I started the year discovering 1000xRESIST, and I’m about to end it by playing through Sunset Visitor’s debut game once again. This is a first for me—I rarely replay games—which says a lot about how deeply this title has left its mark on me. With the vinyl release approaching and the game now available in French, I reached out to Drew Redman, co-composer of the game’s soundtrack, to learn more about the creative process that drove this young team.
This interview serves as a mirror to the one I published last spring with Line Katcho, the other pair of hands behind the score.
The simplest question — or the hardest, depending on the guest: could you start by introducing yourself a bit? Where are you from, and how long have you been working as a professional composer?
Drew Redman : I'm Drew Redman, a Canadian composer originally from Prince Rupert, BC but now living in Vancouver. I've been working as a professional composer off-and-on for approximately 15 years. I spent the past five or six years in Victoria focusing on music education, teaching private lessons as well as teaching in public schools, however, that side of my career has recently taken a back-seat as I focus more again on composition, particularly for video games.
I think I read on your website that you mostly worked on short films before this? How did your first experience composing for a video game go? Were you familiar with the medium?
DR : My website is in dire need of an update haha, but yes, most of the work I've done previously has been for film. I had some prior familiarity writing for the medium as my masters degree partly focused on scoring for video games. I also participated in a game jam once. Much less work for us musicians there. I got a full night's sleep and everything, while all the devs pulled all-nighters! I've also been playing video games since I was a kid, starting with the SNES. And although I did technically work on one small game forever ago when I was fairly new to freelancing, 1000xRESIST definitely feels like the first. At any rate, it was a fantastic experience.
Did you play the game? What did you think of it?
DR : I played the game all the way through a couple times leading up to the release, partly to make sure all the music was working well but also just for the sake of playing through what I found to be a very compelling narrative. I also played through the build as the game was being developed. I was impressed with the game's visuals right away when I was first brought on. It wasn't long after that I started scoring Chapter 2, and this was when I realized 1000xRESIST was something special.
How did you first meet the people at Sunset Visitor? What did you know about the game at the beginning?
DR : I actually knew Remy (the creative director) from my days at Simon Fraser University. There were a few others working at Sunset Visitor at the time that I either knew or knew-of from SFU as well, but it was Remy that brought me on. I have a terrible memory for these kinds of specific details, but I do remember Remy giving me a general idea of the game and showing me what they had made at that time, such as the Orchard, but it was still very early in development when I was brought on.
1000xRESIST is a fascinating game, and it’s quite rare for an indie title to rely on a duo of composers for its music. How did you and Line Katcho divide the work?
DR : Remy was the one that actually divided the work. I was not really involved in that process so I can only speculate as to how he made those decisions. I assume our distinct styles would have been a factor. Remy's a talented composer in his own right, so it's to be expected that he would have a good musical sense for who's style fit a given part of the game best. But again, that's only speculation on my part. Also, I love the music Line wrote for the game. Hopefully in the future we'll get the chance to collaborate on some tunes more directly. That would be fun!
You mainly handled the tracks set in the present, within the Orchard. How was the game’s setting introduced to you, and how were the scenes you had to score presented?
DR : It varied. Sometimes I was able to play through the part of the game I would be scoring, while other times I was working only from briefing notes highlighting affect, timbre, energy, or some other clear direction. Even when there was a very specific thing being asked of me I was always given a lot of artistic freedom within those bounds.
The very first track I wrote for the game was "The Orchard -In New Light-". I was told that I would have to score a number of orchard variations, each with their own vibe and/or timbral identity, and on the list included something leaning towards melancholy and another that was on the brighter side. Within those bounds I had free reign to explore. Melancholy's more in my wheelhouse so I started with that one.
I would just run around the Orchard for a bit, hone in on how the space felt, and then scoot over to the piano to improvise. In this case the Orchard itself was a primary influence on the direction of the music. Once I had a rough draft I wanted to create the brighter variation right away as a sort of proof of concept - to make sure the melody translated well to this new vibe without sounding forced, and to make sure the new vibe also felt at home within the Orchard space. This variation became "The Orchard -At Peace-".
Your compositions are primarily built around the piano. It’s funny, because replaying the game now, we learn quite early on that Iris hates that instrument, which she finds “ugly” and “rigid.” Was that just a coincidence, or a particularly subtle narrative device?
DR : It was very deliberate. One of the first things I worked on, after I had composed two drafts for the Orchard, was Chapter 2. Remy had a clear musical vision for this chapter - close mic'd intimate piano, often fragmented, sentimental/nostalgic. If I remember correctly, when Iris is describing her dislike for the piano (I think in Chapter 1?) she includes a story hinting at her complicated relationship with her parents, and this is more musically explored within the second chapter. Much of the music going forward in the game is very pianistic as well which is partly due to the piano being my primary instrument, but also because the musical themes written in Chapter 2 were very foundational for much of the music I wrote throughout the game.
1000xRESIST is rarely silent. In fact, the music is almost always present — and players can sometimes spend dozens of minutes wandering through the levels. How did you make sure people wouldn’t grow tired of your music? I imagine you knew the tracks would be looping?
