Back then in ‘97 Mark Morgan composed the sacred soundtrack to Fallout – a post nuclear role playing game. In no time Fallout and Mark himself become a cult… His name is well-known and beloved by every Fallout fan around the globe, while music he created became a reference for almost a generation of composers and one of the most valuable pieces of ambient ever created. A decade passed since those time and Mark Morgan dropped off the radar: his latest game musical score dated by the year 2000. However, all these years thousands of people enjoyed their time listening to his still unmatched work hoping that Mark will once awaken from the sleep and create another masterpiece.

What’s really a staggering fact – even assuming his popularity nobody actually knew anything specific about him: no pictures in the web, no contacts and interviews – there was a question if he really existed after all. No evidences and almost no clues… That was strange and curious at the same time. We’re trying to find him for a good bunch of years, but with no luck… we even had a joke that when our search will be finished we’d have to close GameOST at all – we’ll have nothing to wish anymore. Thousands of people passed through our hands: musicians, photographers, doctors… but not him. The longer we searched the more valuable he became. The truth was out there and we sensed it with every cell of our skin. We could tell you a story how he finally been found, but we won’t torture you with it… all in time. Well… we interrogated the enigmatic Mr. Morgan and found out his plan of triumphal “return”.

Game-OST: Greetings, Mr. Morgan! A legend alive are now captured. Fallout soundtracks been a standard for quite a bunch of composers and musicians (take an Auto Assault soundtrack as an example). Even assuming this all you’re a person of unprecedented secrecy… You’re hiding well, indeed. There’s no info about you in the web, so we had to use our KGB connections to get in touch with you. Many thanks to Vladislav Isaev (Scann-Tec – http://www.myspace.com/scanntec)... His sacred knowledge allowed us to hunt you down at last… and we have a chance to cross-examinate you.

The mission of our resource is to spread the word about beloved composers and be some kind of online encyclopedia for every game music fan. Tell us about yourself, man… because of your modesty we’re not sure you’re even exist after all. As a proof of your existence send us a couple of photos, exact birth date and $200 (Ok, 200 bucks can be replaced with another couple of photos - good ones though)… but don’t get relaxed too fast – that’s just the beginning. We have to fill a lot of blank spots in your profile, Mr. Morgan, a lot…

When did you decide to compose music? C’mon, something tells us you didn’t want to be a composer since you’ve been an infant, do you? We wonder if you have classical musical education or you’re a self-made? So, how did you become a mastermind, Mr. Morgan?

Mark Morgan: It has been an evolution composing music. I started piano lessons at about seven years old and played quite a lot of the classical repertoire for a few years. Then in high school I played rock and roll in a few garage bands. In college I became interested in jazz which led me to enroll in the Berklee School of Music in Boston. But I was more interested in playing than studying so I quit school and decided to concentrate on becoming a studio player. That led to touring. One of my first gigs was playing keyboards with Chaka Khan. This led to tours with other artists, then I became a member of the band, Starship. Working with Starship really started me on the path to composing by writing and producing songs for their new CD. After leaving Starship, I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and got a call from Snuffy Walden. I had played with Snuff in Chaka’s band. Now he was composing music for television and he needed a keyboard player to work with him on his shows. This was perfect timing. I had been listening to alot of film and experimental music and the natural progression was to write “to picture”. While I was working with Snuff, I got a television show called PREY. This was the first show on my own and the producers wanted a hybrid score of dark, ambient, world music. While I was doing that show, Bob Rice of Four Bars Intertainment, heard some of the score and thought it would work well in video games. He asked if I would be interested. I was, and that was my introduction into video game music as a composer.

G-OST: Are there any bands or single performers whose work affected you?

Mark: I tend to gravitate to artists that have both touched me emotionally and are adventurous sonically Peter Gabriel, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Clint Mansell, NIN, David Sylvian, Massive Attack and Miles Davis are among artists that come to mind.

G-OST: Can you recall your first memory connected to music? It must have been something terrific…

Mark: Both my mom and grandmother were musicians. They both played piano quite a bit when I was young. But, what put me on the path to being a musician myself was when I went to the beach in Southern California while I was just a young kid and seeing a live band playing surf music.

G-OST: We have an intel in our disposal that you’re composing music for TV series. What made you try yourself in game music and why with Interplay after all?

Mark: The games were a perfect evolution for me musically and career wise. The games I was asked to work on was the kind of music I wanted to write. As far as Interplay was oncerned, Charles Deenan, their audio supervisor, seemed to like the more experimental stuff I was doing, although it was not his favorite genre. He already had the orchestral guys covered, so I guess I was a good fit for the darker, ambient games.

