Plus his thoughts on Switch 2’s Donkey Kong, GoldenEye and the sound of nostalgia.

Firstly, Kirkhope says he’s unsure if developer Rare still has an appetite for the series.

Would he return if asked?

Screenshot of Banjo Kazooie in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate giving a thumbs up

“In a heartbeat,” he says.

His first project wasGoldenEye 007, whose iconic watch menu theme is still memed online today.

Oh, and also whether Banjo Kazooie’s score included fart sounds.

Cover image for YouTube video

GoldenEye’s watch theme remains iconic years later.

How long did it take you to compose that?

Did you expect it to catch on like it did?

Close up headshot of composer Grant Kirkhope

Honestly it took me 15 minutes, if that.

When you write pause music for games, you don’t think anybody’s going to listen to it.

I just thought, stick the Bond melody in there.

Donkey Kong Bananza screenshot showing Donkey Kong.

I put a hip hop beat with it - it was an 808 kick - and that was it.

I forgot about it.

All of a sudden, that bloke did that video on TikTok and it just seemed to go crazy.

Yooka-Replaylee screenshot showing an underwater scene

You never know what’s going to take off, right?

So maybe that’s a warning to composers: don’t overthink it!

Babyface Ray, the rapper from Detroit, asked to use the watch music.

The team from Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.

And I know Rare say no to everything - and they did.

But if I recreate it, then we own the masters.

So I just did that, he took it, and itended up on a track.

Who knows what’s next?

The DK Rap?!

Earlier this year, you said you have “zero hope” for another Banjo Kazooie game.

Your post had quite a reaction, would you like to revise that statement?

I just think it’s unlikely.

Another factor is it’s got to be down to money.

That will be the overriding factor.

You’d have to find the team that’s got the passion for it and the humour.

Taking all that into account, I think it’s unlikely.

They’re two pretty big studios, they know what they’re doing.

Whether Microsoft would give the ok, I don’t know.

Would they involve me?

I don’t know, probably not.

Zero is probably a bit of a heavy estimate, it’s probably better than zero but not much.

Would you return to the series?

But sometimes people want to relaunch a game and they don’t want the old guys to get involved.

So they might want another composer.

I’d certainly love to do it.

You still work a lot with [Donkey Kong Country composer] David Wise.

Is he aware that Aquatic Ambience has become the sound of nostalgia on TikTok?

I think he does.

Like me, he’s super gratified and heartwarmed that anybody remembers stuff from back in the day.

He knows he did a tremendous job on that piece of music.

I don’t think anybody cannot say it’s fantastic, because it is.

It’s just a phenomenal piece of music.

I’m not convinced.

What do you make of the game and DK’s new design?

Musically it’s a very different style to DK64.

I think it’s pretty fantastic.

Nintendo are just fantastic.

It’s going to be great - it’s them, right?

It’s their thing.

When Rare split from Nintendo, they handed back Donkey Kong and kept everything else [for] Microsoft.

So DK is [Nintendo’s].

I can’t imagine it will be anything less than fantastic.

I wish I had something to do with it, of course.

But alas, I didn’t.

I think the DK Rap has run its course.

It can’t possibly come back again.

TheDK Rapwas used in the Mario movie but you weren’t credited.

Did Illumination ever contact you about that or apologise?

It wasn’t really their decision.

It was Nintendo’s.

Then they decided anything with a vocal would get credited, so the DK Rap scores there.

But then they decided if we also own it, we won’t credit the composers.

And that was the final nail in the coffin.

I said ‘for the sake of a couple of lines of text…’, but that was that.

They own it, and that’s up to them.

So me and Bowser’s Fury didn’t get credited because they own the two songs.

So everyone assumed the DK Rap was coming out.

The story was Seth Rogen thought it was cheesy, we should keep it, I don’t know.

It’s bizarre how they just sampled it straight from the game.

They just plugged in the N64 and sampled it and looped it.

There’s no re-recording done, straight out the game.

So it’s me playing guitar on it.

It’s the lads from Rare doing the [sings] ‘D-K’ thing.

They’re all the performers on the track.

So they’re all in the movie uncredited

Can we expect the DK64 soundtrack on the Nintendo Music App?

They have put some of Dave [Wise]’s stuff on it.

They do own it all so it’s up to them.

I don’t think they ever really liked DK 64 that much.

That’s a rumour we got back through the cycle of whispers from Nintendo when we were at Rare.

I don’t know if that’s true or not.

The process isn’t any different really.

I’m not a very intellectual composer, I just tend to mess around with something that I like.

I’ll load up a sample and find some chords or a tune that I like.

The way I write music hasn’t changed at all.

It’s just the quality’s got better - I mean sonically, not particularly me!

You’ve got to write it, mix it, master it, everything.

And with the advent of having a live orchestra now, a lot of people use real players.

That’s the top of the whole job.

Human beings just do things that it might take hours to programme into a computer.

How would you define your musical style and your method of composing?

I think the word that pops into my head is amateur!

People often say to me I’ve got a Kirkhopian sound.

And it’s not by design.

I feel I’m no different to that.

It’s never lost on me.

People ask ‘are you sick of doing it?’

and I’m not.

Why are you drawn to those cartoony sorts of games?

I just do what I get asked to do, honestly, I don’t pick.

It’s a double-edged sword.

Some people go ‘oh I’m a one tricky pony, I want to break out of that’.

I feel the opposite way.

How lucky are you to get remembered for anything?

I’m happy that at least I’m remembered for something.

I’ve done all sorts of bits and pieces all over the place.

Send them all to me, I’ll do all of them.

I’m super grateful that anybody wants to hire me for anything.

Wait, are there fart noises in Banjo Kazooie’s score?!

It was just a thing meant for our own amusement.

British people like farts, right?

We laughed about it for years, but it never went into the game of course.

You worked with Yoko Shimomura on Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, who just won the BAFTA Fellowship.

What was it like to work with her?

I had no contact whatsoever, I’m afraid.

It was all stuck together by Romain Brillaud, who’s the audio director in Paris.

He did all the ‘you write that, you write that, you write that’.

I had no contact with her musically at all during the game.

The soundtrack certainly sounds consistent between multiple composers!

Romain was the hub of it all.

That’s why she gets the big awards and I don’t!

I’m still waiting.

This interview has been edited for clarity.