Silly Baboons Discuss Serious Monkey Business!

David Wise’s Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong’s Quest is widely accepted as one of the very best soundtracks on the Super Nintendo, and rightfully so. The soundtrack is a huge complex beast, with eerie ambiance, melodic masterpieces and funky monkey disco which still holds up today, maybe even shining brighter than ever, showcasing incredible diversity in an age of bland orchestra epics. Even in doujin, the soundtrack has now become highly respected after Smash Bros Brawl brought it back into the light, and many doujin albums now feature “Stickerbush Symphony.”

Now, OverClocked Remix is gearing up to release their newest project, Serious Monkey Business, honoring the work of Wise through some of the best arrangement artists around. I had the pleasure of seeing Geoffrey Taucer, one of the project leaders at MAGFest 8, and it was decided to shed some more light on the project. So here today you can read our chat about the project, and there is a very nice surprise in store for the fans of this soundtrack, so make sure you read on!

Read the interview after the jump!

OSV: Thanks for taking the time today to talk to us! Now before we start our talk gentlemen, A/S/L? Where might we have heard about you lads before?

Taucer: Jeremy Waters, better known as Geoffrey Taucer. 22/M/Raleigh, NC. I’m a remixer on OverClocked Remix.

Bahamut: Wes Cho, 25/M/Champaign, IL – I’m a forum moderator on OverClocked ReMix.

OSV: Tell us a bit about OCR’s newest project, Serious Monkey Business.

Bahamut: Serious Monkey Business is a Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong’s Quest remix project which is comprised of tracks from a bunch of people, mostly veterans, but also several people relatively unknown around OCR at the time. It is the culmination of roughly 2 1/2 years of work by the artists.

OSV: What made you two decide to team up and coordinate this project together? I know you’re very busy filming the sequel to Gymkata on the side, Taucer.

Taucer: I’d talked about doing a DKC2 project with Pi_R_[]’d awhile back, but he sorta disappeared. I forget exactly why I decided Wes to help me. In light of events since then, I think I did him a disservice, causing him to become addicted to project management.

Bahamut: I’m not sure what gave Jeremy the idea of inviting me to help him in the first place, but we’ve been good friends since we met in the end of 2005 – perhaps he knew enough of me to trust me with such a task.

OSV: What artists have you managed to assemble for this project? Did you use an open entry process or did you guys hunt down specific people to do specific songs based on who you felt could be up for the task?

Bahamut: Originally it was invite only – we gave a chance for the artists initially on board like Suzumebachi, Joren de Bruin (on “Haunted Chase”), Danny Baranowski, Midee, norg, and Sephfire to complete their tracks to a degree before we opened up the process. This allowed us to see how serious people were about getting their tracks done, so as soon as we went public with it several months later, those tracks opened up for other people to take. This brought us some surprise artists like Zylance (formerly Zoola) who we both had not heard of at the time, or who people have not seen much of in a while, like zyko & his great work – tracks opening up allowed him and Joshua Morse to snap up more & grace us with their work.

OSV: I’m not taking away anything from the other artists as I know there are some extremely talented people on this project, but the most exciting members for fans is probably Dave Wise, Grant Kirkhope and Robin Beanland appearing together to arrange a track from the game score Wise was responsible for in the first place. Tell us a bit about getting them aboard for this.

Taucer: Really, I just invited Wise on a whim. He had done an interview with OCR awhile earlier, and I knew he was a fan of the whole remixing scene, so I thought “wouldn’t it be cool to get him to do a mix?” So I e-mailed him to let him know about the project and see if he was interested. His first response was something along the lines of “perhaps if I have time — we’ll see.” I e-mailed him a couple weeks later to follow up, and this time he responded that he’d already gotten a decent start, and that his mix was going to feature live guitars by Grant Kirkhope and live trumpets by Robin Beanland.

OSV: Projects are notoriously hard to do in this community for many reasons, for example work, family, laziness or late circumcision surgery. Did you guys find yourself ripping out hair and shedding tears trying to keep things in order and on time? It seems when people do these projects it’s a given you have to expect a year delay.

Taucer: For the most part, it wasn’t too bad, but I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch; we still haven’t received finals from djpretzel or virt. We said right from the beginning that we would be assholes about the deadlines; anytime somebody missed a deadline, their track was immediately open to anybody who could send in a good WIP. That generally kept things moving. There were four people to whom we gave immunity to these deadlines: djp, Dave Wise, virt, and myself. Not surprisingly, those were the last four people to finish their tracks.

OSV: As far as general direction goes, were people asked to keep the songs within certain boundaries and styles, or was it an anything goes approach?

Taucer: Anything goes, really.

Bahamut: We trusted the people to be able to churn out good tracks, and just gave minor comments or suggestions for the most part. It’s a testament to the people we chose.

OSV: Who’s doing the artwork for this release? Kong in Concert had a very simplistic approach to the artwork, did you guys decide on doing the same or something more elaborate?

Bahamut: That is being done by The Maverickk (a forum poster), Andrew Luers (alias OA on OCR), and The Emunator (another forum poster). With the exception of Andrew, we only got them involved recently, as our original plans fell through. The artwork is somewhat simplistic, but given the short amount of time it was worked on, I’m pleased with the end result.

OSV: DKC2 is arguably one of the very finest soundtracks on SNES. How do you expect the fanbase for the game itself and the community to respond to this project? How was the response initially when you made it public it was coming?