G-OST: Your last work for the moment - Giants: Citizen Kabuto, then you left the industry. There’s rumors that you’re now working for Square Enix under the Rampage: The Death of the World project music… is that true? If so, what music style you decided to work with? Want to overtake Japanese minds as well, Mr. Morgan? You have no mercy…

Mark: I wish the rumor was true, but I haven’t heard anything about it. I would love to manipulate some Japanese minds. Do you guys have any pull?

G-OST: You worked both with TV series and game music - is there a huge difference? Tell us about composing process of yours, please. Which way is easier to contr ol people’s mind, Mr. Morgan?

Mark: I think there is a huge difference. They really are two different mediums, though they are becoming closer. In television, as in film, it’s really all about the dialog and your job as a composer is to support that and hit certain emotional moments. There are exceptions of course, but for the most part, that’s the case. In the video games that I have done, there wasn’t really any picture to speak of, except for a couple of “cut” scenes. So, I am asked to write music to create moods appropriate to where you are in game play. This can be daunting, but it’s also liberating. In television, you are a bit of a slave to timing and dialog. In video games, there is more freedom.

G-OST: Well, we are sure that you wrote every piece of your music under drugs or alcohol. Open you heart to us, Mr. Morgan… We won’t tell anyone :) You can trust us… Indeed, have you ever wrote music under this conditions?

Mark: I’m pretty sure neither drugs or alcohol were used, but I’m flattered because in the “Fallout” series it was especially true, at least on my part, to make a somewhat conscious effort to convey an altered or psychedelic state.

G-OST: For the profile. What musical instruments have you mastered during your life? In addition, we are curious about your hardware and software involved in composing process. A tools of destruction, may we say…

Mark: I’m a keyboard player and I play a little guitar. Right now the software I use is Logic Pro. I do most of my soundesign and loops in either Ableton Live or Reason. Then I render the files. They ultimately end up in Logic, where I do all my sequencing. Last summer, I decided I wanted everything to reside inside one Mac, so I converted all my gigastudios into the EXS24 [sampler within Logic] and have slowly been replacing any hardware synths into virtual ones. Now that everything is inside one Mac, I’m able to have more control processing within Logic using plugins. I can work faster this way because when I’m through writing, it’s already mixed and I send it over to a second Mac, also running Logic, to record all the stems in one pass.

G-OST: During our investigation we searched the web for your interviews, but couldn’t find any. In the same time you’re a legendary composer for many people… they believe you have added another dimension to Fallout project - unique post-apocalyptic atmosphere (poor minds). We wonder if you surmised at the very beginning that this soundtrack will arouse such resonance and made it a masterpiece intentionaly? You wanted to rule people minds, right?

Mark: I really didn’t. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I was even aware people had been just listening to those particular games. I was touched and somewhat amazed that they seemed to understand my original intent. The “Fallout” soundtrack, other than having to be ambient, really had no boundaries, so I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t want to “rule people’ s minds” but maybe manipulate a little.

G-OST: We have the information, that Tim Cain in one of his interviews told, that he likes dark gloomy kind of music and is a big fan of Aphex Twin. Some Fallout compositions are VERY similar to Aphex works… Is there any connection, Mr. Morgan? Or, maybe, you intend to say you don’t know neither Tim nor Aphex:) ?

Mark: When Interplay was thinking of using me for the game, they sent over some music that they liked and wanted me to do something similar as a demo. The CD they sent me had no titles or artists’ names, just a few pieces of unidentified music. I gave Interplay what they wanted and I think they must have used some of my demo in the final game. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with the work of Aphex Twin. To me, it was just my interpretation of what Interplay asked for.

G-OST: There’re rumors that you had only a couple of weeks to create music for Planescape: Torment. Is that so? Then we’re curious about Fallout soundtrack A what was the timeframe and when did you start working on the project? Was it the very beginning or later? We know’ you’r e tired and wanna leave this all already, but we have to continue, Mr. Morgan. The same questions for Fallout 2…

Mark: Yes, on all three games I began late in the process... “Planescape” was a quick turnaround as you suggest. I did it in about 2 weeks. I don’t know why, but the game was pretty much completed before they decided who was to do the music. On “Fallout” they had another composer to begin with, but for unknown reasons, Charles Deenen called me to work on it and it too was a fast turnaround. Composing time for “Fallout 2” was also truncated. I believe the game was essentially complete by the time I became involved and they were in a hurry to get it out.