DR : Yes I knew most of the music I'd be writing would be looped in some way. It's much easier to have an idea of how the music will be implemented before starting the composing process, but even still getting something to loop isn't too difficult. As you point out the challenge is writing music that can be listened to on loop for an indeterminate and potentially lengthy amount of time.
The most iconic pieces of game music achieve this, and this repetition is part of the reason those pieces are so beloved. Three hours would make for a fairly long film but for a video game three hours of play time would be on the shorter side, and I would bet most gamers could point to at least one game that they've spent hundreds of hours playing and subsequently listening to the music of that game on loop. I know I can.
Spending that much time with the same music over and over will either create super fans or have folks racing for the mute button. That's all to say that yes, you're absolutely right - it's pretty important that the music isn't annoying haha. Part of being a musician is listening/practicing to the same music, or parts of music, repeatedly. The composition process alone has me listening to my own music countless times before a first draft is even finished, so I'm pretty used to listening to tracks on loop. If I ever grow tired of it during the process and I have the luxury of time, I'll just step away from it, work on something else for a bit, and come back to it with fresh ears.
The Sunset Visitor team also helped test the music to make sure they didn't tire of it. As I understand it, part of the development process involved the team writing/working while playing the game's music on loop, or even playing the music over headphones for the voice actors during recording. So often, at least within film, the music comes towards the end of the process. It's refreshing to have this more holistic approach where we're all influencing each other's work on the project as it's being developed, and I suspect working in this way gave 1000xRESIST a greater cohesiveness than it otherwise might have had.
Coincidentally, I'm actually listening to a work-in-progress on loop as I write this, and so far it's not annoying!!
Which track on the album are you the most proud of? And on the other hand, which one can you no longer listen to, or would you approach differently today?
DR : I keep coming back to a few, like "Principal" and "Urgency". There's no track that I can no longer listen to, but I suppose time will tell. There are for sure a choices I made with some that I would do differently, but nothing major enough for me to point to a single track. In order to finish something you kind of have to say "welp, good enough!" and move on, so to varying degrees I could probably point to little things I would do differently in all of them. This sounds like a cop-out answer, but it's the best I got, I swear!
You published the sheet music for your tracks on Bandcamp. That’s extremely rare in video game music! Was that your own decision, or something the community asked for?
DR : Before the release we had talked about how cool it would be if there was enough interest in the OST to justify making piano music. Not only is there a lot of pianistic music in the game, but a good chunk of it is fairly simple. A lot of video game music arranged for piano can be quite technically challenging, or simplified in such a way that makes it sound less like the real song, so I thought it was kind of cool that if we had the opportunity to publish sheet music there would be a lot of music for more beginner to intermediate levels as well.
After the release there seemed to be a hint of community interest so we tested the waters a bit with "A Teardrop" and collaborated with YouTuber purpleschala - a pianist with a YouTube channel focused on playing piano arrangements of game music - who performed it along with an incredible arrangement she did of the piece on her channel. I highly recommend checking it out, purpleschala crushed it!
There have also been a handful of folks posting videos of them playing some of the music from the game which is wild to me. So cool to see people engaging with the OST in this way, and I hope to see more in the future.
By the way, the game’s soundtrack is still among the most popular OSTs on Bandcamp. Did you expect such enthusiasm?
DR : I think as artists we always try to do our best work, but the trick is finding your audience. So no, I didn't expect this level of enthusiasm at all, but I also believed in the work we did. Thankfully we've been fortunate enough to have found our audience, and that audience seems to be growing!
The 1000xRESIST soundtrack is about to be released on vinyl. Congratulations! How does that feel?
DR : It's really exciting (this statement is in allcaps internally, but I'm keeping my cool here lol). It's a first for me and definitely feels like a huge career milestone. One of those surreal moments I still can't quite believe is happening. I'm probably more eager to get my hands on a copy than any of the fans are!
On that note, the game’s soundtrack still isn’t available on streaming platforms. Was that intentional?
DR : We're just focusing on Steam and Bandcamp at this time.
I’m curious to know what you listen to. What’s inspiring you at the moment?
DR : Considering all the soft piano music I wrote for the game it may come as a surprise to some that I mostly listen to heavier music, generally electronic but sometimes metal and rap. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Copycatt, Skeler, Ivy Lab, Nitepunk and Sorza. And I recently went to a Wu-Tang/Run the Jewels concert which was killer. Amon Tobin (and his other various artistic aliases) is always in the mix too. And not that you asked, but my favourite video game score of all time is Amon Tobin's "Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory" OST. Am I allowed to answer questions you didn't even ask me? Am I breaking interview law? Straight to jail haha
Will we have the pleasure of hearing your work again soon? Are there any projects you can talk about?
DR : I'm now working full time for Sunset Visitor, so yes, but I can't talk about anything there. Although we just released an EP earlier this month of a new "Fixer's Song [dark mode]" rework that I wrote (again, original song by Alex Mah). Outside of games I'm working on some concert band music for high school band. I figure writing music for band might be a way for me to keep one foot in education while I focus more on my composition career, and hopefully in the future be able to find a balance between composing and teaching.
