A Passion for Collecting

By Robert Covarrubias

There are times in ones life when you meet someone who not only has inspired you in one way or another but made you feel like you’re looking at a Giant. I can personally count on one hand how many people have made me feel like that and one of them Is Tommy Tallarico. When I first met Tommy at Toy Fair he and Victor were at the Sideshow booth conducting an interview, Frank wanted a picture with the guys so I took it. Now, I have to be honest I wasn’t aware of who these guys were and when we started talking I thought to myself, “Man, these guys are cool.” We had agreed to do an interview on Tommy’s collection and left it at that. When I got back to New York I started doing a little research on Tommy Tallarico and what I discovered blew my mind.

He is a considered a veritable video game industry icon, one of the most successful video game composers in history, he helped revolutionize the gaming world by creating unique audio landscapes that enhance the video gaming experience. He is a well-recognized on-air television personality, an accomplished musician, featured on numerous national and international television shows, appearing repeatedly on CNN and MTV, hosts Judgment Day for G4TechTV, the 24-hour, seven-day-a-week TV network fully dedicated to the world of video games. He also hosts, writes and co-produces the longest running award-winning video game television show, The Electric Playground which has been on the air since 1997.

The list goes on and on, I didn’t list more because I’d probably be writing forever. Though, this is the longest interview I have ever done it is also one of the most fun to read. I couldn’t believe how warm and down to earth the man really is and how dedicated he is to his collection. I only hope that those who like the interview and what Tommy had to say will visit his sight and tell him how cool the interview was and if you didn’t like it, as the old saying goes “if you can’t say nothing nice don’t say nothing at all.” for his complete bio visit his website www.tallarico.com

RC: You have an impressive background and list of accomplishments, I know what they are but for our readers who may not know tell us a little about them?

TT: Basically I’ve been in the video game industry for over 15 years, I worked on over 250 games which I’m not sure if there’s anyone else in the industry who’s ever worked on 250 games (laughs). I started back in 91’ working on NES and the game boy and actually the first project I ever worked on was Prince of Persia the original and I kind of just begged the guy at Virgin, (I started at Virgin Games) and the story is actually quite crazy, when I turned 21 I got in my car and I drove out to California cause that’s what I wanted to do, that’s what I had wanted to do my entire life is go to California and music and video games were always my number one and number two love so they were both my number one love…but I never thought about putting the two together so I came out to Hollywood cause that’s what one does, I had no money, no place to stay and no job, no friends, nothing. I was literally homeless; I was sleeping under the pier at the beach and so I went to Hollywood and I kind of took a look around and thought, “boy, this place is kind of crappy, Its not like what it looks like on television” the only other thing I knew was Disney land so I stopped a bum on the street asked him where Mickey Mouse lived and he pointed me down Orange County and I got a job selling keyboards at Guitar Center. I picked up a newspaper and went down there and they said, you got the job you start tomorrow, so I showed up there wearing a turbo graphics t-shirt and the first person who walked in the store, the first customer I waited on was actually a producer at a new video game company that Virgin started called Virgin Games and it was called Virgin Mastertronics back then and he struck up a conversation cause he saw my game t-shirt. I went down there the next day and I was hired so I was in California three days and I was hired as a tester, a games tester for Virgin I was actually the very first tester that was ever hired at Virgin…

RC: Talk about luck huh…

TT: Yeah, well you know some call it luck I call it fate (laughs)…so I would bug the Vice President of the company everyday and say, hey if you ever need any music if you ever need any sounds whatever, let me know I’ll do it for free, you don’t have to pay me if you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it so finally Prince or Persia came up and I worked on that and everyone was really kind of impressed with the sound then the next big game I did after that was Global Gladiators on the Genesis which won best audio of the year in 1991 so that’s kind of where it all started for me I ended up winning audio awards for the next seven years in a row, kind of a good run. But then in 94’ I was actually the first video game musician and composer to ever put out a cd soundtrack album worldwide on a major record label its was called Tommy Tallarico’s Greatest Hits Vol. 1 on Capitol Records so once that happened a lot of different companies kept calling me and asking me to go and work for them and so that’s when I decided to start my own company Tommy Tallarico Studios, so when I left I was working on Earthworm Jim and Madden Football, still working on Virgins stuff, all the top titles doing stuff with Capcom working on all the cool titles when I left so I was in a really cool position when I started my company and have been doing that ever since. I pretty much have four companies, there’s Tommy Tallarico Studios, my music and audio company we don’t just do music but sound effects as well, we do about, maybe 5 or 6 projects a year. Last year we did sound design for the Incredibles, Sponge Bob, Fight Club, Unreal Championship 2 and Lineage II and then we did all of the music and sound effects and voices…the voice over production for Advent Rising we’ve been working on that for about three years and its just coming out at the end of May and that’s really kind of one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done because of this style of music and the story line , amazing art, I kind of wrote it like a 13 th century Italian Opera its really kind of a departure for what video game music has always been and that’s really kind of how I think I made my name and reputation in the industry…I hated video game music, I mean I didn’t hate it but I guess I was outgrowing it…

