Leo Sieben accepts the community-given names of his TNT music tracks as official!

[Cammy]

So, if you’re not aware, Leo Sieben (also credited as L.A. Sieben) is a musician who worked with TeamTNT and Wraith Corp. He provided a handful of music tracks for the shared soundtrack of Wraith Corporation’s megawads Hell To Pay and Perdition’s Gate, and more famously, for TNT: Evilution. A lot of TNT’s most iconic tracks were actually written by him - we have Leo to thank for fan favorites like Death’s Bells, Into the Beast’s Belly, and Legion of the Lost!

 

The only problem is none of those songs are actually called that. The only TNT composer who named his tracks straight-up is Tom Mustaine, who named everything he ever wrote on one page of his website. TNT’s other tracks by Leo Sieben and Jonathan El-Bizri have never been named - but in 2010, a few anonymous IPs decided to give those tracks their own names on DoomWiki.

 

I believe that these unofficial names - and their unwritten, yet widespread acceptance among the community - both came from our intrinsic desire to catalogue music as its own work. Leaving songs untitled is a disservice, in my eyes, and undersells its value as an individual creation by reducing it to deference to the circumstances in which it is played. In the Doom community nowadays, it’s simply not possible to separate these songs from their unofficial titles in standard conversation - or to imagine them with other names.

 

Good news, though! I managed to get in contact with Leo Sieben on LinkedIn and described the situation to him. He did those of us who love to catalogue music a huge favor.

 

 

He has accepted the community names that we have adopted for his tracks - Sadistic, Smells Like Burning Corpse, Death’s Bells, Agony Rhapsody, Into the Beast’s Belly, and Legion of the Lost - as official! Gone are the days of needing to clunkily refer to these as things like “TNT Evilution MAP04/MAP13/MAP29 theme” on the wiki and in other documentative contexts. I might be one of the only people to whom this is actually a big deal, but I LOVE it when stuff like this happens.

 

To clear up confusion, by the way, Legion of the Lost is often attributed to Jonathan El-Bizri, but was actually written by Leo! I hadn’t really thought too hard about it before but it does make a lot of sense - LotL does not sound at all like El-Bizri's work. El-Bizri’s TNT submissions (Soldier of Chaos, Let’s Kill at Will, Cold Subtleness, and Blood Jungle) are characterized by bouncy, chromatic riffs and quirky instrumentation. Compare that to Leo’s music, which favors steady intensity and more standard chords - particularly as heard in Death’s Bells - and you can hear the resemblance in Legion of the Lost right away. It's unmistakably Sieben.

 

Leo was also kind enough to share with me some tidbits about his thought process behind some of these tracks, which you can read below:

 

Quote

First I'll say that when I wrote the music, I had no idea which levels or maps would use them.  I had no context, so I didn't give them names.  I just used internal Work-In-Progress type names. For historical posterity, I'll tell you what the original "internal" names were:

 

SADISTIC

Internally this was called "1BBHS.MID" --- My brother, one of the level designers for Team TNT --- he made a Doom map based on our high school, Bishop Byrne High School.   Maybe I thought I would write more for him, so this was just #1.  But as far as I know, I didn't write anything else for his BBHS maps =P   But that's the name that I used for that track.

 

AGONY RHAPSODY

Originally this was simply called "TNT.MID" because of the team my brother and I were a part of -- Team TNT.  Pretty boring title, hahaha! The other 4 were called, internally: DOOM3.MID, DOOM4.MID, DOOM5.MID, and DOOM6.MID. I've often wondered if there were other tracks... DOOM1 and DOOM2... or if there was a DOOM7 but I haven't been able to find them if they exist haha.

Now, more than 20 years later, I wonder if "1BBHS" was the #1, "TNT" maybe was the #2, and hence DOOM3 was the first in the set named 'DOOM#'. I had other naming schemes too.... ACTHREE, BBTWO, DAONE, DEFIVE were some of the tracks I remember liking, but yeh, none of these were for Doom projects.

 

SMELLS LIKE BURNING CORPSE

This was DOOM3.MID. It's funny to me and ironic that it is named after Nirvana song.  I remember distinctly how I was inspired to write this, and it was actually Nine Inch Nails' Head Like a Hole. I listened to a midi for Head like a Hole, and that was the first time I had seen/ heard sawtooth bass like that, so i tried to make a track in that style.  haha.  So too bad the community didn't come up with a name like "Hole Like A Head" or "Corpse Like A Hole" -- that would have been more appropriate, in light of the history =D But I am certainly happy that the community went with "Smells Like Burning Corpse" too =)

 

LEGION OF THE LOST

This is a name that I am not 100% happy with. "Legion of the Lost" is the name of a song by a commercial band called Grave Digger.  I don't know if they're still active or not.  Anyways. Someone somewhere commented that DOOM4 sounded like it was inspired by this Grave Digger song. I listened to it and maybe there's some similarity. Not much, but I can see why someone might have said that.

