Jeremy Soule | |
|---|---|
 Soule in 2010 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1975-12-19)December 19, 1975 (age 49) Keokuk, Iowa, U.S. |
| Genres |
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| Occupations |
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| Instrument | Piano |
| Years active | 1994–2019 |
| Labels | DirectSong (2005–19) Materia Collective (2017–19) |
Jeremy Soule (/soʊl/SOHL; born December 19, 1975) is an American composer of soundtracks for film, television, and video games. He has composed soundtracks for over 60 games and over a dozen other works during his career, includingThe Elder Scrolls,Guild Wars,Total Annihilation, and theHarry Potter series.
He became an employee ofSquare in 1994 after several years of private composition studies. After finishing the soundtrack toSecret of Evermore in 1995, he left to joinHumongous Entertainment, where he composed for several children's games as well asTotal Annihilation, his first award-winning score. In 2000, he left to form his own music production company, Soule Media, later called Artistry Entertainment. In 2005, he founded DirectSong, a record label that published digital versions of his soundtracks as well as those of classical composers. DirectSong remained active until 2019.[1]
Soule's works have been played in several live concerts such as theSymphonic Game Music Concert in Germany and the internationalPlay! A Video Game Symphony concert series. While many of his works areorchestral, he considers himself someone who creates more than just one type of music. Several of Soule's soundtracks were created with the help of his brother,Julian Soule.
Soule was born in 1975 inKeokuk, Iowa to a public school music teacher father and a graphic designer mother. He became interested in music and symphony orchestras at the age of five.[2][3][4] Soule began taking piano lessons at an early age and became entranced with music, even writing music notation in the margins of his math homework; after his teachers and his father realized his talent, he began taking private lessons with professors fromWestern Illinois University when he was in sixth grade.[5][6] He claims to have earned the equivalent of a master's degree incomposition before completing high school; however, as he never enrolled in the school, he did not earn a degree.[5] He was split between trying to become a concert pianist and a composer when he grew up; he ended up deciding to become a composer once he realized how difficult it would be to do both.[3]
While playing video games as a child, Soule came to believe that the experience they created could be greatly enhanced by having a better musical score.[3] After completing high school, he took a year to create a portfolio showcasing what he felt video game scores should sound like. Soule sent the tape toLucasArts andSquare. Square very much appreciated the portfolio; he does not believe that LucasArts ever listened to his tapes as they had a "no unsolicited package" policy.[5] Soule began working at Square inSeattle only two weeks after first submitting his demo tapes.[3]
Soule was promptly given the task bySquare to scoreSecret of Evermore. The finished game features an untraditional score incorporating ambient background sounds (like wind blowing and ocean waves) into the music and using a more mellow orchestral sound.[5] Part of the reason for this was that the sound program used inEvermore was not up to the technical challenge of what Soule wanted to do with it, forcing him to work creatively within his limitations.[7] WhenRon Gilbert of LucasArts left to form his own company,Humongous Entertainment, and Square moved from Seattle to Los Angeles, Soule quit Square to score Gilbert's children's adventure game series,Putt-Putt; he was the company's third employee.[8] Soule composed the soundtracks to several children's games over the next three years, including games in thePutt-Putt,Pajama Sam, andFreddi Fish series.[9]
While working at Humongous, Soule met fellow employee and video game designerChris Taylor, and signed on to compose the soundtrack to his major project,Total Annihilation. Soule convinced Taylor that, given the large number of otherreal-time strategy games coming out at the same time asTotal Annihilation withtechno scores, that to separate themselves they needed to do a large orchestral score. He went so far as to bet a year's worth of reduced pay that it would pay off; Gilbert felt that it did after the first sentence of the first review of the game he read was about the music.[7][5] Given the software limitations at the time, to make the sound work correctly required a full live orchestra, the first that Soule had ever worked with; the orchestral tracks inEvermore had been performed by Soule and his brother by themselves, two instruments at a time.[7] The soundtrack earned Soule his first award, that of "Best Music" of 1997 fromGameSpot in their year-end awards.[10] Soule spent the next two years composing music for the game's two expansion packs and for children's games.[2]
In February 2000, Jeremy and his brother, Julian, formed Soule Media as an independent music production company; its name has since been changed to Artistry Entertainment.[11] Julian works as a sound engineer and composer for the company, and has assisted Jeremy in several projects throughout his career, both credited and uncredited.[7][3] The first large project that Jeremy Soule worked on through the company was 2000'sIcewind Dale, which won the best music of the year award from bothIGN andGameSpot.[12][13]
