Hey.  We're supposed to be featuring an Akira Yamaoka interview on music4games.net to coincide with his appearance at PLAY! in Sydney, which will feature questions from fans.  Do you guys have any questions that you'd like Yamaoka-san to answer?  Your help would be appreciated!

Man, I would love to know if he has another solo album in the works. iFuturelist is one of my all-time favorite albums.

Also, what's up with Silent Hill Origins and SH5? Is Yamaoka on board for those? I've heard rumors that he was for SHO.

He's been confirmed as the composer for SHO in an interview with the producer. He composed 14 tracks for the game, four of which are vocals. I do wonder what he's been doing all this time. Since SH5 still seems to be in the conceptual stages (they still haven't even decided on a platform) maybe he's been working on another game or soundtrack?

It is great that Yamaoka is travelling around the world, so we get so many interviews! Here is a very long one from a press event in time for the Play concert in Stockholm some days ago.

http://monitor-media.com/index2.php

So, you can listen to this first and then if the questions you want to get answered aren't included, let the Sydney guys handle it! Also, I have personally an interview with Yamaoka to be published soon.

Finally.  I guess that fan interview we gave to him in June was too overwhelming, so we met up with him in person at E For All and were able to get some answers to our questions and a couple fan questions:

http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=182

He talks about how he thinks of pleasing his fans when he chooses what kind of music to write for Silent Hill.  That's pretty damn cool.

He didn't really answer the question if he'll do another solo album.

That rant about the lack of respect VGM gets is spot on though.

Yeah.... that happened a few times.  I think the translator was having some difficulty getting all that he was saying back into English.  Yamaoka would talk for like, five minutes, and the translator would give me a sentence or two for a response!

Maybe I should hand over the audio to somebody here to see if there are more nuggets buried in there.

Nice interview. A lot of it recounted what I already knew, but I was interested by his comments about the consequences of increased memory capacity for his compositions, how iFUTURELIST was intended for the fun factor, and 'closing the gap'.

I know that your space for questions was limited, but if you ever get a chance to interview him again, it'd be really cool if you ask about some of his lesser-known works. I don't remember him ever talking about Lightning Legend, Poy Poy, Kensei: Sacred Fist, Gradius III & IV additional tracks, Rumble Roses, Rumble Roses XX, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night arrangement, though some other interviews were interesting regarding Sparkster, Road Rage, Snatcher, and Winning Eleven.

Anyway, keep up the great work Jayson and Jeriaska.

Don't forget Jerry Boy!  (Smartball in the US)

So I guess nobody wanted to ask about the plans to release a SH Origins and/or SH5 OST. This interview was good and informative (worlds better than Dale North's), but I wish that question was asked.

Zane, given the history of the franchise, and Yamaoka's involvement as both producer and composer, I'm pretty sure we'll see soundtrack releases.  Sorry for not getting that answer!

Funny you mention Dale.  We're friends, and we actually interviewed Yamaoka-san together.  I asked my questions (30 minutes), he asked his (15 minutes), then I asked a few more afterwards because we had more time.  I took up the most of our hour, so maybe it's my fault that he didn't ask a lot of his questions (although he said he was done, it looked like he had a lot on his sheet).  Perhaps I stole his questions.

I sure hope so, man. Given that Yamaoka is a little more... how do I say this... confident than other composers, I have faith that the OSTs will be released. It would have been nice to have some concrete proof or more info, though.

That makes a lot more sense to me now. I saw Dale's interview on Destructoid and was really let down. I guess Dale's can be looked at as the "deleted scenes" from your interview.

Regarding Jerry Boy, he said at Spekmusik:

Q: Did you work for other game companies before joining Konami? There are rumours going around that you composed music for a game called Jerry Boy/Smartball. If so, can you tell us a little about that music?

A: Since it has been so long, I do not remember anymore... (laughs)

Link:

http://www.spelmusik.net/intervjuer/aki … a_eng.html

He definitely composed it so it's disappointing he dodged the question like this. Maybe it is a result of Konami's corporate policy, but he hasn't hesistated, for instance, to praise Resident Evil 4. Mysterious!

Well, i missed the boat for this interview. But if anyone else interviews him again sometime in the future(list), i would like to know if he went through some kind of scary personal crisis before/during his composing the first SILENT HILL soundtrack.

After All, there's no other game soundtrack i've heard before that's as starkly terrifying as that one, and scary experiences in real life can always make one's artform more genuine and believable.

Thank you for posting the interviews. It seems he still likes to be cryptic and cunning, but the best musicians and magicians never give away their secrets so easily!