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Was this the first Grammy win for Brainfeeder?It is.
And the first one for me as well.
A decade and a half ago, you were doing bumper music for Adult Swim.
Now, youre on the inside helping a show get made.
Does it feel like youve come full circle?It does feel like a full-circle moment.
It feels very natural as well.
I knew exactly what it felt like.
They say, Write what you know.
[Even] in a pandemic, it has to be great.
I had to do awesome music and kill it.
It was the most uninspiring year of all time.
I had to somehow get beyond that and make a run at make the best soundtrack I could make.
It was a peculiar year.
But how do you concentrate when the world is crumbling?Yeah, and it wasnt just the pandemic.
It was also the Trump shit.
It was just so disgusting to see how everything was flowing last year.
Were you just watchingNinja ScrollandSeven Samuraiand stuff?
Im a loner, and I was able to connect with it instantly.
I knew exactly what needed to happen.
It just organically blossomed.
I think that getting in his head space was real spiritual for me in a way, too.
I was watching a lot of samurai movies, eating a lot of sushi, and getting bento boxes.
The gameGhost of Tsushimacame out.
That was a super-crazy samurai epic.
I live a really disciplined, regimented life, so I felt even more connected.
I was like, Yeah, Im a samurai right now.
[corrects himself]Ronin.
Did you see this gig as a way to express another side of your artistry?
Some of the music has a different feel from anything youve done before.
This is the palette.
Once that locked in, I was off.
Everything flowed, and I made, like, 200 tracks.
I definitely got the sense watchingYasukethat the people who made it love anime.
Its almost a little bit referential, but also specifically its own thing.
It was as crazy as it seems seeing Goku and all that Super Saiyan stuff.
I had seen little bits of it, but it was always in Japanese before it came to America.
We was like, Oh my God.
But even before that I was watchingNinja Scrolland a lot of the early Manga Entertainment films.
I was really intoAkiraearly on.
But whenDragon Ballcame out is when it was like … Man, the drama.
The series slowly advanced.
When you were watching Toonami, were you like, I want to be involved with this?
Less than ten years afterDBZpremiered on Toonami, your music was playing on the same data pipe.Huh.
Yeah, it all makes sense.
I used to draw all this crazy stuff, too.
I used to loveMortal Kombattoo.
So its so dope that theMortal Kombatmovieis coming out whenYasukes coming out.
Im super-hyped on that.
Im a low-keyMortal Kombatnut.
I love that game.
Did you like the 11th one, the latest?You know what?
That one kind of broke my heart.
?The newestMortal Kombat[game] is cool, but its technical to a fault, I think.
A lot of the movements … theres not a lot of fluidity.
I like fast action, newMortal Kombatis slow and clunky.
The characters are bulky fighters.
The lastInjusticewas like that.
Everything else is great.
But the fighting mechanics have been putting me off.
Theyre making all the zoning more technical and less approachable for casual fans.
I trust you likeFighterZ, theDragon Ballfighting game?Oh my God, yeah.
When we first started working onYasukeis when that came out [in January 2018].
They were like, You want to make an anime?
Im playingFighterZevery day, like, You kidding me?
I thought I was gonna go pro playing that game.
I feel likeMortal Kombatjust dont have it.
None of it has, even for me.
Ive still been like, Man, I really hope this show comes out.
Has that changed?Yeah.
For this one it was the Yamaha CS-60.
Its kind of the same vintage keyboard from theBlade Runnermovie; Vangelis used that.
Every track had some of the CS in it, and that was the sound to me.
People will hear all kinds of stuff, but to me, this is the CS on full display.
Yeah, that shit … That was so deflating.
And then I heard the news about DOOM.
I was like,Goddamn.
Okay, so its just got to be terrible then, huh?
Were just going to roll with that.
Yeah, its awful.
I hope theres more stuff to come out, too.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
