I was recently able to set up an interview with legendary composer Grant Kirkhope, who has written scores for classic franchises like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong and recent titles such as Yooka-Laylee and Mario + Rabbids Battle Kingdom.

A full transcription of the 38-minute interview is en route for eager fans of the musician, but with all of the excitement surrounding Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I wanted to provide gamers with a little bit of Smash-related banter for their enjoyment. The interview was conducted by Okay, Cool’s Milen Petzelt-Sorace and translated by myself (Riley Little) for your viewing convenience.

Without any further ado, fans can catch a snippet of our chat with Mr. Kirkhope below:

Yeah, so with a new Super Smash Bros. on the way, there are remixes of gaming tracks coming from like Metal Gear Solid, Mega Man and all that stuff appearing form prominent musicians. If you could re-score or remix one track – it could be Rare, Nintendo or anything else – which would you tackle?

“Well, Mario or anything?”

Yeah, it could be your own or really anything. If you wanted to remix someone else’s music for Super Smash Bros. or something, but your own stuff is included as well.

“I’d like to do the Zelda tune. I think the Zelda main’s *hums Zelda’s theme song•. You know, that Zelda is my favourite game of all time so I think that’s a classic piece of gaming and media. It’s amazing. You know, so I’d probably have a crack at that. I love that piece of music. It’s just such a fantastic tune.”

That along with Mario is probably the most iconic gaming melodies of all time and that will probably never change.

“Koji Kondo is a master, right? So.”

Exactly. So, speaking of Super Smash Bros., would you like to see Banjo-Kazooie in Super Smash Bros.?

“Yeah, it would be awesome. I mean, you’ve got a lot of people talking about that, and the key thing about all that is “are they looking to do that?” You know, and like, I also feel that… I don’t know whether Rare or Microsoft have the appetite to get involved in that stuff. I don’t feel like they have. I just feel like they don’t care. And I kind of feel that they’ve wrapped and that’s it for them.”

“They seem to neglect all of that I.P. that Microsoft bought. Perfect Dark and Conker and Banjo and all that stuff that they’ve got lying there that there not working with it right now. It seems a bit weird to me. [Viva] Piñata. All that stuff, it’s all great I.P. that they could use and they’ve left it alone, so I’d be surprised if you saw Banjo in a Nintendo game. It’s possible, but I’d be surprised.”

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate arrives exclusively for Nintendo Switch on December 7, 2018.

You can find Riley on Twitter at @TheRileyLittle where you may then notice that he follows Grant Kirkhope on Twitter at @GrantKirkhope. Oh yeah, we’re rocking that sweet, sweet double plug.