The Norwegian musician Maze has released countless tracks since 1992 and has also been involved in numerous demoscene productions.
Interview with Maze of Desire, Fatzone, Moods Plateau, Proxima & Resistance, done by by Lars Sobiraj aka „Ghandy“ of Nukleus.
Introduction
The Norwegian musician Maze has released countless tracks since 1992 and has also been involved in numerous demoscene productions in recent months. One example is the fantastic intro „Magnum A.I.“ from Planet Jazz. His perseverance and activity are now obviously paying off. We recently spoke with the friendly scene musician.
Ghandy: Hi Maze! Maybe you could just introduce yourself to our readers?
Maze: Hi Ghandy, my name is Stian Gudbrandsen, I’m 45 years old, married for 11 years and got a daughter who turned 13 recently. And I work as an excavator driver in our family company.
It all started with the Megademo from Red Sector
Ghandy: How did you actually get into the Amiga demoscene? That was in 1992, wasn’t it?
Maze: Though I watched a lot of demos on the Commodore 64 in the 80s, I never got hooked, before I got the Amiga and were watching, as many others, the Red Sector Megademo in 1990 or so… Officially I joined the demoscene in 1992, but I actually started a year earlier, in 1991.
With a friend of mine who called himself Dr.Deo, we formed the group Vectors (without actually checking if that were taken). We never released anything special under that label. So when I got in contact with Zerox and asked him if I could join Delta Force (might have been the other way around, I don’t remember :-)).
Ghandy: What motivated you to create so many modules and chiptunes over the years?
Maze: Hmm.. I don’t know what have motivated me to do so many tracks, but I usually had a lot of fun making them. But I also made some when I were sad aswell, which is obvious when you listen to many of the old ones. I were young and the hormones were a Rollercoaster. But other than that, not sure.
Maze – Jogeir Liljedahl is one of his idols
Ghandy: Who are your idols, have you ever met them?
Maze: I have many idols, one of them is Jogeir Liljedahl. He made so many great tracks in the 90s. And at Black Valley this year (2023) I had the pleasure meeting him. And at the age of 45, I got a bit startruck. Yes, Truck. Since I meet him too at BV. :p
Ghandy: What are your favourite productions of the Amiga demoscene?
Maze: Hard question, there are a lot of good productions which are equally good. So those are Silents – Global Trash, PMC – Alpha & Omega, Red Sector MegaDemo, Quartex – Substance, Sanity – Elysium, Phenomena – Enigma. I got them at the same time when I first got my own Amiga 500. I watched them over and over. And still do from time to time.
His job has nothing to do with music
Ghandy: Does your profession have something in common with your hobby?
Maze: No, nothing at all. And I guess that’s what it makes in more fun sitting composing all the time. I relax when I’m in front of my Amiga (yes, I make my Amiga mods on real hardware).
Ghandy: Maybe you can tell us something more about the great intro „Magnum A.I.“. How did it come about? Was it the music first or the code, in which order did it run?
Maze: We have done quite a few releases together now, so I don’t quite remember how it all started on this one. Might have started with the logo by Optic. And we wanted to do a small onescreener, which escalated as usual. I think the tune came pretty early in the project.
A Magnum theme wasn’t a plan from the start, so that’s why the tune don’t have the Magnum theme included. I tried to find a spot for it, but I never felt right. So decided to leave it as it is.
Maze is active on several computer platforms
Ghandy: How did you come to participate in the music disc „TED Vibes 2„? I always thought you were only active on the Amiga?!
Maze: Before I joined Proxima in 2020, I only made music on the Amiga. But that also escalated, I now I have done music on several platforms. Like C64, Apple II, NES, SNES, Atari (many different) to name a few.
When it comes to the „TED Vibes 2“ music disc, Murphy/Exceed sent me a message and asked if I would be interested joining the project. And ofcourse I were. Though it was pretty hard making music for the Plus/4.
Ghandy: I like this crazy video „And Now A Word from Our Sponsors„. Is it you humming to all the old songs? How did you come up with this idea??
Maze: Hehe. Glad you like it. Yes, it looks like a lot liked it. And yes it is me humming. As you can imagine, it all started with me listening to Amiga music, and actually humming them and thought, hmm, maybe this is something for the wild compo at Gerp. So I started finding tunes that were possible to hum to (hummable if you like :-)) I then recorded myself humming and then filming me lipsyncing to the tunes. D!rt!e put it all together.
Ghandy: Phew, you’re really currently in five groups at once. Don’t you lose track of everything at some point? What do you do when several groups want something from you at the same time, doesn’t it get too much at some point?
Maze: I’m in quite a few groups, but luckily for me, not too many are active at the moment. It hasn’t been a problem, since I usually make a tune pretty fast.
Though the last few months have been a bit, off track and not very active at all. Been busy with real life, but I’ll be back in track (and probably already are, when you read this).
Maze will continue tracking music with his computer
Ghandy: You have been active for over 30 years. Where will you be in 10 years, will you still have the energy to stay with it?
Maze: I had a tiny tiny break from 2005/2006 to 2018, with not too much new stuff made, but still many tunes released. 10 years from now? Probably still making music I guess. Hopefully still for some great Amiga releases. Maybe not in the same pace as I do now, but time will tell.
As long as I’m enjoying playing around with those trackers (protracker at top of course), I’ll keep the music coming.
mAZE out.
Click, No Carrier.
