We’ve heard about EA Trax, what does this mean?

EA Trax is the name that we give for all music in any EA game. We know that music in our games is heard by a lot of people and we were always being asked what a track was, who it was by etc. It seemed pretty straightforward to take a steer from MTV and use chyrons (those little pop-up boxes) to tell the player what they were hearing in a way that was familiar.

Burnout Revenge features a great selection of licensed music. What the process?

When we start thinking about the kind of music that we want to feature in a Burnout game the main focus is on music that feels right when you are playing the game. I worked with Steve Root (Audio Director on Revenge) and Steve Schnur and Cybele Pettus at EALA. The game is fast paced and aggressive, so that immediately gives us the starting point for the sort of music that we wanted to put into the game. Steve and his team in LA were telling us that Rock was coming back, that it was getting harder, that there was some great material out there that would work perfectly for the game. It’s great to work with these guys, they are the central point for all music within EA. They know anyone who’s anyone in the music industry worldwide and they really love working on Burnout as it’s gives them a chance to stretch their creative contacts and deliver different types of music than that featured in other EA games. We wanted great rock music, a greater mix of electronica, a harder edge to some of our mix and of course brand new stuff. Steve and his team in LA drop us a ton of music to listen to and we hand pick the ones that we want.

How do you get stuff that sounds fresh even after release of the game?

This is the real strength of EA and of Steve and his team. We start really early, pretty much as soon as we have the concept nailed and the game running. For Revenge, I think that we first started talking with Steve’s team in late February and we got our first drop of tracks in March, a full 6 months from release. This is pretty amazing when you think that a lot of the music that you hear in our game is feels brand new, even months after release. Another angle that we have is the relationships that we built from previous Burnout games. In B3, we featured an up and coming US band called Yellowcard. They subsequently went platinum and due to having been featured with EA they offered us an exclusive track for Revenge from their new album that was due out around the same time as the game. Funeral for a Friend and Fall Out Boy also made a return to Burnout Revenge after being featured in Burnout 3 for the first time.

How do you know if the music is right?

It’s real simple. We play the potential music as we play the game. If it feels right, fits the bill for what we are looking for and is exciting, then it goes into our ‘possible’ list. For Revenge we listened to 137 tracks before selecting the 44 that were going in to the game.

I heard that one of the bands were originally unsigned, who are they?

Ah, you're talking about Animal Alpha! This is a great story. EA Norway had a competition with some other partners to find a great unsigned band. There were a ton of entries and we agreed that the winning band would get a track onto the game. Animal Alpha won it and have subsequently had great success in Norway! This idea spawned the Burnout Band Slam run in conjunction with Gibson Guitars and the Hard Rock Café. There were regional heats in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The winning national bands then went to the final at the Hard Rock Café in Barcelona and may feature in a future EA game.

We’ll feature the Band Slam in a future article. For now, tell us what are your favourite tracks in the game?

Personally I love the Dogs track, reminds me of The Jam! I’m a fan of the electronic stuff as well so the BT remix of The Doors was something that really excited me when it came in. I’m really happy with the mix of the music that we selected. It’s great to listen to stuff that you don’t normally listen to so touching on the new styles of music that was coming out of the States with The Bravery and hearing some new UK rock bands such as Bloc Party was a great experience.

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