Grant Kirkhope's music gets stuck in your head for years. You don't even have to think about it for it to just kick in. The man was a master composer in the N64 days.
TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Intro About Technical Issues 01:05 - Crazy Times/American Elections 01:32 - Green Card/How Long Grant Has Been In America 02:17 - Indie Films Grant Has Been Working 03:10 - Agents/Struggles Of Breaking Into The Film Industry 04:55 - Game Composers Looked Down Upon Compared To Film Composers 05:33 - Only Way To Get Film Composing Roles Is Through The Director/Fierce Competition For Film Composers 07:00 - Younger Directors Have Played Video Games So More Of A Chance Of Them Knowing Grant 08:26 - Films Not Having Memorable Tunes These Days/Games Now Having Music Cinematic Sequences 10:24 - Grant’s Process Of Composing 11:52 - Grant’s Work On Goldeneye 007/How He Composed For Goldeneye 007 14:41 - Grant Only Got Small Notes About Levels He Was Composing For 15:10 - Grant Got A Few Visuals For Banjo, Donkey Kong & Perfect Dark/Approach To Composing For Them 17:07 - Spiral Mountain/ Treasure Trove Cove/Mumbo’s Mountain 18:50 - Grant Didn’t Get Told Much To Rewrite Tunes At Rare 20:22 - Working With Nintendo For Smash Bros Banjo Arrangement/Banjo Kazooie Smash Bros Trailer 23:50 - Grant Is The First Western Composer To Work On Mario & Smash Bros 24:35 - Grant Has Better Communication With Nintendo Now 24:43 - Reece Thinks Grant Could Compose For Metroid Based On Perfect Dark OST 25:22 - To Be Employable You Have To Diversify As A Musician 26:09 - Working For A Company Vs Freelancing/Living In L.A. 28:05 - Grant Is Good With Money 28:55 - Grant Works Well Under Pressure/Grant Doesn’t Get Writers Block 31:05 - Grant Doesn’t Toss Away Work/Learning To Do What Your Told By Your Boss On Rewriting Tunes 33:30 - Employment Laws In UK Vs America 34:25 - Grants Friends Losing Jobs For Arguing With A Creative Director/Creative People Are Sensitive 35:45 - Genres Grant Is Not Good At Composing/How He Researches New Genres 37:10 - Instruments Grant Can Play/Working With Midi & Live Orchestras 40:05 - Donkey Kong 64 Rap 44:17 - Competitiveness With David Wise, Graeme Norgate & Robin Beanland 46:05 - Grant Did Guitar On Killer Instinct 46:50 - Working With Hex 48:39 - David Wise’s Score For DKC2 Is Amazing 49:15 - Seamless Composing Between Grant & Graeme On Goldeneye 50:06 - Working With An Artist In The Same Room 50:44 - Grant Doesn’t Really Play Games Anymore/Composers Grant Listens To/ 53:01 - Grant Would Love To Work On Zelda 53:44 - Grant Really Wants To Compose For The Super Mario Movie 57:10 - John Williams 57:56 - Grant Gets Stopped More & More On The Street 59:10 - Where To Follow Grant Kirkhope
People can blame Rareware themselves for Nintendo letting them go. But keep in mind the N64 was a lot more limited compared to the other consoles at the time. By the time Rareware was sold to Microsoft, the XBOX was the king of consoles (if you ignore the PS2). The N64 was gone by then, Gamecube wasn't as powerful, and the Dreamcast was freshly dead. Rareware had much more to work with when they joined Microsoft, but Microsoft squandered all their IPs or outright ruined them saying they weren't right for XBOX gamers. Rareware were the ones who got screwed. They were incredible with the N64.
That was really interesting. Thanks for doing this. It's nice to get these rare interviews of people who are virtually unknown, yet had such a huge impact on the culture of my childhood. I find myself whistling this guy's music allllll the time. Really interesting interview to get to know a bit about the composer behind all that music.
Amazing interview with the absolute legend, thank you so much for posting this glad I found it. Not sure if you mentioned this in the video, but I was curious as to how you get him to come on? Did you just ask?
