Jared Bohlken & Brad Leyden on eighties music and their video game: Interference: Dead Air (Part I)

Independent game developer, Fear of Corn, is wrapping up development on their first official release. As Pat and I deliver the final few pieces of the musical score, we acknowledged there’s a larger story to tell. Whether it’s game development, musical composition, or any creative medium, the process is often arduous; the reward is the privilege to share our work with narrative junkies, music enthusiasts, and general peers. However long the process, you’ll find Jared and Brad still have an undying admiration for their characters, game, and development team. Pat and I are honored to have been part of creating the sonic world within Interference: Dead Air.

Watch the trailer and wishlist the game on Steam.

What drew you to the eighties aesthetic; are there any films or artists from the eighties that shaped the game setting and environment?

Jared: So originally the game was supposed to be set, I believe, in the near distant future.

Brad: It was, yeah, just shortly after modern times. One of the main reasons we decided to reevaluate that decision was, “why are the characters not communicating via cell phones; why are they not sending high quality video back and forth?” The technological limitations actually provide an interesting angle, narratively. Then it just so happens that it also provided a pretty cool visual and audio aesthetic for us to lean into.

Jared: Obviously right now the eighties and early nineties are huge. Leaning into that nostalgia factor benefits the narrative. I think in a way, setting it in a distant or near distant future is less relatable. It's almost harkening back to simpler times; there’s a lot about the game that's rooted in nostalgia. That goes hand in hand with putting it in the near past. Because we were able to set it in that time period and came up with the radio DJ character, we had a stronger basis of what was around during that time which gave us better ideas for how you could approach the music for the game.

Let’s be real, eighties music frickin’ slaps, dude.

Jared: It does. And the electronic synth stuff; there's so much in the game that has to do with electricity, outdated electronics, and appliances that it completes the circle. I'm still a little surprised that the eighties nostalgia is still relevant since [everyone’s] been doing it since Stranger Things first popped up, but it’s going strong. [The culture] started to lean more into the nineties. I think because we set [the game] in the late eighties, we have some leniency to pull from that era, too.

‍

We give you an idea of what the overall trajectory and vibe needs to be, and you find ways to make it different and new…at first we thought ‘this isn't exactly what we wanted,’ but it was better than what we wanted.

‍

Were we able to meet your expectations for Eighties Rock and Synthwave music styles; is there anything  in particular thus far that’s really hit the mark or were you surprised by some of the scores we’ve delivered?

Brad: Obviously you have a prototype of the eighties music sound: the synthesizer. But there actually is a big variety of things that fall under that category of what eighties music is. You have the really over the top power ballads, and you have sad breakup songs (we’ve been referring to them as). You have more ambient, reflective tracks and then more driving music that really energizes you.

I think the soundtrack that we have does all of those things in various ways. It's a relatively short game, but throughout the span of that game the characters go through a lot of different emotions. One thing we've tried to capture with the soundtrack is making sure that the narrative and the emotional beats feel appropriate; we don't have something that's really cool, grooving, and super bouncy, while the main character is suffering, coming to terms with the fact that someone she cares about just died. I think that's the one thing that I've been really impressed with; the way we can start a track really fun and happy and have that accurately (and in a way that makes sense narratively) transform into something else, has been really cool.

Jared: [The music] is its own voice in the game. When we originally conceived the soundtrack, I think we always knew we wanted the retro Synthwave aesthetic, which isn't really true eighties, right? It's a pastiche of that time; it’s associated because of synthesizers. What you and Pat have brought to the table specifically: you came with your own references. We give you an idea of what the overall trajectory and vibe needs to be, and you find ways to make it different and new, even with some cool orchestral stuff.

That was probably the thing that surprised me the most. At first we thought, “this isn't exactly what we wanted,” but it was better than what we wanted. Those elements are what keep it unique. Then we’d say, “Hey, we want this song here or this type of vibe,” and you come back with some Phil Collins drums or Peter Gabriel type stuff; things that weren't necessarily immediate touchstones for us in terms of the sound we were after. Even Cindy Lauper; that was our first breakthrough, “oh, we could maybe try to do literal eighties style stuff.” I think the variety is excellent.

We were able to conceptualize [the music] all at the same time. You've been able to take elements of some things and re-contextualize and develop motifs and themes. That just helps tie it all together first and foremost. Even though the styles might be a little bit different here and there, it's still cohesive.

A way that we've pushed some of our own sound design is by manipulating analog instrumentation in a more digital way. Maybe that's by sending an instrument to an auxiliary bus with some automated bit crushing to tie into that general “interference” idea; another way we’ve achieved that is by adding lush chorus and longer plate reverbs to some of the woodwinds to trick the ear from real world to dream world, to a space that’s not fully tangible.

How did you model the character personas; are they based on anyone?

