World of Warcraft Music Interview

[GameBanshee News]

WoW Guru has conducted an interview with Jason Hayes, the man behind the World of Warcraft in-game music and cinematic intro, as well as the music in the Warcraft III cinematics. Here's a taste:

Q: How did you get involved with Blizzard, any anecdotes?

A: Jason Hayes: In 1998, I attended "The Game Developers' Conference" (http://www.gdconf.com). It happens once a year in San Jose, and it is a great place to meet people from many companies and try to find work. At that time, I had been working as a composer for Sierra On-Line, and my good friend (and fellow composer) Victor Crews talked me into going with him. When I went, I brought a portable CD player, and made anybody who would listen put on the headphones and check out my music One of the people I met was Matt Householder, who was working at the Blizzard booth. He was too busy to listen to anything when I walked up to him, but he told me that if I wanted to stop by in the evening before the hall closed, I could play him something then. I’m sure he was just trying to be polite, but when 5 o’clock rolled around I headed back to the booth and put the headphones on him! He was very good about the whole thing, and spent a few minutes with me before leaving.

I don’t really know if that had anything to do with my getting the job at Blizzard, but when I contacted Glenn Stafford separately after getting back from the conference, he was nice enough to talk to me. Glenn and I really hit it off, and we remain very good friends to this day. He’s super-talented and very funny, and it’s been an honor to work with him and the other great people in the Sound Department at Blizzard.