There are often times people who will hate a genre until it is successful. That happened to platformers in recent years. You used to see people online hate on collectathons and 3D platformers saying they were long dead and nobody wanted to play them just because they existed in the 90s. Tell that to Spyro The Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. Even Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom came back from the dead! This is the best time to bring Banjo Kazooie, Conker, and Donkey Kong 64 back!
Grant Kirkhope is so amazing that music in his later games reused his unused music from his earlier projects and still worked out great. The Dinosaur Planet beta that leaked has some of his best that later ended up in Starfox Adventures. Stuff from Project Dream ended up in Banjo Kazooie/Tooie and DK64. I think Grant understood the hardware best. His music is pretty simple and repetitive but it changes it up enough that it becomes catchy and memorable. It really is like John Williams. I sometimes think Grant's music sounds a bit like Danny Elfman too.
I thought Playtonic's Yooka Laylee was a good honest attempt. It was at a time when platformers weren't as common and people didn't know how to react to it outside the people asking for N64 style platformers to return. My guess is that's why it got so criticized for being the exact thing that people asked for. I personally thought it was good. The sequel, The Impossible Lair is a great Donkey Kong Country style platformer too. I think they should give it another shot.
Also there was actually some Rareware on the Sega Genesis with stuff like Battletoads and Snake Rattle and Roll. Not sure if there was an RC Pro AM but there probably was. David Wise did an incredible job making those games sound just as good on the Genesis as the NES. Speaking of David Wise, his Game Boy and SNES stuff is probably his best if not his NES music. I could go on all night about both Grant and David's music in video games. They really set the standard back in the day.
Thanks for notifying me. I am so sorry. I didnt realise TH-cam had automatically assigned all those ads. I usually only have 4 tops, apologies. I have fixed that now. Appreciate it!
Grant Kirkhope's music gets stuck in your head for years. You don't even have to think about it for it to just kick in. The man was a master composer in the N64 days.
Apologies again for the audio on my end people this will be rectified going forward.
its ok i didnt even notice
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro About Technical Issues
01:05 - Crazy Times/American Elections
01:32 - Green Card/How Long Grant Has Been In America
02:17 - Indie Films Grant Has Been Working
03:10 - Agents/Struggles Of Breaking Into The Film Industry
04:55 - Game Composers Looked Down Upon Compared To Film Composers
05:33 - Only Way To Get Film Composing Roles Is Through The Director/Fierce Competition For Film Composers
07:00 - Younger Directors Have Played Video Games So More Of A Chance Of Them Knowing Grant
08:26 - Films Not Having Memorable Tunes These Days/Games Now Having Music Cinematic Sequences
10:24 - Grant’s Process Of Composing
11:52 - Grant’s Work On Goldeneye 007/How He Composed For Goldeneye 007
14:41 - Grant Only Got Small Notes About Levels He Was Composing For
15:10 - Grant Got A Few Visuals For Banjo, Donkey Kong & Perfect Dark/Approach To Composing For Them
17:07 - Spiral Mountain/ Treasure Trove Cove/Mumbo’s Mountain
18:50 - Grant Didn’t Get Told Much To Rewrite Tunes At Rare
20:22 - Working With Nintendo For Smash Bros Banjo Arrangement/Banjo Kazooie Smash Bros Trailer
23:50 - Grant Is The First Western Composer To Work On Mario & Smash Bros
24:35 - Grant Has Better Communication With Nintendo Now
24:43 - Reece Thinks Grant Could Compose For Metroid Based On Perfect Dark OST
25:22 - To Be Employable You Have To Diversify As A Musician
26:09 - Working For A Company Vs Freelancing/Living In L.A.
28:05 - Grant Is Good With Money
28:55 - Grant Works Well Under Pressure/Grant Doesn’t Get Writers Block
31:05 - Grant Doesn’t Toss Away Work/Learning To Do What Your Told By Your Boss On Rewriting Tunes
33:30 - Employment Laws In UK Vs America
34:25 - Grants Friends Losing Jobs For Arguing With A Creative Director/Creative People Are Sensitive
35:45 - Genres Grant Is Not Good At Composing/How He Researches New Genres
37:10 - Instruments Grant Can Play/Working With Midi & Live Orchestras
40:05 - Donkey Kong 64 Rap
44:17 - Competitiveness With David Wise, Graeme Norgate & Robin Beanland
46:05 - Grant Did Guitar On Killer Instinct
46:50 - Working With Hex
48:39 - David Wise’s Score For DKC2 Is Amazing
49:15 - Seamless Composing Between Grant & Graeme On Goldeneye
50:06 - Working With An Artist In The Same Room
50:44 - Grant Doesn’t Really Play Games Anymore/Composers Grant Listens To/
53:01 - Grant Would Love To Work On Zelda
53:44 - Grant Really Wants To Compose For The Super Mario Movie
57:10 - John Williams
57:56 - Grant Gets Stopped More & More On The Street
59:10 - Where To Follow Grant Kirkhope
I would love to hear Grant Kirkhope's music in the new Super Mario movie!