Jared: Once we got past the prototype phase, we brought on our Narrative Designer, Michelle Lega and our Lead Writer, Edward “Teddy” Spelman. We brought Michelle on board a little bit later, when we realized that we needed to do a lot more with the narrative than we originally intended. The game became more narrative focused once we started writing things with Teddy, so those characters were somewhat developed early on. We knew the gist of them, but Michelle figured it out for us, which was super awesome. Since we collectively wrote a lot of the various pieces, there's elements of all of us in the characters.

In terms of references, I don’t know. With Valerie, she needs to be someone who just feels real. We have pages and pages of her backstory which informs how both Marybeth Kram performed it and how we wrote that character. You're at odds with her for a lot of the game, and you have to also like her as a person. She can't be yelling and mad at you the whole time, even though you deserve it. It needs to feel like this person has existed in the player's life for a lot longer than the person playing has actually been in the shoes of the player character.

Brad: I agree, in terms of our character development, a lot of that came from all that [written] backstory. That was, again, a collaborative effort. I would say it's more about basing them off relationships and experiences—taking little bits and pieces of things that we all find relatable in our own lives and hoping players will find relatable with their lives. The whole thing is developing and fleshing out this idea of what a friendship is; there’s obviously some conflict, but we really tried to capture the good times. What makes these two people like each other? How does that fun, playful back and forth work? She is a friend  that anyone can relate to.

Jared: Warts and all; friendship, but not in the “rose colored glasses” type way, right? There’s toxicity in that friendship. That makes it all seem more real, because conflict, is real.

And your favorite character and musical motif?

Jared: My knee jerk response is Perry Good, but I have a soft spot for him because I'm the one who came up with that character. I hope everyone likes him. I almost forget about the radio DJ, because we've spent so much time with Valerie and Perry; I do like the radio DJ. That’s a hard question; I don't want to give Valerie the short end of the straw here just because she's at odds with the player for a lot of the game. I don't know, I don't want to toot my own horn, but I think all the characters are pretty dang strong. I'm going to stick with Perry just because he’s my heart and soul.

Brad: I agree that it's hard to just pick one character; comparing the radio DJ to Valerie, you can't really do it. In terms of the musical cues, I have a soft spot for the Valerie motif. That’s the first one that we developed and the first one that we conceptualized the idea that this is [a motif] we're going to come back to. That's the same track that introduces some of that orchestral instrumentation that caught us a little off guard. There's something to be said about the way that particular motif musically ties to that very, very tricky narrative moment with Valerie. That's one of the more complex character moments in the game, for sure. As fun as Perry is (and the radio DJ) in terms of  the character arcs and the development, the stuff with Valerie are some of the more interesting musical ties.

Jared: Most of the music belongs with [Valerie] and her arc. There's this richness and history in the relationship between Valerie and the player character that the music does a good job of exploring. Taken objectively, I think the characters of Perry and the radio DJ are more fun, but they are more surface level, which is by design. 

The Valerie motif is interesting because it’s voiced with many different instruments throughout the game. We technically hear the Valerie motif first in “Catching Wind,” and then it’s re-voiced with horns in turns 2 & 3. Then we use it in the destructive song, which is also by design. Hopefully the person playing will feel those ties and take those negative implications from its descending movement; there’s a disappointment in their friendship, in their jobs, etc.

Jared: It does a good job of bookending that specific arc. I don't want to get too much into spoilers, but the game is about navigating this interpersonal drama between you and this friend you've had for over a decade while all this other stuff is going on. You can lead it in the direction that you desire, so the music has to account for that. The same motif paints a picture of that friendship dissolving, whereas, if it continues, then who knows (with the more constructive resolution).

You had mentioned the pre-production process for writing character backstories. How helpful was that for you? I'm a process junkie; I appreciate the design process. I think the outcomes when you follow any process in any creative medium end up one million times better.

Jared: Much of the time we spent working on this has been learning as we go. We stumbled into the process. I wouldn't say it was the most efficient, but it was extremely iterative and collaborative to make the game work. We found it and it took a while. That’s where we’ve spent most of the last four years—sunk into the narrative, in these characters, and the dialogue; trying to make that as real as possible.

Brad: It definitely was a process that took a long time, but by that same token, it came together pretty remarkably fast in some ways. That speaks to the pre-production and some of the planning we did with  all that backstory. We had an original version of the script, and then we did many revisions. By the end of that process, I feel like we all knew these characters pretty well, even if there was stuff that didn't necessarily play out in the actual game itself. So when it came time to score all of the player choices and the way Valerie would respond to those choices, it felt like we were thinking about it in terms of  a person we knew. Would she be offended or appreciate that joke? It allowed us to put together these scores that essentially drive whether or not Valerie considers you an adversary in any given situation or more of a collaborator.

Come back next week for part II. Visit Fear of Corn's website for more about Interference: Dead Air.