Born in central Washington, both of my parents were musicians and music teachers. Exposed to a variety of music early in life, I was compelled to compose music, learn new instruments, perform, and listen.
I began playing trumpet and piano when I was eight. I picked up a French horn when I was twelve. Beginning my first day as a freshman in high school, I was in the jazz choir, advanced choir, advanced band, pep and marching bands. My senior year I maintained attendence in all the previously listed groups, but I was also the drum major of our marching and pep bands as well as principal tenor in all choirs. I even found time to play Cornelius Hackl in our school’s performance of “Hello Dolly”.
Attending Western Washington University, I didn’t have quite the time to stay in half-a-dozen performing groups, so I had to settle for four: the concert choir, an advanced level group; jazz choir, a very select ensemble; Western Voices, the hand-picked chamber chorale; and chorus in Mozart’s opera, ” The Magic Flute”. Performing fueled my desire to create powerful and impactful emotional responses through music, and in 2002 I graduated with a degree in music composition.
The next few years were a bit bumpy. I went through a few retail jobs, rising through store management, but never wanted to be stuck in a career path of retail. I moved to Seattle and worked with a sales company negotiating large contracts with domestic and overseas manufacturing companies. A typical day would be to update tracking on a few thousand cargo containers, work with customs agents on inspections, and scheduling deliveries for retailers nationwide. During this time, I made sure to keep up with cutting edge audio technologies, recent game releases, and continue my education regarding techniques that would eventually assist me in landing a job in video games.
In May of 2007, the phone rang. It was a good friend from college who moved out to Boston, MA to work for a small start-up called Iron Lore Entertainment. “Get a resume and portfolio together right now and email it to me. We needed a sound guy yesterday!” I quickly wrote up a resume and prepared a small sample of the best music I had written over the years.
Then came the whirlwind of change. The next day, they gave me a silent video for an audio test. The next week I was flying out for a full day of interviewing. The next month I was selling off my furniture and stuffing my sedan full of my most important worldly belongings to begin my trek across the country.
At Iron Lore Entertainment, I was their only audio designer. My very first title, “Dawn of War: SoulStorm”, shipped with approximately 4,000 original sound effects, 17,000 lines of dialogue, multiplied across four languages. I worked with audio designer Glenn Jamison from Relic, who gave me a tutorial of their proprietary engine and toolset. I also worked with renowned composer Inon Zur, who previously scored all of the Dawn of War titles. The musical budget was miniscule, so after he delivered his main themes, I composed an additional 45 minutes of music that matched and complimented his style.
Unfortunately, after Soul Storm, Iron Lore never received another contract, and in February, 2008, closed their doors. Talented people spread out to studios across the country, and many of us came to work at Harmonix Music Systems.
Amazing times were ahead of me. Album releases in Rock Band DLC, Rock Band 2 release, working directly with the Beatles and Green Day, the introduction of real instruments and keys in Rock Band 3, and the Dance Central titles exploding into one of the biggest motion gaming innovations of all time through Microsoft’s Kinect platform.
And I’m just getting started!