Greetings Bloodhunt Community!
Today we present to you a special interview with the artist known as Swan Meat who you may be familiar with if you have played Bloodhunt.
You can hear her tracks “t00 late”, ”Digital Ghoul” and “Veins and Vessels” in the Disco in the Elysium.
We had a chance to sit down with Swan Meat, and she answered a few questions for our community.
Sharkmob: What’s the story behind getting your music into Bloodhunt?
Swan Meat: I think I am just lucky enough that someone on the team knew me and my music and thought I would be a good fit for Bloodhunt. When Sharkmob reached out to me I was beyond excited because I was and always have been a vampire aficionado. In fact, the main inspiration behind much of my musical palette has always been the Castlevania games and their respective soundtracks, I've even written a track called Alucard, Hellsing and Blood+ are two of my favorite anime, and I'm pretty sure that around the time I was finding out about Bloodhunt, I'd just finished reading Claymore, a manga in which the main enemies are called Yoma (妖魔), who are people-eating shapeshifters with a clear vampiric streak. So, I was definitely in the right mindset to work on Bloodhunt.
Sharkmob: Ah! A fellow person of culture. Speaking of vampire fiction, were you familiar with the Vampire the Masquerade universe prior to Bloodhunt?
Swan meat: I was, but never as a participant, always as an outsider. Being a console gamer growing up, I couldn’t ever get into stuff like Bloodlines and Redemption. However, I had always heard that Bloodlines was a messy but brilliant classic and had watched lots of let's plays of it. In hindsight, it's almost shocking that I never did get into VtM, because Vampire the Masquerade combines two of my favorite things, i.e., vampire media/literature/storytelling, particularly that with a rococo and dramatic flair (don't ever agree to watching a Buffy marathon with me because I will hold you to your promise), and role-playing games. As a PlayStation kid I must admit I was always firmly planted in the Square-Enix realm. But I like tabletop games -- I'm a big w40k fan and have dabbled in D&D a bit, though much less than I should -- anyway, to make a long story short, upon beginning musical work for Bloodhunt I immediately went into the VtM rabbit hole and can safely say that I am a newborn fan.
Sharkmob: What was your inspiration when you wrote the songs that are featured in Bloodhunt?
Swan Meat: Well, first off, I had to work with what the dev team wanted, which was a lot less over-the-top and much slower than what I usually produce as Swan Meat. I was sent inspiration from action movies and other tabletop-inspired video games, so I had to keep that general aesthetic framework in mind and work within it. Also, Bloodhunt is a VtM battle royale, and I feel like music for a game like that has to be quite direct and forward-driving. So, besides the Bloodlines soundtrack I listened to a lot of action movie music like the John Wick soundtrack, the Blade score, etc., to get into the vibe.
Sharkmob:It feels like we really connected well on the vibe! Let’s talk about your favorite Vampire the Masquerade clan, and why?
Swan Meat: My favorite VtM clan is probably the Nosferatu. I've always been attracted to rogue/trickster classes who are sinister and quiet and move in shadows. I like to imagine myself as a gangrenous, damned leper moving through potholes and sewer tunnels, collecting and harboring infernal gossip. They are also basically epic hackers. While working on my music for Bloodhunt we were still neck deep in the covid zeitgeist, and I was going goblin mode in my apartment, feeling a bit Nosferatu-esque.
Sharkmob:Whats your favorite Vampire movie and tell let us know why you like it?
Swan Meat: This is one of the hardest questions I've ever had to answer. My first impulse is to say Blade, because let's face it, Wesley Snipes as a leather jacket-sporting vampire slayer is just badass. But vampire movies cover so much ground thematically speaking, and it would be a crime not to mention moving, stylish masterpieces like Let the Right One In or Park Chan-wook's Thirst.
Sharkmob: Going back to your music, what type of software and synth and instruments do you like to use?
Swan Meat: At the moment, I do everything in Ableton and am not using external instruments in the recording process, except sometimes I hash things out on the guitar or violin when I'm in the idea-forming stage. I do have a midi keyboard that I write melodies on and use to test out different VST synths, and an Ableton Push that I've used in the past for chopping up breaks and playing live, but don't really utilize at the moment. For the most part I stick to the same VST instruments all the time: Serum and Massive, I build most of my leads and basses from scratch and I think Serum especially is the most intuitive when it comes to sound design. I like the u-he synths Diva and Hive a lot, too.
Sharkmob: Do you have any kind of special creative process when it comes to music creation?
Swan Meat: Not really, though I have noticed a pattern in my workflow insofar as I pretty much always begin with chords and melody. My biggest "problem" is I tend to get way too caught up in designing leads for this beginning melody, so I end up spending hours with that initial idea without really expanding upon it until days later once I've finally settled on the absolute perfect sound. Half the time I come in with the shadow of an idea, other times I sit down and have no idea what I want to do and just mess around til something sounds like the potential germ of a track.
Sharkmob: Thank you so much Swan Meat for taking the time to let us ask you a bunch of questions! Much appreciated!
Swan Meat: Thank you so much for your questions and thanks so much for inviting me to be a part of the Bloodhunt team!
Swan Meat is a club music producer who has been releasing music since 2018, make sure to check out fantastic music on her Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/swanmeat
And also check out her other socials: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
Until next time, see you at dusk!
/Sharkmob
