Commodore Free 6/Commodore_Free_Issue_06_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv joseph

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   An Interview with Richard Joseph
             by Neil Carr


Defender Of the Crown, Antirad,
Barbarian and more recently 11 tracks
for a lego game. Although he follows a
different lead with his company Audio
Interactive he still writes music to
this very day. Talking of music.. Keep
an eye out for a remix of Barbarian
which may feature in a future BIT
Album by Richard himself.

Real name: Richard Joseph
Nationality: British

Q What other c64 composers did you
like?

A Martin Galway is still my favourite
even now. Although Rob's was
technically groundbreaking there's
more emotion in Martin's stuff. Very
musical.

Q What non Richard Joseph sids did
you like?

A Knucklebusters - Rob H Martin Galway
- Wizball (awesome music AND fx. The
whole soundtrack is brilliant)

Q What tune that you created were you
most pleased with?

A It was an ending section for
Antiriad that I decided to change to
the piece you hear now. It was
abstract and surreal and I felt that
the reviewers and gamers alike would
hate it. But I still love it. Also,
there was a collection of great tunes
written for a game called 'Monster
Museum' which was never released.
Annoying really, I was just starting
to get good when the Amiga came along
and we all had to change or lose our
jobs.....

Q What were your likes/dislikes about
the sid chip?

A I hated the fact that the filter was
changed a number of times throughout
various production runs of the
hardware. This meant that we couldn't
really use it at all.

Q You created music for some of the
best games on the c64, including
Barbarian 1&2, Defender Of The Crown,
Antiriad. How pleasing for you
personally was it for you to be
associated with these fine titles?

A I felt honoured. After the 64 I went
on to work on very many top titles and
I still feel honoured to work on them
even now.

Q You worked mainly at the now no
longer Palace software, could you
explain that period to our readers?

A It was a very exciting time. We all
knew we were doing something special
and there was a real concentration of
great talent. There were only a few
games developers in those days and it
was very cool to work for indie houses
like Palace and System 3. A lot of
very high up names in the current
games industry came from those studios
originally. Palace was a part of the
film company that made Evil Dead and
Absolute Beginners so the emphasis was
on cinematic games from the start.
Palace liked getting publicity and one
stunt was to feature Page 3 girl Maria
Whitaker as the Princess in Barbarian.
I remember the uproar it all created
in the tabloids. Brilliant. The
Barbarian himself was of course a yet
to be discovered Wolf out of
Gladiators.

Q Why did you start writing c64
music?

A It was the flagship format for the
first game I did for Palace, Cauldron
II. Out of the three we working on-
Spectrum and Amstrad being the others-
the C64 was by far the best to
originate a soundtrack on. I never
used it for anything but games work,
but then the games stuff used to take
up all of my time anyway.

Q How did you become involved in the
games industry?

A I had spent many years working in
the pop music industry and was writing
for mainstream entertainment when I
answered an advertisement in Melody
Maker (sadly no longer with us) put in
by Palace who were looking for a
composer to work in games. Nothing
unusual about that, but this was 1986
of course and there weren't very many
computer musicians around at that
time. I'd just spent a year composing
about 100 tunes on a Yamaha CX5 music
computer (including the 'famous'
Robocod one), and had tinkered with a
Spectrum so it wasn't that hard to
convince Palace.

Q What are your thoughts on your
music being re-created using modern
sounds?

A I'm always interested to hear other
people's interpretations but I don't
believe that any of these, or remixes
of other's stuff is neccessarily
'better' or 'improved' just because
more modern sounds are used. I think
ultimately it will be the original c64
renditions that go down in history
whatever remixes exist.

Q Have you heard any of these
remixes/covers that has impressed you?

A Well they all have to some degree. I
just like the fact that people are
enjoying doing them, although I do
wonder why- my own stuff doesn't
exactly fit into the mainstream of
remixable soundtracks being largely
orchestral.

Q Is there a tune, you wished you
could have worked more on?

A I only had a short time to do
Cauldron II. There is a longer version
but sadly it didn't get finished
quickly enough to make it to the game.
I had just two weeks from booting up
the c64 for the first time to
delivering a finished tune and 20
sound effects.

Q Probably your most remembered tunes
were for Defender Of The Crown and
Antiriad. Would you agree with this,
and what can you tell our readers
about these two sids?

A Antiriad was the second soundtrack
after Cauldron II. I took the tune
from something I'd written a year or
so earlier on midi instruments and
stuck a new bit on the end. As I said
in another answer there was an
alternative part B for Antiriad that
never made it, and I still listen to
it to this day and wonder what might
have been.  Defender Of The Crown was
more remote for me, as Cinemaware who
developed it were based in the States.
It was weird working that way but I
really enjoyed it- the game itself is
brilliant fun.

Q What other formats have you worked
on, and what was your preference/least
preferred?

A  Spectrum / Amstrad 464  / Amiga  /
Atari ST  / Sega Megadrive / SNES /
Gameboy  / GBC  / Playstation
Playstation 2  / N64  /PC

Favourite was Amiga. Bitmap Brothers,
Sensible Software, those were cool
times.  Least favourite was Megadrive.
One of the most interesting moments
was listening to Rob Hubbard's
Megadrive conversion of my Robocod
tunes!

