the score that we were we were making.

Like we it was a conscious choice, you know, like whether someone ended up liking it or not, like it was a conscious choice to do.

We're going to do a cinematic style. It's going to kind of like follow you and mirror kind of like this bigger world where there is larger spaces.

Oh, yeah. The game incentivizes you to backtrack in an almost Metroidvania style way.

It's like, oh, you finally have that key for that door you passed 20 minutes ago.

And there's actually good reason to go back.

There's like material gameplay mechanics type reasons to go back.

And it exposes... so much music that if you're just in mayhem all the time, there's one bit where I kept, I was like, am I hearing a harmonica?

I would hear this kind of like, like pitch bendy thing during those quieter moments that, that, uh, I, I loved that.

It, it, again, it's, it's that, oh, they're not afraid.

They, you and they id to make a thing that's, that's drawing distinctive lines from its predecessors.

You're not victims of its own success in that way and kind of refusing to change.

Yeah, no, I'm glad that you got that experience.

I certainly, when I play it, I get this experience, super cinematic and hearing it all come together, especially there's a level where I just really like how the integration and the implementation came together.

It was like the first time you ride the dragon, like the pacing. you know, the, and the sort of propulsion of that going between the dragon and sort of back to foot and that kind of thing.

It, it, it like, it's like this sci-fi fantasy kind of craziness.

And then it all like breaks out into like huge metal, like drops when you're like fighting dudes, like big riffs, you know, like come in and yeah, we really wanted to kind of like play with the juxtaposition of like when the heavy hits it's, that's a heavy moment, but it's not always going to be heavy.

There's going to be moments that are a little bit more quiet or a little bit more tense.

And, and again, dynamic was kind of like the, the big thing that, that Hugo like really wanted to push for just cause it, you know, it's a more grounded experience.

You're not flying around as much. You're more kind of tank centric.

You're not a Ferrari. You're more like a Sherman tank.

You know, you're kind of like, attacking people um stand and fight is that kind of like it's it's not a game where you hide or you don't do a lot of like running from the enemy you kind of are encouraged to you know just bash them and you know straight go at it and uh yeah so like we were we were trying to capture that along with again like it's a medieval doom so like we wanted to kind of bring those What could we do to bring medieval elements?

So we used a lot of cool folk instruments, like the taggle harpa and bass taggle harpa.

Playing cello in really weird ways to get it to do cool textural stuff.

We have a bunch of custom-built instruments that we've made over the years that we use to do sound design and stuff with.

But yeah, we did a deep dive on... um you know like what are some of the things that we could do you know we've kind of identified this kind of like old school riff metal you know um we still wanted to have like modern mixes modern drums modern detunings but then like how do we bring the medieval stuff and that's really where sort of the orchestral stuff came in and a lot of the like folk instrumentation um to kind of give it that like rough kind of like i i always like to say like like a hairy beard to the sound.

The fur cape on the Slayer. It's almost Viking-ish.

Out of curiosity, how clear was all of that you're describing early on?

Sometimes I've worked on projects where you're on it for a few years and And then there is like a creative epiphany, you know, halfway through where it requires a bit of a course correct.

Obviously, you have the broad wind direction of knowing it's sort of metal something within the many subsets of what metal can be.

But, you know, like you said, you kind of know those general fence posts.

But there's still a lot of room for potential course correct in the midst of all that to go, oh, you know, actually... that cinematic quality that we were initially way less of that.

Of course, you said it was in your demo, but just as an example, did you have any of those big picture, oh, we suddenly realized what this is?

Yeah, no. No, I was going to say, yeah. Go ahead.

Get along. Stop fighting. Yeah, it was definitely a process.

It started, I think, where it was a lot of just metal focused and then there were some pivots more into the cinematic direction and then ultimately it landed like more in the middle more towards metal you know what i mean i don't like brian don't you agree it's sort of like that was the flow that it took like there and there and back again ish We definitely like we explored kind of like the full range of the sandbox, if you will, in terms of like how how dynamic, how cinematic are we going to make this are some because like there were, you know, there were we kind of started and we had some like early wins and like, OK, this is this is good map music.