In 2001, Soule scored the first of fiveHarry Potter games that he would work on between then and 2005. His first game,Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, was nominated for anAcademy of Interactive Arts & Sciences award for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition, whileChamber of Secrets andPrisoner of Azkaban won and were nominated, respectively, for aBritish Academy of Film & Television Arts award for Best Score in the Game Music Category.[14][15][16] The other games he composed for that year includeBaldur's Gate: Dark Alliance andAzurik: Rise of Perathia, which he later described as a bad game lifted up in the eyes of testers and reviewers by good music.[17] He was responsible for composing the soundtracks to three top-selling role-playing games in 2002, those ofDungeon Siege,The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, andNeverwinter Nights;Morrowind earned him his second Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences award nomination.[18]
Soule was in a major car accident in the mid 2000s, during which he had a momentary realisation that life is precious. In interview, he described a vision of "Native American warriors" that he saw during the crash. The highway patrolman who arrived at the scene also invited him to meet a chief of the nearbyLummi Nation reservation who composed music. Soule stated that the experience provided inspiration during his subsequent compositions.[19]
Artistry Entertainment scored a string of highly successful games through the remainder of the decade, including theGuild Wars series,Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic,Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, andThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.[2]Oblivion was an award-winning soundtrack by Soule. It was nominated for the 2006 British Academy of Film & Television Arts and Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awards, and won theMTV Video Music Awards andOfficial Xbox Magazine soundtrack awards.[20][21][22][23] Soule also worked on another of Chris Taylor's real-time strategy titles in 2007, with the launch ofSupreme Commander.[2]
In 2005, Jeremy and Julian Soule founded DirectSong, a company which soldDRM-free downloads of compositions as well as works by dozens of classical composers. By 2007 the company had grown to over one million registered customers, though Soule noted that not all of those customers resulted in a sale of a non-free product.[7] Soule says that the traffic numbers for DirectSong had surpassed some major record labels at times.[17] Soule also used DirectSong to sell "expansion packs" of music for games such asGuild Wars that could be played in game like the rest of the soundtrack. He estimates that at least 10% of the players ofGuild Wars bought his musical expansion for the game,Battle Pak 1. DirectSong struggled to fulfill orders or provide timely support, resulting in an "F" rating by theBetter Business Bureau.[24]
Soule worked on several major titles in the early 2010s, includingThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim andGuild Wars 2. TheSkyrim soundtrack in particular is among Soule's most critically acclaimed pieces of work, receiving a BAFTA nomination as well as numerous other awards from organizations such as theGame Audio Network Guild.[25] Soule would also go on to compose the music for two of the official DLC packs for the game,Dragonborn andDawnguard, both released in 2012. TheGuild Wars 2 soundtrack was released a four-disc box set collection and well received.[26] Soule was replaced as lead composer on the project later that year, with subsequent releases (such as expansions) being composed byMaclaine Diemer.[27]
In March 2013, Soule launched aKickstarter project to fund a classical music album calledThe Northerner: Soule Symphony No. 1, seeking $10,000 for the album.[28] The campaign ultimately raised a total of $121,227.[29] The project features vocals inOld Norse, with Soule citing the successful use of the similarIcelandic language byMalukah in one of her own projects during development.[30] For the project, Soule indicated that his company were developing new audio technology.[31] Soule began accepting refunds for the unreleased symphony in 2016.[32][33] An album of sketches was ultimately released in 2017, though not the full symphony. As of 2024, the project has not been released.
In 2014, Soule also signed an MMO exclusivity deal withSony Online Entertainment, to compose music forEverQuest Next andLandmark.[34]EverQuest Next was canceled in March 2016;Landmark was released but shut down in February 2017, less than a year after launch.[35] In 2015, Soule composed aDota 2 music pack, along with his brother Julian. The soundtrack was available as part of theCompendium, a pack of digitally-distributed content that funded the prize pool forThe International 2015 tournament, which took place in August 2015 and ultimately featured the largest prize-pool in e-sports history at the time, with over $18,000,000 in total.[36] In the following few years he primarily worked on indie titles.[37]
In 2014, Julian and Jeremy Soule co-founded an audio company named Virtual Sonics. The company entered into a joint venture withRoland Corporation in 2016, with Soule appointed co-director. Virtual Sonics produced digital instrumentation forRoland Cloud, which launched in 2018.[38]Legendary Pictures co-founder Scott Mednick was an early investor in Virtual Sonics, but withdrew in August 2019 via a stock buyout. A dispute over the terms of the purchase ultimately led to a lawsuit between Mednick and Soule in 2022, which was resolved in favor of Soule.[39][40][41]
In August 2019, Soule was accused of rape by game designerNathalie Lawhead.[42][43][44][45] He was also accused of sexual harassment by vocalist Aeralie Brighton.[46][47][48] He denied the accusations.[46] Materia Collective ended their work with Soule on his symphonyThe Northerner in response, and Soule's official social media pages were taken down.[49][50][51] Soule's music distribution platform DirectSong, and hisBandcamp page were also seemingly taken offline around this time.[1] A 2022 article inJournal of Sound and Music in Games analyzed the accusations in the wider context of the#MeToo movement and sexism in the games industry, commenting simply that "not much has been heard of Soule since".[52] No formal charges were filed in connection with the allegations, and the statute of limitations for civil proceedings has since expired.[53]
