A portion of a Nintendo Life interview with composer Grant Kirkhope...
NL: How did you feel when it was announced at E3, and you saw game director Davide Soliani's reaction?
Grant Kirkhope: I was sat next to Davide, trying to push him to stand up. I've known Davide for about two years, probably a bit longer, so we're good friends and have talked nearly every day in that time about the game and its music, plus the other two audio guys as well, Romain Brillaud and Isabelle Ballet.
Davide's a really emotional guy, and he's poured a lot of passion into this game. It was his original idea right from the start, he was tasked with finding something to do with Mario that was different. When he stood up it was mega exciting; I had to dash down to LA from where I live to get there in time and I was slightly late. He was at the door trying to get me in really quickly, he saved me a seat right at the front next to him. It was awesome.
Even though I knew Miyamoto was going to be there it was still ridiculously exciting seeing him come in. That was such a special moment, and I heard him say 'Davide-san' and I knew he was going to cry! It was a lovely moment, it really was.
NL: What was your process in producing all this content? Is there a lot of remixed Mario content, or is it all new compositions? When tackling those themes what kind of things do you try to do?
Grant Kirkhope: There's not a ton of Mario stuff in the game, there's bits here and there. I wanted to try and take a bit of Nintendo, Ubisoft and me and smash it all together. I like to think it's not that typical Grant Kirkhope sound; there's bits of that, obviously, but I like to think I've got it slightly different to that. Also, the game gets pretty epic towards the end, so the music gets pretty big and it's surprising. I kept thinking 'I have to hold back', but they wanted bigger all the time.
We recorded about 45 minutes with live orchestra, and the rest is my midi stuff. We liked that blend of something like Super Mario Galaxy, where some is orchestrated and some isn't. We picked out pieces we thought would benefit from live orchestra, so you'll hear that throughout the game. I've tried to mix together crazy Rabbids, the classic Mario we all recognise and myself, together.
We've not let anything get past, either. Davide would sometimes say 'that's not quite right' or 'I like this but want more of that', and because we're good friends no-one gets offended. I don't mind rewriting things, either. I got to touch some classic Mario moments, and we wanted some of the classic ditties replicated with an orchestra. So I had to work it out by ear, would send it off and they'd have to run it past Nintendo. One of the parts went up rather than down, it was a minor thing, and I got a very polite message from Nintendo saying 'this is great, but can you change this part?' They actually sent me the sheet music for the little theme. That was a moment for me, a bit of sheet music for a Mario jingle sent to me by Nintendo. A little tear rolled down my cheek at the time, I couldn't believe it. I made the correction, of course! It was so special to me to get that little thing, the real sheet music. There's been a number of moments like that.
from GoNintendo
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