Nile Rodgers has worn many hats throughout his years in the music industry. He started as a teenager, playing guitar for the house band in the renowned Apollo Theater before moving on to front the hugely popular funk band Chic. Where he really made an impact, however, was in the recording studio, producing some of the best-selling albums in modern music history, including Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and Duran Duran's "Notorious." Now he's trying his hand at making music for the Mario set, producing and distributing the Halo 2 soundtrack, as well as helping to fit different musical elements into the game. We recently had a chance to conduct a phone interview with Nile, and here's the first part!

GameSpy: You're probably best known as the man behind some of rock's greatest hits, including songs by Eric Clapton, David Bowie, and Madonna. How exactly did you get involved with Halo 2?
Nile Rodgers: Well, it's actually a funny story. I went and met with Marty O'Donnell because, well, I'm a huge Halo fan. I mean, I gotta be honest, I've played a lot of videogames in my life, but when Halo came out, every record I was working on at the time should have had 40 percent of their down cost paid by Microsoft. We owe it all to Xbox. With every band I was working with, it was like, "Hey, let's work on the second verse!" while they said, " Hold on a second, hold on, hold on!" It was insane. Totally insane.

I even had four televisions set up in my studio at one point. It was insane, ridiculous. So I've been a Halo fanatic from way back in the day when I got my Xbox. I got them together when they came out. I hadn't even thought of putting out the soundtrack to the game until everyone at my office kept saying, "Man, this music, it's great! It sounds really great."

Anyway, one thing led to the next, cut to the chase, and I met with Marty O'Donnell, and we started talking. We realized that one of his good friends is a guy named Mark McKenzie, and Mark had been my orchestrator and accompanist on a film called "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy. So it was like, "Wow, you're kidding!" when I met him. We were both in the mutual admiration society. You know, "Oh man, Mark told me how great you were!" and so on. The next thing you know, we were like buddies. So I ended up putting out the first soundtrack, just because I thought it was really great music.

And I started thinking that these game composers are the, and I don't mean to sound corny, but they're the Leonard Bernsteins and John Williamses of tomorrow's generation. I look at video gaming as our entertainment, where my mom used to go and watch "Hello Dolly" or stuff like that, now we're playing Halo and Splinter Cell. The music that accompanies our form of entertainment is also great music, and we want to carry that experience, even when we're not involved in the game, just like my mom wanted to hear "West Side Story" while she wasn't watching the film.

So, once Marty and I became buddies and put out Halo, which was really successful, because I'm in the music business, I started talking to a lot of the artists that I was friendly with. It started out with John Mayer, and then some other acts, and I started realizing that just about everybody I know plays Halo. I mean, they're insane, absolutely insane about it. I was hanging out with Incubus backstage, and you couldn't even get a word in edgewise, it was like, "Blam, blam, blam, blam! C'mon guys, over here! BOOOM! Ahhhhh!" I realized that there was a unique thread that went through my community, and that thread was Halo.

Anyway, one thing led to the next, cut to the chase, and I met with Marty O'Donnell, and we started talking. We realized that one of his good friends is a guy named Mark McKenzie, and Mark had been my orchestrator and accompanist on a film called "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy. So it was like, "Wow, you're kidding!" when I met him. We were both in the mutual admiration society. You know, "Oh man, Mark told me how great you were!" and so on. The next thing you know, we were like buddies. So I ended up putting out the first soundtrack, just because I thought it was really great music.

And I started thinking that these game composers are the, and I don't mean to sound corny, but they're the Leonard Bernsteins and John Williamses of tomorrow's generation. I look at video gaming as our entertainment, where my mom used to go and watch "Hello Dolly" or stuff like that, now we're playing Halo and Splinter Cell. The music that accompanies our form of entertainment is also great music, and we want to carry that experience, even when we're not involved in the game, just like my mom wanted to hear "West Side Story" while she wasn't watching the film.

So, once Marty and I became buddies and put out Halo, which was really successful, because I'm in the music business, I started talking to a lot of the artists that I was friendly with. It started out with John Mayer, and then some other acts, and I started realizing that just about everybody I know plays Halo. I mean, they're insane, absolutely insane about it. I was hanging out with Incubus backstage, and you couldn't even get a word in edgewise, it was like, "Blam, blam, blam, blam! C'mon guys, over here! BOOOM! Ahhhhh!" I realized that there was a unique thread that went through my community, and that thread was Halo.

Like I said, there's not a bunch of pop songs on there. The guys did their songs, and then they had to go write pop songs on top of that. So that's the real deal, a lot of people don't know that. I go on to chatrooms, and I don't want to say anything, because I like when a lot of people will say the wrong things, then the game will come out, and one guy can say, "I f**kin' told you, man!"

GameSpy: Yeah, it's hard not to say anything about the game. Have you played through it yet?
Nile Rodgers: Through Halo 2? Nah, I don't have time to play through the hours of that yet. Have you played through it all?

GameSpy: Yeah, I have a review that's coming on Sunday.
Nile Rodgers: Awesome!

GameSpy: I promise I won't ruin anything for you.
Nile Rodgers: Yeah, what I've played is great. Oh f**k, cool, cool, cool, I can't wait!

