Go Shiina

Go Shiina
Birth name	Masaru Shiina
Born	May 16, 1974 Yokohama, Japan
Genres	Orchestral, jazz fusion, rock, electronic
Occupation(s)	Composer, arranger
Instruments	Keyboard
Years active	1998-present

Masaru Shiina (椎名豪, Shiina Masaru^?, born May 16, 1974), known professionally as Go Shiina, is a Japanese anime and video game composer employed at Bandai Namco Games. He is best known for creating the scores to Tales of Legendia, the Mr. Driller series, and the God Eater series.

Born in Yokohama, Japan, Shiina was taught how to play the electronic organ from his parents when he was growing up. Although he was not a dedicated musician before becoming a composer, he was at one time a member of a Megadeth cover band who also played J-pop music. Shiina enrolled at Dokkyo Junior High School. After being rejected by 46 companies, including a jewelry company, a finance company, and a fast food company, he was hired by Namco (now Bandai Namco Games); he had little prior experience with video games.

Creating music for old arcade releases using Namco's sound trackers felt more like computer programming than composing for Shiina, but he has said that the experience helped him out when he would have to use MIDI sounds in future games. The songs he composed for the first Mr. Driller were deemed unfitting for a puzzle game by some of the staff and they almost didn't make it into the final product.

Shiina's first solo project was Mr. Driller G. He was given extensive access to live instruments and an incredible amount of creative freedom, setting the stage for his later work. The scores for future games in the Mr. Driller series would also be composed exclusively by Shiina.

...
Wikipedia