Thomas Dolby

Ever since he first emerged in the early 80's, Thomas Dolby has been a driving force in the progression of electronic music. With now classic songs like "She Blinded Me With Science," "Europa and the Pirate Twins" and "Hyperactive," he managed to eliminate the cold edge of electronically produced music and make it work in a pop format. While he continues to make his own music, Dolby's career has branched out considerably over the years, first with film music and now video game soundtracks. Recently, he also provided the musical score to "The Gate to the Minds Eye," a video of computer animation.

Dolby knew from when he was a teenager that he wanted to work in a creative field, but wasn't sure at first if he wanted to be a director, actor, writer, or musician.

"I kind of fell into music because it didn't require a lot of entry qualifications," he said. "I was very pleased to find that once I had records out music videos were starting to happen, so I directed some of my own music videos and got to experiment in other areas of expression"

Even though the technology wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today, Dolby didn't feel limited at the time. He says that people thought electronic music was a novelty, so he felt it was his role to show them its potential.

"I think it's pretty ironic really. If you could go through my trash bin from the early 80's, you'd find all those bleeps and blips," he explains, referring to the early pieces of analog gear that are favorites in creating current techno and ambient music. "I was desperate really for people not to accuse me of coldness. It was taboo."

Even though technology has been a key component in all his music, Dolby still uses the piano as his main songwriting tool. Dolby will wait until he has a strong picture of how a song will sound before using the electronics to make it happen. Otherwise, he finds himself "instantly drawn into that analytical way of thinking" that gets in the way of creativity.

Right now Dolby is dedicating most of his time to his company, Headspace. In addition to creating music for interactive entertainment, the company develops tools to make that type of composition easier. Dolby doesn't have any current plans for his own music, but it's not because he's turning his back on it.

"I kind of figure that will always be there, but I feel there's really an important role for me in all of the stuff that's going on," he says. "It's especially great with Head Space because it's kind of like forming a band, I can bring on board some of my friends that I think are talented. On some of the projects we work on I write a couple of themes and supervise everything but get one of my friends to do the nuts of bolts work. And that enables them to get a track record, and also means that we can get involved with more projects rather than one at time."