Recording - July 2010 - 45

Continued from page 42 Bob: There are maybe… Well, let me put it this way. They would never call these guys for those kinds of games because those are pretty much low budget, you know, and there are a whole slew of people out there who focus on what they call the casual game market or the kiddie game market or Wii Golf.

played in the background or just written for it. I think that we are still a young industry, so it might really go that way that we will have, let’s say, Prototype, and then the main theme is not only our theme, but there are also songs actually inspired by this game. So I definitely say that there is…

thing I alluded to earlier, which wasn’t totally clear. If your members have anything that they want to get my way, please, Michael, set up some sort of way that it goes to TAXI first and then over to me. We’ll put a listing out there that says, “Leading agent for video game composers willing to hear your stuff.” If it makes it over the bar, Bob will hear your music. [applause] I wish I’d met the three of you [composers] years ago because there is so much more I want to learn and we’re almost out of time. So thank you very much Sascha, Inon, and Cris. I really can’t thank you guys enough for coming here today. Thank you. This is a whole new thing for us and you guys are awesome. [applause].

Bob: I think that there is an opportunity. I dream about this. I am absolutely 1000% convinced that if a songwriter is going to play the major franchise titles—which are always going to be there—they will write a song that will become that franchise title’s theme song and make a fortune.
Right, because once if the game hits and the songs in there in the first one and they come out with 2, 3, 4, and 5, they can’t put another song in. Bob: Yeah. Michael, I just want to reiterate some-

Sascha: Not that we didn’t do those kinds of
games. When you start up, you kind of start of low and work your way up. So when you’re at a certain point I think… We still can’t really 100% choose what game we want to work on. Prototype is a good example. With that game, they wanted the score to be really serious and really, really movie-like. We still, in order to get to that point, we all did our fair share of children’s titles where you would go, “Oh, that’s cool. Maybe I’ll just do it for the money.” Fine, but creatively, it’s not really satisfying. How often are songs used? I just heard the other day that NBC cut a deal with Bon Jovi to be like a resident artist at NBC, which means that they’re gonna cut some sort of cross-collateralized publishing deal with Bon Jovi, and then stick his music in. Call up every music supervisor on every NBC show and say, “You’ve got to use one Bon Jovi song in everything.” Ah, I’ve lost total track of my question … umm. That’s the second brain fart today. I hate when that happens. Oh, songs—thank you. How often do songs get used, you know, where a rock star song gets used? I’m more interested, obviously, because I represent independent artists and songwriters. Do these guys have any hope of getting any of their stuff—not scored stuff necessarily, but maybe a song? Inon: Of course. Talk to the guys at EA; that’s what they do. And plus, you know, all the basketball, soccer, football, all of them, just heavily depend on licensing songs and not scores. And EA Sport, as you know, is just one of the biggest manufacturers of games. So do you have a chance as far as songs? Oh yeah. Are they only interested in songs that have been hits or are by big artists? Inon: No, not necessarily. In fact, they will actually go and do some search and license bands, because they will—like everybody—will try to pay less. So they might just license one great hit from somewhere, and then they will use another 10 tracks from somebody that’s unknown and pay them a little bit less, but still it’ll make it there. Chances for songs? Of course. A lot of them!

Sascha: To add to that, I think it’s really got to go in that direction. Like when you see with a soundtrack—let’s say like Twilight. They have the score, and then they have the actual just songs that are
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Recording - July 2010

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