Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LennonStarrFan]

Workers at Guitar Hero firm are center stage for convention

What happens when a video game fantasy leads to a reality that is so improbable, so far-fetched, that the actual real-life moment seems more surreal than the fantasy that enabled it?

For John Drake, drummer for the Main Drag, and Izzy Maxwell, singer for Death of the Cool, two of those moments involved the Beatles. And they would not have happened were it not for their jobs at Harmonix Music Systems, the Cambridge company responsible for creating Rock Band and Guitar Hero, as well as The Beatles: Rock Band game that premiered last fall.

As a senior sound engineer at the company, Maxwell says, “I was the one most often getting flown to London, going to Abbey Road, and actually sitting in the studio listening to these tracks that no one outside of the Beatles have ever heard. It was pretty surreal.’’

For Drake, a special projects manager at Harmonix, his encounter with history was slightly more awkward. “I actually got the chance to meet Paul [McCartney] and Ringo [Starr], when we were promoting the Beatles game, and at one point Ringo tripped and almost fell on me,’’ Drake recalls. “I was thinking I should throw myself in front of him and break his fall.’’

Smith cites personal experience. “I have two nephews who got into Guitar Hero and by Rock Band had a drum set, guitar, and a bass in the house and were playing all three,’’ he says. “I look forward to being an old man and watching TV and having the rock star of the day, when asked what got him into it, say, ‘I played Rock Band.’ ’’


Source: http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2010/03/26/these_bands_get_into_the_game/?page=2