GameSpy: So, it seems that music plays a much bigger part this time around, particularly during some of the battle sequences. It's easy to get swept up in the moment. Was that one of the aims from the beginning?
Nile Rodgers: Well, that's part of what I was trying to convince Marty of. When I'm working on a film, my job is to help the director see their vision, and to also add my two cents, to say, "Look, we can go higher than that." Now, obviously the director has to stand back and look at it and see if it's saying what he wants it to say. Marty and I got together, and I brought Steve Vai up to Seattle, and we just looked at some stuff, and I kept talking. I don't know if the guys at Bungie showed you that little video of me and Steve in the studio, with me screaming in his ear, "No, this has to go here, and at that point you need to do this."

That's the whole point, the AI has to respond to what the user's impulses are going to be, and you've got to have enough variation to have it go where you want it to go. You've played it, you can tell, you can see what was going on. So the music had to be more intense, at least as far as I'm concerned. You know, everybody who was a fan of Halo, they all threw in their two cents, and I'm sure that Bungie was inundated with that s**t. "Aww man, why can't a Ghost do this, and why can't a Banshee do that...?"

GameSpy: So is your label going to be putting out the soundtrack for Halo 2, as they did with the first one?
Nile Rodgers: Yeah, we'll be doing it again. The label is called Sumthing Else Music Works. My hero is Nine Inch Nails, they're Nothing, so we're Sumthing.

GameSpy: How do you keep the music from getting too overwhelming, or ensuring that it doesn't distract the player from the action?
Nile Rodgers: That's all Marty's job. He is the gatekeeper. He's the guy who has to understand all of the different nuances. It just like when you're doing a film, and you've got a guy who's called the Music Editor. The composer is doing what the composer feels like, the director is looking to see where the action is, but you always need... See, the world of video games is pushing the technological envelope, and as you push that technical envelope, you need more eyes and ears and minds.

It's just how it is, and what ends up happening is that you can't depend on one person to do this and one person to do that. It's like, ten years ago there were like two or three guys on a team, but nowadays the teams are getting bigger and bigger, as you can see. If you go over to Bungie, you've got fifty people around there. So that's Marty's job. He's not only the composer, he's also got to stand back and look at it and say, "Is this too overwhelming or is this not powerful enough?" We throw in our input, and we throw in our two cents, but basically he is the lord, king, god, grand poobah.

GameSpy: The game has a pretty wide range of moments, from tight, dark, scary spaces to sweeping, wide-open vistas. When playing, I couldn't help but think of some of the famous film composers, such as Bernard Herrmann of "Psycho" fame during the scary parts, and, as you mentioned, John Williams during some of the sweeping moments. Were you and Marty influenced by certain film composers when you were thinking of the music for the game?
Nile Rodgers: Well, the main thing that I was concerned with, since I knew that Marty pretty much had all of that covered, was hopefully bringing in the element that he wouldn't think of. Here's the best way that I can describe that element: if you think in the terms of Marty being a painter, I just wanted to provide him with more colors. That's really where I was coming from. The point is, not only did I bring in musicians who could read his score and play his score, I also brought in musicians who have the power of improvisation.

In other words, whenever you see a great soloist, like in a symphony orchestra, and they're playing the piece, what you're waiting for is that for soloist to play the cadenza in his own way. Now, the cadenza may be written a certain way, but whenever you hear Luciano Pavarotti or whoever do it, they're doing it their own way. So we knew that Marty was the composer, but we wanted to have people who had the ability to do that cadenzas, if you will, their way. They could improvise, they could twist it, they could flip it, and that's what was important.

GameSpy: I guess everyone brings their own personality to certain things.
Nile Rodgers: Yeah, that's what we were trying for. The thing is, the risk that you run with this is that you also have a bunch of fans who either like or dislike certain bands or people. You know what I mean? So you have some people who'll say, "Aw f**k, I hate Incubus," while you'll have others who think Incubus are gods. Or other people who say, "Man, I f**king hate Breaking Benjamin," and others might say, "Breaking Benjamin are amazing, they're my favorite new band."

So the problem is that you're telegraphing baggage, and that's the one thing that I think is kinda not cool, and with a video game, it's cool, because you're not sitting around and saying, "Oh, that's the part that he did," or "That's the song that they wrote." Instead you're just playing the game, and after you finish you're like, "Oh, f**k, that was cool, that part was so good!"

GameSpy: Yeah, you're probably too worried with trying to make sure you don't get your ass shot off to complain about what Incubus song is in the game.
Nile Rodgers: Plus, when you're in there, you're not even thinking that it's an Incubus song, you're just thinking that it's there to move the action forward, which is what you're supposed to do.

GameSpy: Do you think that this could lead to either yourself or other famous music producers moving into the video game world?
Nile Rodgers: You know, I don't really know.

GameSpy: Could you picture yourself doing more of it?
Nile Rodgers: Well, actually, I'm already doing some more of it. I've already got five or six more games on the drawing board. I think for me, it's a good fit, because I really love gaming so much. The great thing about being an independent record producer, well, and also being rich after making most of my money twenty some-odd years ago, is that I can more or less pick and choose the kind of records that I want to work on.

I can finally say that at this point in my life, I can do stuff that's fun. When I'm doing stuff that's fun, I'm working with bands that are of like minds. I just worked with Maroon 5, and those guys were playing Halo continuously. It's like, "Hey Adam, are you ready to do the song now?" and he'd say, "Oh yeah, how does it go again? [mimics the opening monk chant]". I'm like, "Come on, man!" So there's this constant Halo distraction going on in my world.