The truth is that I had never heard of Grave Digger before this comparison, and I remember quite plainly where the inspiration came from, for this one. In the magazine Guitar World, John Petrucci had a column called Wild Stringdom, and it was basically the lick in that column that inspired me. So I wish the community had a different name for that track instead of "Legion of the Lost"  but yeh =) 

 

DEATH'S BELLS

This one was DOOM5.  I think the name is a great one, i'm glad the community landed on that.  =)  My story there --- There's a pretty basic, almost boring first part... and then there's the abrupt key-change to the second part... since doom midis need to loop, I needed to have a way to get back to the first part.  

In the end, I just ran out of time for something clever, so I just... forced it back.  So it has been very charming all these years later, to listen to the community making covers of that one.  I thought maybe the community would modulate back to the first key in a more clever way, but they faithfully follow my forced version.  =) I'm glad the community likes that track.

 

INTO THE BEAST'S BELLY

Lastly, this one was DOOM6. I don't have any notes or thoughts about this one. =) But yeh, the community has a good name for it =D

 

I also asked him if he'd be able to provide names for the tracks he wrote for Perdition's Gate / Hell To Pay, and am currently awaiting a reply. For those interested, by the way, he currently works for Insomniac as a gameplay programmer. He scored the gig this January after having worked for Hi-Rez Studios and Rockstar within the past few years, so the wiki's musing that he "seems to have retired from game development" is inaccurate.

[Tarnsman]

TIL.

 

Honestly had no idea the names of the tracks were community invented.

[Wavy]

Huh. I'm curious who actually came up with the names of the MIDIs.

[Caffeine Freak]

Quote

I remember distinctly how I was inspired to write this, and it was actually Nine Inch Nails' Head Like a Hole. I listened to a midi for Head like a Hole, and that was the first time I had seen/ heard sawtooth bass like that, so i tried to make a track in that style.  haha.

 

Holy shit, I can totally see that. I'd never thought of 'Head Like a Hole' while listening to 'Smells Like Burning Corpse', but I can see the inspiration from it in the track, particularly in the opening 30 seconds or so of each song.

[Gez]

Would he accept to share the original MIDIs, if he still have them? 1BBHS, TNT, DOOM3/4/5/6 ? It's well-known that the MUS conversions in the IWAD have a few problems...

 

 

Also what does he think of the inspiration attribution credited to "Life of Antarctica" by Vangelis for "Death's Bells"?

Edited November 4, 2021 by Gez

[Rudolph]

That is very cool of Mr. Sieben indeed, but then again, I honestly cannot imagine him outright rejecting them and being all, like, "NO! THEY ARE CALLED DOOMx.MID AND THAT IS THAT! SEE YOU IN COURT, LOSERS!" :P

 

[MemeMind]

12 hours ago, Cammy said:

This was DOOM3.MID. It's funny to me and ironic that it is named after Nirvana song.  I remember distinctly how I was inspired to write this, and it was actually Nine Inch Nails' Head Like a Hole. I listened to a midi for Head like a Hole, and that was the first time I had seen/ heard sawtooth bass like that, so i tried to make a track in that style.  haha.  So too bad the community didn't come up with a name like "Hole Like A Head" or "Corpse Like A Hole" -- that would have been more appropriate, in light of the history =D But I am certainly happy that the community went with "Smells Like Burning Corpse" too =)

As a NIN Freak, I can hear the intro bass in SLBC ( the bass is ingrained into my head, which is also a hole) 
Its amazing reading this, I need to relisten to SLBC but just by memory its kinda uncanny.
This is awesome that there has been a rise of OG 90's legends making contact with our modern day community.

[Cammy]

7 hours ago, Gez said:

Would he accept to share the original MIDIs, if he still have them? 1BBHS, TNT, DOOM3/4/5/6 ? It's well-known that the MUS conversions in the IWAD have a few problems...

 

 

Also what does he think of the inspiration attribution credited to "Life of Antarctica" by Vangelis for "Death's Bells"?

 

I'll be sure to ask him these questions when I can get back in touch with him - unfortunately, Leo hasn't logged onto LinkedIn in a couple months.

 

I've actually had this post ready to go for months now, but I was hoping to also get in touch with Jonathan El-Bizri and ask him to canonize his tracks' names so we could get all of TNT's soundtrack squared away at once. El-Bizri is really hard to contact though, so that hasn't happened yet. Figured I'd just post what I have.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Great post Cammy! That's really interesting to hear what he has to say all these years later. Always thought "Into the Beast's Belly" would make a good wad title. Really fits the song too. 

[ChopBlock223]

Great stuff! I guess thinking about it further and giving both songs another listen just now, Pharaoh's theme isn't as close as I seem to have decided for myself.

Legion Of The Lost starts with somber guitars and singing, then eventually transitions into some pretty straightforward heavy metal (and it's a good song), while Map 31's track has these recurring chords (on piano), which are somewhat similar, they're also somber, but the rest of the track is actually pretty different, continuing the piano throughout and introducing strings as it goes, and making constant use of bells.

 

Personally, I wouldn't mind referring to 'Legion Of The Lost' as just 'Pharaoh' instead from hereon, after its level.

 

Have the others said anything about TNT's music?