The Hollywood Byte #26: The Rockstar
Jul 20, 2006
The rock band Seether burst onto the American music scene in 2002 thanks in large part to its song, "Fine Again," being featured on the soundtrack of Electronic Arts' Madden NFL 2003. The band is keeping its gaming audience satiated with a collection of free music videos, performance footage, and interviews downloadable to PSP at its official site.
The collection includes a special performance of "Remedy" from the their most recent CD/DVD release, One Cold Night, as well as the music videos "The Gift" and "Truth" from the gold-certified Karma & Effect CD.
A special behind-the-scenes video showcasing some of the highlights from the One Cold Night release is also available. To promote the new content, Wind-Up Records is holding a sweepstakes with prizes that include PSPs and autographed Seether CD/DVDs.
 Seether  Shaun Morgan |
"All of my friends have PSPs," said Shaun Morgan, lead singer and guitarist for Seether. "We can sit around and play games on them. Those are powerful little machines. There are so many out there. If you provide downloadable content that's free, people will probably find it sooner or later."
Morgan loves the portable nature of the PSP, which he said does everything that an iPod does, only with the bonus of gaming. He said the band plays the PSP game, Infected, a lot on tour.
"The concept is so cool," said Morgan. "The more you play, the more you can spread the violence around. What a great concept. We also play a lot of soccer. Grand Theft Auto Liberty City is another popular one. These are great when you're touring through Europe and it sucks outside because it's rainy and cold. You can sit on the bus and play PSP games."
Morgan is the gamer of the band. He owns a PS2, PSP, Xbox, and Xbox 360. He used to own a Game Boy Advance SP, but he lost it. He's ready to jump back into the Nintendo portable gaming scene.
"I'm going to get a Nintendo DS Lite because I love those Japanese games, which tend to be more bizarre and freaky," said Morgan. "They have those new train-your-brain things. I'm really into games that challenge you. Brain Age Academy. I'm 27. I feel like it's necessary at my age. If I can find a game that can teach me something, that's even better. They seem to have come a long way with the technology of the Nintendo DS Lite."
Morgan is a big fan of WarioWare, which is the reason he bought his GBA. He said WarioWare was his favorite game because you never knew which game was going to come up next.
While he's upgraded to next generation gaming with titles like Quake IV and Top Spin 2 on Xbox 360, Morgan is an old-school gamer at heart.
 Top Spin 2  PSP |
"The graphics are so cool with Xbox 360, but I almost have more fun when I buy a Namco Treasure game for my PSP," said Morgan. "I have a collection from Midway where it has the old Mortal Kombat games and from Capcom with all of the old Street Fighter games. It's almost more fun playing those. There are all of these games that I remember playing at the arcades as a kid that just would eat my quarters up. Now I have them on my PSP and they're still tough to play. I bought all the Sonic the Hedgehog games. They're more simple and left stuff to work out. There's something sort of cool about those games."
Growing up in South Africa, Morgan has been gaming since the Commodore 64 days, when tape decks were used for video games.
"There was this one DOS game called Castle," said Morgan. "It was made out of all of these weird symbols and you'd cruise around the stairways and hallways trying to take out wizards with your scepter. It's one of the oldest games I remember playing. I've been trying to find it but no one has heard of it, so I don't know if it was a South African exclusive. It was fun as a kid. Now it probably wouldn't be that fun to play."
Morgan also loved playing the old Police Quest games, solving crimes and catching the bad guys. These days, when he's not touring or writing new music, he enjoys playing games like Devil May Cry 3 and Tekken 5 on PS2 and Doom III and Manhunt on Xbox.
"I'm a huge CSI junkie for the original Vegas version," said Morgan. "I bought the recent PC games for CSI. We have a console in each room in our house and then a PC, so you can entertain yourself in any way. I have time to solve a crime on these games here and there and collect some evidence on the CSI games."
As the music industry continues to utilize video games to introduce new bands and new music to the 18 to 34 year old males who play, Morgan said that being a gamer helps him stay in touch with emerging trends.
 WarioWare  CSI |
"Then you just go to the label and tell them there's an opportunity there," said Morgan. "The suits don't always get that. So you tell them about the new things that come out."
Morgan believes video games will continue to be an important tool to get songs out to a large audience.
"If a small percentage of the gamers who buy four million copies of Madden go out and buy our CD, then you sell 500,000 albums," said Morgan. "You've reached someone who might not have heard of your band, because they only watch MTV. This is a great way for rock bands that don't have a place on the TV channels."
The Hollywood Byte makes a weekly visit to the converging world of video games and traditional media.