It's got a kind of good balance. And then, you know, like Hugo was like, what if we, you know, like what if we just like really push this towards this kind of like know crazy marvel movie kind of cinematic kind of kind of vibe and we explored that um and then kind of like did some pieces like that but then we ultimately we would we came back to those pieces and we did additional uh minutes for that to like kind of like okay we need to be still be metal you know it was kind of like so there was this like ebb and flow where we you know like there was like a couple of cues that we got like really cinematic.

There was like no guitars in even like it went like totally like pulsing orchestral, you know, drums kind of, kind of thing.

And you still have those moments. It's just like what you were saying, this is a three-year process.

So like we learned a lot of stuff on the way, you know, so like by about, you know, like a year and a half into we had dialed in, okay, like this is the, This is the recipe.

And this is kind of like where everything needs to kind of like ramp up to and lead up to.

And so, yeah, we did go back, backtrack to some earlier stuff and write new stuff over the top of it and kind of add like augment cues to kind of like, you know, essentially get to where we ended up, like, you know, and still kind of like make a coherent, you know, so that everything kind of fit together.

But yeah, it was definitely like, it wasn't like a, we just like came in day one, had the sound that just worked, and then we went from there.

It was definitely like we spent a good six months to a year trying stuff, having some wins, having some stuff that was really cool.

But just once the level kind of came, you know how it goes.

You start play testing, and you're like, OK, I think we need more of this intensity level or that intensity level.

And there was definitely some you know how it is when you develop like, let's say like a music system, like whether it's like a combat system or an explorer system and stuff like that, you'll have these ideas about like, here's all the, here's all the energy layers that a player is going to experience.

And it's like all well and good. You conceptualize that you mock it up in wise and, and you figure it out.

And then the actual game becomes playable and you start playing and you're like, Oh man, you know what?

We actually like between one and two, we kind of need a 1.5, you know, to, to, to bridge this and like make it, you know, kind of propel.

And so you go back and you're like, you know, like it's pretty, we don't get mad because we've just done it so many times.

Like, it's like, yeah, you go back and like, okay, we'll add some, you know, propulsion to the ambient cues or yeah, we need another layer that lives between here and here that we thought we didn't need, but we actually need a lot of that, you know, like that kind of stuff happens all the time.

And because we, I love that part of the process.

Yeah. To me, figuring out what it actually is, is really exciting.

It's in graduating beyond the kind of whiteboard abstraction of it.

It's, I think that's the coolest thing about making games and that's what makes it so interesting.

Cause like with film, it's like, hopefully you have locked picture or at least you know what the story is going to be and stuff might get cut or reconformed, but that's, it is what it is where the game it's like, there's that experience of, you can conceptualize it all you want until you get in and play it.

And it's like, Oh, okay. This is, this is totally different.

I'm spending way more time here in this section.

I'm spending way less time here. How many times like with a game?

Have you, let's say you've written a ton of cool music.

You don't, you're at five, 10 minutes of music for, for an area.

And it's like, Oh man, these themes are so cool.

And then ultimately like the game ships and it's like 20, someone spends 20 seconds there.

And you're like, Oh man, like, you should go stand over there for a while.

Go there and hang out for a bit. Yeah. Yeah.

You got to convince the team to make a, an achievement stand here and don't move for 45 seconds.

To hear the full theme statement. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Just like the, but it's just, I mean, that's just like kind of like what's exciting about, you know, making interactive music is, is we're trying to make it feel like what you were saying.

Like, it's almost like it's, it's like the, you know, the Pink Floyd dark side of the mood, you're like synced up.

Like, yeah, it should always, we want you to feel like it's like, dude, is this like pre-cogging what I'm in my mind?

Yeah. Yeah. But we kind of have to cheat that, right.

We have to like use kind of slide a hand to, to kind of like, you know, in a way I'll kind of like fake the two picture aspect.

And, um, I always think that that challenge is like, it, it's cool because it's never ending.

Once you think you're like, man, I've done so many of these, like I know exactly how to get in and get out of this gameplay and that gameplay.

But it's like every game is new. Like it's every game presents a new interactive challenge that you need to solve for.

Even if you're still using all of the same, like your toolkit that you've developed over years and years and years, that doesn't go away.

But it's like, You can never really, it's never really like, you know, like a film or a show.

It's like, okay, I don't want to score this.

Like, let's go. Like, there's always that like, damn, dude, like, I don't know.

I don't know how to make this work. How are we going to make this work?

You know, kind of. That's where the magic comes from too.

