In the Rock Band Zine, while talking about adapting 17 songs from his band The Main Drag for the Rock Band Network.
“PUT YOUR MUSIC IN GAME. GAME IS GOOD AND FANS LIKE GAME. MUSIC IS FUN, GAME IS FUN. FUN IS FUN. ROBOTS!”
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Overheard
Overheard: John Drake of Harmonix
Found Friday
Aside from the regular slate of DLC offerings, it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of big news happening in the world of music games at the moment. So I’m going to go ahead and take this opportunity to clear out my backlog of tagged stories a bit, and offer a hefty dose of miscellanea for your weekend reading and/or watching pleasure.
Overheard
“It’s really weird to see younger kids who are like 16 at our shows, and then they say their dad was a huge fan or their mom used to play us all the time. They either heard it from their families or they heard it on Guitar Hero.” — Jeff Bland of Slaughter, in the Las Vegas Sun. (Trouble is, there’s no Slaughter in Guitar Hero as far as I can tell.)
“To have to one of my songs appear on the list next to Aerosmith and Radiohead and whatever it’s this mind-blowing thing because I don’t feel like I belong on that list at all.” — Jonathan Coulton, in the Rock Band Zine
“I really think my musical/piano background is the main reason I improved quite fast in Guitar Hero. I’ve played the piano for all my life, and I got to a level where I could play pretty much anything I wanted. … In fact I think that piano players even have a bigger advantage than guitar players at this game.” — overhand Guitar Hero player “Lilirock,” at 5Frets.com
“I’ve been playing the guitar for 20 years now, and it’s pretty funny to watch me flail and falter trying to play Guitar Hero. I got up to medium. … A lot of people wouldn’t be listening to bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Foghat right now if it wasn’t for Guitar Hero. I don’t think there’s really any other way to listen.” — Brendon Small of Dethklok, at Kotaku
Overheard: USA Network Honors Harmonix Founders
They may have to give a little cash back to Viacom, but Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy have been given a lovely consolation prize. USA Network has awarded the co-founders of Harmonix with a “Character Approved” award for 2010. The awards, which “honor the real characters who are changing the face of American culture,” also recognize Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, Kiva.org founder Jessica Jackley, and, er, Green Day.
From the Harmonix writeup:
Rigopulos and Egozy’s potent combination of musical training and advanced technical skill-combined with a healthy dose of innovation-has fueled explosive growth in the category of music games and earned the two a place on Time Magazine’s 2008 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Congrats, gents.
[Read | image: USA Network]
This is so meta it hurts my head. Apparently a company is making a real, entry-level Stratocaster modeled after the Rock Band guitar controllers…which are, in turn, modeled after real Fender Strats.Overheard: Daniel Dae Kim of Lost
I can’t resist. In honor of tonight’s final season premiere, a quote from Daniel Dae Kim (“Jin”), speaking to IGN about his favorite games:
“The games that I play are all family games. Guitar Hero, Rock Band… Beatles Rock Band is a big favorite of mine right now.”
Oh, Lost. I can’t ever stay mad at you.
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Overheard: Ringo Starr
During an appearance on Jimmy Fallon:
“Beatles Rock Band: I am absolutely crap at it.”
See the video after the break; the Beatles Rock Band question starts right around the 3:30 mark.
[via RockBandAide]
Overheard: Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend
Oh heck, let’s make Vampire Weekend Week official with one more VW post. This one comes courtesy of a really excellent interview in New York Magazine:
[Being in Guitar Hero 5] was as exciting as anything the band has ever done, playing for the first time and realizing our song had become part of a video game. I think it’s really cool that Rock Band and Guitar Hero are the go-to games. I was seeing a friend over Christmas and I was playing Rock Band with his 8-year-old kid. We were playing Dinosaur Jr. and afterward he said, “you know, it seems like really sad music.” That kid is thinking!
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