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Award-winning composer Bear McCreary is a musical workhorse. From The Walking Dead to Godzilla to Halo and, of course, God of War, the composer has worked damn-near everywhere and somehow manages to keep surprising with fantastic music on every project he’s helped bring to life.
In an interview with VideoGamer for the VideoGamer Podcast, we asked McCreary what his musical inspirations were for the God of War 2018 soundtrack. With the game’s E3 reveal becoming one of the highlights of his life, McCreary revealed that the game’s soundtrack is heavily inspired by Conan the Barbarian.
Every musician has their own influences, and McCreary is no different. In the interview, the composer explained that he is inspired by the works of Holst, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Ravel as the forces that combine to create the “Hollywood sound”, but he also has more specific scores his work is directly inspired by.
“They are everyone’s influences,” McCreary explained on the podcast. “I will say, the thing to check out that I am just shameless in how much I borrow from, one of my favourite scores of all time—top five, easy—my take-it-to-a-desert-island-soundtrack is Basil Poledouris’ Conan the Barbarian.”
McCreary admits that the thick fantasy sound and melodic take on combative themes cherry pick heavily from the soundtrack of the 1982 John Milius film’s score.
“Basil Poledouris captured the perfect balance in Conan the Barbarian between brute force and heart-wrenching beauty, gob-smacking beauty,” McCreary explained. “And that beauty has always fascinated me. It’s easily my favourite fantasy score of all time which I sometimes put up my shield when I say to Lord of the Rings fans. But it’s a no-brainer, man. Basil Poledouris came out of the gate, this was like his first major score basically, so listen to that.”
GOD OF WAR COMPOSER BEAR MCCREARY
“Suppressed rage. How do you do that? Playing rage is relatively obvious, the Greek games did it masterfully, but how do you play suppressed rage?”
McCreary explained that the soundtrack to the 1982 film was “profoundly influential” for him as a composer, but not for the reasons many would think.
“It was profoundly influential to me not because it was badass,” he explained, “but because it’s badass and also has these beautiful, lush orchestral moments. Which is what you want out of a good, you know, fantasy score. You want might and beauty, and I think as I was thinking of Kratos… suppressed rage. How do you do that? Playing rage is relatively obvious, the Greek games did it masterfully, but how do you play suppressed rage, right? And I think I did look at Conan the Barbarian for that because there’s might, but there’s nuance, there’s emotional colour, there’s conflict, there’s torment waiting to erupt.”
While McCreary adores the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack, the original release of the score was trapped in a mono recording at shockingly low quality. Modern remasters have made the score play in stereo, but the God of War composer points fans towards a newer orchestral version of the soundtrack.
“There’s a re-recording that was done,” McCreary said. “Nic Raine is the conductor of the Conan the Barbarian re-record. I would highly recommend it. It’s a two-CD thing. Put it on and just be immersed in Basil Poledouris’s immortal music.”
It would be horrendous of us to not give you a place to actually get Nic Raine’s re-record of Conan the Barbarian after McCreary’s explanation. While the soundtrack is available on YouTube unofficially, you can also buy the soundtrack here to support the artist.
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