page_title: Frank Klepacki
section_title: Petroglyph Games
hierarchical_section_title: Frank Klepacki / Early life and career / Petroglyph Games
caption_attribution_description: English: Frank Klepacki working in the studio of Petroglyph Games Deutsch: Frank Klepacki bei der Arbeit im Studio von Petroglyph Games
context_page_description: Frank Klepacki is an American musician, video game composer and sound director, best known for his work on the Command & Conquer series. Having learned to play drums as a child, he joined Westwood Studios as a composer when he was 17 years old. He has scored several games there, including the Lands of Lore series, Westwood Studios' Dune games, The Legend of Kyrandia series, Blade Runner, and the Command & Conquer series. His work in Command & Conquer: Red Alert won two awards.
  He lives in Las Vegas, where he has shaped a solo career and played and produced for several local bands. His personal and band work touches upon several genres, including orchestral, rock music, hip hop music, soul music, and funk. He has dubbed the style of music he writes as "Rocktronic". His work has appeared in various media, including the Spike TV program The Ultimate Fighter.
  Klepacki is currently the audio director of Petroglyph Games, where he scored Star Wars: Empire at War. Klepacki was contacted to score Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, but was too busy with Petroglyph to take the project, and declined to mention the offer.
context_section_description: Klepacki took a brief hiatus to work on solo albums, then joined Petroglyph Games as full-time audio director in 2004. He prepared by becoming versed in the job's requirements and demands. His first task was scoring Star Wars: Empire at War, Petroglyph's launch title; he also helped select voice actors. A die-hard fan of the Star Wars franchise, Klepacki enjoyed complementing John Williams's style as he worked with sound effects used in the feature films. He worked closely with programmers to ensure perfect aural functionality. Though most the game's score is John Williams's work, Klepacki estimates that he contributed 20% original material. Apart from the main theme, he aimed to minimize his editing in order to retain the classic Star Wars sound. He chiefly composed for new areas of the Star Wars universe only found in Empire at War. He calls his work on the game "the peak of my career," and felt he had spent his entire life grooming his abilities for that soundtrack. As a perk of composing, he visited Skywalker Ranch and Industrial Light and Magic, and took pride in having his name associated with an official Star Wars product.
  For the Forces of Corruption expansion pack, he took greater creative liberty with the Star Wars feel by writing an original theme for the new criminal faction. In attempting to compose this piece, he wrote several preliminary hooks that were later integrated into the game's battle themes. He composed six pieces for the expansion total, including the finale theme. In line with the criminal theme of the game, Klepacki borrowed motifs and recreated the mood from scenes involving Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. His score for the expansion pack was accepted upon first submission to LucasArts. As Petroglyph's audio director, he also selected sound effects—a tricky process due to the issue of making the criminal faction's sounds a "little different, without straying too much from the original signature sounds." Klepacki worked with LucasArts to select voice actors, and contributed his own talents to the role of IG-88 and other minor characters. A blooper reel of his voice acting was released on Petroglyph's forums after the one-thousandth member registered. Klepacki was contacted to score Command & Conquer 3, but was too busy with duties at Petroglyph and declined to mention the offer publicly. Electronic Arts hired Steve Jablonsky to score the game; an EA community manager at C&C 3's forums suggested that the audio team studied Klepacki's music and tried to recreate his style. Klepacki feels that Command & Conquer is a significant part of his life and that he would like to return to the Tiberian era. He conceded that employment at Petroglyph games would probably prevent him from working with Electronic Arts. Years later in 2018 he would have that opportunity due to EA partnering with Petroglyph to remaster the games since many of the former developers from Westwood Studios had started, and continue to work at, Petroglyph.
  Klepacki's next project was a game collaboration by SEGA and Petroglyph named Universe at War: Earth Assault. As of December 2006, he had composed several songs for various factions and enjoyed the "opportunity to create something new again, not based on...existing intellectual property. Klepacki "began by taking into account what songs were identified as fan favorites in...past related work". He was interviewed about the creative process on 27 March 2007 by Kevin Yu, a Petroglyph community manager, and provided a detailed tour of his studio at the company. His office included one of the fastest computers at Petroglyph and a vocal booth where unit responses and other vocalizations were tested and tweaked before voice actors performed finishing work. Klepacki was glad that Universe of War did not demand strict obedience to a particular style. He declared that surprises were in store for Command & Conquer fans waiting for him to return to his "roots" and "adrenaline-pumping soundtrack style", and suggested that they "imagine my mindset...when Command & Conquer first came out, an
caption: Klepacki at his Petroglyph office (c. 2009)
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