RC: I know what you mean, growing up with “toot toot toot toot toot…“

TT: yeah, just bleeps and blips and like merry go round melodies you know like doot doot doot doot doot doot you know, but I was 22 years old at that point and I grew out of that but I still love games so I want to give the players and the listeners you know what they expect to hear I want to give them rock or electronica or orchestral kind of vibe …cinematic film score kind of stuff even though the technology didn’t allow for that at the time… that’s the type of music I was writing and I got a very positive response from the press and from the fans and everything like that so it kind of worked in my favor. So, that’s my one company then the other thing of course has been Hosting and Co-Producing The Electric Playground…there’s two television shows actually TheElectric Playground,www.elecplay.com , has been on the air for 8 years now and won all sorts of cool television awards and it’s the most widely played and longest running video game television show in the world in fact, Victor Lucas, my partner and I we really kind of invented video game television as it relates to showing developers and showing the people who make the games. No one had ever done that before we did it, we’re also the first two to review video games on television no one ever did that either…

RC: How does it feel to be the first guys to invent this kind of medium and then see other shows follow in your footsteps?

TT: Well, you know it makes us feel good really, you know because I’ve always tried to…whether its doing music that nobody has heard in a video game before or doing a tv show or putting out a video game album that no one has ever done before or starting a non-profit organization for the games industry or now my latest thing putting on a video game concert…for me it’s exciting to be in this industry that is still so young…think about it there’s not to many times in a persons life time where they can be in on the ground level in a completely new form of entertainment its like what the film industry was in the 20’s or Rock n Roll and television was in the 50’s you know in the 21 st century that’s video games so its very exciting to be on the cutting edge brink of a new form of entertainment…

RC: absolutely you’re one of the Pioneers it must be so exciting to know that you’ve contributed so much to the video game industry.

TT: and that’s really what gets me up every morning and keeps me excited and motivated, there’s so many things that we can bring to light that no ones ever done before, one of the things that we’re doing this year with the non-profit organization G.A.N.G. or Game Audio Network Guild is that we’ve written a proposal so that video game sound tracks will be part of the Grammy awards so we would have our own Grammy category for video game soundtracks and we’re going to be finding out about that pretty soon.

RC: Well tell me a little about G.A.N.G.

TT: G.A.N.G. The non-profit organization that I founded and I’m the president of … over three years ago we started it we have over a thousand paying members, we have major corporate sponsorship from companies like AMD, dts, dolby and Creative Labs and Electronic Arts, its been an amazing experience…

RC: So that would be the third company…

TT: exactly, we have Tallarico Studios, we got the tv shows and then…Judgment Day of course is one of the top rated shows on the network in fact and then there’s G.A.N.G. the website for that is www.audiogang.org and then the fourth thing is our new venture which…well not new, we’ve been working on it for three years but the whole video games live concert tour and this is launching on July 6 th and once again no one has ever seen anything like this in the history of entertainment. Because of the excitement that video games can provide in interactivity were able to evolve live entertainment, what were doing is were playing the most amazing game music from the most incredible game franchises I mean we got everyone Halo, Myth, Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Final Fantasy, Tron, Warcraft, Ever Quest, CastleVania, Medal Gear Solid, Medal of Honor, I mean all of the greatest music of all time.

RC: It sounds like a great idea but how did you know that this was something that would appeal to a mass audience?

TT: I think cause I’m a gamer…you know I do all these jobs in the industry I have all these companies and do all these things but you know its not like I’m just trying to make a quick buck off the video game industry I’m a gamer you know and I do this 24 hrs a day 7days a week I mean I love games so I always put myself in the shoes of the game and I think that’s why a lot of my reviews on Judgment Day are a little more faithful to a casual gamer if you will because some of the hardcore fan boys love a bunch of unique stuff that maybe others don’t so I think I bring a really interesting perspective to reviewing because I’m not…I don’t love everything, people expect you to like certain things if you’re a reviewer and I’m also a gamer and I think that’s really important when putting together all of these things so I wanted to see a concert of all the greatest music and so I waited around for it and it never happened so I went and I did it, know it was the same back in 1998 I wanted a boxing game for the Playstation and the N64 and no one had made a boxing game in like 10 years and I’d been involved with one originally on the Genesis called Muhammad Ali boxing and I was always a big boxing buff and everything so I said “well, screw this I’ll make one myself” so I helped co-design Knock Out Kings for the N64 we won awards for that for best sports game of the year so you know its like screw it if no one’s gonna do it I’m gonna do it, you know.

