Kevin & his wife Lori

RPGDot: Please tell us about yourself. How did your composing career start?

Kevin Manthei: I am a fun loving music lover looking for the same.... No wait, this isn't a singles ad. Actually, I am married with a cute little daughter. We live in Los Angeles two miles from the ocean. My wife, Lori, works for me and acts as my agent and business manager. Piper, my daughter, is my chief audio engineer - at 14 months old she still has a lot to learn so I am letting her ease into her position. My studio is at home, so we both work at home together. To understand how I got here in Los Angeles is part two of your question. I grew up in 
a suburb of Saint Paul, MN. I began piano lessons at age 10 with my younger sister. It was actually my sister who wanted them but determined not to be left out, I took them too. I quickly discovered that I liked piano, I also took up trumpet in band at school. My composition urges started early as I was fascinated by the moods I could create by simply playing different notes, chords and tempos. I didn't know exactly what I was doing but it was a blast. Throughout the years, I became more interested and took composition lessons as well as piano lessons. When it was apparent I needed to decide what to do with my life with college looming, I decided music was the thing. So I auditioned at the University of Minnesota and was accepted into the Composition program at the school of music. Four years later, I walked away with a degree and that summer I married Lori and was off to my graduate level course work at USC (University of Southern California). They have an elite course for a select few composers who want to study how to write music for film and television. Many top industry composers like Jerry Goldsmith and Bruce Broughton instructed. After that year of eye opening learning, we settled into Santa Monica, CA and I took my last 4 years of college: The College of Hard Knocks. Heard of that one? Once I got over the fear of calling producers, directors, creative people that could hire me, it was easy. Momentum had started and it lead me to where I am today. My bio on my website might contain some more information on my beginning career path if you're still yearning for more.

RPGDot: What are the most important projects you worked on so far?

Kevin Manthei: As far as games go, Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption for Activision/Nihilistic released June 2000 and Sacrifice for Shiny/Interplay to be released later this year. King's Quest: Mask of Eternity for Sierra is a soundtrack I am very proud of and it's a great game as well. Two games that I am composing the music for right now, which will be big titles from hot new start-ups, are Battle Realms for Liquid Entertainment/Crave and New Legends for Infinite Machine. Film projects that I am proud of is my contribution of 20 minutes of additional music I wrote for Scream 2 and 3, as well as The Faculty. 

RPGDot: How did you get to make the music for Majesty & Vampire?

Kevin Manthei: I strive to work with progressive and industry-established gaming companies and that's what led me to Activision. Through constant networking I met up with various producers at Activision each working on different projects. At that time, much of the developing was being done by outside companies, most of which had in-house music staff. We kept talking to producers and finally met up with Chris Hewish. Chris, the Activision producer on Vampire, was very excited about my work and passed on my demo to Ray Gresko at Nihilistic Software. Acting as my agent and biggest fan, Lori was instrumental in obtaining this project. She kept in contact with Chris throughout the process. For a freelance composer such as myself a lot of times what draws you to a project initially is the fact that you got your hands on a gig! Once you get the gig, it's only then that you size up the potential of it. I had a clue going in that doing an Activision game would be a great opportunity but I had no idea until I met up with Ray Gresko and the Nihilistic team how great it would be. In mid-98, months before I was hired, we heard good things about my demo coming from Chris via Ray, but the ever so common mantra was said "we're not ready to pick a composer and go forward with music". So we waited until the appropriate time and Ray contacted me directly in October of 98 and we discussed the game, what he was looking for, and budgets. It was great because Ray already liked my music and wanted to use me based on my demo and website, it was just a question of whether I wanted to do the project and if we could agree upon the contract specifics.

Majesty happened a bit differently, I was contacted by Cyberlore Studios directly after they heard my demo from a contact they had over at the San Francisco Psygnosis office. They really liked my demo and wanted me to work on this new project called Majesty. They wanted majestic and classic medieval music to accompany their 'kingdom simulation'. No bidding wars, no goofing around, just two companies saying 'hey we like your music and want you to score our game. That is the way I like it! After all, my motto has been "our music speaks for itself."

RPGDot: Do you play the games before composing the score to get to know the scenes or do you rather drive the mood of a sequence with your music?

Kevin Manthei: It's so different with each and every project. But in general, I always try to see some art work, hopefully some early parts of the game, a script and maybe a design document. For Sacrifice, I got to play the game before I had written most of the music, this is very rare. Most games are in such a basic form that this is impossible. I think this says something about Shiny's new game - that it was playable in June of 1999 a full year and some months before it will be released. I have also written music for parts of games that have yet to be fully realized by the artists and programmers and I have gotten feedback from them that the music I wrote for the certain level or area has helped them finish and provided inspiration. So with each project new and different circumstances arise. 

