Arcane season 2 boasts an impressive soundtrack that is currently up for a Grammy, but the award recognition wasn’t the real draw of the project for Alex Seaver. The Executive Producer on the music for season 2 (and a veteran of both the first season and Riot Games in general), Seaver quickly adjusted to the challenge of following up the acclaimed first season soundtrack.

Alex Seaver (otherwise known to EDM fans as Mako) sat down with Screen Rant to discuss the reception to the season 2 soundtrack, collaborating with the Emmy-award-winning animation studio Fortiche, and which corner of the show proved the most challenging for him to fully lock down.

A Six-Year Journey Through RuneTerra With Arcane

The entire arc of Arcane‘s development was a thrill for Seaver, who went from composing the score for season 1 to serving as the overall Executive Music Producer on the project for season 2. That meant a lot of responsibility for the musician, something that he embraced with gusto.

“People love the characters, love the story. It really connects you with people, and thank God they liked our music as well. You never know if people are gonna be into this stuff. I think my favorite experience in my career has been seeing the fan relationship to the music and the story; it’s literally the best. It doesn’t get better than that.“

Finding the specific tenor and tone of a song for a specific character can be a tricky proposition. It requires finding the emotional core of the character in any given scene, reflecting their entire personality and a moment in particular. Finding that perfect groove required “talking through every song” with Fortiche, Christian Linke, and the entire music team.

“Who’s it about? What are we trying to do? What kind of genres could work for this kind of thing? It just starts a very complicated process that could take three years of just writing a song that works. It was finding the artist who’s a partner in it. Sometimes they’re writing the song, sometimes we’re writing it. Halfway through, we were going, ‘I hope this makes sense.’

“We have music that’s in Mandarin. We have Linkin Park and Stromae and a 3000-year old Yordle singing a song on a banjo. I think the thing that ties it together is that it’s just all made for the story. That’s where we started rallying around. Does this help tell the story? Yes? Then continue. No? Then rewrite it.“

The Challenges And Rewards Of Arcane Season 2’s Soundtrack

The wide range of characters in Arcane and that focus on story presented their own kind of challenges for Seaver and his team. Characters like Caitlin proved especially tricky, especially as their story arcs became increasingly grim in season 2. “In season 1, Alex Temple — who scored the show with me — did almost all the Piltover sequences. I did all the Zhan sequences.

“I didn’t actually write too much Caitlin. In season 1, she’s an innocent, pure character. In season 2, I started writing songs for her after she took a dark turn, and I was kind of struggling. I was trying to write the old Caitlin. Christian kept being like, ‘No, this is ҒUCҜed up.’ We like her, but this is a different person. That definitely took me a little bit to get used to.”

Responding to the action and animation that they were getting from Fortiche wasn’t too out of the ordinary for Seaver. “I will say, nothing is more inspiring as a musician than getting the v.1 animatic. Even their early stuff is so expressive. Some of it even looks like pencil sketches, and yet, I know exactly what to feel here.

“The really fun thing about working with them and executive producing the second season soundtrack was that was in the room with them. We were always pushing back and forth. There was one cut of “Paint the Town Blue,” and I just kept being like, ‘Can the picture move to the music a little more?‘

“They just gave me the scene and said we could edit it and just give it back to show us. It was like, are you serious? Somebody gave you a million-dollar Lamborghini! They’re artists, that partnership is as deep as it gets.”

After six years of working on the music for Arcane, Seaver has developed a love for the entirety of RuneTerra beyond the scope of the show. “I love Bilgewater, Bandle City, I love all that stuff. The Fjords and everything. During season 2, I got to learn more about Shurima. There’s decades of lore built into these places. Anybody who wants to tell a good story, that stuff is right there.“

Ultimately, seeing Arcane be such a success critically and commercially has been “one of the most reaffirming and positive experiences” of Seaver’s career. The artist described how it can be easy to become cynical about the state of the music industry at times, noting “there’s stuff that commercial people like, and there is private stuff that we like for the art.“

Finding a project that both appealed to the broader audience possible while still retaining that clear artistic intent was the key to Seaver’s experience on the show. “It re-educated my brain. It’s about making great art and doing great storytelling and committing to it. Believing in it and believing that people will respond to it. I’m really grateful for this experience.“

Looking ahead to the future, Seaver admitted that he would love to return to RuneTerra, but that it’s more about the people he’d be working with. “I will follow Christian and Fortiche to the ends of the Earth. Wherever they go, I’ll go. I think that I started realizing is that it’s not the size of the project or the budget. It’s about whether these are special people telling these stories.“

“This has been a 6-year journey for me. That’s two seasons, we shacked up and went to Middle-earth together. You just have to make it with the right people. That’s my new quest these days. I want to find more people who are lovely storytellers that I can help support and work with.“