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Like much of “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2”, the recently released remastering of the first two “Tony Hawk” games, the soundtrack captures the magic of the first two installments while adding some enhancements.
For starters, Vicarious Visions and Activision Blizzard, the developer and publisher behind “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2,” managed to recover 22 of the songs from the original soundtracks, with only a few tracks being lost due to licensing issues. Fans who are nostalgic to go for high combos with Naughty by Nature’s “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” or chase the lyrics from “SKATE” to Goldfinger’s “Superman” can still do so.
Unsurprisingly, getting most of those original songs back was “very important” to the developers, says Justin Joyner, senior sound designer at Vicarious Visions. But the team also added 37 new songs, ranging from older hits like the 1990 A Tribe Called Quest classic “Can I Kick It?” to Machine Gun Kelly’s 2020 hit “My Bloody Valentine,” spanning genres from punk to alternative hip-hop.
The end result is, as Joyner calls it, “the original soundtrack on steroids, basically.”
“First I had to really understand the original games and the original soundtracks, have a good idea of the genres that were incorporated into the original game,” he says. Variety. “And then it was basically like, fast forward 20 years and if this game came out today, what kind of music would we have? My whole philosophy was, well let’s add more of that and get some more current stuff in there too. “
Joyner, a musician himself, says he went through “probably thousands” of rinks to find the perfect ones so players could hit the old skate parks. He searched the internet, he explains, and used everything from skateboarding videos on YouTube to algorithms on streaming platforms like Spotify, and kept an Excel spreadsheet that categorized each song he chose to make sure he had a wide range of music genres. .
But it was also important that, in addition to heavy hitters like Machine Gun Kelly, the soundtrack included many promising ones. That’s also in the spirit of the original game, which Joyner calls a kind of “music discovery platform.” Just as young players discovered their love of 90s grunge and rap through “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater,” those who choose the remaster can dive into dozens of newer acts.
One such group that will be playing the new soundtrack is Rough Francis, a rock band from Burlington, Vermont, whose hard-hitting punk track “Deathwire” sounds like something that wouldn’t be out of place on the original 1999 release. So, It shouldn’t be too surprising that Tony Hawk himself chose the song for the remastering, as brothers and bandmates Julian and Urian Hackney say. Variety.
Urian explains that Hawk was a fan of his father’s band, Death, which appeared in an earlier “Tony Hawk” game. After seeing Urian skateboarding in a documentary about his family, “A Band Called Death,” Hawk tweeted on Rough Francis’s account, and the two began casually direct messages about their shared musical tastes. With Rough Francis preparing to release new music, Urian sent him a blocked Soundcloud link for “Deathwire”.
Hawk loved it, and then Activision emailed him. For a second, Urian feared the song would leak, but Hawk had just personally recommended that “Deathwire” be included in the new soundtrack. For the brothers, who grew up on “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” and have childhood memories of skating in the game with groups like Dead Kennedys and The Suicide Machines, it has been a “surreal” experience from start to finish.
“Playing [‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2’] and when our song plays, I forget that I’m playing this classic game that Jules and I spend a lot of time fighting in front of an N64, ”says Urian. “Then our song plays and every time, it’s like, ‘Woah! This is very strange. It’s very, very, very strange. ‘
“There’s a part of me that doesn’t believe it,” adds Julian. “To complete the circle, I don’t know what to say. It’s just, it’s amazing. “
Merkules is another artist joining the new soundtrack who has fond memories of growing up with skateboarding games. His fast-paced “Bass,” featuring Hopsin and Tech N9ne, adds a fast beat and confident lyrics to the rotation, and the rapper is still getting used to hearing himself in the game.
“I mean, there is no shadow for anyone on the soundtrack, but I definitely went into the settings and made it so that only my song would play for an hour,” he laughs. “It’s kind of surreal and it’s crazy. Being a person who found most of the music that I first learned through that game, it’s really cool now that I’m a part of it. “
Merkules recalls hearing Rage Against the Machine for the first time on “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2,” as well as diving into other bands like Papa Roach, Anthrax, and Public Enemy. Being included in the new soundtrack 20 years later, he says, “is definitely a wish list thing for me.”
“There’s no other game I’d like to be more a part of than ‘Tony Hawk,’ because that’s all I played,” he says. “I spent so many hours playing that game.”
Both Rough Francis and Merkules have seen new fans arrive through “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2”. Rough Francis has gained 13,000 listeners on Spotify, Julian says, since the soundtrack was revealed in late July, and Merkules says his fan pages are already full of congratulations and new fans, though the game has only been out since the 4th. of September.
Also, Urian and Merkules have had the opportunity to enjoy the game; in fact, Urian says that he has already reached 100% completion, beating all levels and collecting all items. And both have made their way onto the soundtrack, with Urian yelling at other new recruits Screaming Females and A Tribe Called Quest and Merkules highlighting Token, CHAII and even Rough Francis. But Julian doesn’t have a console, and he’s waiting until he can play to hear all the new songs and get the desired effect.
“Honestly, I just heard ‘Superman’ over and over,” he laughs. “I feel like since I don’t have the game yet, it’s the closest thing I can do to feel like I’m playing.”
“Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2” is available now on Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Listen to the soundtrack below.
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