G-OST: In the time working on the project were there any problems or restrictions? It’s a fact that back then games had limited space for music and we’re interested if all the compositions you made for the project been included in final version or something been left out? Have you had any other inspiration sources but the game itself?

Mark: I don’t know about the restrictions as far as file size but I believe most everything I wrote was used. Interplay was very specific about how long each piece of music should be and what music went where. Because of time restraints, there wasn’t really any time for rewrites or additional music. If I understand your second question, my inspiration comes from anything dark, not just the game.

G-OST: In your early projects (Netstorm, for example) was compositions which later been used in other projects, reshaped and rearranged, of course. It seems that Planescape: Torment main theme grown from Netstorm track fragment and Fallout’s “Follower’s Credo” is slightly reworked version of “Thunder” from the same Netstorm game. Why using all this tricks? Is that all because of tight time schedule or there’s another secret is laying underneath, Mr. Morgan?

Mark: I was doing a lot of television at the time, so part of it could have been scheduling since I wasn’t always available. Also, the producers liked certain pieces of my existing music they had been listening to as they were working on the game, so they asked if those could be rearranged or reworked.

G-OST: Some tracks have non-musical sounds implemented. Were this finished samples from different musical libraries or you created ‘em by your own hands somewhere out of the studio?

Mark: I would say a combination of the two. I was using a Synclavier when I did those games so I did a lot of blending with traditional sources, synthesis and resampling. Then I f*cked them up as much as I could in the processing stage until they sounded good to me. The challenge to me and the fun part, especially in the “Fallout” games, was to blend this kind of odd ethnic and industrial soundesign into something emotional and musical.

G-OST: Fallout soundtrack features processed guitar sound. Fallout’s 2 “Car” track touches deeply people hearts - is that you playing it? If so.. we shall consider your hands as a weapon, Mr. Morgan.

Mark: No, I did not play guitar on that particular track.

G-OST: Bethesda Softworks currently developing Fallout 3 keeps silence regarding main composer’s name. Atmosphere goes really hot around this. It’s even been rumors that Jeremy Soule is in charge, what caused hard civil commotion, but then he announced that he’s out of game. Most of people, including us (we can be fired saying this) believe that you’re ideal and only person to take over this position. Additionally, investigators found out that your profile at www.gsamusic.com contains Fallout 3 reference. It’s your chance to unbosom yourself - is that true or another misinformation created to conceal your life, Mr. Morgan?

Mark: Thanks for the kind words, I would love to do that game, but I have not been asked. I’m hopeful after doing the other two “Fallout” games and other projects over the years, I could take “Fallout 3” to another level musically. As far as the www.gsamusic site, it’s obviously a misprint.

G-OST: This profile contains evidence that you and Mark Snow (The X-Files composer) are both in charge of Special Unit 2 main theme. Was he really your accomplice? Have you ever worked in collaboration with some other composer? Is there any composers/performers you wanted or even dreamed to work together? Be sure - this all goes to your profile, Mr. Morgan.

Mark: Mark Snow asked If I wanted to collaborate on a main-title theme for a new show. I had been a fan of Mark’s work on X-Files, so of course I said yes. After the main-title was done, he asked if I wanted to do the underscore for the show. Again I said yes. Since then, we have worked on many shows together. As I said earlier, I worked with Snuffy Walden on lots of shows including the miniseries “The Stand” and recently with composer Sean Callery on a CBS show called “Shark”. As for other composers, I would love to collaborate with Clint Mansell, Paul Haslinger or James Newton Howard. As far as performers, it would be long time dream of mine to play with Peter Gabriel’s band and with David Sylvian. I would also love to write or perform with Lisa Gerrard. I really think she is incredible.

G-OST: Fallout 3 official site met the visitors with concept art and quite energetic symphonic track. It was almost shocking to hear this… ‘cause Fallout always associated with dark ambient and ethnic elements impregnation. How do you imagine Fallout 3 soundtrack? Haven’t you and Tim had an idea to make Fallout 1-2 music more symphonic?

Mark: Like I said earlier, I would take “Fallout 3” to a much more modern place, while honoring a lot of the elements of the earlier games. Maybe heavier, more ethnic, more rhythmic, it could be a hybrid with some orchestral elements. Just nothing traditional. As I recall, Tim and I never discussed anything orchestral. Now that you’ve brought this to my attention, it would be exciting to be involved with the new game.

G-OST: Fallout soundtrack is impossible to find. The same goes for Planescape: T orment. Giants: Citizen Kabuto is a little more widespread. We’re speaking of CD Audio, of course, not the .mp3 files. Have you ever thought of releasing this music officially? Y our music is a cult, you dominate people’s minds (have a look at Last FM statistics) and this idea could make you even more powerful, Mr. Morgan.

