Anyone who’s logged virtual ice time playing EA Sports’ NHL 07 has heard “Rise from the Ashes” from Quietdrive. That game has helped the band grow an even larger fan base. Matt Kirby, who plays the guitar and provides back-up vocals for the group, has been a sports gamer his entire life. He took some time out from the current tour schedule to talk about videogames.
How long have you been playing videogames?
I got trapped into games with the early Nintendo games like Pong and Donkey Kong.
How often did you play games?
Growing up we played as much videogames as we were allowed. We'd get in trouble sitting in front of the TV for weeks on end. We were outside doing a bunch of stuff, but as soon as we were inside it was videogames for the rest of the night. My Dad would tell me to put the damn videogames away, and then we'd show him Madden. And he was like, How the hell do you play this thing? And then we'd show him and when our Mom would yell at us, he'd be like, Oh, Teri, it's not that bad. They're just playing football and they're learning. We'd sucker him into games that we knew he'd be able to play and then we'd be able to play without getting into trouble. That was always funny as hell to get him into it.
What systems did you own?
We had an Atari and every Nintendo system. We got the PlayStation 2 and then Xbox and now we have Xbox 360. I was just starting college with PS2 and that got through the college years. And then as you get older, when all of a sudden responsibilities and tuition and food becomes necessity, we stopped purchasing the gaming systems for a while.
What are your favorite sports games?
Tiger Woods PGA 2001 is far and away my favorite game of all time. That game got me through college. I was always a fan of sports games like Tecmo Bowl and Madden and all of that kind of stuff.
Were you a fan of the NHL franchise before you got the soundtrack offer?
I love the NHL games. I always love hockey and football games. So that was a good thing.
What team do you play as in NHL 07?
I always play as the Dallas Stars. We're from Minneapolis and the Stars moved from there to Dallas. For the longest time I was always the biggest Mike Madano fan. The Stars or the Red Wings, when Lidstrom was awesome in those games.
What’s it like to hear your song in the game?
We hadn't played the game, even after it was released. So about a month after it had come out, we went to a friend's house and drank a few beers and played the game until our song came up. There are like 20 songs on there and it took like three or four games for our song to come up.
What do you think of the new controls in the game?
I love the new analog controllers. I grew up on Nintendo so I'm used to an A and B button. But after about three or four games, it's so much more precise to control the players on the ice. It's entirely different from the way it used to be. Our drummer, Brandon, he changes to the old way to play it. But I totally dig the new controls.
What do you think of the high definition visuals Xbox 360 brings to sports games?
It's scary, man. It's frightening how rapidly things are developing and how good it looks and sounds. It's so real, it's like watching ESPN highlights of a game. There was such a big jump from the PS2, which was the system of the time, to the new Xbox 360 and even the Wii. Things are so different now. It's just awesome.
Have you tried out the Wii yet?
No. My brother is going to buy a Wii from his friend, who got one from Christmas but didn't want one. When I get home I'm going to try it out.
How often do you play your Xbox 360?
As Xbox was coming out, we'd already been starting the band. The band had taken over every significant amount of time from work, friends, family, everything. I just got into Xbox 360 and I only get to play it sparingly right now. There's so much to do work-wise that play time is getting crunched. It's extra novel now because it takes you significant amount of time to beat a game. We make sure we block out time to drink beers and play Gears of War as often as possible.