Taucer: Pretty much any time a project like this comes out, a lot of people love it and a lot of people hate it. My guess is this will be no exception. There will always be people who think it somehow blasphemous to make any changes at all to the original, and become offended whenever a track is remixed in a markedly different style from the original. We’ve already had several complaints about the presence of rap lyrics in the “Mineshaft” mix I did with Jose the Bronx Rican and Hale-Bopp. I suspect that the overall reaction will be positive, though. At least, I hope so. And at least we have the advantage that, with this one, if somebody claims that the project is somehow blasphemous to the original composer’s intent, we can fire back that the original composer endorsed and participated in it.

Bahamut: Not even just that about the presence of rap lyrics – we even had a reaction from someone who does not like vocals in music. I think most people will be receptive to the music though, although I could be eating my words; you never know.

OSV: There are 2 complaints that usually follow OCR projects, mostly outside of the forums. Length and balance. Many projects have been stretched out over 4-5 CDs’ worth of music, which some feel, drags on and the quality often drops when things are pushed so far, and seems to be done for brag rights. Others complain that the songs vary too much in style, making the projects hard to listen to as one piece. Did you guys keep look at the other projects and see anything you wanted to do differently?

Taucer: Not really.

Bahamut: We had our own way of doing things, although I think we happened to take a somewhat similar approach to Voices of the Lifestream in going invite only initially, and then opening it up for auditions.

OSV: Seeing this release is the follow up to one of the very first OCR projects, Kong In Concert, do you view it as a showcase of how the talents have matured and progressed since then?

Taucer: Actually, there’s only one mixer who was on Kong in Koncert who’s also on Serious Monkey Business, hemophiliac. As for whether this represents a maturation or progression of the community as a whole… it’s hard to say. Kong in Koncert was a seriously kickass album, and I suspect I’ll get some angry e-mails if I try to preemptively claim that Serious Monkey Business is better than Kong In Concert. However, I think I can at the very least say that it does not fall short of the mark set by the first one, and I hope everybody will enjoy it at least as much.

Bahamut: I personally have viewed this as its own project without comparing it at all. Perhaps it stems from a wish to keep away from bias as a project director and detract from the artists’ accomplishments. The VGM rearrangement community is certainly maturing & progressing overall, but I’m not sure if I would consider this as a watermark of that. It is a product of that overall maturation & enlargement of the community, but I feel like no one album can capture that.

OSV: Did you initially ask more people like Snappleman or Dshu, who were part of Kong in Concert, to contribute or was the aim all along to have an all new cast? Were there any people who turned down an invitation?

Taucer: We did invite Snappleman; he actually posted on the project forums, but never claimed a track or did a WIP. I forget if we invited Dhsu. I know we invited bLiNd, protricity, and zircon.

Bahamut: You remember that wrong Jeremy! Snappleman did claim a track, “Disco Train” in fact, but never sent us a WIP, so as soon as the deadline rolled by, we axed his claim – them’s the breaks. Same thing with zircon.

OSV: Do you think you or anyone on OCR will finish off the trilogy and eventually do a project for Donkey Kong Country 3? Speaking of other projects, what games or game series would you guys wanna see done eventually?

Bahamut: It’s certainly possible – one thing I’ve learned is that there are people out there passionate about the Donkey Kong Country series, and it’s tempting to want to have the third one complete to round out the trilogy.

OSV: I recently wrote an article listing what was in my opinion the top 5 doujin/arrangement releases of 2009. You two have been around for a long time like me so I want to ask, what were some of your favorite songs and albums to come out last year in our community?

Taucer: Ooh, that’s a toughie. I’d have to say my overall favorite remixers of 09 were Ziwtra and BigGiantCircles. Ziwtra’s mixes on the Xenogears project were mind-blowingly brilliant, and BGC just started out awesome and continues to get more awesome with every new mix he does. Ebison’s “Zeno Paradox” is definitely a favorite. DrumUltimA’s done some pretty awesome stuff as well. Halc and Chthonic never fail to please. It’s really hard to narrow it down, honestly.

Bahamut: Hm, that’s a toughie for me too. I definitely liked Metroid Metal’s Varia Suite, but I haven’t gotten to listen to it much – ditto with other albums released in the year too like the Bacon EP. Other than that, there are some songs that I loved like E-Bison’s “Zeno Paradox” as mentioned by Jeremy, audio fidelity’s “The Might of Baron,” and OA’s “Fighting for Tomorrow” (which I was originally to be a part of). I really missed out on a lot though.

OSV: Before we let you go, I’m curious about what you are working on, Taucer. Is there any projects or remixes we can look forward to soon after Serious Monkey Business?

Taucer: I have a couple of tracks in the works with the Xenotones, the band consisting of me, Harmony, Nonsensicalexis, DrumUltimA, Bustatunez, and Audiofidelity. Otherwise, I have a remix of “Omen” from Xenogears, a remix of “Undersea Palace” from Chrono Trigger, a remix combining “Zelda’s Lullaby” and “Ilia’s theme” from Twilight Princess, and a remix of the “Credits Roll” from Kirby’s Superstar. No guarantees on if/when I’ll finish all/any of those, though.

OSV: I look forward to hearing the project, and would like to thank you both for talking to me, it’s always a pleasure. Is there anything you wanna say to the people waiting anxiously for this release?

Bahamut: Thanks for talking to us as well. I hope everyone enjoys this, but at the least respect the effort people put forth in this free album done for the sake of music and for the listeners!
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Be sure to check out OSV for sample tracks from the project soon, and also check out the works of Geoffrey Taucer as he is a great talent with some awesome tunes.