I remember once talking to someone about the composer, Jerry Goldsmith.

And I remember saying, All the way through to the end of his life, age 75, he was writing scores that were so innovative and interesting and full of unexpected choices.

The way I described it kind of off the cuff in that moment taps into what you just said.

I was like, you know what? It almost feels like every project he was writing in that teenage, I don't know what I'm doing way that leads you to do cool stuff because you're not falling back on these well-honed muscles.

You know, these kind of tried and true formulas that, while they're very reliable, they also may make things kind of stale because, you know, this is the 90th time you've done a piece like this.

When you somehow always seem like you don't know what you're doing, it sparks something.

And yeah, you're absolutely right. One of the magical things about games is they seem to impose that on us, whether we like it or not, because there's just... You could literally score a sequel to a game that you did previously, and it's...

Full of new stuff that's just going to invariably throw you for a loop or even just the tools have evolved because technology is perpetually improved, you know, just wise may have gotten an update that suddenly has all these new features that make this thing easier or that thing harder, etc, etc, etc.

So it's like, you know, even if you're trying to do it the same way, it might not even be possible.

And different studios have different tech.

I mean, there's times where, you know, you can't even just assume that what you did in another game from a technical standpoint, from a programming standpoint, is always going to be a resource that you can tap into in another game for a variety of reasons.

It could be just like, Hey, we just don't have the tech like or we're not using wise.

We're just using unreal or something like that.

And so we can't do this unless we have like we pay a programmer, which we don't have, you know, like to to get it.

And so then then you're coming up with creative solutions that, again, it's like your brain is going, OK, I can't do it how I did it this last time because like we don't have that tech or we don't have the you know, there's not the the time or the budget to like get that tech.

So how, you know, you're kind of like, you know, here's my pantry.

Like these are ingredients that I have to work with interactively.

Like how can I make this as cool as possible?

And also just like not, you know, like get over your skis where like sometimes I think what can happen is when you get too many possibilities, like you get kind of like the weird generative systems that like stop being musical, you know, and you always like have to go back to like, oh man, we still got to like be musical and have themes and like stuff.

You're preaching to the choir as someone deeply obsessed with highly reactive, interactive music.

There's a definite, there's a definite sweet spot where, you know, I always say, you know, those like websites that have cute kind of step sequencers that you can kind of move little graphics around and it makes kind of a simple little grid based thing.

Like that's a toy, right? And it's fun, and especially if you don't have an outlet for music, it might be really kind of cool.

And yes, it's also super interactive. Every little thing you touch changes the music.

So in some sense, it's the golden idol of what we're supposedly doing, except that it's so not.

What you just said is so true. The records that moved you, that made you want to be musicians... are obviously very fixed in time very linear and so you go how do we capture that but but somehow make the player an author in their own version of it in real time in a game that's that magic thing that we're all chasing each time you step up at bat you swing we get a little closer and but it's like the horizon we're just going to kind of all all of us in this field are collectively moving to that horizon i don't know if we'll ever at some point i'll look around and go up that person They've solved the art form.

We should all do something different with our life.

I suspect that's not possible. But yeah, I definitely resonate with that.

I think it's just that it's finding the right balance where you can keep the intention of the music.

Because there's a point of granularity where it just falls apart.

It's too atomized. And I think the intention is lost.

And so it's like finding that sweet spot where it can be... recombined and you know you can maximize like the experience and and and how the music works but it's not so chopped up into like little bits that you lose that sense of like just this is a coherent piece of music that has a a coherent direction to it you know yeah well i i feel what you delivered very much sort of practices what you're preaching uh because it really it felt it felt very dynamic and very smooth.

And, you know, and what I liked is that there's, there's definitely a bunch of moments where you can very clearly clock the state change or whatever that is, that is bringing new music.

But it felt like, you know, when you're at a concert and a song is winding down and then they just start on that riff of like, Oh, you know, everybody knows this one.

And, and this energy gets injected into it.

That, that, In other words, smooth, hidden transitions are not always actually the right choice.

Sometimes it's really cool, especially for a game like this and an aesthetic like this, to kind of drop that gauntlet and say, we are announcing a change in a super unsubtle way.

And you kind of seem to very tastefully know when was the right times to kind of sneak in versus other times that it really...

I've been to Metallica shows where the fucking pyrotechnics just suddenly explode off the stage, and it's very unsubtle and quite fun.

