IMR interview — Jeroen Tel (1996)

The scene-questionnaire Tel: aliases, group chronology and his own theory of why his music mattered. Settles his birthplace: "I was born on the 19th of May 1972 in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. I have lived in Helmond (also NL) for the biggest part of my life."

Key claims#

• Aliases: "JT was made up by people in the scene"; WAVE — "brainWAVEs & WAVEforms (actually a whole piece of music is just one long by a composer organized WAVEform (2 when the music is in stereo))"; real name used in game credits.
• First computer: a Sinclair "ZX80 (I believe that's what it was called)" at ten, 1 KB — "I beeped some 1-channel melodies on it."
• Group chronology, with ages: joined the scene at 12; HCS (Helmond Cracking Service) at 12 → THE ARTWORKS (HCS + MADNESS joint venture) at 13 → SCOOP DESIGNS at 14 — "This year is the 10th aniversary" (so he joined 1986, and Scoop was "alive and kicking even today with a lot of members") — and "In thesame year I joined SCOOP DESIGNS I started MANIACS OF NOISE together with Charles Deenen (TMC from SCOOP DESIGNS). MANIACS OF NOISE is now actually still my company!" Joined Focus ("the guys from Dutch Breeze") around June 1995.
• Proudest moment: "the feeling I had when everybody was playing the CYBERNOID title in their intros when I arrived at a party in Venlo (NL) will not easily be beaten" (cybernoid).
• His own theory of his impact: "I came up with a totally new approach toward c64 music, in the beginning mainly in the usage and creation of the sounds. I think I brought some kind of SONG feeling to the c64-music, since I always made up melodies with lyrics in my head, which gave the melodies a non-instrumental touch. After that some people literally copied the style (example 20CC) or were inspired by it to create their own style with it (example DRAX)."
• Composer top 5: Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Tim Follin, Johannes Bjerregaard, Ben Daglish and Fred Gray (both listed 5th); "from a much later stage: Drax and Laxity". Best tracks: Monty on the Run, Bionic Commando, Rambo, Hades Nebula.
• 1996 present: MoN a full-time freelance company (composer/engineer/producer/SFX); co-founding "Witan Entertainment"; the "Noise of Maniacs" demo of unreleased 1988–1995 music still promised; and a planned 3-CD studio album of the most popular C64 game tracks, already agreed with Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Tim Follin, to include original SIDs plus "a CD-rom-track containing SIDPLAY plus the original SID-music" and an internet voting page, "supervised by the original composers" (hvsc-era preservation spirit).
• Favourite demo: Focus's Dutch Breeze; favourite programmers Mark Kelly, Nick Jones, Mario van Zeist, PSI; events: the monthly Venlo meetings, PCW shows, the Commodore Show 1987.

Notable quotes#

"I always made up melodies with lyrics in my head, which gave the melodies a non-instrumental touch."

Relevance to the wiki#

Resolves the Eindhoven-vs-Helmond contradiction on jeroen-tel (born Eindhoven, raised Helmond — VGMPF and Hugi were each half right), dates his Scoop Designs entry and MoN's founding to 1986 in his own count, and gives melody-writing a first-person C64 principle (melodies with imagined lyrics).

Pages touched#

jeroen-tel · scoop-designs · maniacs-of-noise · charles-deenen · cybernoid · melody-writing · johannes-bjerregaard