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Darren Korb (Hades), The Beatles & Queens of the Stone Age Coming to CrossFade! Send Questions & Songs! (Patreon)

Published:
2021-08-09 20:01:01
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

The gods of guesting have always been good to us here at CrossFade, and the latest boons are a bounty indeed – Darren Korb of Supergiant Games (Audio Director, Composer, and VO of Zagreus in Hades), is talking Beatles and Queens of the Stone Age this week! Leave a question and song for our guest and host below by Tuesday, Aug. 10!

Darren’s music and sound design alone have had an outsized effect on video games since Bastion – and that was BEFORE he voiced the protagonist of Hades, one of 2020’s hottest games (out this week on PlayStation and Xbox platforms). He’s always called The Beatles’ Abbey Road one of his big influences (he even recorded a bunch of his own soundtrack music with Austin Wintory at the iconic studio last year), so we’re psyched to let him explain why it sticks with him and how he feels about Abbey Road after he’s recorded there himself!

They’ll be comparing it with Matt’s pick, Songs for the Deaf, the third album by Queens of the Stone Age and the first to feature Dave Grohl on drums. It was hugely acclaimed when it came out in 2002 and now it’s something of a rock/metal classic. If you’ve never listened to them, welcome to the club! I’m excited to find out what made Matt wanna talk about it…

and I’m excited to find out what you think, too! Tell us how you feel about The Beatles, QOTSA, Supergiant. Ask us what songs our pets hate, or what albums we love enough to hang on the wall as art. I’m gonna ask Darren how he feels knowing people will probably still be listening to his music 50 years from now. Leave your burning questions and whatever you’re listening to now in the comments!

Also, please check out our new charity drive to raise money for the community music school Hopewell Music in North Minneapolis. Your donation helps fund classes for students and puts instruments they can’t afford in their hands, check out our donation page here! https://www.givemn.org/story/Crossfade

CrossFade is MinnMax’s music podcast hosted by Matt Helgeson and produced by Jason Dafnis where a guest has Matt review one of their favorite albums and vice versa. We publish every other Friday, so subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get podcasts: https://apple.co/3kWBb5K

Even if we don’t get to your song this episode, we’ll add it to the CrossFade Community Spotify Playlist (https://spoti.fi/3aRRgox) and your song might be pulled on a future Community Shuffle episode, so keep sharing!

Thanks for checking it out!

Comments

Thomas

Hey all, The Bastion soundtrack is one of my favorite game albums ever. I tear up most of the time when I listen to it. Thank you so much. I know we'll get there within the body of the pod, but Her Majesty, not listed on the original sleeve, is one of the great easter eggs in rock, along with the weird McCartney loop at the end of A Day in the Life. How do you overall feel about hidden tracks/easter eggs in music and which is your favorite? One of my favorites is Blood from My Chem's The Black Parade.

Mike Lynch

Darren Korb (2010 Rock Band 2 champ!) Welcome to Crossfade. When you're recording a soundtrack, or performing a character's dialogue, how do you find the heart of those performances, (and are they similar or wholly different journeys)? ***My song pick this week is I'm On Smoko by The Chats***

John Jenson

Name a time that you got someone randomly in to an artist that warmed your heart. The other day I was testing my new headset for my PC and I was curious how it sounded with music so I loaded the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack and my 4 year old daughter walked in and let’s just say she really likes Jackson 5.

Luke Larson

2 questions, do you think The Beatles will be considered “timeless” or “classical” is the way Mozart or Bach have? Do you think we will ever see another group with as much critical and commercial success as The Beatles?

MinnMax

What is the first song you remember declaring as your "favorite song"?

Jason Dafnis

Darren: How does thinking about how long music lasts make you feel about your own music? Do you ever think about people listening to your music in 30, 40, or 50 years?To Matt and Darren: What's your most cherished piece of music memorabilia?

Geoff Enright

Bastion and Transistor were games soundtracks I listened to and sought out before I even played the games. I was just as excited to listen to Hades soundtrack when I started playing it. Obviously a great musician can create lots of music but not often are people composing largely various pieces of music. Darren, i imagine it is difficult to compose such different musical themes, so what do you do to try to get the headspace and inspiration to compose such different music? -Geoff aka Groffles

Doreen Ford

Hey Darren! I'm a huge fan of your work in both Bastion and Hades and was wondering what were you listening to while Hades was made? Did anything in particular inspire the tracks you ended up doing for it? What about Bastion? Thanks so much!