Honestly, it's really impressive because, as I said, you had a very arguably unenviable situation to step into, a very iconic score, a franchise with very iconic scores.

And one of those that really invites a lot of opinion from everyone.

And, you know, to give you credit beyond all the things that I feel strongly about and what you achieve musically, I think there's a courage in stepping into that as well.

Just knowing, you know, there's going to be a lot of people that no matter what we do, change is not good and they're not going to like it and to just embrace that.

I think a lot of people would have weighed taking the job just knowing the broader context.

It's a tricky one. Props to you for just just leaning in, you know, and going, we're just going to, we're just going to try to add our own thing.

And yeah, it's, I think you basically did the best possible version of what I could really imagine anybody doing in this situation.

Thanks. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's, you know, go ahead.

Oh, I was going to say like, that's kind of how we approach it.

We're just like, we're just going to have to full send this.

Cause like there's people, no matter what, there's going to be people that like wish us dead, you know?

So it's like, we just have to like full send and like do the best that we can do and try to be really proud of like, you know, you know, make a score that we're proud of and that it is proud of and sort of like, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I, I always say it's like, we're composers, we're a B2B business.

Like we're, we're there for our clients.

We're, we're, we're really trying to, you know, like, like they're who they're who hires us and, you know, they, they direct us and shepherd us and, and like, yeah, we want to make a great game for the fans.

Ultimately, like we work for a studio and, and, and, you know, and, and I think that, that, it helped that they had like a really clear vision and we were just like, Hey, we're going to do something that makes you proud and us proud.

And like, fuck the haters, you know, basically.

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it is in the same boat and had to obviously just embrace the same mentality.

I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, it takes courage, like just outside of games, just any music to just, you know, it takes the vulnerability to, to do anything that is going to connect with people. you're going to take some risk.

And some people are, if you can do something that you like that, and you hold yourself to a high standard, there's going to be some other group of people out there that like it.

And there's going to be also probably people that, that hate it, but it doesn't matter.

It's like, you have to have the courage and the vulnerability to, you know, make something that means something to you.

And, and I think that that's, you know, for us that it's like, Are we happy with it?

Is it happy with it? You know, like that's those are our goals.

And knowing that like there's going to be like if we do something good that we like, you know, there's gonna be plenty of people out there that like it.

And then no matter what we do, like whether it like literally it's the best thing that's ever been made, there's gonna be people are like, this sucks, you know.

Yeah. You know, just to not worry about that.

Like, that's not a factor. That's not even in our mind at all of like, oh, well, is this going to upset people?

Is this not the right thing that everyone's going to?

It's like once you start going down that what if questioning, you know, your own judgments and your own thoughts on it, you know, there's nothing you can do that's like I think that's going to be right.

So you just, you know, you you. you have to follow what is true to you.

And yeah, I think that's, that's like, so it was definitely, we knew, we knew that there would be people that, you know, no matter what we did, that we're going to dislike it.

And fortunately, you know, knowing that we're able to be like, okay, like, let's just do what we think is going to be great for this and, and what, you know, id wants and, where we can meet both of those.

And we're really proud of it. And thankfully, a lot of people like it.

A lot of people like it. That's the thing.

That's the great part, yeah. I see the streaming numbers.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And absolutely, because it's one of those where it's interesting because it's not like... some some sometimes there's projects where the a brand has kind of run its course and so the the haters would be like the kind of those like hangers-on who are you know committed to like this old old way or a weird nostalgia from when they were young this isn't that this is you know obviously you know those those scores are as definitionally iconic as game music gets you know i mean it's it's like people love it for very good reason it and and and righteously so so you're not it it's like you can presumably kind of on some level appreciate the hater like why you can you can kind of get where they're coming from because you know it's it's a thing it's a thing That is understandably loved, which just makes it all the more kind of complicated and confusing to step into.

So just all the more, you know, praise. To tie that back to to tie it back to Metallica as an analogy.

It's kind of like bring us in for the landing.

You're going to close. You know, the real the real like metal people.

It was like, you know, Metallica's kill them all.

Ride the lightning. Master of puppets and justice for all.

That's like the real Metallica. But then the Black Album came out and it's like, oh, that's the sellout, whatever.

But that's the entry point for a lot of people too, where they really got to the next level.

