Don’t Compare Yourself to Others (Oliver Price of Our Chronicle)
Composer, producer, and the mind behind Our Chronicle, Oliver Price talks about balancing professional scoring work on projects like Call of Duty Mobile and Black Mirror with his own artist project. We dive into growing up on John Williams, how Guitar Hero sparked a love for rock and metal, and the importance of collaboration and growth.
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Transcript:
Mike: Hey Oliver, how are you?
Oliver: It's going good, thanks.
Mike: I really appreciate you being on the show. I've actually been really enjoying your sophomore EP, which we’ll definitely get to later. It’s funny because I’m not a huge metal guy, but I really dug your music—it’s been described as modern metal, and I really enjoyed it.
Oliver: Thank you, thank you.
Mike: Also, I have to mention the Donkey Kong in your background since we were talking about Smash Brothers before.
Oliver: Yeah, DK’s my favorite character to play. I don’t know if I’d call it my main, but definitely my favorite.
Mike: So I want to go back to one of your earliest influences. You mentioned that one of the first CDs you had was a John Williams collection?
Oliver: Yeah, it was John Williams’ Greatest Hits. It had Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park—all the iconic stuff. I probably listened to it until it broke from carrying my CD player everywhere. He’s the GOAT.
Mike: He really is. I still need to watch the documentary on him.
Oliver: I saw it—it was fantastic. It’s insane how many iconic scores he created. Like, if you just had a couple of the ones he did, you'd still be considered one of the greatest of all time. But he has so many. It’s ridiculous.
Mike: Yeah, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, ET, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter... the list goes on.
Oliver: The doc breaks it down by decade and it’s just unreal. He had done so much even before the 2000s, and then came the prequels and Harry Potter. It’s like, are you kidding me?
Mike: I remember one of the first soundtracks I had was for Star Wars: A New Hope. Also Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Oliver: The one I probably spammed the most was Revenge of the Sith. I loved the tragic tone—Order 66, Anakin’s Betrayal, Battle of the Heroes...
Mike: I played so much Star Wars: Battlefront. I’d wait in the menu just to hear Battle of the Heroes play.
Oliver: Me too. Greatest soundtrack ever.
Mike: And shoutout to John Williams for eventually getting better at naming his songs. I remember when Episode I’s soundtrack dropped before the movie and spoiled the plot—"Qui-Gon’s Funeral" was literally on the tracklist.
Oliver: Yeah, that’s wild. I’ve heard that story too.
Mike: So from film scores, you eventually joined a band—which is a different world entirely. How did that come about?
Oliver: Yeah, before that I was all about film music. My dad introduced me to classic rock too—The Beatles, Zeppelin, Floyd, early Coldplay. Then I got Guitar Hero and got introduced to Ozzy and heavier stuff. That made me want to switch from piano to guitar. I started a band around sixth or seventh grade. We played “Pork and Beans” by Weezer. After a couple years of guitar, I gravitated back to piano because I felt more creative control there.
Mike: That Guitar Hero pipeline is real! I’ve heard from a few artists that it was hugely influential.
Oliver: Absolutely. Crazy Train, Mr. Crowley—those were my intro to Ozzy’s solo work. And then Through the Fire and Flames by DragonForce... I’d never heard anything like it. I must’ve played that song 500 times.
Mike: That song changed everything. It made DragonForce explode. Funny enough, Herman Li from DragonForce was one of my first podcast guests.
Oliver: That’s awesome! I met him for like five seconds once. Super nice guy.
Mike: Huge gamer too. And someone actually got a perfect score on Through the Fire and Flames recently.
Oliver: I saw that! Insane. You have to be locked in with total precision. One slip and it's over.
Mike: So, from all that, you ended up going to Berklee College of Music. Was the goal always to pursue music as a career?