I have come to the realization that the more the game is like a film the more I want to see, hear, feel, and touch the game and everything related to help give me inspiration and proper direction. With Sacrifice and Vampire I had lots and lots of interaction with art, scripts, gameplay and the like and I had such an easy time composing the music. This may have been why. When you can absorb that much information, you can then release it freely and quickly. For Jagged Alliance 2 for Sir-Tech, I hadn't learned this lesson yet and didn't get any materials from them and barely knew what the game would look like or play like. What happened was I had to re-write many music pieces because I wasn't zeroing in on what was needed like I should have been. I think the problem was the lack of background material I received. So I have learned my lesson to be as familiar with each project as possible before writing a single note. 

Other types of games that I don't need as much information to do the job are military games like Panzer General 2 and 3D, People's General, Destroyer Command and Silent Hunter 2 which I have done, or am doing the music for. These projects are a bit easier to focus on what is needed without visuals. I find it easy to write the music for them with some general or descriptive conversations with the producers first.

RPGDot: Do you play games at all or do you consider them your job only ? If so, what are your favorite games? 

Kevin Manthei: I love games. I always have. I never was a hard core gamer, rather a casual one. I grew up with Atari Pong and the original Atari. I headed off to the arcade with my friends in grade school and middle school. I then moved to the great games on the Apple IIe. My favorite was the original Castle Wolfenstien and its sequel. I came back to games a few years ago as I got involved with composing for them. Man, have they gotten good over the last few years! I am a RTS buff. I love Command and Conquer, Warcraft II, and Starcraft. I also like First Person Shooters: Unreal, and my favorite, Half-Life. I love games that don't have huge learning curves and you can jump into them and have fun right away. Before my baby came onto the scene and before I was the most sought after composer :), I managed to play a lot of games. Lately though I have only been playing the game of life - work or free time with my family!

RPGDot: What music do you listen to in your spare time?

Kevin Manthei: It really varies. I wish I had more time to listen to music but the thing is I am always writing it so it's difficult to sit down and take a listen. Here is some music I have been checking out in the last few weeks: Switchfoot, P.O.D., Korn, Anthrax, various pieces by Brahms, and a few of those Ultra Lounge CD's which are really fun and cool to listen to. It never fails that Itsy-Bitsy Spider or Old MacDonald is playing at home - this is a big part of my life with a toddler around! I am a huge fan of film soundtracks. I try to listen to as many of those as possible. My favorite scores from this summer (2000) is Gladiator and MI-2 by Hanz Zimmer. He is a true talent. 

RPGDot: If you could choose to make any soundtrack (game or movie), which one would it be ? And, is there a tune you wish it was yours?

Kevin Manthei: As far as the question concerning my dream music project: A live orchestra with sixty plus players would be great! I would like to have a budget to create original samples (sounds) for each new project. Besides those dreams, I really feel like I am currently working on my dream projects. I love writing music for games, film and TV. I am so thankful for the opportunity to write music for a living and to be at the top of my peer group.

Is there a tune I wish was mine? I just don't think like that. I honestly can't say I wish for anything that has been written that was mine. I do admire certain composer's styles, and am inspired by them. But my goal is to be as unique and original as possible and not to sound like someone else. I definitely want to grow in my compositional skills as I mature. Hearing other people's tunes do and can inspire me to go into directions I otherwise would not have gone. Creating a unique voice is a lifelong process and even though I'm on my way, there is much more to learn. However, I know I don't want to be the 500th composer doing a bad rip-off of John Williams.

RPGDot: How does one get a composer for Computer games? Do the companies book you or do you apply to make the music for the games?

Kevin Manthei: When I first started out no one knew who Kevin Manthei was. After 35+ games, I am making a name for myself and many companies approach me because of my status in the industry. Even with my exposure where it's at now, Lori my agent still makes calls on my behalf to companies we are interested in. If they show interest and don't have in-house composers, we send them our latest demo and follow up with them until we get the chance to work together. When I first started, I made my own calls and would spend three days a week calling up new companies, maintaining contacts, sending out demos, making demos, and in some cases writing demos. Now that we are more established, we make less calls and I spend my days composing music. 

