An Interview with Tim Haywood - The Answers

And as promised, here are the answers to the chosen questions.

1. How did you get into composing music?

In the early 80’s my dad bought me a Commodore Vic20, he said to me that if I stick with computers I’d do fine in my life, and he wasn’t wrong. The Vic20 wasn’t the musical start point but it was the computer start point, and I was a computer GEEK before I was a composer. The love of computer music came along with the Commodore 64, the SID chip still has a wonderful and unique sound that is often heard in also sorts of music these days, and it was the work of Martin Galway, and Rob Hubbard that got me into loving game music.

But it was only when I bought an Amiga that I started to compose music myself, at the time I’d been listening to a lot of Mike Oldfield and it was my admiration of his ability to bring together so many different instruments to make a score that I wanted to do the same, and with the Amiga, along came Pro Tracker a MOD based sequencer, and the Amiga DEMO scene.

I used to rip as many instruments as possible from demos, games and other MOD files so I could create new material from those sounds. I had a big pile of discs full of sounds, and the computer. I didn’t have a keyboard or any other instruments except for a rather shabby guitar.

The first piece I wrote was actually a cover of a piece of music by Tangerine Dream called Song of the Whale, but that was the only cover version I did of a commercial track, after that I wrote nothing but originals, not many of which still exist. I don’t actually have any of those first virginal tracks. There is a small chance that a couple of other people may have them of a floppy disc somewhere but I expect they are gone for good.

I was actually working for a Law Firm at the time of this creative explosion, and I resigned to explore music composition further, I lived off my savings for a while, and I didn’t think about being a pop star, or working as a composer, there wasn’t a drive for me to get a job, I just enjoyed composing.

2. How did you end up landing video game composing job, How did you become a video game music composer? Was it more by chance, or was it something you knew you wanted and had to fight for?

At the time I wasn’t planning a career in video games at all, in fact I had no plans whatsoever. I was living in Newcastle upon Tyne, I had a girl friend at University, and I was living off my saving writing music for fun, playing lots of games and hanging around with my friends.

One of those friends was a guy called Nathan Whitaker, he worked for a small development company called ID Limited (not the famous American company), which were based in a village south west of Newcastle. They needed someone to write the music for a game they were making for OCEAN software, called Burning Rubber. He knew that I made music MODs on the Amiga, and he suggested I give a tape to his boss to see if I could get a job working at ID. Trevor Scott owned ID Ltd. After hearing the tape he offered me a job.

I think it is fair to say that this was a job by chance and not by design.

3. What are your composing influences

There are two ways of looking at this, firstly if I’m contracted to write music for a specific game then the game it’s self is the main influence, and then I listen to other music that has worked well with similar projects, possibly for inspiration but also for clarity with the client.

The other way of looking at it, is if I was scoring something where I had complete creative freedom, again this would depend on the project, games talk to me on a musical level and let me know what they want. I don’t think I’m particularly influenced by a specific composer or music group, it’s more a case that I’m influenced by everything, and I pull out of that life experience music that fits the project.

4. Which artist do you consider to be your musical influence?

There isn’t one specific artist, it really depends on the production I’m working on, if for example I want to write a piece of music that would be used in a prison cell to disturb the inmates, something that would be blasted continually. I’d listen out for something abrasive and disturbing, for example in that situation, Aphex Twin wrote a piece called Ventolin, which is his interpretation of an Asthma attack, I’d be inspired by that piece, and write something with a similar attitude.

5. What was your first official video game soundtrack?

Burning Rubber for Ocean Software, on the Amiga

5b. Were you happy with it at the time?

Yes. It was very rushed, but I did enjoy writing it.

5c. What do you think of it now?

GOD no, it’s terrible, the only piece that is reasonable today is the high score table music, the rest is woeful.

6. What was the first week on the job like?

I was working in a room on headphones above a SPAR meat locker, it smelt of rotten meat, it was pretty rank, but mostly it was like writing at home, but now I had a list of tunes that needed writing, and I had channel and memory limitation to worry about, but it was a good first week.

7. Did you have any formal musical training or education prior to becoming a video game music composer?

I had some Bugle, Trumpet and Violin lessons when I was younger, none of which I stuck with, aside from that I didn’t have any formal training, but then again there wasn’t formal training in making MOD tracker files back then.

I’m a self taught composer, I’m also a self taught musician, and I can play virtually any instrument BADLY, but I understand a lot about how sound works, and how instruments work, so I can make them do what I need them to do. It’s worth mentioning that I have been playing the guitar for 22 years now, and composing for 20 years (on and off). I can also play the piano.

8. What was the most difficult thing to learn?

One of the things about working in games is that technology changes a lot, so you have to be adaptive and never stop learning, I learn new stuff about sound every day, and for the most part listening to things is what I do very well, listening to people is an art form in its self, and you’d be amazed at how important that is.

From those early days of making music via MOD trackers, I’ve evolved. I went from trackers, to midi, and then from midi to digital recording / midi scoring. I’ve gone from making little tunes from 8bit samples in 4 mono channels, to scoring full orchestras, or making music from dentist drills and babies crying. The important thing to me is to keep evolving, keep learning and keep making new creative things as much as possible.

9. Was there a specific inspiration that lead you towards the profession?

I probably covered this in my previous answers, but being a computer geek helped. I love video games; I still play video games at least 25 hours a week for pleasure. I play World of Warcraft, as well as having a very large and heavy Steam account, I also have every console in my house (sometimes two of them because Elly (My partner), and I, argue over who is playing what we end up buying two copies). Gaming is a huge part of my life, not just as a creator but also as a player, and I don’t ever think I will stop doing either. I won’t ever get “too old” for games.

10. What was the first video game you remember playing?

A lemonade stall simulator on an APPLE II computer, Frak on the BBC Model B, Coin Op. Space Invaders in a kids room at a country pub somewhere while on holiday.

11. What do you think of what “OverClockedRemix” does? What is your standing on the concept of "remixing" video game music like they do?

I love it, and I’d like more people to remix the Shadow Man score, I love listening to how other composers come up new ideas, taking the themes into other directions, and I 100% support the members of OCR to continue doing it.

I’d be very excited to hear what other composers could do with the scores I did for Jackie Chan Adventures, Silver, Dark Wind, and maybe even the dodgy old Amiga tunes from, Burning Rubber, I expect that anything would improve them.

I also have some music that I may release soon called “Escape from the Planet Jaloon”, which is abstract ambient science fiction music. This will be released for free and copyright free so anyone can use it or remix it as long as they credit me.

12. What are you doing musically now?

I’m going to re-score the original Shadow Man music (the first game only), bring it up to date, and add in some of the content that we removed from the original game for development reasons. After that, I think I’ll write some music based on themes of insanity, after that I have no plans yet, but we’ll see where the world takes me.