LARRY: Thanks, SFD. It's only fitting for us to interview with Street Fighter Devotion! "Devotion" doesn't begin to cover us. Of course, Shael dreamt up OC ReMix's Blood on the Asphalt album honoring the Super Turbo soundtrack, which is how we ended up here today. And way back, Dave's mom let him cut school so he could play Street Fighter Alpha the day it was released for the PlayStation. Personally, I've been a fan of Street Fighter since The World Warrior came out in the arcades, and Street Fighter's been my favorite game series since then. From World Warrior to Alpha to 3rd Strike, even to MvC 2 and CvS 1 & 2, for me it's literally the franchise that turned video game music from a casual interest into an occupation. So, to be where we are today with OverClocked ReMix working on the HD Remix soundtrack, it's extremely gratifying. It's a huge legacy.

SFD: Can you tell us a bit about your involvement with OverClocked ReMix and the album Blood on the Asphalt?

SHAEL: OverClocked ReMix, in little increments over the course of several years, gave me the resources I needed to develop a foundation as an electronic songwriter. I was super-big into it, checking the site every week for updates from 2000 to 2002, and then multiple times a day once the forum was implemented in 2002, until mid-2006. It's an extraordinary phenomenon, this musical community that developed essentially in a void, and devised its own rigorous, complex set of standards and practices, largely without being informed by the music industry or other music scenes. In the beginning, it had unprecedented accessibility, egalitarianism, and meritoriousness for a music scene; it was this groundbreaking social construction that brought people together who had an idea I'd thought was unique to myself for years: video game music, written for old sound chips, would sound awesome if re-created with new technology. And it brought them together not just to share their musical arrangements, but to critique one another's. When the forums were implemented, it suddenly became this place to learn and share musical techniques that had probably been devised in isolation, since most remixers had little access to other electronic musicians in meatspace, and weren't part of other musical communities, at least not back in the day. Anyway, I was big into listening and critiquing and trying to learn to do it better for a long time; I was big into the OverClocked community. I still check the site regularly, though I'm more interested in writing vocal pop music right now.

Blood on the Asphalt:
A Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo ReMix Collaboration

SFD: How did the collaboration begin with Capcom to use these tunes for the new Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix game?

SHAEL: So, Blood on the Asphalt was released in 2006, and then in 2007 I got an email from Rey Jimenez, an associate producer at Capcom, with “Blood on the Asphalt” in the subject field. He started the email with "Don't worry. This isn't a cease and desist," and went on to explain that Capcom enjoyed the album, and had been playing it in their booths at trade shows. Working under the assumption that Malcos (Stephen Malcom-Howell), who helped me direct the album, and I had done all of the music ourselves, Rey asked if we'd be willing to let them use it in HD Remix, and if we'd be willing to make some modifications in instances where they thought a track needed to be changed. I explained that I'd be happy to let them use to tracks I'd personally done, but that those tracks comprised only a small portion of the album, and that I'd need to get in touch the other 20-or-so people involved to get their permission. Problematically, though, I wasn't supposed to make knowledge of my and their potential involvement in the project public. That's when I emailed Dave; if anyone could get OC ReMixers to modify their tracks or supply their old project data without even so much as an explanation, it was him. Additionally, I felt OC ReMix was due to be credited as an entity; I directed Blood on the Asphalt, but its ownership lay with the community, and if OCR was going to be officially involved, Dave's oversight would be required.

DJP: Shael "did the right thing" and emailed me so we could involve the OC ReMix community. Initially, I actually thought the whole thing might be a prank or something, so we agreed to conference call Rey and see if we could find out more. I remember finding out about the whole thing at work in Washington, D.C. I work in a building with crappy reception, so I went upstairs, through two sets of metal detectors and armed guards, and out onto the street, just for better reception. It was immediately clear talking with Rey that this was the real deal, and we agreed on a course of action that involved my acting as a gateway for Capcom's communication/feedback for artists, with Shael, Stephen, and Larry directly involved in coordination and planning. It was really hard to go back to work after that phone call and sit down and continue as if nothing had changed... I got started with sending emails the same night as soon as I got home, and we got the ball rolling.