I also can't imagine Rareware without David Wise or Grant Kirkhope. They made most of all the games Rare made memorable.
People can blame Rareware themselves for Nintendo letting them go. But keep in mind the N64 was a lot more limited compared to the other consoles at the time. By the time Rareware was sold to Microsoft, the XBOX was the king of consoles (if you ignore the PS2). The N64 was gone by then, Gamecube wasn't as powerful, and the Dreamcast was freshly dead. Rareware had much more to work with when they joined Microsoft, but Microsoft squandered all their IPs or outright ruined them saying they weren't right for XBOX gamers. Rareware were the ones who got screwed. They were incredible with the N64.
Petition To Get Grant Composing Job For Super Mario Film(2022)
chng.it/Rb4rRq9RrC
That was really interesting. Thanks for doing this. It's nice to get these rare interviews of people who are virtually unknown, yet had such a huge impact on the culture of my childhood. I find myself whistling this guy's music allllll the time. Really interesting interview to get to know a bit about the composer behind all that music.
Grant Kirkhope best composer ever, I still enjoy bk
Amazing interview with the absolute legend, thank you so much for posting this glad I found it. Not sure if you mentioned this in the video, but I was curious as to how you get him to come on? Did you just ask?
Yip pretty much I just asked.
@@KIWITALKZ Right on. Sometimes it's just that easy haha. Thanks again for sharing
There are often times people who will hate a genre until it is successful. That happened to platformers in recent years. You used to see people online hate on collectathons and 3D platformers saying they were long dead and nobody wanted to play them just because they existed in the 90s. Tell that to Spyro The Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. Even Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom came back from the dead! This is the best time to bring Banjo Kazooie, Conker, and Donkey Kong 64 back!
Great channel, thank you for those interviews, lots of nice insights
Grant Kirkhope is so amazing that music in his later games reused his unused music from his earlier projects and still worked out great. The Dinosaur Planet beta that leaked has some of his best that later ended up in Starfox Adventures. Stuff from Project Dream ended up in Banjo Kazooie/Tooie and DK64. I think Grant understood the hardware best. His music is pretty simple and repetitive but it changes it up enough that it becomes catchy and memorable. It really is like John Williams. I sometimes think Grant's music sounds a bit like Danny Elfman too.
Dream music was also used in Viva Piñata! Also Grant has said before that his biggest inspirations are John Williams and Danny Elfman, you're spot on!
Kirkhope did not work on Dinosaur Planet/Starfox Adventures. That was David Wise.
I thought Playtonic's Yooka Laylee was a good honest attempt. It was at a time when platformers weren't as common and people didn't know how to react to it outside the people asking for N64 style platformers to return. My guess is that's why it got so criticized for being the exact thing that people asked for. I personally thought it was good. The sequel, The Impossible Lair is a great Donkey Kong Country style platformer too. I think they should give it another shot.
Also there was actually some Rareware on the Sega Genesis with stuff like Battletoads and Snake Rattle and Roll. Not sure if there was an RC Pro AM but there probably was. David Wise did an incredible job making those games sound just as good on the Genesis as the NES. Speaking of David Wise, his Game Boy and SNES stuff is probably his best if not his NES music. I could go on all night about both Grant and David's music in video games. They really set the standard back in the day.
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I am curious about Perfect Dark's remake. As long as Grant is composing it, it will have a great score.
There are more ads than there is interview! Had to give up. It's too bad.
Thanks for notifying me. I am so sorry. I didnt realise TH-cam had automatically assigned all those ads. I usually only have 4 tops, apologies. I have fixed that now. Appreciate it!
This is literally like the only good interview with Grant