Jon Everist
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Jon Everist is an American video game
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...
. He is responsible for the score to ''
BattleTech ''BattleTech'' is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The trademark ...
'', which he received an
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...
"Composer's Choice Award" for "Best Video Game Score of 2018" and won honors at the 2019 Jerry Goldsmith Awards for Best Video Game Score. His score for '' Shadowrun: Hong Kong'' received favorable reviews. He is mostly known for his work with Seattle developer
Harebrained Schemes Harebrained Schemes, LLC is an American video game developer based in Seattle, Washington. It was co-founded in 2011 by Jordan Weisman and Mitch Gitelman. Prior to founding Harebrained Schemes, Weisman and Gitelman worked together on the '' MechC ...
and for hybrid scores that utilize live orchestra and a variety of synthesizers.


Biography

Everist began his musical pursuits in his middle school band, played the drums. After being exposed to groups like
Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
,
Aphex Twin Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), known professionally as Aphex Twin, is a British musician, composer and DJ active in electronic music since 1988. His idiosyncratic work has drawn on many styles, including techno, ambient music, ambi ...
, MF Doom, and
Aesop Rock Ian Matthias Bavitz (born June 5, 1976), better known by his stage name Aesop Rock, is an American rapper and producer from Long Island, New York. He was at the forefront of the new wave of underground and alternative hip hop acts that emerg ...
, Soon after Everist's interests steered toward playing and experimenting with analog synths and samplers – producing music on an
Ensoniq ASR-10 The Ensoniq ASR-10 is a sampling keyboard produced by Ensoniq between 1992 and 1998. The ASR-10 was a follow-up product to the very popular Ensoniq EPS and EPS-16 Plus performance samplers, and was also available with a piano style weighted ...
sampler, recording everything into Sony Acid. After High School, being told there was no money or stability in music, Everist pursued studies in economics at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
and sold copiers during the day and made music at night and some small tours, keeping his music and professional work life separate. After hearing
Amon Tobin Amon Adonai Santos de Araújo Tobin (; born February 7, 1972) is a Brazilian electronic musician, composer and producer. He is noted for his unusual methodology in sound design and music production. He has released eight major studio albums unde ...
's score for
Chaos Theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of Scientific method, scientific study and branch of mathematics. It focuses on underlying patterns and Deterministic system, deterministic Scientific law, laws of dynamical systems that are highly sens ...
and
Disasterpeace Richard Vreeland (born June 29, 1986), better known by his stage name Disasterpeace, is an American composer and musician. He first got started in music after learning the guitar in high school and started writing music around the age of 17. Kno ...
's score for FEZ in 2012, Everist left his job. Cashing out his retirement he enrolled at
DigiPen Institute of Technology DigiPen Institute of Technology is a private for-profit university in Redmond, Washington. It also has campuses in Singapore and Bilbao, Spain. DigiPen offers bachelor's and master's degree programs. History In 1988, DigiPen was founded by ...
to study music and sound for video games at age of 28. While enrolled at
DigiPen Institute of Technology DigiPen Institute of Technology is a private for-profit university in Redmond, Washington. It also has campuses in Singapore and Bilbao, Spain. DigiPen offers bachelor's and master's degree programs. History In 1988, DigiPen was founded by ...
, Everist had done music for several student games that Jenn Tran, Director and Cinematographer, who was a concept artist for Harebrained Schemes at the time. The creative relationship blossomed helping Everist secure the opportunity to score a trailer for Shadowrun: Returns with Harebrained Schemes, leading towards opening the door for Everist to work on Golem Arcana, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, and other releases from the company propelling him into the industry. In an in-depth interview with VGMOnline, Everist would talk more on his road from corporate work into composing. Talking of his early work for Shadowrun: Dragonfall and the different approach he took from the existing music that had existed for the franchise, filling in the emotional gaps that had been missing from the largely dystopian cyberpunk sound palette, as well as adding his own expertise in music production. Everist's score to 2018's BattleTech would prove a monument to his orchestral and synth fusion sound. Pitched as a "Game of Thrones in Space", Everist would use his skills as a synth musician and producer and marry it to material he wrote for the enlisted European orchestras and ensembles that would help bring to score to completion. In 2020 Everist's score accompanying V1 Interactive's Disintegration, was released. The score was recorded with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, with Brendon Williams helping with orchestration duties. In a radio conversation with Kate Remington of
NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
( WSHU), Everist would tell his inspiration for the score and Main Theme, coming from the idea of the "fragility of humankind against all odds." Telling The Sound Architect's, Sam Hughes "I wanted to capture both the fragility and hopefulness of the human spirit...The solo piano motif propels the piece to a crescendo with the rest of the orchestra where our heroic theme is revealed, representing the power and ingenuity of humanity coming together for a common good. This is the theme of the resistance." From a press release with
Gamasutra ''Game Developer'' (known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021) is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print maga ...
, Disintegration's Audio Lead at V1 Interactive, Jack Menhorn, describes the creative process and collaboration with Everist: "When we started working with Jon, the main theme was the first piece we tackled as it would set the tone and character of the rest of Disintegration's music. There was so much to get right with this piece: the 'earworm' melody that people would remember, the struggle and eventual heroic victory of our characters, as well as the general vibe of the game we were still figuring out ourselves. Jon has nailed each of these criteria masterfully and went on to do the same with all of the music in the game. Everist would also score a commercial highlight spot for Nokia's virtual reality camera, OZO. He co-composed the score for the 2024 video game ''
Star Wars Outlaws ''Star Wars Outlaws'' is a 2024 action-adventure game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. Set in the ''Star Wars'' universe between the events of ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) and ''Return of the Jedi'' (1983), th ...
''.


Works


References


External links

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Discography at VGMdb

MobyGames rap sheet

Jon Everist discography at Discogs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Everist, Jon American film score composers Living people American male film score composers Musicians from Seattle American video game composers Year of birth missing (living people)