RC: Well let’s talk about your hobby which is your toy and memorabilia collection. I’ve seen pictures and they are as awe-inspiring as your resume.

TT: yeah, you know I’ve always been into toys my entire life and I think my generation…you know I’m 37 years old now and I still read comic books and collect toys and play video games, I never really grew up or grew out from any of that and so now that I’ve become an adult as they would call me…I can still remember the feeling I had walking into a Toys R Us when I was 9 or 10 years old and wishing that I could get everything I wanted, that feeling always stayed with me so when I started to become successful I let those feelings still come out and said “Screw it, I’m buying everything I can get my hands on as far as toys”…

RC: Such as

TT: Ah geez, there’s so much that I wouldn’t know where to start but I’d say the main one first and foremost my Spider-Man collection, I have every single Spider-Man comic book ever made in mint…near mint condition…

RC: Now when you say every single one are you talking about Spidey #1 as well?

TT: I have before #1, Amazing Fantasy 15 in VF condition, yep every single comic book in fact I was fortunate enough to work on the Spider-Man video game and I worked with Stan Lee for a couple of days and of course I got Stan to sign my Amazing Fantasy 15 and my Spider-Man #1 as well…that was quite a thrill.

RC: Wow, those must be cherished items in your collection.

TT: absolutely, it took me my entire life to collect it, it really did, I finished the collection about two years ago at Comic Con and I gotta be honest with you it was one of the saddest days of my life (laughs)…you’d think it would be a happy day but it was like what do I do now?

RC: As a collector I absolutely understand where you’re coming from…

TT: You know what I mean?...so I started Daredevil…(Laughs)

RC: Is that your goal now to have the complete collection?

TT: I’m about six shy of the entire collection in mint condition.

RC: Get out of here, incredible, you don’t play around do you?…

TT: Nah, why bother you know its fun to me…I love going to comic con…to me Toy Fair is a great show and everything but I think my favorite convention of all even more than E3 which is my own industry…my favorite of all is Comic Con, I love it the most. I also have every single one of my books catalogued and I have them categorized and I have them all in an Excel spread sheet which you know took painstaking hours to enter every single comic cause its not just amazing spider its literally every single Spider-Man comic that’s ever came out including the really crappy 2099 Spider-Man which was like the most awful Spider-Man ever but I had to collect them ALL it didn’t matter if I read them or not, anyway I would say the Spider-Man comic collection but I’ve actually built an entire room in my house to Spider-Man…

RC: I was going to mention that; based on the pictures I’ve seen you seem to really have more Spider-Man memorabilia than anything else.

TT: Yes, I would say absolutely that’s the number one collection I own, the other thing I like to do is…I like to create a lot of art and sculptures and things like movie props and mannequins that’s what I like to do in my spare time when I have it. So for example that life size Leeloo mannequin from The Fifth Element I created her from scratch.

 

 

RC: Oh, you created her?

TT: yes, the entire thing, I had to get the orange suit, I bought a woman’s wet suit and cut it, I had to rubberize it and get the orange spray paint and I had to do her hair with an orange wig but then I spray painted the different variations of the color and even her skin all of her skin is totally like eight different shades of skin tone to get the proper tone. and the face I had to match perfectly with like hundreds and hundreds of heads to try to get one that kind of matched Milla Jovovich ‘s face and then I did the make-up and painted the whole thing. I love doing stuff like that I also have a Light Cycle from Tron that I made completely from scratch and I put it on a grid and I also have the Diva from The Fifth Element as well which was like a resin kit, I love resin kit stuff. But then there’s also cool stuff as well like the Wonka bar you know I made a Wonka bar I went into photo shop did it all up made the golden ticket put it in a nice frame… crazy stuff like that. The main things that I love are Spider-Man, Tron, Planet of the Apes, the old one, not the Tim Burton film, Willie Wonka and the first three Star Wars films from the 70’s

RC: Did you also make the life size Laura Kroft?

TT: No, that I bought, I love life sized mannequins to me there just so cool…

RC: Yeah, I noticed you have quite a few of them around the house

TT: I have two Laura Krofts, two Spider-Man’s, I have an Aragorn, Yoda, a Leeloo which I made and then my next big project, when I get some time is an R2D2 a fully functioning working R2D2 and that’s another thing I collect R2D2 stuff, every R2D2 that’s ever come out I think I have. Indiana Jones is another one if I can get my hands on anything whether it’s the fertility idol that I painted and got the resin kit for, the hat and whip or whatever it is…oh! the other life size mannequin I have is the Han in Carbonite which I bought, that’s a fun one I hung it up on my wall just like in the movie and I got the lights beaming down (laughs)

For part 2 of this interview click here!