Q So I see you are still involved in
the game music industry with Audio
Interactive. Do you still write music
for games, or do you follow a
different lead now?

A I am more involved with the
production of a game's audio. There is
so much material needed nowadays that
I prefer to leave the specialized
work, like writing Orchestral music
for instance to experts in those
particular fields. I did write 11
tunes for a Lego game last year but as
a rule I don't write as much. Probably
more for myself in fact.  I've been
working on an orchestral arrangement
of Barbarian in the style of Ennio
Morriconi, which is what I had aimed
for in the c64 version, and its turned
out very well. If all goes well it
could appear on a future Back In Time
CD.

Q What can you tell our readers about
Audio Interactive?

A We do everything audio for games. We
compose and record music, both linear
and interactive. We design and
implement sound effects. We do
dialogue production, recording and
processing. It sounds like a big
industry but its not really. Its just
the same as it was in c64 days but on
a larger scale. If anything there was
more pressure in those days, as every
single sound was critical. These days
we have the luxury of being able to
use sampled sounds which makes the job
an absolute doddle compared to the old
times.

Q If there was a tune that you wished
you could as your own, what would it
be and why?

A Probably Rob's Knucklebusters. The
tune maintains the listeners interest
for what, thirteen minutes? That's no
mean achievement.

Q What are your fondest memories of
the c64?

A The day I booted it up for the first
time, after bringing it back from
Palace, and playing Beach Head and
Impossible Mission with my
girlfriend's kids (work it out.... yes
I am very old!).

Q What has been your latest project?

A The latest project is Republic: The
Revolution for Elixir Studios. The
sound has lots to do including
conveying the various atmospheres of a
city at different times of day and
night, with ever-changing orchestral
/industrial film music to suit each
action within the game.

Q Your music on the c64 was generally
more slanted towards the orchestral
side rather than heavy drums and
baselines. Was this due to the games
you made music for or was this your
style?

A This actually was quite a problem
for me, with the SID only having very
limited resources for recreating real
instruments. Most of the early games I
worked on needed the kind of ambitious
soundtrack we are creating now.

Q What did you do after leaving Palace
software?

A I went freelance and signed up to do
games for The Bitmap Brothers,
Sensible Software and Millennium. In
1995 I formed Audio Interactive and we
picked up companies like Sony and EA.
Last year we won a BAFTA Interactive
award for best sound on Theme Park
World. Another of our soundtracks,
Codemasters' Cannon Fodder (GBC) was
nominated for the same award.

Q How would you best prefer to be
remembered?

A For the early stuff- not only the
c64 but the Amiga soundtracks I did
for Sensible and the Bitmaps. Nowadays
I would say that Theme Park World is
probably the best but I have higher
hopes for Republic...

Q Have you ever considered Remixing or
re-arranging some of your old c64 sids
into modern sounds?

A Yes, the Barbarian thing. Otherwise
no, I like them the way they are.

Q How did you get your inspiration for
the music for Defender Of the Crown?

A I don't think anything was an
inspiration for DOTC. Palace just told
me that another company wanted to use
me and that there was some tie-in for
them. In a lot of ways it was good to
work on something, for a change, that
wasn't 'Palace' in feel.

Q What does the future hold for you
and your music?

A I have no idea to be honest. There
is a whole CD of music and mayhem from
the ill-fated Sensible game Sex n
Drugs n Rock n Roll that we are trying
to place with a record company right
now. It's quite wonderful really! I
just don't want it put out as an mp3
yet- we must have spent nearly six
years on it from start to finish and I
want to get something out of it. As
for the future, Jon Hare (ex Sensible)
and I are creating a sequel to the
SDRR CD but there is little pressure
on us to complete it and neither of us
have much time. If SDRR was a success
then things would be different
obviously.

Q Lastly, what would you like to say
to the c64 community?

A I would like to say that it's
brilliant that there's a community at
all. After the c64 disappeared into
commercial history and the industry
was pushing forward I just thought
that everyone's pioneering work would
simply be forgotten. Not so! The
appreciation of retro games and the
people who made them is wonderful, as
is the continued use of the machine
and emulators, with remixes and CDs...
wonderful.

Richard always followed the orchestral
side of music.. Which with 3 voices
was as richard explained was very
difficult. However he came out of it
with flying colours, creating some of
the most ambitous music on the c64.
Palace software was a small player in
the games market, but didn't they
produce some fantastic games and who
could forget the publicity campain for
Barbarian where they pictured Maria
Whittaker scantily clad. This caused a
real stir amongst the press. This
however must have been exactly what
Palace had wanted. The Barbarian
soundtrack was exceptionally fitting
for the game too. Who could forget the
move in Barbarian where the player
could spin around and chop an enemies
head right off in full gore. Wikid!!!

  - Neil Interview date: 30.04.2001

Interview printed from
http://www.remix64.com/interviewDricha
rdDjoseph.html

With Permission via
email

Subject: Re: Interview Reprint
request
    Hello Nigel,

yes, please go ahead.

Regards,
- Markus


Commodore Free "a sad loss to music"
              ...end...