An interview with Sandy Cressman of Pastiche

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your work schedule to correspond with me. Without further ado, may we begin?

1. Sonic Boom is a fan-favorite vocal theme in the Sonic franchise. How did that song come about? Did Spencer compose and write the lyrics? Was Pastiche involved in either aspect of the writing process?

"As I recall, Spencer Nilsen contacted us after knowing of our backing vocal work with Eric Martin, and he had a basic track already composed, and he told us about his concept for the song and about the game. I came up with the initial lines “ If you try, you can fly, you can reach the other side of the rainbow…” which set the direction of the lyric, and then the three of us in Pastiche(Jenny Meltzer, Becky West and I) composed lyrics for the verses and I think we collaborated with Spencer on the melody."

2. Following the release of Sonic CD, did Pastiche gain any fan-recognition or further exposure as a result of the main vocal theme?

"Initially, there was not a lot of recognition for us or for the song, but through the years, many fans have communicated to us how much they loved the song. Remember that the game came out before social media, before YouTube and probably before the Comicon phenomena. However, it was a great addition to our jingle demo CD."

3. Were there any previous versions of Sonic Boom recorded before settling on the final version as it appears on the soundtrack?

"No, I believe we only did the one version that appears on the soundtrack. We were each given an audio CD of the soundtrack at some point."


4. How was the recording process for the game's various songs with Spencer Nielsen? Where the songs recorded in the same studio? Different studios?

"I believe we did all the recording in Spencer's studio at the SEGA offices in South San Francisco."

5. Were you or Pastiche ever approached by SEGA for any future work on the Sonic franchise?

"No, we didn't do any further work for SEGA."


6. Were you involved with any of the official remixes of Sonic Boom done in future games? (i.e. the Crush 40 & Cash Cash version, the DnB remix found in Sonic Gems Collection, etc.)

"No."


7. My personal favorite version of Sonic Boom is the ending version found when completing the Sonic CD game. How was recording that version different from the opening version?

"I think that you are probably more familiar with these different versions….since I haven't heard the soundtrack in many years; I don't recall doing more than one ending but it's very possible that we did and it was edited later."


8. Many of the songs in Sonic CD feature backing vocals from Pastiche. Were these vocals done in accordance with Spencer's compositions or mostly improvised?

"Spencer had created tracks for the various parts of the game, and told us where he wanted vocals. Jenny, Becky and I improvised over the top of the tracks until we created vocal parts that worked well.


9. As many fans know, the US version of the Sonic CD soundtrack is completely different from the original Japanese version (with the exception of the "Past" music). Was there any input from SEGA of Japan regarding the US soundtrack? Did Pastiche and/or Spencer Nielsen use the Japanese soundtracks as reference points?

"I don't recall hearing anything about the original Japanese soundtrack."

10. Did you have any exposure to the Sonic franchise prior to recording for Sonic CD? Did it have an impact on the recording process for the game?

"None of the three of us had played the Sonic games before recording, so we were depending mainly on Spencer's descriptions of the game and we did see some of the visuals from the game, which added to our direction in creating the vocal parts of the music."


11. Are there any tracks from the recording process for Sonic CD that were unused or cut from the soundtrack?

"I don't know about that..."


12. Lastly, it is very apparent that, in the 90s, both SEGA of America & SEGA of Japan paid very close attention to music production for their franchises. How would you compare the recording process for Sonic CD compared to other projects you have worked on?

"I loved the creative process with the Sonic game. It was a really interesting period for game music. It was fun creating the vocal parts together with Jenny and Becky because we were such a team, a musical family. We also did vocals for “Orly”, a Broderbund game, which had a reggae/caribbean theme. I also did some work for the Sims game, and that was unique in a different way, in that I had to create syllables that sounded like singing language but could not be any recognizable language. I speak French, Portuguese and some Spanish so that was difficult!"


Thank you very much for your time, Mrs. Cressman. I wish you the very best in your endeavors.

"Thank you and Happy New Year!"

 

I contacted her representative and she provided me the means to contact her. So I'd say it was pretty straightforward.