{"id":94957,"date":"2019-06-12T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/06\/grant_kirkhope_explains_how_he_got_to_compose_banjo-kazooie_music_for_smash_bros_ultimate"},"modified":"2019-06-12T01:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T01:30:00","slug":"grant-kirkhope-explains-how-he-got-to-compose-banjo-kazooie-music-for-smash-bros-ultimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/06\/12\/grant-kirkhope-explains-how-he-got-to-compose-banjo-kazooie-music-for-smash-bros-ultimate\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant Kirkhope Explains How He Got To Compose Banjo-Kazooie Music For Smash Bros. Ultimate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/b8b9fd7303fb0\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/b8b9fd7303fb0\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<figure class=\"picture strip\"><a title=\"Banjo-Kazooie\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/b8b9fd7303fb0\/banjo-kazooie.original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/b8b9fd7303fb0\/banjo-kazooie.900x.jpg\" alt=\"Banjo-Kazooie\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>Not long after <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/n64\/banjo_kazooie\">Banjo-Kazooie<\/a><\/strong> was revealed for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/super_smash_bros_ultimate\"><strong>Super Smash Bros. Ultimate<\/strong><\/a> during Nintendo&#8217;s E3 2019 Direct presentation, VGC reached out to the composer, Grant Kirkhope, to hear his side of the story and find out what it was like create music for Nintendo&#8217;s all-star fighting game.<\/p>\n<p>It all started at the beginning of this year when Ubisoft&#8217;s <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/mario_plus_rabbids_kingdom_battle\">Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle<\/a><\/strong> creative director Davide Soliani reached out to the former Rare composer and told him Nintendo wanted his contact information.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;In about January this year I received a message from Davide Soliani, the creative director on Mario Rabbids, who said Nintendo were asking for my contact information&#8230;He said, \u2018can I pass it on to them?\u2019 and I was like, \u2018too f***ing right!\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Not long after this, Kirkhope got an email from Nintendo asking for his help and saying how they loved what he did with the Princess Peach theme in Mario + Rabbids.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, Grant was confused about what was going on, though he did have an inkling it could be tied to Banjo in Smash. At the time, he thought otherwise as Nintendo <em>always<\/em> use their own composers to remix tunes:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cSo my brain was going mad trying to work out what it could be. I did quickly wonder if it could be Banjo in Smash Bros., but then I thought it couldn\u2019t be that because they always use their own Japanese composers to remix the tunes for that game. They never get the actual composers: even David Wise didn\u2019t get to do his Donkey Kong stuff for K Rool, which I didn\u2019t understand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He even thought it might have been for Rabbid Peach as a playable character in Smash, or something along those lines.<\/p>\n<p>After a month&#8217;s wait, Kirkhope found out Banjo-Kazooie would be added as a DLC fighter in Smash Ultimate and from then onwards it was a matter working out what songs he would use to represent the character. In the end, the iconic Spiral Mountain track was selected:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I went through a few different ideas like Mad Monster Mansion, Freezeezy Peak or Treasure Trove Cove, but eventually settled on Spiral Mountain. I thought that would be the most recognisable of all of them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Grant was rather happy with his decision when he found out Spiral Mountain would actually be the level included in Smash but was also wondering why Nintendo didn&#8217;t tell him this to begin with:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t actually know the Banjo stage in the game was Spiral Mountain, so it was pretty handy when I found out I\u2019d accidentally matched the tune with the stage. Maybe they should\u2019ve told me at the start!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>On top of this, Nintendo asked him to include various references to other Banjo-Kazooie levels. Fans will just have to listen closely if they want to work out each melody:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I put in bits of melody from other [Banjo-Kazooie] tunes. It\u2019s up to the fans to spot them!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Are you glad to hear the one and only Grant Kirkhope has been able to supply the music for Banjo-Kazooie and the character&#8217;s level in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? Are you excited in general for the return of the bear and bird? Tell us down in the comments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not long after Banjo-Kazooie was revealed for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate during Nintendo&#8217;s E3 2019 Direct presentation, VGC reached out to the composer, Grant Kirkhope, to hear his side of the story and find out what it was like create music for Nintendo&#8217;s all-star fighting game. It all started at the beginning of this year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}