The SEED Composer
Back in June of 2013, I announced the fact that we had an award-winning film composer working with us. I was not able to reveal his name though until now. A few weeks ago, I sent out an official Letter of Intent to his manager. She recently wrote back and sent a signed copy of the LOI, indicating that it is now OK to reveal his name. Both she and the composer are excited about the project and we are all looking forward to seeing what happens next.
His name is Scott Rockenfield. He is one of the founding members (and drummer) of the heavy metal band, Queensrÿche,which, according to Wikipedia, has sold over 20 million albums worldwide, including over 6 million albums in the United States. The band received worldwide acclaim after the release of their 1988 album Operation: Mindcrime, which is often considered one of the greatest concept albums of all time. Their follow-up release, Empire, released in 1990, was also very successful and included the hit single “Silent Lucidity“. The band has received three Grammy Award nominations for songs off both albums; Rockenfield also received a Grammy nomination outside of Queensrÿche.
What is most interesting to me about all of this is the fact that one of my all-time favorite CDs to listen to (and I do quite often) is Queensrÿche’s album, Empire. I absolutely love every song on that album but my personal favorites are Silent Lucidity and Best I Can, the latter being my go-to song whenever I need motivation.
At about the 3 minute mark into this song, I’ve always jammed out (with air guitar and drums) to the point of totally spazzing at 3:36, singing with great passion the remaining lyrics:
Now, I’m moving forward and I’m never looking back.
Straight ahead, focused on the big attack.
On a roll and I’m never slowing down.
I won’t be torn between
The man in the chair
And the man that’s in my dream.
I’m going to melt the two men into one.
I won’t let go, gotta make the grade I set
No, I won’t let it go
To be the best man,
the best man that I can.
Oh yeah baby! From the time of my crucible (1999-2002) until today, those words have truly motivated me to keep pushing forward, never slowing down, always striving to be the best I can. Well, imagine my surprise when one day about a year ago (during a week when I had actually been listening to Empire in my car), I received a Facebook message from my friend John Mason (who sadly just recently passed away). He told me that he had been working on some music composition with Scott Rockenfield and that somehow my SEED project came up. Apparently, Scott was really intrigued with it and wanted to get in touch with me. Thanks to John, the connection was made.
I had several very exciting e-mail correspondences with Scott and even though he was quite busy with his band tour, he agreed to do a piece of music for the new live-action version of the SEED Trailer we’re working on. The music I had originally used was… well, not original. So, we really needed something that would be the music of SEED. After a few different versions were submitted to me, we had something I really liked. We also had our new title track theme:
https://www.seedtheseries.com/mp3/SEEDIntroTheme.mp3
A while back, several other people (including John Mason) did some music work for me as well. They all did a great job, but my favorite was the piece done by my friend Joslin Dsouza:
I took some of the best elements of Joslin’s music and incorporated them into the piece submitted to me by Scott along with a few added sound fx and music hits of my own and this was the result (be sure to listen with a good sound system or put on some descent headphones for best results):
https://www.seedtheseries.com/mp3/NewSEEDTrailerMix2.mp3
Scott Rockenfield brings a wealth of talent and experience to the table:
In 2010, Rockenfield founded Hollywood Loops, that specializes in sound effects for film, television and video game composing.[6] That same year, he also composed and recorded drum tracks for the Activision video game Call of Duty: Black Ops.[14] In 2013 he scored the trailer to the films After Earth and he will be scoring the trailer for the 2014 remake of RoboCop.[4] For these trailers, Rockenfield creates the music, doing a lot of his work, most notably the recording of his orchestral arrangements, in the Klaus Badelt Studios in Santa Monica, California.[13]
In 2003, Rockenfield founded RockenWraps,[6] which supplies customized drum wraps to artists and companies such as ddrum, and Bucketdrums, which are 3.5 and 5 gallon buckets fitted with 12″ drum heads. He launched two personal websites in 2012, scottrockenfield.com and scottrockenfield.net
Needless to say, we are defintetly looking forward to seeing where all of this goes and we are very proud to welcome Scott to the team!