• Chris Foster of Harmonix talks Beatles

    09/08/2009

    Posted in: Interview, PS3, Wii, XBox360

    Early on in my PAX adventures I was able to speak with Chris Foster, Project Director at Harmonix and co-lead on the latest in Rock Band offerings, The Beatles, about the game, the process and so much more. Thanks again to Chris for taking the time to answer my questions, and the questions of a couple N4Gers. Sorry to those with questions that didn’t get asked, we only had a limited amount of time – and, you know, really wanted to play the game!

    I play at being photog while Adam drums

    I play at being photog while Adam drums

    Cat: How did you guys come up with the tracklist for the Rock Band: The Beatles?

    Chris: A bunch of us worked together. Some people at Harmonix and MTV Games worked with Giles Martin, the music producer and son of George Martin, and we tried to find a set of songs that covered their entire career that matched to the chapter structure that we’re doing in the game so there are only so many of certain albums based on that. We wanted to make sure that all The Beatles were represented as singers and songwriters so you have a nice sort of survey of Ringo’s songs from their career, George’s as well and obviously all the McCartney Lennon compilations. Once we did that it actually dialed in – well then the other thing was that we wanted to make sure that we were making songs that were best suited for Rock Band so guitar, bass, drums vocals were are focus. So you won’t hear things like Hey Jude or Let it Be with the piano separate. Once you get to that the number of songs sort of suggested themselves and I think the first list we did was probably within five or six songs of what we ended up shipping. Then that went to Apple Corp and to the shareholders as we call them, Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia and then they gave us some feedback and we fairly quickly ended up with the final list.

    Ct: Very impressive. What was the collaboration with Giles Martin like?

    Chris: Giles Martin was awesome. He’s really funny, and he’s got a good cutting wit and he was interesting because he’d worked on a love project with his father George with, you know, starting to mix the Beatles music in different ways. So he was the perfect guy to work on this and develop multi-track audio for our gameplay going all the way to doing music audio forensics software with his team to isolating instruments that were actually all recorded to the same track which is something that I don’t think people have really done before for a music. He was really valuable in terms of – not just the musical component – but in terms of keeping us honest to the spirit of The Beatles. Like giving us critique as one of the people that worked with them before so in the case of our dreamscapes in the game’s overall visual aesthetic he was challenging us to really think about if we wanted to be psychedelic. You know, think about what psychedelic means now because something that was psychedelic in the ’60s it was that way because it was new, and if you repeat that you’re not really challenging anyone, it’s not really psychedelic. So he forced us to keep trying to invent new ideas and things. There’s a lot of historical things in the game where he explained, and he really challenged us to find interesting trivia keep it fresh and fun, like not a giant history lesson, not a museum piece but something that captured the humor and spirit of the band.

    Cat: In the Abbey Road downloadable content will you be able to play the songs as they were on the record, with some of them as continuous pieces of music?

    Chris: Absolutely. It’s really interesting, for side B there’s this sixteen minute medley and it was actually recorded sometimes as individual songs and sometimes as two song chunks. What we do is you have the ability to play the music as they were recorded, so Polythene Pam and She Came in Through the Bathroom Window are one piece, Sun King and Mean Mr. Mustard are one piece, but we’ve also authored a sixteen minute song which is the entire medley which you can also choose. I’ve gotten to play some early versions of it and it’s pretty awesome.

    Cat: For your version of the Abbey Road DLC cover art, will you have McCartney holding a cigarette, or will it be removed?

    Chris: That’s one of the things, I think we have tobacco referenced in our ESRB rating and you know we have a lot of rare never before seen photos of the band showing them at Abbey Road Studio, there’s actually an ashtray there because there was. You know, it’s one of those things that that’s who The Beatles were at the time, so we sort of just have it straight on. I think we have pictures of the cover where he’s holding the cigarette, we have many pictures where the band are holding cigarettes, just sort of, it was what it was.

    Cat: Price point, it’s kinda steep.

    Chris: The game itself we think is competitive, I mean it’s generally competitive definitely quite a bit of guitar music games out there. The instruments are, I mean, we wanted to make them premium edition. If you look at the level of detail in the manufacturing we think that they’re a step above what the other Rock Band instruments are. What was really important to us is that you aren’t forcing people buy the bundle. If you have Rock Band equipment, if you have Guitar Hero equipment, SingStar mics, Lips microphones they all work. So No one’s trying to get everyone out there to you know, spend two hundred and fifty dollars on the game, but if you want the really cool gear it’s there. I think it’s worth the price.

    Cat: I did see on Amazon a value edition of the game, with Rock Band instruments, which instruments are they?

    Chris: I believe those are the rock Band I instruments, I’m not sure what version. That actually is another answer to your question about pricing. We wanted to make sure that if people didn’t have instruments and they wanted to try this game there was a lower cost option available.

    Cat: N4G user Steven Colbert wants to know if the McCartney Hofner bass would be available for purchase separately as some point?

    Chris: I don’t know if there are any plans for that right now, I don’t have any information on it.

    Cat: He also wants to know if the DLC will include songs from the solo albums and singles of the individual band members?

    Chris: The game is just really about these four guys and their band. We do look at all the visuals and everything and it would be weird to pull a Wings a song into that.

    Cat: N4G user Columbo wants to know if Harmonix has plans to release music from any “good bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Live and Bush”?

    Chris: I’m just gonna say that’s a really interesting question.

    Here’s the full track list, only recently available:

    Cavern Club:
    I Saw Her Standing There
    Twist and Shout
    Do You Want to Know a Secret
    Boys

    Ed Sullivan Theater:
    I Want To Hold Your Hand
    Can’t Buy Me Love
    A Hard Day’s Night
    I Wanna Be Your Man

    Shea Stadium:
    I Feel Fine
    I’m Looking Through You
    Eight Days a Week
    If I Needed Someone
    Ticket to Ride

    Budokan:
    Drive My Car
    Day Tripper
    Paperback Writer
    Taxman
    And Your Bird Can Sing

    Abbey Road Dreamscapes:
    Yellow Submarine
    Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help from My Friends
    Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
    Getting Better
    Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows
    Good Morning
    I Am The Walrus
    Hello, Goodbye
    Hey Bulldog
    Back in the USSR
    Dear Prudence
    While My Guitar Gently Weeps
    Helter Skelter
    Revolution
    Birthday
    Octopus’s Garden
    Something
    Come Together
    Here Comes the Sun

    Rooftop Concert:
    Dig a Pony
    Get Back
    Don’t Let Me Down
    I’ve Got a Feeling
    I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
    I Me Mine
    Encore:
    The End

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