Another recent luxury I've experienced is repeat business from favored clients. I have striven to be in this position and it's finally paid off. I'm in the industry to form relationships and I feel that I've achieved this. It's a great feeling knowing that producers and directors had a good experience working with me the first time around that they are willing to call again. I've never burned a bridge in the industry and never plan to.

RPGDot: What are your future products? It is rumored, Nihilistic is already working on Vampire 2 - are you involved again (I sure hope so)?

Kevin Manthei: I haven't heard that rumor, but Ray Gresko has told me many times I will be involved with his future projects. They were really happy with my music for Vampire and want to work with me again. I can't wait. I would start today if I was asked! 

As far as my current projects, I just finished writing the music for Sacrifice for Shiny Entertainment. I worked closely with Joby Otero, their Art Director. The game is a genre buster and more info can be had about it at www.sacrifice.net. Musically I had a blast! Joby approaches music from a very avant-garde standpoint so the music I wrote has been very eclectic while still staying true to the genre and style of the game. We recorded the music with a 26 piece orchestra this June and it came out beautifully. Check my web page as well as theirs for future updates as we are going to release some mp3's of the music soon. Also, I am working with the creative people at Digital Anvil in Texas. I will be scoring all of their cinematics for Loose Cannon for Microsoft. I am working with a style of music I've coined "Gospel Metal". The main character is inspiring. He is a tough, black, future bounty hunter who drives a decked out car, and he doesn't take his prisoners alive. I did the music for their E3 trailer last year and will start to work on the rest of the music next month. Last summer I worked with EA Sports up in Seattle on their Outdoor Sports line of hunting and fishing games. This was a bit of a departure for me since the music was very tune oriented rather than score oriented. I wrote 50 minutes of music for 6 titles in 6 months for them. I just began composing the first pieces for Liquid Entertainment, a new start-up developing the game Battle Realms for Crave Entertainment. It's an Asian styled Real Time Strategy game. The music is going to be a mixture of Asian elements with a western mind set. We don't want the music to be 100% authentic sounding, rather closer to a film score with Asian elements. The president of the company, Ed Del Castillo, was the producer on Command & Conquer at Westwood Studios. Other projects I am currently working on are Silent Hunter 2 for SSI/Ultimation and Panzer General 3: Scorched Earth for Mattel/SSI. I am slated to work with Infinite Machine on their new title New Legends. Justin Chin is their president and before starting up Infinite Machine, he worked at Lucas Arts on some of their biggest titles. 

RPGDot: Can you describe the feelings you have in and for the key tracks in the Vampire soundtrack ?

Kevin Manthei: On the deepest level, my goal for Vampire, as well as any game, TV or film project is to score the correct mood and feelings to convey the story properly to the player/viewer. The music has to fuse with the very essence of the project, it needs to intertwine with the dramatic elements of the story. Since Vampire is an RPG it really plays out like a long interactive film. Because of that, I approached it in a very traditional film scoring sense. There is a main Redemption theme, a love theme for Christophe and Anezka, Christophe's theme and evil boss themes. Beyond the specific themes, there are moments where I am scoring the mood of a location and the action taking place there. Ray and I discussed how the music was to have a very real and present sense of horror coupled with a strong medieval style. I took this a step further and introduced modern scoring techniques. My inspiration for Vampire primarily came from Ray Gresko and his infinite wisdom on his game and the desires he had for it. There is nothing better for inspiration than the person/team who creates the project. After all, they are the ones who have been living with the ideas, conception and finally the fruition of the game. Ray & Chris Hewish had me look at all the concept drawings of the characters, buildings and places in the game. I took an afternoon and went over to Activision to see the beginning stages of the game and get copies of all the concept art. Ray then sent me the entire game script and the game design doc. I read the script as I was composing some of the first tracks. Understanding the story and what takes place really gets you zeroed in to a project. Because of reading of the script and design doc as well as looking at the concept art, it made me feel that I had a lot to contribute to the project. It wasn't just a puzzle game that needed tunes. It was a feature film rolled into a game. 

RPGDot: Tell us about the music you sent us along with this interview

Kevin Manthei: The Redemption Theme alt. version is nearly identical to the game version except for a middle section that gets very heavy with metal guitar riffs and intense percussion. The second piece I wrote for fun with the idea of "what would I write for a modern day dungeon piece?" This piece was never intended to be in the game, yet I believe it would make a great modern day track. I have many Redemption tracks and other cool mp3's on my website.

RPGDot: Thanks, Kevin, for your time and answers...

Visit Kevin Manthei's website to learn more about him and his music