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Video Game: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Composer: Grant Kirkhope
Game Developer: Rare
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Record Label: Sumthing Else Music Works
Release Date: June 30, 2009
Tracklist
2. Showdown Town Square (4:10)
8. Grappling With Gruntilda (2:13)
10. Discovering Banjoland (6:39)
11. Banjoland Buffoonery (2:19)
12. Beating Banjoland (2:29)
17. Trial By Jinjo (2:18)
22. Cruising Showdown Town (4:10) (co-composed with Robin Beanland)
23. Welcome To Nutty Acres (1:03)
24. Out Around Nutty Acres (4:31)
25. Nutty Acres Action (2:14)
26. Nutty Acres Aggro (2:19)
27. Spiral Mountain Shoutin’ (2:24)
28. The Final Flight (2:16)
VIDEO GAME TRAILER
COMPOSER NOTES
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was my last game at Rare and of course was a very upsetting time for me as I’d been there 13 years. I had no idea when I started back in October 1995 that the games I worked on would go on to be such successes and that people would still mail me about them today. So, I decided early on that it would be great if I could include little references from the first two games in the new video games music as everyone had such a fond memory of the early games. It was great to re-visit the old stuff and work out which old tune would fit well into a new tune.
The first piece I had a go at was Spiral Mountain. Rare had just bought us a real Banjo so I thought I’d definitely have to learn it enough to get that tune done. I just stuck a mic up in my office and sat and worked out the chords and recorded it into Pro Tools. I intentionally made it a little rough round the edges, I imagined it was Banjo sitting there trying to remember how he played the Banjo all those years ago. I think I did Mumbo’s Mountain next, at that time I thought that level was going to make it into the game but it didn’t in the end, you can hear a bit of it in the trailer for the game. I have the full 5 minute version so I’ll put it up on this site some time. One of the pieces that a few people have asked me about is a Nuts and Bolts version of Grunty Industries that I did but it didn’t get used, so here it is, it’s just my MIDI demo version but you can hear what I had in mind.
As I was doing Viva Viva Piñata Trouble in Paradise at the same time as Banjo it quickly became obvious that I just wasn’t going to have enough time to get it all done. I asked Robin Beanland and Dave Clynick to help me out with the video games music and the sound design was shared amongst the rest of the Rare music staff. I would’ve liked to have done all of Nuts and Bolts, sound design too, but I would never have managed it. As it was, it meant I had to do two orchestral trips to Prague in the same year only a few months apart.
I suppose it was fitting that Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was my last game at Rare, I’d sort of come full circle. Needless to say that my time at Rare was an unbelievable experience and I wish them all well.