Why were you contacted to work on the first HOMM? What attracted you to the project? Were you familiar with the heroic-fantasy universe prior to this?

Heroes of Might and Magic was the first score Paul Romero and I worked on together. When Jon Van Canegham and Mark Caldwell (from New World Computing) gave me the green light and creative control on the music production, I knew I wanted to take a very classical approach to it. On HOMM I, the graphics encouraged me to do a very baroque score. I really wanted it to be like a classical soundtrack in a sense.

A friend introduced me to Paul back in 1992, at one of his infamous parties where he gets friends together to play music at his house. I remember seeing him play the piano and was extremely impressed not only with his abilities but also with how genuine a person he was. We immediately hit it off and remained the best of friends ever since. When it was time to get into the score, I gave him a call and he came over to my apartment at the time for a meeting. Back then I had a roommate and my “studio” was basically my bedroom with tons of gear and a small futon in the corner. We started bouncing ideas back and forth and came up with a couple of pieces. I knew that we were going to make something special with that game. Between his Classical background and my pop music background our collaboration was not only melodic but very catchy and had all the elements of good classical arrangements. We did that whole score in the bedroom of my apartment in South Pasadena, California at the time.

HOMM was the 4th project I worked on and I was very new to the whole game design thing and my vision of audio was purely based on the films I saw from the past. So my interpretations of a heroic-fantasy universe were images of King Arthur, Excalibur and all those cool historical documentaries from the ‘80s. Jon’s vision is what attracted me to the game and Jon and Mark are two of the most genuine, cool, and generous people I know. I will continue to remain great friends with them.

Is this the kind of game you play? If yes, is there a chance to meet you online? What's your nickname?

Yes!! I must admit I don’t have too much time to play games, but the HOMM series has always been one of my favourites to play. I have spent months playing all versions of the game and really look forward to installing HOMM V on my computers. I have always been a fan of RTS and strategy games, but for some reason Heroes has always been my favourite to play and working on it has absolutely nothing to do with it. To me HOMM is like a large animated Chess game. It feels so damn rewarding beating those armies and snaggin’ up a town! Hopefully more people will enjoy the series on this next installment. I have never played online, but I might be willing to get my ass kicked when the game comes out. For the record, Paul has never played a game in his life.


HOMM V offers a very different graphic universe and scenario from previous episodes, does it have an influence in the new soundtrack?

I think our main influence for HOMM V is what HOMM has evolved into, also drawing from our past work and really aiming at keeping the player into the game. Believe me, I have been guilty of turning off the music when I play a game, but not with HOMM. It has always been so fitting to hear that score during gameplay.

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