Quick Beats – 10 Questions for BAFTA Winning Songwriter Austin Wintory – Feature
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Throughout the Nintendo Life Video Game Music Festival, we’ll be speaking to a variety of songwriters and musicians with a mix of in-depth interviews and shorter, sharper (and perhaps a little dumber) Q&A in which we just do ten quick personal questions. ; We call these shorter functions “Quick Beats.”
Today, our first interviewee is BAFTA Award-winning and Grammy-nominated composer Austin Wintory, whose work includes soundtracks from indie favorites like thatgamecompany. flow Y Trip, Giant Squid’s Abzu, the Banner Saga series, and much larger projects like Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, to name a few.
So, let’s find out some facts about Austin, including his musical heroes, his thoughts on the best decade for music, and what he listens to while driving …
Nintendo Life: What was the first song or album you remember buying?
Austin Wintory: Surely Star Wars. We had a vinyl that was destroying so I’m pretty sure I found a way to buy cassettes to replace it.
What was the last music you listened to?
By Neil Young “Harvest Moon”.
What was the first video game you wrote music for and how do you feel listening to it now?
flOw was my first commercial release. I heard from someone who had no idea at the time! And good luck.
Which piece of yours are you most proud of?
Compositionally, I try to make sure and never release something that I’m not proud of. But it still gives me great emotional shocks and joy that Journey (in particular, “Apotheosis,” the end of the score) seems to continue to resonate with people almost a decade later.
What piece by someone else would you have liked to have written?
I never really envy other songwriters in that way. Perhaps the closest I’ve ever felt to really wishing I had written something was Jon Brion’s song “Little Person” from the movie. Synecdoche, New York [see below]. It is pure elegant simplicity.
What do you listen to while driving?
Usually podcasts!
Do you have a musical hero?
Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Bernstein, and many more.
Which decade had the best music?
The best part about music is that it is always changing. The sixties had the best experimental and daring music. The 70s saw a surprising fusion of the so-called ‘cinematic’ with the pop trends of the time (funk and disco). The ’80s saw a revival of glorious old-fashioned orchestral music in the Hollywood world. I prefer the broader view that all decades are SOME form of the best decade in music.
Ocarina, harp or bongos: what magical instrument do you embark on an epic adventure?
Bongos seem like the most unusual here, so sign up for them.
If your house caught fire and you only had time to grab a memory before fleeing to safety with your family, what would you take?
In my study there is a glass sphere containing my father’s ashes in a beautifully ingenious presentation. I think that would be my only article.
Our thanks to Austin for speaking with us. You can follow it on Twitter And check out our other Nintendo Life VGM Fest articles in our ongoing season of music-centric interviews and features.
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