Mark: Vladislav has been asking me about this, but I can’t seem to locate many of the original tracks. The games were being written and formatted to the games in short timeframes, so I don’t know where some of the original masters went. I’m hoping they are in some of my older files, and I am definitely trying to locate them. I will let you know because I would like to make them available.

G-OST: Fallout 2 soundtrack never been released in high quality. All that can be found is a pure gamerip. Where did you bury the treasure? Is there any chance that this music ever will be released as an album or .wav files in the web? This music belongs to people and you keeping it locked away - are you that heartless, indeed, Mr. Morgan? Do you really want to see tears in our eyes…

Mark: Don’t cry lads, I really am searching for them, and again I would make it available.

G-OST: You’re going to launch your personal website. Will it have any new music samples of yours available for download?

Mark: I hope so.


Game-OST: Tell us about your studio and its hardware?

Mark: I just built a house in which my father, who is an architect, designed to include a studio. The interior layout was developed by well-known studio consultants, Studio Bauton. I always admired their work. They have very modern sensibility, which works with the style of the house, and they have an incredible knowledge of acoustic spaces. When the website is up, I’m planning on having photos of the studio there. As for equipment, my basic set-up is 2 Mac G5’s, Mackie Universal Pro control and 2 extenders as the control surface. I use a CME keyboard controller, Quested VS2108 speakers, Presonus central station for monitoring, Motu and Hammerfall cards for I/O.

Game-OST: There’s no any game projects in your profile for the past few years. Why is it so? Are you playing games after all or you prefer to spend your free time other way? Too busy with world domination, Mr. Morgan?

Mark: Over the last few years, I have taken a slight detour getting involved in television, but always with the hope I would return to games. Because of the television projects, I am looking at music from a new perspective and hopefully, that will make me a better game composer. Besides, I would rather manipulate than “dominate”.

Game-OST: Have you ever listened to works of other game composers and can you highlight any favorites of yours?

Mark: I am not familiar with any particular game composers, but I’m sure there are some great ones out there.

Game-OST: You definitely have plans for nearest future. What are they? Don’t you want to record a solo album? If you’re planning something of this kind you clearly understand that this would be a bomb and we have to know about such a weapon of mass destruction, Mr. Morgan.

Mark: I have been thinking very seriously of doing some sort of solo album, maybe including some collaborations. We’ll see what the future holds.

Game-OST: Great music is necessary part of any high-quality game for a long time already in game industry. Multimillion budgets, best symphonic orchestras from all over the world… What do you think of the game music industry future? Will there be a place for talented freelancers or symphonic “Hollywood-style” orchestrations will prevail? Are you strong in predictions, Mr. Morgan?

Mark: It seems to me that the game music industry is wide open and has an amazing future. I don’t do well at predictions, but as an observation, I hope there will room for both. It seems there will always be a place for the large orchestral score, but the more experimental scores seems to be the ones I gravitate toward. Having said that, I wish I would have been able to use a large orchestra on Planescape to create more texture and sonic mass.

Game-OST: Can you advise something to the amateur and beginner composers? Share the wisdom!

Mark: This is a tough one because there are no concrete answers. If you love it, do it. If it’s something you “have” to do, you will find the way. There is no one way to make it happen.

Game-OST: You now have a unique opportunity to say “Hello” to Ruskies - all the bearded men here with AK-74 in every hand, stunningly wonderful women, tamed KGB bears all sitting at Red Square among dozens of nuclear warheads and drinking vodka together under dense lay of snow :)

Mark: Amazing that you have such a good picture of how most Americans picture Russia and its inhabitants. As for me, I think it would be great to hang out with you guys, drink some vodka and talk music. Maybe we’ll be able to do that in the not too distant future. I really appreciate all the kind words and feel honored you asked me to do this interview.

Game-OST: That was quite a questioning, eh? Many thanks to you for your time and openness - you just made a lot of people a little more happy! This so called interrogation is over… may the force be with you, Mark :) And… Prevail, citizen!

A huge respect and diploma goes to Vladislav Isaev (Scann-Tec - www.myspace.com/scanntec) for his enormous efforts helping us making this interview.

Official Mark Morgan site: www.markmorganmusic.com

Recent news: Fallout Soundtrack as well as other Mark works will be published by Aural Network Industries (auralnetwork.com) label. Specially for this, all the tracks will be carefully remastered. In addition to this Mark is planning to compose his original solo album in close collaboration with Scann-Tec. Watch the news...