And so for me, I was like, OK, well, the Black Album is cool and all the prior ones.

But then they do Load and Load 2. And I'm like, oh, these are trash.

And that's where I sort of like went off the train.

But like still their career from there goes like it's still going exponential and continues exponential.

And a lot of people Load and Load 2 is the entry point.

And then they keep going and Saint Anger or whatever is next.

And it's like people are like, you know, it's, it's, there's always going to be people that, that are like joining the train at different points and people that like pine for the previous era before they changed, including, you know, myself.

So we totally understand that, that like, you know, any kind of change and, and not just music, but just in the gameplay, like even, you know, where, where it's different in each of the, the modern doom games, you know, people are going to be upset about that.

And then other people are going to join on.

And that's, They love it. And then there's some people that are fans from the beginning, and they love the changes.

So it's part of how change happens. Things are different, and it's going to piss some people off, and other people are going to absolutely love it.

And we're proud to just be a part of that, of something that is actually a really cool game and an amazing franchise.

And yeah, it's amazing to be a part of it.

And what I'll add, I think the cool thing about Doom specifically from a game and a music standpoint is that the music is so iconic across the, the, the franchise from the early days, the Bobby Prince stuff through the, like the Mick Gordon and, and, and on into like, hopefully, you know, now, now the dark ages is that everybody has that kind of like entry point.

Like for, for us, like it was the original doom.

Like that's where, like, those were some of the first like actual real games, you know, we played on PC, uh, came out like in 93, I was 12 years old and probably shouldn't have been playing it. but definitely was.

And so like that kind of like the cool thing about that, that is like that introduced a lot of people to kind of like metal music, even if it was in MIDI.

And I think it encouraged people to kind of go discover stuff that, that was inspiring the composer at the time.

And I think the same is true with, with 2016 and eternal.

I think you've got people that like got exposed to heavy music for the first time and became fans of, of heavy music from a video game.

And, you know, like, hopefully there's young kids, maybe not too young, let's say, that are, you know, playing Dark Ages.

That's their first Doom experience. Maybe that encourages them to like, hey, I want to go check out like where was this inspired by?

I want to go check out some heavy music, like some bands and like and and kind of like become a fan of the genre.

And I think that just like to, you know, bring the conversation full circle.

I think that's one of the coolest things about games now is that like, it's a lot of people's first touch point with music and their musical taste gets formed off of games.

And so like, I think we have a huge responsibility and I take a lot of pride in that our work is for a lot of people.

That's, that is their either first or main experience with the art of music. and that it inspires them to go on and, you know, either listen to more game music, but hopefully like just music, like go listen to music and be a fan of music.

And I think in an era where attention spans are so short and everything's 30 seconds, you know, a minute kind of TikTok, I think games is one of the last places where you will sit and experience music for hours at a time. and really absorb it sort of how we used to absorb it.

Just, you know, listening to records in the car or just at home.

And so you're listening to these themes over and over and over again.

Um, and you're really like, you're, you're rinsing it, man.

You're letting it soak in, in a way that just nothing else is soaking in that much anymore, uh, in the attention economy.

And so, yeah, I mean, like, I feel like we have like a, huge torch to carry like for music in general, like as game composers, because that's where people are going to time civilization where the future of civilization is all I'm saying.

So fair. Well on that, on that, uh, wonderfully humble, uh, note for us to, uh, to all collectively agree on.

Uh, I love it. I love it. I agree with everything you were saying.

And, uh, and again, congrats. Thanks for giving me so much of your time.

And yeah, and really, really awesome to see.

It always makes me happy to see good folks with a lot of talent take a bite out of a big, giant, you know, monstrous apple and totally crush it.

So congrats again. Thanks. Thank you. Congrats on Towerborn.

I know you've been working on that for a while, so that's awesome.

That was fun. Cool. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Thank you for joining us for the Game Maker's Notebook.

For more information on the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, our podcasts, and our other initiatives, please visit www.interactive.org.

[The Art of Partnership: Inside the World of Finishing Move and Doom: The Dark Ages]-[Creating the Music for Doom: The Dark Ages with Composer Duo, Finishing Move]

📋 Summary

The Evolution of a Partnership: From Humble Beginnings to Finishing Move

Individual Paths and the Collision Course

The Dynamics of Collaboration

Scoring Doom: The Dark Ages

The Responsibility of Game Music

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript