Los Angeles-based DJ and director Mike Relm has carved out a unique career remixing and mashing up movie trailers and other videos on his YouTube channel and at live shows. He used his unique cover of New Order’s Blue Monday to create the soundtrack to FIFA 18’s Official Gamescom 2017 Trailer. Relm spoke with EA about his process, how he got into remixing on YouTube, and what it was like making music with the many sounds of FIFA 18. 

EA SPORTS™: How did you get into remixing?

Mike Relm (MR): I’ve been DJing for about 20 years now, and around 13 years ago I started messing around with video scratching. Pioneer was the leader in that sort of technology, and they had this DVD turntable and I was like “oh my god, I know exactly what I’m going to do with this!” I had all these clips that I had prepared in the hopes that one day I’d be able to do something with them. People were starting to use video samples, but I wanted to actually scratch them and really manipulate them like I could with music and sound.

When that DVD turntable technology came out, I was off and running. I toured with it for a few years, using it in my live shows, and then YouTube started. I wanted to translate what I was doing live into this online platform, because it’s one thing being in a venue scratching stuff, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to watching it on a computer at home. I was finally able to do the things that don’t work live. When you go to a hip hop show, you don’t want to watch a trailer, it’s more about the music.

Now I do a lot of these movie remixes, where I take part of a movie, whether it’s with dialogue or sound effects, and craft the sound into a song or a track.

EA SPORTS™: You’ve done a few remix videos for director Edgar Wright, when did you start working with him?

MR: The first thing I did for him was a Scott Pilgrim remix just out of nowhere, didn’t know Edgar, nothing. Then he hit me up on Twitter, and when The World’s End came out he wrote me and asked if I could do a remix to help wrap up his Cornetto Trilogy.

I made this remix where I incorporated Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End; one of the tracks I made was a cover of Blue Monday, because in Shaun of the Dead there’s a scene where they’re throwing records and calling out the names of the songs. But then he’s like “no, no, no, don’t throw that one!” even though they’re attacking the zombies, he didn’t want to mess up Blue Monday. I thought it would be great for that section, because in The World’s End, blue is a very important color. And I always liked that song anyways, it’s a classic dance track.

EA SPORTS™: You also cut a remixed trailer of Baby Driver for Edgar Wright, was that on your own or was it commissioned by him?

MR: I did that with Edgar Wright and Sony, that’s why I had access to so much footage. I had access to the whole movie. It was almost not fair, I could just get anything I wanted from it, obviously staying away from spoilers. Edgar is very supportive of remix culture, so collaborating on his work is always a highlight. 

EA SPORTS™: How did you get involved with the FIFA 18 project?

MR: They reached out to me, because they had seen the Baby Driver remix and my other work. EA was looking for something that was very high-energy and not just plucking a song out of the Top 40 or whatever. They wanted it to sound very timeless, very international. Then they wanted to use my version of Blue Monday and I was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” It was very different than the version I did initially [for the Cornetto Trilogy video], but it’s pretty similar. The heart of it is still there.

EA SPORTS™: They still wanted something that fit FIFA, but with your style and vision?

MR: Yeah, I think there was a big advantage with it being a commercial. If I sample something, it’s a very specific style that I have, because these things have to work. Only certain grooves work, and I think that helped this FIFA project because the Blue Monday cover that I did lends itself perfectly to that, taking the sounds of the game and making them into a song. That was the whole concept, thinking of the emotions of the crowd and the players, all the different sounds of the game, and syncing them up. It worked out really well.

EA SPORTS™: What was your process like with the FIFA 18 project?

MR: When I first started, I laid out my version of Blue Monday so I could have each track playing individually, and I messed around with it, added to it. At first, I took one or two “kick” sounds from FIFA and laid out a rough idea different rhythms of what the sounds could do, added and removed other sounds. I added that “ping” sound of the ball hitting the goalposts, things like that. Like the noise that the players make, the grunts and the yelling. Even the sound of the goalie catching the ball. All these sounds, if you don’t kind of massage them right, then they kind of start to sound the same. It’s often just the sound of a ball hitting something. EA did a really good job of fortifying the sound, starting slow and getting really epic, it was really cool to work with. They had so many gigabytes of sound, it was crazy. 

EA SPORTS™: What was different about just working with sound compared to your usual movie remixes?

MR: Normally I’m cutting the sound while it’s attached to a visual. In Baby Driver, when he’s skidding across the road, I’m manipulating that video the same time that I’m manipulating the sound, so I know exactly how it’s going to look. If something doesn’t look right, then I might not use the sound. It’s a weird kind of back-and-forth where I have to compromise a lot. With a lot of movie projects like Baby Driver, I have access to the whole archive, so it’s not a problem there. Sometimes, when movies are cut really close, it’s hard to remix without a full clip. With FIFA, I didn’t even touch the visuals, they kind of reverse engineered from what I made sound-wise. That’s a header, that’s a slide tackle. Then they animated to that, which is completely different from what I normally do, but it makes a lot of sense. Because then they can do different things if I have a player’s name called out, they can customize it.

EA SPORTS™: What else is different about just working with sound on this project?

MR: I’ve used all kinds of source material. In the beginning, before I had access to full movies, I’d just take trailers. I’m looking back now and wondering how I was able to do that back then. Just having one second of a clip, why would anybody do that? But with FIFA, it was completely custom based on my remix. When I put one of the announcers calling out Ronaldo, they’re going to put Ronaldo on the screen doing something epic. The visuals didn’t even really exist before in the same way. They could just put the players wherever they wanted to fit the music, it was amazing what they did.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

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