HOW SIMON POOLE SHAPED THE SOUND OF DUSTBORN 

Dustborn is the latest production from Red Thread Games, the studio founded by Ragnar Tørnquist in Oslo, Norway, a dozen years ago. This colorfully narrated action-adventure game is available starting on August 20 on PC (digital only), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One. 

Dustborn is a game about hope, love, friendship, robots… and the power of words! A perilous road trip in the style of a futuristic western, in a dystopian America under the throws of authoritarian power, from which you can only escape by leveraging punchlines in epic battles. The backdrop is a cover like no other: a punk rock band, growing one step closer to freedom or chaos each time they perform. A perfect excuse to meet Simon Poole, the one-man band behind the protest anthems of Pax and her crew of misfits! 

Immersed in classical music by his parents, both musicians with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, Simon spent his early adulthood exploring jazz and electro scenes around the world. Trumpet in hand, he landed in Oslo in the early 2000s. It was there that he met the Audio Director of Funcom, then one of Norway’s budding development studios, at a concert featuring both musicians. A defining moment in his career: “I’d never thought about working in video games”, admits Simon, “but then, one day, I was looking at job openings in the newspaper, and I saw this sound designer position, at Funcom, in Oslo. I was like, ‘Whoa, hang on, I know this guy!’ I thought it could be an interesting opportunity because people had often said to me that my music had sound design elements to it. I contacted him, we hooked up, had a chat, and that’s how I got into audio for video games!”  

Evolving over the years from sound designer to audio director and composer, Simon is continuing his path with Ragnar Tørnquist, former colleague at Funcom and founder of Red Thread Games. Building on a relationship of mutual trust based on almost two decades of collaboration, Simon was given full artistic freedom for his work on Dustborn. “There are so many different elements of the music in the game”, explains Simon. “You’ve got the cinematic score, which is dramatic and emotional. Then, you’ve got the combat music, which is fun and upbeat. And then there are the band tracks. I focused on them individually, trying to give each their own signature, rather than making the whole soundtrack sound relatively homogeneous. It’s almost like I was working on three different games!” 

As a child of the 70s and 80s, Simon was able to inject Dustborn’s musical atmosphere with a healthy dose of resolutely anachronistic synthetic sounds, reflecting both the omnipresence of robots and the post-apocalyptic context, but also the punk spirit of Pax and her crew: “I was thinking about a grainy, tape saturated sound. There are some clean-sounding synths in there, and there is still a lot of that grungy stuff, these growly synthesizers which I like. Noam and the keytar are the real signature sound of the band, this cheesy 80s-sounding synth; I didn’t want it to sound cool in the slightest. But then, there’s Sai and her drum machine, this strange, unusual thing that gave me the license to imagine pretty much any kind of drum sound that could be triggered by pressing a button. In the end, it’s an early 90s digital kind of sound. It’s not 8-bit or anything like that, but it’s got a kind of Sega Megadrive vibe to it, almost.” 

To accentuate this dusty sound, Simon called on Charlotte Hatherley, guitarist with the alternative rock band Ash, who made Pax’s repertoire even more electric. Charlotte also contributed to “Good Ways to Cry”, a tangy pop sweetness tinged with infectious nostalgia, which opens the road trip. All in all, Simon Poole produced over 5 hours of music for Dustborn, a mammoth task spanning three years: “My role is not to be taking the spotlight and to be having people thinking about my music,” explains Simon, humbly. “I think it’s more to ensure that players get the absolute best possible experience when playing Dustborn, and that I’m just assisting in telling the story that the director wants to tell. It should almost be on a subconscious level, and I hope that they will listen to the soundtrack on their own however they choose to. That would be nice!” All emo, no ego. And there’s another reason this project is close to Simon’s heart: from the sounds of the Echo, voiced by his wife – an accomplished singer herself – to the choir at Camp Cedar featuring his talented daughter, Simon has sprinkled bits of his life into the soundtrack. “I tend to throw myself into every project 100%. I’m in my 50s now and working on a project; it’s multiple years”, Simon says wisely. “It’s a chapter of my life. And that’s why I like to bring my family into it as well. I spend so many hours in my studio, with them just on the other side of the door. It’s nice to allow them in here sometimes, to get a glimpse of what I’m doing.” 

Dusty, quirky, electric, catchy, you name it. Players will experience Dustborn’s soundtrack however they want, but one thing is for sure: Simon Poole has given his all to make sure they’re immersed in every step of the adventure.