Hugi #38 — Up Close & Personal: Jeroen Tel of Maniacs of Noise (2014)

Magic of Nah-Kolor's interview with jeroen-tel for the diskmag Hugi, early 2014: biography, what rob-hubbard and martin-galway meant to him, his working methods in 2014, the state of maniacs-of-noise, and his live performances at X 2012 and Assembly 2012. The page opens with a Wikipedia biography and closes with five short testimonials from other C64 musicians, including charles-deenen.

Key claims#

• Biography (quoted from Wikipedia at the top of the page): Jeroen Godfried Tel, alias WAVE, born 1972-05-19 in Helmond, Netherlands; founding member of Maniacs of Noise with Charles Deenen, whom he met "at computer meetings in Venlo"; worked "several years at Funcom in Norway"; best-known C64 games: Combat Crazy, Cybernoid, Cybernoid II, Dan Dare 3, Eliminator, Hawkeye, Myth: History in the Making, Nighthunter, Robocop 3, Rubicon (title music), Supremacy.
• In his own words: "one of the first composers to write music specifically for video games. I wrote my first game soundtrack at the age of 14." Raised in a musical family (father piano, mother flute; godfather Guus Tel a music teacher and pianist); his father conducted a double-quartet choir in the house every Monday, singing medieval and contemporary music — "without that experience I would not have understood harmony, melody and arranging songs the way I do now". Named influences: Malicorne, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vivaldi, Tom Waits, Keith Jarrett.
• Work in 2014: 25 years of music for games, TV, commercials and short film, plus sound design; "music for fun" as stand-alone tracks; occasional DJ sets at game events "remixing old and new Commodore 64 SID, gameboy and other '8bit music' / 'Chiptunes'" (chiptune). Ideas come from YouTube, from tracks other MoN members send him (which become co-op tunes), and from "trying out things on piano or playing around with drums, beats, basslines, chords and melodies in a music program called Renoise". Only about 10 % of his music is released (Hugi's figure); he is "very perfectionistic" and would rather write new music than finish old.
• On Hubbard and Galway: Hubbard is "the Godfather of Commodore 64 music. From 1985 to 1987 I used to sit down and study his music. Making notes about his arrangements, techniques, melodies & sounds. I even hacked into Hubbard's routine to compose music in machine-code, since I didn't have my own music driver yet." Galway "is the guy who really used the Commodore 64 SID chip as a synthesizer" and could stretch "a single music theme over so many minutes of time without it getting boring". Hubbard emulated styles and mimicked real instruments — "bassguitar, electric guitar, drums, violin and piano" — and was "extremely catchy and very 'to the point'", Galway "more biased around atmosphere and sound".
• Best own track: Supremacy (C64), "because of its melodic content and its arrangement". What he likes in C64 music: "Funky basslines in combination with snappy drums, good chord progressions and playful, jazzy melodies" — done best, "and in bulk", by DRAX and Mitch & Dane.
• Scene: played X 2012 and Assembly 2012 (Helsinki, with VJ Julian van Aalderen alias The C-Men, "a huge beamer screen"); X 2014 "very likely"; joined Oxyron in November 2012 with no project started yet; praised Datastorm 2014; had "an option on the London Symphony Orchestra" to play Maniacs of Noise music via a Kickstarter.
• Maniacs of Noise in 2014: "about making music for fun", every member free to do what he wants, plus co-op tunes. Members besides Tel: Thomas Egeskov Petersen (Laxity, DK), Thomas Mogensen (DRAX, DK), Mick Rippon (Mickrip, AU), Jogeir Liljedahl (NO), Geir Tjelta (NO), Søren Lund (Jeff, DK), Rod Thacker (CA), Barry Leitch (USA). An all-star music disk "sounds like a great idea".
• Philosophy: "Be inspired and always keep working on improving your skills." On dubstep experiments: "It is often more about the sound and sound techniques used, than the chord progression or melody." He would like to be remembered for "composing extremely complex melodies, arrangements using extreme intervals without having to worry that those can't be played by real live musicians", and wants to score a full film.
• Testimonials: Wiklund of Fairlight (the Tel/Drax co-ops "work really great together"); Ben Daglish; Charles Deenen — "one of these rare genius combinations of creative and technical … perfect pitch ear … He'd literally write out a music piece in assembly with melodies, chords, bass, without sometimes even hitting play once, and it would sound great"; Magnar Harestad of Censor Design — That's the way it is / Scoop got him composing, "his way of using funky bass lines with lively leads and arpeggios", met at Back in Time Live 2008; Allister Brimble — "He showed the way forwards on the Commodore 64, bringing new life to the SID."

Practical takeaways#

• Study method of a master: two years of listening to Hubbard while taking notes on arrangement, technique, melody and sound, then composing inside a borrowed driver before writing your own (tracking-workflow).
• Tel's own description of the classic MoN sound — funky bassline, snappy drums, real chord progressions, jazzy playful melody — is a compact target for instrument-design and arrangement on the SID.
• Chip music's freedom: melodies "using extreme intervals" that no live player would be asked to play.

Notable quotes#

"I even hacked into Hubbard's routine to compose music in machine-code, since I didn't have my own music driver yet."

Charles Deenen: "He'd literally write out a music piece in assembly with melodies, chords, bass, without sometimes even hitting play once, and it would sound great."

Relevance to the wiki#

Biography and working method for the third of the great C64 game composers, the make-up of Maniacs of Noise in 2014, and a composer's comparison of the Hubbard and Galway "driver personalities" that Newman analysed.

Pages touched#

jeroen-tel · maniacs-of-noise · charles-deenen · rob-hubbard · martin-galway · sid · chiptune · tracking-workflow · instrument-design · arrangement · melody-writing