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Interview with Jon Holland
Jon Holland (xyxu@aol.com) is a music composer of boundless creative energy. He is in constant motion, whether creating music for his latest game project, Baseball 2000 (Interplay Sports) or physically en route to another wondrous destination on the globe. Personable, witty, talkative and outgoing are some previous words used to describe this good-natured character. I’d have to agree. By the way, he also happens to be one of the highest paid composers in the industry. The music world is where Jon has chosen to be. He luxuriates in what he does and couldn’t think of being in any other place. Actually, he has a passion for getting lost in the wilderness, but that’s another story entirely. With his love for both electronica and orchestral music he has not only composed scores for such games as Vectorman 1 and 2, Goosebumps: Attack of the Mutant, Assassin 2015, 3Xtreme (original score), Xwomen and numerous other game projects, but also has composed music for ESPN, a USAF Thunderbirds documentary (at age 19) and recently a surf film for Reef Brazil Corp. entitled "The Reef @ Todos". In addition, he has been featured on the "Powercuts1" and "Vectorman" soundtrack CDs for Sega/Polygram. I caught up with Jon at his Xyxu Studio in California just days before another one of his music reconnaissance missions, this time London and then on to Paris. After listening to the moody and upbeat Baseball 2000 music plus some thumping, unreleased techno tracks from 3Xtreme (989 Studios), we got down to business. What type of project do you like most? A big area of interest for me in games would be the dramatic/epic type of game with orchestral or ambient music. Sort of Danny Elfman, Twin Peaks or X-Files stuff. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, I love doing slamming trance, techno or drum and bass music for racing games. I’m ready for a cool and innovative adrenaline-fest sort of game! I would like to see companies take the Wipeout or Jet Moto concepts to the next level. Racing and rally games are great. Yes, there are lots of them out there but only a few really killer ones.
How was the experience with your current title, Baseball 2000? It was my first sports game, and the producers wanted a very particular sort of vibe. They told me they wanted something with the fanfare of the Tour de France and the familiarity of ESPN. They gave me a lot of freedom. The kind of music that comes out of me is typically pretty emotional. In this context it manifested itself in a sort of melodic, heroic and epic feel. I try to stay away from the four-minute organ solo on top of the Judas Priest drum beat. It’s not my kind of thing. I have to have structure, a compositional destination. I like themes and melodies and I believe that any genre of game can benefit from a strong theme. Hopefully, the Baseball 2000 music will appeal to people who don’t really "listen" to music in sports games. I’m very happy with the way the project turned out and it appears that the producers are as well.
So, where did it all begin musically for you? I’ve been playing music most of my life. My early influences were Johnny Cash at age 4, then the Jackson 5 and the Beatles. By the time I turned 11 I was into the whole synthesizer space-rock thing. Guitar lessons began at about 9 and lasted about 5 years. At that point I was getting sick of being whacked across my knuckles by my instructor for playing bad notes. For a non-communist, I’d say that guy had real issues! [Laughs] Although I was determined to be a great guitarist, it didn’t take long before I became enamoured with any electronic sounds I heard. I was into Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, that kind of stuff, basically anything that had bizarre electronic sounds. I became more interested in creating mood music with synthesizers and guitars. I love technology. It offers new possibilities for me as a composer. |
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Features
Introduction 
My
favorite games are obviously the ones where music is of great importance.
My specialties are pretty much electronica and orchestral or ambient scores.
Hopefully in the near future I’ll have a budget to work with a full orchestra.
I look forward to that. I also like combining orchestral music with hiphop.
I’m really into Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, and Craig Armstrong.
Bjork has done some great things with that sound as well. It’s time for
the game world to get hip to these sounds. The film world definitely has.
