You've heard their beats in our new trailer - they've been making music for us for quite some time now!

Check out our interview with the talented gameonion and alexnaivera below!

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Question: You guys are life-long gaming music buffs, what and who are your biggest stylistic inspirations?

gameonion

For me personally, it's a hard question to answer. Jun'ichi Masuda, of course, is a big influence. His style is pretty recognizable and I love his basslines. Go Ichinose's stuff is really jazzy, so I really like his stuff (because I also love jazz of any kind). Otherwise, Yoko Shimomura is pretty cool. I don't care much for her work on Kingdom Hearts, her other stuff sounds more unique and interesting in comparison.

alex

Most of the GameFreak soundteam is influential to me, especially Go Ichinose and Shota Kageyama's musical styles. I also enjoy Genius Sonority's composer, Tsukasa Tawada, and his songs he's done for Pokemon. Outside of Pokemon, the soundtrack of Super Smash Bros. Melee is one of the first I heard (when I was about 4 or 5), so it sticks with me. My biggest non-VGM source of musical inspiration are The Beatles.

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Question: Think back to when the inspiration to become a VG Musician gripped you the strongest: What game were you playing? What song?

gameonion

This will probably sound silly, but I'm pretty sure making music first came up in my mind when I was listening to some of Alex's remixes. Also while playing modern Pokémon games.

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Question: How many years have you been making music?

gameonion

It's kind of weird... I've been meaning to get into music for ages, but I only started roughly two years ago. I wish I started sooner, didn't realize it would be that much fun.

alex

I've been making music on my computer for nearly 4 years now.

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Question: What's your approach when making a new track for Monster Crown?

alex

Most times I just try to visualize the situation or the place I'm making the song for and I work from there - I may also try to think of another game's soundtrack and how the composer handled a similar situation or place in their game. I always start with the classic sine, saw, and square waves (and a noise channel for drums), and from there I'll just start coming up with a song.

gameonion

Well, I'm not as involved with the music itself as Alex is. Though I do also compose music. When I compose, I usually try to capture the feeling of a situation or the personality of the character. Then I pick out instruments which fit the criteria and just kinda... jam out. See what works well and build on it. Monster Crown is kinda special, it's a fusion of both chiptune and actual instruments. Since it's a special case, I'd rather come up with a catchy melody first and worry about other instruments later. Sometimes the rest of a song just comes naturally.

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Question: What other genres would you really enjoy getting creative with on future projects?

alex

I really would want to work with an actual orchestra sometime, or work on singing and playing something like rock music, which I love.

gameonion

Probably jazz, I'm a big fan of that genre. Unless we're talking about game genres. In that case, I'm honestly unsure.

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Thanks for the interview guys! We love what you're making for Monster Crown! Readers can follow them here:

https://twitter.com/YTgameonion

https://twitter.com/Bauerklos