Michael Gibler

Hey there Darren, Matt, and Jason! First off, love the pick Darren. Abbey Road is my second favorite Beatles album, and only because Sgt. Peppers has "She's Leaving Home" on it, one of the few perfect songs. My question this week is: Can you all think of any songs with a twist in them that genuinely surprised you? I have a couple examples, one being "Come Sail Away" by Styx. The revelation about the angels in the last verse is fairly surprising on first listen. Its definitely not something I would've expected at all before that verse. Let me know if you can think of any songs like that, or any like my other example. For my money "The Ballad of Bill Thaxton" by Marty Robbins has one of the most surprising, unexpected twists in all of music. Its also my recommended song this week. https://youtu.be/az7fGqYIiL0 If you all could either listen to it live or, since it's nearly 5 minutes long, listen to it before-hand and discuss the twist if at all possible. I'd love to hear your opinions on it, and/or any other curve balls in music that you know of! Thanks, and keep up the great pod! Michael from Iowa

Bob Buel

Big fan, Darren! And a hearty howdy to the Crossfade twins themselves, Jason & Matt - Is the Beatles best-of album "1" the BEST best-of album of all time? Pound for pound, it just seems so strong. If not, are there any best-of albums that you had that come to mind as being in that elite category of greatness? And for a song submission, here's '3rd Best' by music producer 3D Blast, a 16 bit Genesis inspired and Beach Boys influenced head nodding classic. https://open.spotify.com/track/11w7UNvU8VAqssbgXqEYpp?si=yVLhguOMSf-KjYGCCMrzaA&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1 Thanks Peace and love Bob Buel

Mark Wahlberg in Caillou

Big fan (and first time write in) here! If you enjoy QOTSA, you should check out Iggy Pop’s album Post Pop Depression. It’s basically Iggy singing over music by members of QOTSA and Arctic Monkeys. It was the mashup I never knew I wanted. Do either of you have any musical “supergroups” that stand out in your mind?

Josh LaBaw

A few years ago a local MN Rapper/Producer, Cecil Otter, released a single with 2 tracks. One being the full song with vocals, the other was the instrumental. As a Producer he was clear that the instrumental had slight differences in the music from the track with Lyrics/Vocals. It made me think, about Video Game sound tracks. Are there slight tweaks that are made between in game and the Official Sound Track? Maybe because of the way things are interacted with in game, or because a sound you had in the original track sounds to much like an environmental cue to the player?

Tim Lorow

If I did a mad lib for my ideal Crossfade episode, this would be the result. Question: Do you like using instruments from other cultures in your music? Is this done mostly for hipster cred, or is there specific tones or timbre that can be only found in those instruments? Song: Isle of Skye Reel by Soulsha

Jeremiah Parks

Hey Darren! Your music has been a huge influence on me ever since I sat down with Bastion years ago. Every time SuperGiant releases a game, the OST gets purchased right along with it. My question for you: you've made your reputation on blending disparate styles/genres in unique and interesting ways, such as with Bastion's mix of folk/delta blues and electronica. How much of this style was deliberate ("hey, I want to do folk music with electronic beats"), or was some of it dictated by limitations in the early days of Supergiant ("renting a studio to record a drummer is expensive, I'm going to use electronic beats instead"). Oh, and favorite guitar tuning? Song: Magic by Bruce Springsteen

Jason Wojnar

Hope I am not too late. Abby Road has one of the finest album closers ever, but is it your favorite? If not, what is?

Dylan Kelly

This is so exciting that Darren's going to be on. I actually recorded a cover recreating all of the parts of "Setting Sail, Coming Home" as part of my senior project in highschool, so big fan here. My question is: When you start the process of writing a track, do you come in from scratch, entirely writing everything from the ground up, or do you have demos/riffs/voice recordings that you use as a jumping off point? If both, how do you decide when to use one method or the other? My song recommendation, following in the vein of game music with vocals, is "Connected" from Tetris Effect. Such a good song to immerse the player. https://youtu.be/CpSnnlzbO9o

Thom Blackburn

Howdy esteemed guest! I have a scenario for you: you are told by a fortune teller that you have 3 soundtracks left in you. You are told that you must choose 1 instrument to completely convey the tone of each game soundtrack. Electronics are off limits. One instrument per soundtrack, go! Thanks, Thom My music pick is Cicatriz Esp by The Mars Volta https://tidal.com/track/585119 Ps. Objectively speaking, mosquito song is the best queens of the stone age song.