This is the last of three parts of our interview with former Konami composer and audio programmer Hidenori Maezawa. Please don't miss parts one and two!

1UP: I don't know if it's the same in Japan -- maybe Dragon Quest is more popular -- but when people think of game music in America, they usually think of three different games: Super Mario Bros., Castlevania, and Contra. I think all those games, if you hum them, everyone would know them right away. Did you expect that? And again, I have to stress that it's specifically the NES version of Contra that people think of...

Hidenori Maezawa: Recently, there was a man who won the Nobel Prize for what he was doing thirty years ago. He must feel about the same way I do! This was something that I worked on so long ago, and now people are telling me that they recognize it, and I'm becoming aware of their recognition. I feel a little weird about it -- why now? Why am I hearing about this now? 

1UP: I think part of it is that people like us have always enjoyed those games, but more people are looking back and realizing how good they really were. It's not so much that it's suddenly come into vogue so much as we've gained a new perspective on these things over time, and it's easier to look back and appreciate them.

HM: Back in the day, we weren't professional musicians, and none of us had clearly-defined assignments. There was always an atmosphere of people being creative, and for me it was more like I was in a laboratory doing my studies. I was able to concentrate on my music, and everyone wanted to create something different and original. Because of that, I think, my music became something strong that left an impression in people's hearts. 

1UP: After working on these games, what did you decide to do next?

HM: I worked inside the Konami studio in Kobe up until 1992, composing music for the Famicom and for arcade titles. After that, I moved to Tokyo and started working as a music director on the Konami label. This is right about the time that technology made it possible for us to start putting our music on CD. That's why I moved along to become the director at the label. This is when I started to deal with people outside gaming, people in the music business. That's when I...how to say it? That's when I saw the world. After that, I established my current company, Picnic, as a music director. After seeing all that was outside of Konami, I wanted to strike out on my own. Now, I create music for games and also for pachinko machines. But I also do my own artist's work -- for instance, I've just released a CD called Rain Book with Japanese folk singer Yoko Yamamoto. I do the composing and arrangement and the studio work, and she sings. It's not game music!

1UP: Is any of your work available online, like through iTunes?

HM: No, just Amazon. 

People outside the game industry find it difficult to work with game people, because game composers are different, as are game companies. We have our own circle, our own sealed-up world, and it's not easy for people outside of that to work with us. But at the same time, people inside the games industry find it difficult to work with people from outside, because they're different from us as well. I've had experience with both worlds, though, and I feel like my company Picnic can serve as the middleman. I'd like to become the person who coordinates both sides.

1UP: What other ambitions do you have for Picnic? What future do you see for the company?

HM: What I really want to do is take those two separate worlds of music and unite them. Tear down the walls between the game industry and the industry outside. I'm also interested in overseas markets -- I want to break out beyond Japan and work with people from other countries.

1UP: Now, just to clarify, your work with the Konami label -- was that just producing original music, or were you also licensing, like for Beatmania and other games?

HM: Speaking of licensing....You know, when I was working on Parodius, we had a very short time with the game, so I wasn't able to compose a new soundtrack for it. But you know, classical music is public domain -- once the composer has died, 50 years later we're free to use it however we wish and the music belongs to the public.... 

1UP: (laughs)

HM: Yeah, that's why we used classical music for the game. We only had one month to create Parodius' soundtrack! Everybody was working hard, not sleeping, really crunching in the cold weather. So cold our lips turned purple!

To answer your earlier question, at Konami Label I was creating music and making CDs from Konami's tracks, but also I was involved in projects like recording at Abbey Road Studios in London, where the Beatles recorded. 

1UP: What did you record there?

HM: Strings. The London Philharmonic Orchestra...many, many people. We arranged Gradius music into a fully-orchestrated score, like Star Wars music. I was involved in the arrangement and recording for that. Anyway, one day on lunch break, we went to a random lunch place and I found Parodius at the store! That was ironic, you know, because I was working on Gradius and putting together this huge thing with the orchestrated soundtrack, and right there we found this Gradius parody whose soundtrack I arranged from classical music. I had these big hopes going to Abbey Road Studios --

1UP: It must have been a dream come true for someone who got into music because of the Beatles.

HM: Yeah. And then I got there, and found something that I was involved in -- my creation was right there, Parodius. I felt sort of strange, really. I wondered, maybe Paul McCartney had played my game? It was an interesting feeling.

1UP: Now, we were wondering if it would be OK if we played you a few clips of your music and asked your thoughts on them...?

HM: This is from twenty years ago, huh. This is the first stage music, right? It's kind of like...why am I hearing this now? But I can remember the days that I was making this, just like yesterday. The memories are still so fresh. Is this the original Famicom soundtrack?

1UP: Yeah. These songs are so energetic -- they're over so quickly, but I'm sure it was a lot of work to create them.

HM: We were creating the music in hexadecimal. It goes 1 to 9 then A to F. Yeah, nostalgia...that's what I feel from this. For Contra, we developed a way to create an echo sound with just one a single sound channel instead of two. Normally you'd need two, but we managed to make it work with just one, which left me two other channels to work with. That made the sound thicker and deeper thanks to the delay. (hums the theme)

1UP: That's something that was characteristic of Konami's music back then...so I guess that was all because of you?

HM: Yeah, it was called the "Konami Sound." But it wasn't just me, although I was a part of it. 

1UP: Now here's a fan remix. What's your impression of this? (plays totally metal version of Contra first stage theme)

HM: Ohhh. This is by an American? 

1UP: I believe so. Chris Kline.

HM: You know, the image I had in my mind when I was working on Contra -- I was picturing this kind of music as I was creating it.

1UP: So this is...

HM: (in English:) True sound!

Is this Chris Kline person just doing this as his hobby?

1UP: Yeah, he was just doing this as a hobby. But actually, because he did these, he ended up doing a track for Bionic Commando.

HM: I was wondering about copyrights. In Japan, there's an association called JASRAC, and all music has to be registered through them.

1UP: America has something like that, ASCAP.

HM: Right. But game makers don't register their game music, because if they do that they have to start paying royalties for every single game that they make using that soundtrack. So there's no such thing as a copyright issue for game music. So that part you don't really have to check into. But there's also the human rights -- people would need to check with the creator to see if they can create things like this. But in this case, nobody is sure who was responsible for these songs in the first place, so I guess that's difficult.

Sam Kennedy and Hiroko Minamoto contributed to this article.