Vampire: Bloodlines Interview & MP3

PlanetVampire was able to track down Womb Music’s Rik Schaffer for a two-part interview about his involvement on the soundtrack for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. The first installment provides some background information about how he came to be involved with Activision & Troika Games’ dark project:

Q: You obviously had been working on Bloodlines for some time. I remember when Activision launched their official Bloodlines site in September 2003 that the various areas of the site were populated by your music. I recall stating several times on the dilapidation.com forums that the trip-hop sounding music from the Links section had better be in the final game “or else!”. And yes – there it was and it can be heard now as the beginning of vesuvius.mp3. Just when did your involvement with Bloodlines begin and how, apart from the obvious connection you share with Activision, did it come about?

A: I was involved with Bloodlines for about a year and a half of its four year development. I was introduced to Thaine Lyman who was the exec producer. We had just come off working on True Crime’s voice over and I got wind of a Vampire sequel in the works. The exec producer of True Crime was kind enough to walk me over to Thaine’s office and introduce us. I love creating dark, dramatic music and sound. I knew it was going to be a unique project so I got a meeting with Thaine. He liked my work, but I think he was also into my passion for the project, and that I told him we could handle casting/directing and recording the 12,000+ lines that Vampire would need. With 60 minutes of music, 5000 unique sound fx and 12,000+ lines of dialogue spoken by over a hundred very well written characters, it was a major undertaking for our company. We got started on Bloodlines in early February of 2003.

Check out the exclusive MP3 they’ve posted, as well!