Soule's music has been played in several live concerts. His music fromHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was performed on August 20, 2003, at the firstSymphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany, and his music fromMorrowind was performed at the thirdSymphonic Game Music Concert on August 17, 2005.[54] Selections of his pieces fromMorrowind andOblivion are played in the international concert seriesPlay! A Video Game Symphony. Jeremy Soule attended the world-premiere of Play! on May 27, 2006 in Chicago.[55] Music fromOblivion has also been played at thePress Start 2007 -Symphony of Games- concerts in September 2007 in Japan.[56] The first live orchestral concert dedicated to Soule's music for "Skyrim" took place on November 16, 2016 at London's Palladium theater.[57]
Soule's music has been featured in numerous top-selling games; he once estimated in an interview that around 10 million games with his music in them were sold in 2006 alone.[58]
Selections of remixes of Soule's work appear on English remixing websites such asOverClocked ReMix.[59] Soule is a supporter of the game music arrangement community, even going so far as to submit his ownarrangement to OverClocked ReMix. He did so to help promote and inspire younger and newer composers. The track, "Squaresoft Variation", arranges theFinal Fantasy VI piece "Terra"; Soule has said that he chose the piece to remix because when he first started at Square he spent some time debugging the game before his composition duties forEvermore started.[7][60]
Soule rarely gets to see the game he is composing for in any sort of completed state before he begins work; as a result he bases many of his musical decisions on the company's previous games. He credits his success with this strategy to the fact that many of the games he works on come from studios that have created several successful games in the past.[5] He finds it much easier to compose a soundtrack to a game that is very visual in nature, such as arole-playing game.[3] He also likes to see the storyboards and concept art for the game, as he considers them a good provider of "pure emotional intent" for the game.[6] When composing a soundtrack, the first thing that he decides is the tempo and the amount of energy the music will have; this decision is as much based on the genre of the game as it is the artistic style of the game.[5] After that, Soule starts composing smaller tracks in the soundtrack, to make sure that they match up with the vision of the game before he starts on the major themes.[7] Soule tries to compose all of a game's soundtrack himself rather than in a team, though he sometimes collaborates with his brother.[6]
Although many of his works are orchestral in nature, Soule has denied that it is his "style", as he feels that the term boxes him into only creating one type of music. He prefers to call himself a "music practitioner", or someone who creates music in general rather than just one type of music as he is capable of many styles, such asJapanese pop, which he has written along withJeff Miyahara. Soule considers music to be like a language, which can be arranged in many different ways if you understand the structure.[61] He does not have a favorite genre of game to compose for, preferring instead to compose for "ambitious" games by people with "new ideas".[17]
Soule's greatest musical influences are "Debussy's exploration of harmony", "Wagner's grand operas", and "Mozart's form and composition".[3] While many of his orchestral works are based onmovie scores in terms of scope, he does not often listen to movie scores, though he names his favorite composer asJohn Williams.[3][5] The influence has been noted by critics, who have termed Soule "the John Williams of video game music".[7] Amongvideo game music influences, he has citedSquare for providing him "with the education for what quality means to this business" andNobuo Uematsu in particular.[61] His favorite style of music to listen to isBritish pop and rock music, while his favorite video games are the ones that he has written scores to, especially the ones made byChris Taylor, though one of his all-time favorites isThe Legend of Zelda. He has said that the games he would most like to work on that he has not already are ones byShigeru Miyamoto, aFinal Fantasy game, and aMetroid game.[5]
| Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences | Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition[14] | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | Nominated |
| 2003 | BAFTA Games Awards | Best Score, Game Music Category[15] | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Won |
| 2004 | Best Score, Game Music Category[16] | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | Nominated | |
| 2006 | Best Score, Game Music Category[20] | The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion | Nominated | |
| Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences | Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition[21] | Nominated | ||
| MTV Video Music Awards | Best Video Game Score[22] | Won | ||
| Official Xbox Magazine | Soundtrack of the Year[23] | Won | ||
| 2012 | ASCAP | Top Video Game[102] | The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | Won |
| The Hollywood Music in Media Awards | Original Score – Video Game[103] | Nominated | ||
| Global Music Awards | Award of Excellence[104] | Won | ||
| BAFTA Games Awards | Best Score, Game Music Category[25] | Nominated | ||
| Game Audio Network Guild | Music of the Year[105] | Nominated | ||
| Best Original Vocal – Choral[105] | Won | |||
| Best Original Soundtrack Album[105] | Nominated | |||
| The British Classic FM | Hall of Fame[106] | Won |
| International | |
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| National | |
| Artists | |