Oliver: Yeah, I went to Orange County School of the Arts in high school and was in a conservatory program. I auditioned for Berklee in LA—it was terrifying, but I got in. Once I had the acceptance, it was a no-brainer. I wanted to do film scoring, and Berklee had one of the only undergrad programs for that.
Mike: And by this point, you were diving into metal?
Oliver: Yeah, during high school I got into progressive metal—Periphery, Animals As Leaders, The Contortionist. Before that I was in a pop punk band. But once I got into prog metal, I really shifted focus.
Mike: So you were still doing your own music while studying film scoring?
Oliver: Yeah. I started releasing music under my own name—Oliver Price. But the biggest shift happened during my third year when I got really sick. I had to get weekly blood tests. I remember the moment I felt my energy return, and I realized I wasn’t invincible. It made me want to take my music more seriously.
Mike: Sometimes it takes something like that to push us forward—to realize we’ve got to make the most of the time we have.
Oliver: Exactly. It was a wake-up call.
Mike: Eventually you shifted from using your real name to creating Our Chronicle. Why the change?
Oliver: I wanted to build something that wasn’t just about me. I do professional composition work under my name, so having separation was important. But creatively, I also wanted a name that could represent something more universal.
Mike: You casually dropped that you’ve done music for Call of Duty Mobile and Black Mirror Season 6. That’s amazing.
Oliver: Thanks. I work with a company called Audiomachine. It’s a 12-person team of composers and engineers. Being in that building with all those talented people really pushed me to get better. I didn’t release anything personal for a couple years because I was just focused on improving.
Mike: That’s a smart approach—surrounding yourself with people who are better than you. It forces you to level up.
Oliver: Totally. Everyone there has their own specialty—recording, sound design, mixing. I’d ask questions all the time. It really accelerated my growth. I ended up scrapping and re-recording all the guitars on my first EP just to make it better.
Mike: Was that the first time you worked with a producer?
Oliver: It was the first time I outsourced mixing. I worked with George Lever, who mixed the first two Sleep Token albums. I tried to get the assets as polished as I could and then handed it off. His take really changed the sound—especially how forward the vocals were. It taught me a lot.
Mike: And you’re working with him again on your next EP?
Oliver: Yeah, technically my third EP, but second one with him.
Mike: From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges artists face today?
Oliver: Putting so much time and soul into something, releasing it, and then not getting the response you hoped for. Especially when you see artists blow up on TikTok—it’s hard not to compare. But I try not to focus on that. I just try to make the best music I can.
Mike: There’s no guaranteed formula. Going viral might get attention, but it doesn’t always translate. The key is doing the hard work—both creatively and promotionally.
Oliver: Exactly.
Mike: Let’s talk about how you joined Audiomachine.
Oliver: My first year at Berklee, my RA Jeff became a good friend. He eventually started working for Paul, one of the founders of Audiomachine. In 2020, Jeff invited me to move to LA and intern at the studio. I became their first full-time intern. After 6–7 months, I joined the creative director’s team, and in April 2022, I became a full-time composer.
Mike: That’s such a great reminder that a lot of opportunities come from people you meet along the way—college friends, early mentors. Those connections really matter.
Oliver: Definitely. My other RA, Roman, also works here now. It’s wild—we were all in the same dorm building, and now we see each other every day.
Mike: Let’s wrap up with a couple fun ones. What was your first concert?
Oliver: John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl. My parents didn’t tell me where we were going—my sister thought it was Legoland and cried when she saw it was a concert. But I was thrilled.
Mike: What’s something you’ve been listening to lately?
Oliver: The new Sleep Token single, Thrown’s new album, and just cycling through my Spotify playlists.
Mike: And finally, if you could give one piece of advice to other creatives, what would it be?
Oliver: Don’t compare yourself to others. There’s always going to be someone who’s ahead of you or seemingly blowing up faster. Just focus on making the best thing you can make and enjoy the process.
Mike: That’s a great way to end it. Thanks so much, Oliver. This was awesome.
Oliver: Thanks for having me!