Greetings fellow users! As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session. It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones. In the first week of the competition’s history, Gameofmetal won with his review of Equilibrium’s album Armageddon, which you can read here. I’ll start the next week’s competition tomorrow via the lists section of this site, so feel free to check out the selected albums and participate if so desired. But for now, let me introduce you to Brett Tharp, better known as Gameofmetal – a Sputnik contributing reviewer and winner of the review competition’s debut.
Authentic photo of Brett Tharp rocking out to Metallica’s ‘One’
Sowing: I’ll just get straight to the point – what’s your favorite The Bunny The Bear song?
Gameofmetal: Wow, getting right to the big questions aren’t we? I like “The Seeds We Sow” actually. Has a catchy hook even if there’s not that much more to it.
Cool, figured I’d throw you a curveball to start. So how did you come up with the username Gameofmetal?
Well I’m generally terrible with usernames, so I just combined my two favorite things at the time, Game of Thrones and Heavy Metal. It’s a little lame, but I’ve gone by it so long now that it’d feel wrong to change it.
Understood, I mean just look at my username. Although Brand New still slays though, so…
Agreed
You’re already my favorite interviewee. I don’t have to ask you what your favorite genre is, but what’s your favorite band or artist?
The first band I ever called my favorite was Metallica. From the age of 13 to probably 18 or so I worshiped them. Now, not so much. Their classics are still classics, but I don’t have that same unconditional love for them I used to. Currently, I’d probably say Dark Tranquillity. Their discography is almost untouchable, and Damage Done and The Gallery are two of my hardest 5’s.
Cool. So would you say that Metallica is the band that “got you into music?” Or would that title belong to someone else?
It was definitely them for sure.
What album came first for you in their discography? I’m assuming it wasn’t Kill ‘Em All.
It was …And Justice For All. To be honest, it was really because of guitar hero as lame as some people might think it now. Thirteen year old me gets guitar hero 3 for christmas and when “One” unlocks near the end of the game it was all over from there. Got the cd for my birthday, started learning guitar around the same time, and I was off.
You never need to apologize for playing Guitar Hero. I used to be able to play “Through The Fire and the Flames” on hard, although I doubt I still have it in me…moving on though, and I swear I won’t (probably will) post this, but what’s your favorite Taylor Swift song because OBVIOUSLY everyone has a favorite Taylor Swift song.
“Wonderland” I think , although 1989 generally just rules across the board.
Sweet, going to the B-Sides. I had no idea you were such a Taylor Swift aficionado. Back off, by the way.
You’re safe man, 1989 is the only album of hers I actually listen to.
Fair enough lol. Are you a musician yourself to any extent?
Used to earn that title a bit more, but yeah I guess so. Used to play in a few lame bands, then moved to just internet collabs that never really got anywhere, and now I kinda put it on the sidelines for some different interests. There is a chance I might have something come out in the future, it’ll just depend on if the guy I got to do vocals for it comes through finally or I get impatient enough to look for someone else. The music’s been done for going on a year now, so the latter option is becoming a possibility.
That’s really awesome, I hope it pans out for you soon. What style of metal is it, assuming that’s the genre?
Deathcore. I’ve always been a pretty avid defender of deathcore around sput, and initially I wanted to do it as a bit of throwback to the “good old days” of the genre. Kinda turned into something else in a few ways, but I’m pretty proud of it. Every time I tried to get a project together it either ended after we got a single out or fell apart even earlier. I did all the instrumental recording myself and wrote the entire thing so I’d hate for it not to come to fruition no matter how good it actually is.
Have you ever posted samplings of songs or anything? I’m sure the sput community would be interested in hearing your instrumental cuts, unless you think it is not far enough along yet.
This is my “solo project” from years back that I just never properly renamed (really hate the name now but I was a teenager then so what can ya do). It’s got some old demos and snippets, but none of it except one riff on one of the demos made it onto this newer EP. The latest two songs here were me toying with some post rock and softer styles of music that I might end up reworking for a separate EP some day. The rest are metal of some kind.
https://soundcloud.com/colossus-in-slumber
Thanks, I can’t wait to listen. I always thought it was fun hearing unfinished products and seeing the thought process behind the work. Would you say that, in general, your music is influenced by any artist(s) in particular?
No I could never point to a single artist. It’s always just a massive culmination of everything I like really.
Understandable. When you listen to a wide range of music, I’m sure there’s influences from all sorts of artists that you’ve admired over the years. Kind of in a similar vein, and this is just for fun, if you could form a metal supergroup of any 4 people (dead or alive) – what would that look like?
That is such an unbelievably hard question wow. With how many different styles of metal there are, I feel like you’d need to separate it into specific supergroups, like a death metal supergroup, a black metal one and so on. Even then it’s pretty hard to answer personally.
That’s fine, no worries. I just thought I’d throw it out there. By the way, I’ve been letting your soundcloud page blast in the background during this interview and when “Unmixed/unmastered demo version – Usurpation (The Beginning)” came on I legitimately forgot it was yours and thought my iTunes had skipped to some awesome Metallica instrumental that I never heard. Really solid stuff.
Thank you. I’m still pretty happy with that one to this day.
I’m not even a huge metal guy but that really grabbed my attention. So anyway, I have a couple fun questions before we wrap things up. You ready?
Yep
If you could only choose one song to play every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what would it be?
“Book of the Fallen” by Caladan Brood. Besides my intense love for that album, it has a very grandiose epic intro that would feel right.
Pull up your iTunes or whatever you use and put your entire library on shuffle. What are the first 3 songs that came up? Be honest, now.
Oh jeez
Alright that wasn’t so bad
I was just going to say, seems like an accurate reflection. I was actually hoping an Ariana Grande or Miley Cyrus song, or something, would manage to slip in there.
I do have Ariana Grande’s latest album so that would’ve been a possibility.
No Miley Cyrus unfortunately.
If there’s one feature you could add to sputnik today, feasible or not, what would it be and why?
I’d kinda like to see a larger scale version of some of the tourneys users have done. I participated in both of Scream’s black metal tourneys and the death metal and folk metal ones. Unfortunately the latter two collapsed, along with the doom tourney from another user. I’d like to see a more site wide official version.
Oh and I’m still waiting for a deathcore tag.
I’ll harass mx for you. Last one: tell me something that nobody on Sputnik knows about you.
I’m an obsessive League of Legends player. Not sure if absolutely no one knows that, but I can’t think of anything better.
I actually know exactly what that is. Haven’t played it myself, but it’s pretty popular.
I think it’s currently the most played online game but not too sure.
It’s up there at least. A leader in esports as well which I’ve become a huge fan of.
What album will you be choosing for next week’s competition?
I’ll go with Twilight Fauna
