An Interview with Thomas Boecker (Merregnon Producer)

Merregnon is the name of the fantasy universe that our soundtrack CD is based on. At the same time, it stands for one of the most successful releases of its kind. The ten most renowned composers of the game industry, e.g. Chris Huelsbeck, Rudolf Stember, Allister Brimble or Fabian Del Priore, worked on the CD - project. The idea was to tell of the adventures of a handful of characters, by music as well as by a story which would be printed in the booklet, including descriptive pictures. In the end, the Merregnon Development Team counted more than 30 people.

There are several reasons. For one, I have been dealing with music, written for films, computer games or so - called demos, since I was a kid. Another point is that I have not yet seen anything comparable to Merregnon and so had the change of fulfilling one of my dreams: I have always been fascinated by music - and the idea of using varying themes to tell our story happened to be a very attractive one. Of course, the fact of being able to work with the most well - known artists in their field, also contributed its part: it was a once - in - a - lifetime chance.

Simply by delivering a convincing concept. I assume that over the last years a lot of people have submitted very interesting drafts to such experienced musicians like Allister Brimble or Rudolf Stember. Ideas are great - but we showed them in detail how we intended to realize our vision. We explained how exactly we had planned to handle every aspect and so built the foundation - with an appropriate margin for those who would be involved so they could contribute their own ideas. That ensured us the necessary amount of seriousity, without taking away the hope to have fun with the work ahead.

That aspect was essential indeed. We had made it our goal that the story we wanted to tell could be told by the music alone - as well as by the text within the booklet. However, beyond that the most intense atmosphere should unfold by knowing both aspects. We decided to narrate it as a fairy - tale in order to have a basis that would allow us to make the CD as colorful as possible, according to the circumstances - within the limitations of 74 minutes and a 24 - page booklet, a wide variety was meant to be expressed on the album.

So we had to develop the story on both levels - the musical as well as the textual - with a mostly similar content and therefore certain intended intersections. Especially interesting in this context might be that we sometimes had to leave out certain parts of a passage - if, for example, another one already explains the exact Why for the continuation of the tale. Of course, these are just small instances, meant to ensure the integrity of the ongoing plot, but it is a good feeling to invent these details - and for the listener to discover them.

Probably, it is an unwritten law that there are always unpredictable events during a production. And so Merregnon too was struck by smaller incidents, e.g. the sickness of a composer. However, one can plan such eventualities beforehand, and so no delay worth mentioning hit our project. After only one year we could present the CD, which was not a bad job by comparison and considering the complexity of the soundtrack.

No, we received not a single rejection concerning our offer. Also, every single composer has already signified his interest to be again involved in similar projects. This is a great achievement that we can and will built up on.

I think, every artist reflects critically on his own projects. You grow with your work and from a later point of view you naturally find things that you would do differently in the future. But these are individual, personal notions - and so I can say to be truly happy with Merregnon. I also have to add that apart from the success of the silver disc itself, artists contribute inspired work for the official website (www.merregnon.com) to extend the Merregnon - universe even further, as we had planned. That sort of interest again shows the enormous acceptance of our project making us downright happy, especially since it brings advantages to both sides.

Definitely. It is obvious that pirating CDs and mp3s is a problem nowadays which is far from being invisible any more. But especially scene - albums of any kind are extremely dependent on the number of purchasers. At least, they have to bring in their production costs, the initiators themselves work without any profit, driven only by enthusiasm and joy - and often invest parts of their own capital. Merregnon was supposed to be brilliant not only at music but also its whole presentation and so offer more good reasons to be purchased legally. Because I think it makes a big difference for a customer whether he or she gets a complete, very well done packet or a loveless something. We did everything on our part to make Merregnon convince at every aspect.

Very pleased, the first, numbered and limited, edition had been out of stock in no time, which is why we made a second one available some time ago. We were able to build a world - wide net of distributors like synsoniq Records, Pegasus Spiele GmbH, TraxInSpace or Lynnemusic, so that potential buyers will not be discouraged by high postal charges.

Merregnon is set to be a trilogy, meaning volume 2 and 3 will be released within the next years. Of course, we are aware that the expectancy and pressure to succeed after part one will be demanding. This is why we will not rush anything and will not publish any release dates at the time being. However, those who are interested in the latest news are welcome to subscribe to our newsletter (www.merregnon.com). With it you will also get recent information on Chris Huelsbeck since he cooperates with us. Beyond that, we raffle CDs like Merregnon, Back in Time 3 or The Wanderer every 14 days to those who are registered. So it pays off to risk a closer look.

Due to, certainly understandable, reasons, we do not yet want to give our plans away. What I can say is that working on part two will start within the next months and that there will be some surprises. The trio of the characters from part one remains in the story, their current formation provides everything to start into new adventures.

I myself am no active musician. But I attach a lot of importance to this field, it has become a very significant part of my life. Especially substantial for Merregnon surely was my film Light at the End of the Tunnel which I finished in 1999. Chris Huelsbeck composed the music for that one and so laying the headstone for further projects. By the way, a medley of this title is available on our CD as a bonus track including previously unreleased material of the score.

Within a very short time, Merregnon has grown into a synonym of a successful soundtrack which different artists had been working on. My hopes are now, that our group can again push that a bit further with the next two parts. Personally, I am absolutely sure we will do that. Also, if you follow the carrier of some who were involved, you can see the very positive influence, Merregnon has had. If our development team goes on delivering a convincing CD, please the audience and continue the aspect I mentioned just before, then we have fulfilled our ambitious goals and hopes.

Generally, the composers had a lot of creative freedom, although there were differences since some of the themes they worked on had to be varied. Allister Brimble, for instance, used melodies from Fabian Del Priore to tell the story the way it was thought. Other than that, we have always been open for ideas - and made it our motto to be able to react to suggestions at every time. The media wrote, among other things, that Merregnon seems to be of a piece. I think this gives a good impression of the cooperation between the various artists, who were in contact permanently and so had the means of exchanging their ideas.

I have always been interested in fantasy, which might be due to the fact that I had been in contact with fairy - tales from my early days on. So the decision concerning the genre of our CD has not been a hard one. That sort of story simply offers manifold opportunities, we could softly fade between parts of romance and action without producing any stylistic break.

No, especially since that would not have been easily possible. After the story had been finished, specific descriptions were sent to the composers. Sure, there were some adjustments and changes but no title disappeared completely.

Overall this went fine, yes. Although I have been a bit disappointed when some musicians delivered titles that had no reference to fantasy or Merregnon whatsoever but had been more or less queer techno tracks. That is to say, tracks were turned in which either had hardly been finished or finished with the attitude of just trying and see what comes out of it. Anyway, in general it has showed us that many able composers only wait for a chance to demonstrate their talents in a bigger project. I think we could do a similar compo in the not so far future.

I particularly want to thank the numerous operators of websites like Back2Roots.org, NoError.org and Ojuice.net who helped us by placing announcements that made the public aware of our project. These platforms are extremely important for us, which is why I appreciate the interest from Remix64, naming especially Neil, who did a lot of interviews that are worth reading and strongly support the participants. Great work!