Alt. Gaming #2: MATT DAVIES-KREYE

The FFAF frontman on Silent Hill, downloading culture in the music and video games industries, nd the best way to distract yourself from throwing up on a boat

With the upcoming release of the video game tie-in God Of War 3: Blood & Metal EP, we've spoken to some of rock and alternative music's most infamous gamers about their favourite games, what makes a great soundtrack, and the relationship between alternative music and gaming since Guitar Hero. In Part Two...

Matt Davies-Kreye, frontman of post-hardcore band Funeral For A Friend, is a bit of a geek. This won't be a surprise to most - a lot of guitarists are, in their own way - or even to those of you who know he ran an independent record store and a rock zine before joining the band. Lesser known is the extent of Davies-Kreye's love video games. Sure, most bands have a few tourneys of Mario Kart or the latest sports game, but atmospheric/horror fps is generally a bit lower down the list. So we caught up with Davies-Kreye over the phone (twice, due to an error with Pamela voice recorder), in between scoffing German pastries from the Christmas market, for a wee chat about the relationship between gaming and music from his side of things.

In the second of our Alt. Gaming Series, Matt Davies-Kreye talks to us about Resident Evil, downloading culture in the music and video games industries, and the best way to distract yourself from throwing up on a boat.

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Do you get much time to play video games when you're on tour?

"Erm, sometimes, depending on when I can get a free space on the Xbox. It's very rare, to be honest! The other guys like to play the FIFA games quite a bit, and there's very few games out there that I kind of really really really enjoy playing. I'm a survival horror, RPG playing kind of dude, and I don't really bring any games with me. If there's one that comes out when I'm on tour, then I'll pick it up and find some time in between the football-driven madness that we have on the bus to play it."

Do you remember the first time the soundtrack of a game really stood out for you?

"I think I remember saying it was either Super Mario Brothers or Legend Of Zelda that were my first ones. You caught on that it was catchy, that it was playful, that it kind of worked well with the gaming kind of attitude that you had you know when you were playing along. It was just all these kind of programmed, like when music on 8 bit cartridges could actually, if you could call it music, it was 1's and 0's programmed in to sound like music. Um! The thematic element of the game, that's what I kind of noticed.

"In general, in terms of the music, I think there's other games like Grand Theft Auto that came along and kind of started incorporating, I think the term is non-diegetic sound. It was just stuff placed on a soundtrack, like other music, bands, artists kind of thing, contributing tunes to the actual radio station vibe of that game, which you reminded me of last time we spoke. So the first time the music fully stood out for me wasn't actually a song by a band or anything like that, it was the theme song to Super Mario brothers."

The games you like are pretty atmospheric, so how important is the soundtrack of a game for you?

"With a game that I would play, it's vital really, 'cause it adds tension. Most of the games that I play are, you could consider them to be mini-movies. They're there for the emphasis, they're based on the emotional backing of the themes of the story. So games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil and stuff like that, it is almost as important itself as the visual element, because the kind of set pieces in the games are meant to evoke an emotional response, whether it's fear or surprise, and they give you kind of subtle hints, you know something's coming round the corner. It's that kind of vibe, and if you're playing, you have control of your own little movie.

"I'm not sure I can even remember anything that I've played that had a great rock and metal soundtrack. I guess those kind of arcade games, like House Of The Dead and stuff like that, they have some kind of fucking musical kind of rock thing. I'm not sure they're by any band at all, they're just more the things you play on the ferry, with the two guns you and your mates play to pass the time and stop you from being seasick." [Davies suffers from seasickness - Ed.] "They do tend to have rock soundtracks, if anything. But no, I think the first ones I actually took notice of tend to be the games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which the emphasis is on the actual song itself really. Those are the games where I really notice the rock music incorporated into the gaming element."

Funeral For A Friend have been on the soundtracks of some games before - are you a fan of those games?

"Me and Burnout, I don't really play Burnout, they tend to be on kind of car games or some sort of sports game, stuff like that. I'm not a sporty person, so I'm not really drawn to acting out my muscle bound sporting fantasies in 3D visuals on a video game, like! But no, I've never really been taken with the games that we've been actually a part of, whether that makes it bad for me to say that, I'm not sure. So far there's never really been room for a Funeral For A Friend song on a Resident Evil game or a Silent Hill game, I don't think it really would fit very well."

What about the Guitar Hero / Rock Band / Singstar style of games?

"I've had a go at those, they're entertaining. They're quite a social kind of gaming experience, do you know what I mean? It's got quite a rowdier party vibe into it, and I don't think you can take yourself too seriously on it. I really feel so sorry for the people who do take themselves so seriously who play Rock Band and fucking Guitar Hero who think they are actually demi-gods who are up there with fucking Brian May or something. You're strumming a plastic fucking little thing hitting four fucking colourful buttons in rhythmical time. That doesn't make you Brian May." [laughs] "So that's my little dig at people who take it too seriously. But for a fun social thing, it's a good laugh. I've dabbled with Singstar, I've dabbled with Guitar Hero. I'm good at neither, apart from singing 'Buddy Holly' by Weezer on Singstar. That's my jam. I could do that 'til the cows come home.

"When it comes to like Guitar Hero, most of the songs on there I just don't really fucking like. I'm very particular about the kind of songs that I play, and if I do play it, I'll play like Dead Kennedys 'Holiday In Cambodia' or something along the lines of that. A bit of Faith No More, if there's a Faith No More song on there. I'm not really taken with the whole notion of strapping on a fake little plastic guitar and hitting a bunch of buttons. It's not really my cup of tea.