José the Bronx Rican (José E. Felix) listens to his HD Remix music
at Capcom's Street Fighter Club Brooklyn event

SHAEL: There were a number of instances in which Capcom asked us to ditch a track from Blood on the Asphalt and start from scratch, and a few instances in which a track needed for the game wasn't represented in Blood on the Asphalt at all, so yes. We ended up doing entirely new tracks for all of the endings and menu themes, and new stage music for Akuma, Guile, Blanka, Chun-Li, Ryu, E. Honda and Zangief. I actually did the new Zangief's stage theme myself, with my band The Grammar Club. That was a lot of fun.

DJP: We presented not only Asphalt, but all the other non-Asphalt mixes on OCR, to Capcom, and while that covered most of what they wanted, there were some exceptions as Shael mentioned. It wasn't necessarily because we didn't already have some great stuff, mind you - I personally love the Asphalt version of Blanka, in particular - but in some cases Capcom wanted new material simply because they had a different idea about what would work in-game vs. as a standalone arrangement.

SFD: What was it like working with Capcom?

DJP: Pretty rad - Rey was very good about communicating their feedback, and we actually used Google Docs to track the project progress. If there was one downside, it's that we didn't get any sort of exclusive beta access or anything like that, so artists didn't really know what their tracks would sound like in-game - we had to rely on Capcom to tell us. But now that the game's out, and I can hear everything in context, I think they made a number of really good calls; everything sits just right and flows pretty smooth. In some cases their feedback was specific - turn the volume down on a specific instrument, speed the tempo up a bit, etc., but in other instances it was more challenging to interpret what they were asking for. We erred on the side of presenting multiple options, so they could just pick the option they liked best, which was an effective approach. This game had a pretty long development cycle, so there weren't too many "crunch time" moments when we had to scramble to meet a deadline. Overall, if I had to pick a single adjective to describe the process, I'd say it was smooth - they knew what they wanted, we worked with them to deliver it, there wasn't any drama, and I think the end result does the community proud.

SHAEL: Dave's outlined the process very well. Unlike him, though, I did get to play the beta, in a limited capacity. Since I live in Brooklyn, I was invited by Capcom to attend the HD Remix/Street Fighter IV premiere event in New York City with José the Bronx Rican (José E. Felix), who did Vega and Dee Jay's stage themes and most of the ending music. So, in early October, I got my hands on an almost-finished build. José brought noise-canceling headphones to check out the music in-game--should have thought of that myself!--and was good enough to let me take a listen. So we were the weirdos at the party, with our headphones plugged into the TVs, checking out each piece of music's fit in the game.

Not really relevant to the question, but I feel like Guile's roundhouse Flash Kick has been toned down a little bit since that build. It seemed like it could out-prioritize almost anything at the event. Or maybe that's just the initial shock of its suddenly becoming viable coloring my perception.

LARRY: That's why I always get jealous of the New York and L.A. peeps. In Atlanta, we don't get Street Fighter Club events! The best thing for me has been seeing Capcom's response to our work being so positive. During the last three to four years, we've dramatically upped the quality in OC ReMixes freely available on our site and we knew the depth and breadth of talent that we have to pull from, but, as Dave mentioned, Capcom's decision to tap into our community's talent gave us much greater industry recognition than we've ever received before. Seth Killian and the Capcom Unity crew were awesome getting the news out to the fans once it went public that we were creating the soundtrack. During the open beta testing, Capcom's VP of Strategic Planning & Business Development, Christian Svensson, dubbed the soundtrack "impactful" on the Unity boards, which was great praise coming from the top of the company. Rey also put us over very strongly in his comments for the soundtrack release. When he says he's hoping to work with us in the future, we can't help but feel satisfied. It's one thing to be given a dream opportunity, it's another to take the ball and run with it the way our guys did.