Image courtesy of Rolling StoneRockstar has secured over 240 licensed songs for GTA V, with about ”20 movies worth of score” composed. As Mexican cultural is big in Los Angeles, East LOS FM was created.
Pavlovich also revealed they created a pop station which they’ve ”never done in a GTA game before”, but it suited Los Santos. He also named some of the radio DJs.
Stephen Pope and Nate Williams from Wavves will be hosting the modern rock station, Vinewood Boulevard Radio. ”This is a modern rock station, the embodiment of the young Los Angeles rock scene. For us Wavves is the most exciting, so it was pretty amazing to work with those guys,” said Pavlovich.
The Rolling Stone interview has audio samplers from Vinewood Boulevard Radio, East LOS FM, West Coast Classics and Rebel Radio. Pam Grier will DJ a soul station, ”a little bit on low rider classics.” Bootsy Collins is tackling the always popular 80s, and Kenny Loggins ”is the host of our classic rock station.”
”For me, this is the most exciting soundtrack we’ve done, in terms of who’s hosting and the music on the actual radio stations,” said Ivan Pavlovich. ”This is our biggest accomplishment.”
Rockstar are pulling out all the stops on composing an original score for Grand Theft Auto V. ”The score plays during missions and the open world gameplay, and during online play. It’s completely dynamic, and engineered very similar to what we’ve done in the past with our interactive stem system – it responds to what you’re doing with your character.”
Who’s working on it? Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire’s Woody Jackson for one.
”We started with Tangerine Dream. We’ve used them before in terms of licensed music – we’re huge fans of Edgar Froese. When we started to think about who would be the right composer for this game, he was the first name that came to mind. Complimenting his work we have Woody Jackson, who scored Red Dead Redemption and helped score L.A. Noire. Woody’s an amazing musician. And the third part of the triangle is Alchemist and Oh No.”
All the scores blend so they feel connected. ”Although each of these composers is used to define a character or an environment, what’s been interesting about this process is that it’s been the first fully collaborative score that we’ve done. Even though you may be triggering one score with a particular character or within a particular area in the world, you’re always hearing elements from the other composers,” he explained.
”The first time you come into the country you’re blown away by Woody Jackson’s rock score, but within that you’re still hearing elements of Tangerine Dream, and Alchemist and Oh No. So you’re never too far away from this core sound that we’ve established for the game.” Check out the Rolling Stone interview for more.
Grand Theft Auto V releases on Xbox 360 and PS3 September 17th. A new trailer is due later today.
