We spoke to the Senior Audio Director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy game about how he was allowed to start his own Star Lord band.
If you got the opportunity to start your own rock band and record an album while working a video game based on one of the largest entertainment properties in the world, would you do it? If you’re Steve Szczepkowski, Senior Audio Director for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy game, then the answer is a big “hell yes!”
“The Star Lord band was a very interesting thing,” explains Szczepkowski as we sit down for a chat. “My creative director, he approached me and he was like, “Peter Quill took the name Star Lord because in our universe he loved this band growing up called Star Lord.” So he goes “What about if you spend part of your day writing this rock album?”…
At the time I was like, yeah, it sounds great. I mean, you know, is it gonna really happen, and you just kind of go along with it. So we just kept recording songs and they just kept getting approved and I was like, “okay, okay.” I just kept waiting for somebody to kind of smack me going, you know, what are you doing? Get back to work”
The album itself will help compliment what has now become a signature element of the Guardians franchise – ‘80s bangers. If you’re a lover of the era, you’ll be sure to enjoy some absolute licenced classics from the likes of Iron Maiden Rick Astley, Kiss and Wham.
But were their artists who said no? Would anybody have been dumb enough to decline their involvement in a Marvel game?
“Ahhhh… Hello… What?” Szczepkowski laughs at the question. “We did reach out to plenty of artists and with all respect given to them, they’ve created something. It’s their right where they want to put it, so I have no ill will or bad vibes. I mean, I hope when this game comes out and ships, maybe some of them will be kicking themselves going “Man why didn’t we get in on that”, you know. But we did have plenty of people that did want to get involved.”
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It’s worth noting though that Guardians of the Galaxy won’t solely focus on a mix-tape of classic tracks, and that’s where the game’s orchestral composer Richard Jacques comes into the picture. Finding the perfect balance between the competing streams of music a truly epic task, but Jacques was more than up for the task.
“The licenced tracks and the Star Lord band tracks have their place as well as the score,” Jacques answers when asked about finding that perfect ‘balance’. “So we wanted to make sure that that, you know, there’s not particularly one overriding thing. They are the sum of their parts. So the score has its own role in in supporting the narrative, and supporting the story and what the player is doing. But the licence tracks and the band tracks also have their place – they might come in when the player’s least expecting it.
But that’s part of the Guardians of the Galaxy DNA that we wanted to make sure we represented. So, in terms of the score, Steve and I worked very hard to make sure when the licenced music comes in, or when the Star Lord band tracks are playing, the score weaves very seamlessly from the score coming out of, you know, potentially an emotional moment or a really heroic theme, and then we take it up a gear and we go into a licenced piece of music or a Star Lord band track. And it just once again elevates the whole experience.
And at the end of the day, rest assured that music will be are the core of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
“It’s definitely infused in the DNA of this game,” Szczepkowski admits. “The Guardians are pretty much a rock and roll band. They are a band of misfits that found each other and have a common goal. With Guardians, the music goes beyond what a normal score and soundtrack would do. It’s like rock and roll, man. It’s the sights, it’s the sounds, it’s the smells. The ones who get it. They get it here.”
You’ll be able to get it when Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy releases on October 26. You can currently pre-order it via Amazon for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Xbox One.
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