Thursday, September 16, 2021
Video game composer and touring musician Frank Klepacki on his mission to fill the world with sound
Las Vegas Weekly: A professional musician since age 11, Klepacki has worn a lot of hats over the years: composer, drummer, producer, sound designer, touring musician. He created the score for the massive Command & Conquer franchise—a legit blockbuster, with more than 30 million units sold—and provided music for games based on the Blade Runner, Dune and Star Wars franchises.
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3 comments:
My favorite genre of music is video game soundtracks. I find the visual scores incredibly complex and stimulating. What I loved most about this article was Klepacki's take on his work. He explained very simply, "I just make the music that I personally want to hear". I LOVE THIS. I believe this is how every artist should think. Art should not be created for anything other than fulfilling the artist. While the definition of what makes something fulfilling is different for everyone, I believe you need to create what you want to survive the industry. You HAVE to love what you do. I also loved what he said about what motivates him: the people he is around. I completely agree! I love theatre, yes, but what I love more is the people I get to create theatre with.
“I just make the music that I personally want to hear because I don’t feel there’s enough of it.” I’ve never related harder to a quote, and it’s something I’ve been struggling to achieve ever since I’ve started creating art. Klepacki is extremely talented, being the type of renaissance music man I dream to be. Not only has composed some of the games I grew up playing, he’s also played in bands and made his own music. In this interview he speaks to work being his source of fulfillment and that he looks for jobs which will creatively satisfy him. I respect that because it’s hard to find work that’s always going to feed your creative soul, but I think Klepacki makes every project have something fulfilling because his heart really is in all the work that he does. He also talks about how he handled COVID by doing introspection and going back through his old music, which is a huge way to grow as a musician. I appreciate how personally close he is to his music, and I wish to take some of these traits in my own work going forward.
I have LOVED the music created by Frank Klepacki since the mid-90’s. I even have several video game soundtracks that he created. While he is tailoring the music he created for Command and Conquer to the needs of the game (mission mood, gameplay style, etc.) each of the songs was unique and very action oriented. His soundtrack is what turned me on to video game soundtracks and scores. I have found a site, OCRemix.org, where people do fan remixes from video games and Frank's work is an amazing inspiration for the fans to redo. (The song “Hell March” has been remixed by Frank as well as a dozen fans and it will continue to be a hit.)
Video Game soundtracks are such a key part of the gaming experience. They can do as much for world building as dialogue and the visual elements can. The industry has certainly noticed since they often release special sets of the game with hard copies of the music; I have purchased a few games a second time only for the CD’s.
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