Tell us a little about how you ended up being so fascinated by sound. Was there always an attraction?
My first interest in music was taking classical piano lessons at age eight. My mother had wanted us to learn to play music, which at the time I wasn’t really into. I wanted to ride my skateboard and jump ramps on BMX bikes, haha. It was through skateboard culture that I discovered punk music. Bands like Minor Threat and DRI. It was interesting, I had never heard music have so much raw energy and aggressiveness. This along with some of the late ‘80s hip-hop would get played at my friend’s skateboard half-pipe ramp in his backyard. I instantly fell in love with these sounds and wanted to seek out more music like this. Many years later, I tried to start a band in high school, but it never worked out, so I bought a drum machine and said I would just try and do it all on my own. It wasn’t until the mid-‘90s I started to build out a little studio in my parents’ house. I discovered the sound of Midwest techno/acid and electronic music. I started buying tons of records and a pair of turntables and began DJing at my friend’s underground parties. I was completely hooked at this point, and with electronic music, there really were no bounds or limitations on what could happen in a music track. Furthermore, I decided to stay and continue on this path. I create and play electronic music to this day.

Your career has gone from making electronic music to designing sounds for some of the biggest companies in the world, like Google, NASA and many others. How does a brief normally look like when a company is asking you to design sound for an application or a feature?
The brief is always different with each company or project. It might require 1,000 SFX sounds for a game. Or It could be designing very specific user interactive sounds that go into a UI interface or software/hardware device. I have even designed sounds for an electric car, the Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicle. Some of my favorite projects have been working on games like Cyberpunk2077 and Doom 3. I just never know what I will be doing on any given day. It really makes the job super fun and exciting. 

When adding sound to a visual context, it becomes clear how profoundly sound actually alters our perception. What are your thoughts?
I think sounds are almost more important than the visual context, as, with music and sound, you can close your eyes and your mind will paint the picture of emotions and images that derive from what your ears are hearing. A movie/film/game/visual imagery without sound, in my opinion, can only take you so far. Sound is the way we communicate with each other, the way we express emotions. It’s the universal language that all cultures and people can understand.

Walk us through a regular day in the life of Richard Devine, on the job designing sounds!
Well, I usually start out with a fresh cup of coffee, lol. Then think about what type of sounds the client might want. I then go to the instruments or machines that will give me those timbres. If it’s foley or sound effects, I will set up a recording session to capture the sounds. I have an editing suite setup in my studio specifically for editing and cataloging sounds. I will often do audio clean-up to the sounds, remove any unwanted artifacts, etc…then start organizing the sounds into folders. I then start layering and experimenting with each of the sounds to see how they are working within a project or composition. I often use a combination of synthesis and captured field recordings to create the sounds. Likewise, I experiment a lot at this phase to create what I call audio Lego pieces that I can use to fit into specific parts of a track/film/game score, etc. It’s really about picking the right sound at the right moment. Conveying an idea or an emotion with those sounds you created. Setting the mood or enhancing the user experience with sound. It really depends on the application, but I will usually design the sounds to fit the project and hopefully enhance the experience.

If we start at the very beginning, what got you hooked on music in the first place?
There was always music at home as my father was a classical guitarist and my mother sang. I heard the Sex Pistols in 1977 and much to my father’s horror I got an electric guitar and started a punk band. When I was 18, having developed an interest in other styles, I asked him to teach me the classical guitar, which he kindly did. I’d still say my guitar style is somewhere between punk and classical.

When the “Unbelievable” single hit in 1991, your band EMF became a worldwide phenomenon. What was that like, having a number one hit in the US on your first release as a band?
No one saw all the hard work that came before, I had been in my previous band Apple Mosaic for eight years, had had two record deals and never sold a record, but I learned a lot and when I met James Atkin and the rest of EMF the pieces fell into place. We got a deal within six months and had a number one record a year later. It was so exciting being young and touring the world with my friends doing what I had been dreaming of since getting that first guitar.

Having written a hit song like that, is there any pressure attached to follow up with something equally successful? If so, how does that affect you creatively as a songwriter?
Oh yes, when you are signed to a major record company there is always that pressure and I’m not sure I respond well to that. EMF reacted by going dark on our second album STIGMA, which was not what the record company wanted. However, it is our fan’s favorite album. I would say as a songwriter, you have to write for your own reasons, that might well be for the joy of pop music, but it must come from inside not because you’re trying to please someone else.

Since then, you’ve been involved in writing music for an array of artists and have had songs with the likes of Beyoncé, Shakira, Jordin Sparks and many more. Was transitioning into songwriting for others always something you had in the back of your mind even when you were young?
Not really, it’s something I fell into with my friend Amanda Ghost who I wrote with a lot with on her solo albums. We happened to be in an office in New York and in walked Jay-Z and Beyonce. She asked us to write on a backing track that she liked, as a duet for her and Shakira. Several people had tried and no one had cracked it. We wrote “Beautiful Liar” in half an hour in a hotel room, as they had booked a studio for that night. We used to take weeks to write songs and when it was a hit we were so surprised. Needless to say, that started off a whole new era for us, we wrote a bunch of hit songs and ended up with jobs at Epic Records in New York. Crazy.