"It seems to be like with a kind of game like that, the possibilities are endless. You can add so many songs by so many different bands to the concept. There was the whole Beatles Rock Band thing that came out recently, you've got the Metallica Guitar Hero, whatever it is. You can get entire bands' backcatalogue up on these things, and pretend jam out in your living room, trying to play along, and it's a unique little tool, I think people get into it, especially if you're fans of the band, it's almost a lazy way of trying to cover a song without having to go through the motions of actually trying to learn a cover song on your guitar, do you know what I mean? I think it's kind of neat that all these kind of things are being offered up now. But if people want to learn to play these things, pick up a fucking guitar and fucking get a chord book, and spend the hours that guitar playing demands of you. That's what I'll say to that."

It's not really a way of being creative with the music...

"It's not, you can't even go there with games like Guitar Hero being a creative thing. Like I said, it's a social gaming experience, it's no more than that. It's a next step karaoke. It's fun to do, it's not serious, it's something to do with your friends. It's just that, it begins and ends there, really. I think it doesn't really get creative for bands because the song's already been written. They're there because they're well known songs to a certain degree."

It's always seemed more acceptable for guitar musicians to be involved in film than to write for video games. With Guitar Hero and Rock Band making the connection explicit, do you think more bands will be making the leap?

"I hope so, I think gaming at the moment is becoming such a formidable kind of, the technology's becoming so advanced and so engrossing, and its almost becoming quite cinematic in its own right. Specifically with games like I was mentioning earlier like Resident Evil and Silent Hill and stuff like that. I think it'll only be a matter of time before bands step up and are approached to score the entirity of a game, so to speak. I think that'll be a great idea, and it's no different from scoring a film if you think about it. Every game has to have a story, thematically anyway. I don't think anybody's going to be gasping to score Beach Volleyball 2010 or something like that. The artistic limitations of the title are already laid out before you!

"I think generally with games that demand a bit more kind of attention, a bit more kind of thought, a bit more playability, rather than just sport games, where you just have to kind of navigate your way through the basic 90 minute concept of a football game... I think with more cinematic games like your Resident Evils, your Uncharted 2's, your Final Fantasies, the option's there to create something quite, a good collaboration is defintiely available to you, and I hope that some of these gaming companies will think of ways to incorporate that and bring that into the forefront of gaming, combining rock music or indie rock bands to come on board and contribute ideas."

Well, there's the upcoming God Of War: Blood & Metal EP coming up, with artists contributing original songs inspired by the game. What's your view of that?

"I can imagine it being fucking vocals along the lines of" [Power Metal Voice] "'Oh my fucking god!' It's quite an exciting idea. I get influenced by games, I play a lot of things where I'm continuously blown away by the experience. I definitely know how it can rub off on you, and I'm hopeful that it's the start of something that would really help develop things.

"Games like God Of War are fucking brutal, they're the kind of Hack & Slash genre games, where you're a big dude, and you've got a big sword and you're fighting your way through hundreds and hundreds of dead things. And I think it definitely works, I think games like that, like God Of War and even Devil May Cry and Street Fighter and Tekken and all those kind of games really embrace the spirit of rock'n'roll quite well. Not saying rock'n'roll is a violent thing but I don't know, but for some reason the adrenalin rush of those kind of games and rock'n'roll go hand in hand I think."

Nowadays it seems that Rock Band and Guitar Hero are release formats for bands as much as singles and albums. Do you see such becames becoming almost the fourth format for the music industry?

"Yeah, I suppose it'll only be a matter of time before you get exclusive songs there that are not available anywhere else. I'm sure there are some bands that are going to do it, there might have already been some bands that have contributed a song that's not available anywhere else. And I think it's a neat little marketing tool to get the concept of it out there, because a lot of people who play games do like rock music. I just think it's only a matter of time really.

It also seems as if developers are more open to those kinds of collaborations as well now.

"It is, to a certain degree, the whole concept of music; the availability of music is shifting so rapidly, and the focus is at the moment definitely off physical and onto the more accessible downloadable content. The additional stuff you can download - if you buy this pack you can get your so and so gaming system, you can download all these things from the stores you can get from your games - 'cause your games systems are online, you can download extra content staright away, and it's there at your fingertips, you don't have to wait. It's there fast and that's the way the world, the media, the whole kind of concept of the industry is working at the moment.

"It's trying to tap into these really quick ways to kind of get people to get that buzz really quickly - which may be to the detriment of the industry, and may cheapen the concept and the idea of the emotional need for music to a certain degree to nothing more than just a social fad, where all you're doing is rocking out to it with your mates in the living room on a screen playing it back in rhythmical time. I'd like to see it being an outlet for the ideas that bands have for their music, and I don't think it should be any more than just another avenue to explore for that, and not become a main source of pushing the ideas.

Would you like to get involved creatively with a game like that?

"Personally not me, to be honest with you. It's a game that doesn't really pique my interest in the first place.

"I'd like to get artistically involved with a lot of the kind of games I mentioned earlier. That to me is more artistically rewarding than just kind of throwing music at there, throwing a song up there for people to play along to, really getting into the idea of the game and writing for the game, rather than it being like let's just write a fucking score and see if it works with that. It's working hand in hand with these two different kinds of genres, these two different kind of industries, and seeing where we can go with it. It definitely would be something I would love to do.

"So anybody out there from Konami or Squaresoft or Capcom, get in touch!"

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Funeral For A Friend are currently writing for a new album, and are due to go into the studio in May.

by Ruth Midget

Further links

Funeral For A Friend on Myspace

Official page of the Welsh rock band