Peter McConnell On Composing Music For Psychonauts 2, Working With Jack Black, And Brutal Legend

We dive into the mind of legendary gaming composer Peter McConnell to chat Psychonauts 2, Brutal Legend, and how his music has evolved.

You Are Reading :Peter McConnell On Composing Music For Psychonauts 2 Working With Jack Black And Brutal Legend

When Psychonauts 2 launched a few months ago, it was received positively by both fans and critics alike. In large part, this was thanks to how it managed to improve on everything that originally made it great without losing sight of the first game’s spirit and identity.

Psychonauts’ soundtrack is a core part of this spirit, and was created by legendary music composer Peter McConnell. McConnell has composed titles like InFamous, Sly Cooper, and several classic Star Wars games, but is perhaps best known for his relationship with Double Fine and being a key figure for almost all of its bigger releases.

Psychonauts 2 is no different, with McConnell returning once more to helm the music. After the game’s successful launch, I had the chance to chat with him about the challenge of composing different levels, how his music has evolved over the years, and what it was like to see Psychonauts 2 so positively received.

“It’s been wonderful, of course,” McConnell says. “It’s like part family reunion, part New Year’s Eve party. It’s been a long year—four years really, for me—so it’s been nice to be able to celebrate.”

There’s a 16-year gap between the original Psychonauts and its sequel, but in keeping with the first game’s spirit, the soundtrack contains many musical callbacks and tracks that are remixed and expanded on, this time with all live players.

“We had more humble resources to work with in those days,” McConnell reflects. “I was only able to use live players for some of the instruments in a piece like ‘The Meat Circus’ back then, so the opportunity to do a more expansive score with all live players in Psychonauts 2 was a real gift. I’d like to think I’ve grown a bit as an artist over the years, so I was able to bring a new perspective to the music.”

One of the core concepts behind Psychonauts is that the goggled-protagonist Raz has the ability to dive into the minds of several key characters and help them work through their trauma. Each mind is treated as its own level, which means the music and visuals are completely different between them, in order to match the character.

“Honestly, I can’t think of anything more fun,” McConnell says of composing for each character. ”The challenge, of course, is to keep the score cohesive across so many beautifully diverse worlds. I did that primarily through the melodies. The Psychonauts theme appears in almost every level, and the character themes never change. I felt that gave me the freedom to stretch out into almost any genre.”

Considering how closely the music has to match the tone of each level, you’d think that McConnell would get to see a close look at each level as it’s being made, but that’s not the case and the composer sometimes works with just a few words and images.

“It’s usually pretty sparse,” McConnell says. “It’s like black and white concept art coupled with gameplay capture in which the backgrounds are just geometric shapes. I always ask for a description of the mood, and some art, even if it is just those black-and-white background studies or character sketches. You really have to use your imagination in the beginning.

“Sometimes levels change completely in their mood, and you have to write new music and repurpose the old. This happened on two or three levels in Psychonauts 2. Compton’s Cookoff originally had more of a Julia Child vibe, which was very different from the in-your-face game show world that we ended up doing. So that early music was repurposed to play in the reception room at the Motherlobe and during the commercial messages in Compton’s game show.”

McConnell also revealed the origins of the Brain in a Jar level, explaining that Jack Black’s character was originally an opera singer. McConnell explains, “You can still see a reference to that in the art with the Psi King’s Viking helmet, a nod to Wagnerian opera. Fortunately, that got changed to the ‘60s psychedelic world before I did any sketches.”

That change worked, as Psychonauts 2’s Brain in a Jar level is unarguably the game’s most iconic, thanks to those trippy visuals and the inclusion of Jack Black as a central character. Jack Black doesn’t just appear as a character, he also gets his own song, Healing Feeling, which McConnell helped compose.

“It was amazing,” McConnell says. “Jack Black is an incredible singer and very fast in the studio. Tim [Schafer, CEO and president of Double Fine] was in the room with him along with voice director Khris Brown and I was listening remotely giving input. Jack is a gracious and generous artist and it was a real honour to be able to work with him.”

Speaking of Jack Black, I couldn’t help but sneak in a question about McConnell’s experience working on another Double Fine game – Brutal Legend. “It wasn’t so hard really,” McConnell explains. “I just had to channel my inner 14-year old. That’s about how old I was when a lot of the seminal Metal came out, and you just live and breathe guitar. The challenge there was to keep the orchestra parts simple and not too fancy, so they were supporting the essence of the music. Breaking a few classical rules helped.”

Although it’s currently unknown what Double Fine is working on beyond promises that it has some “brand new ideas and none of it is anything anyone’s ever heard about before”, many fans of the studio’s work hope that it’ll return to Psychonauts for a third entry. If it does, McConnell says that he’d be there “in a heartbeat”.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/peter-mcconnell-interview-psychonauts-2/