Talking Gaming with Periphery's Tom Murphy
Feature
Before the US metal band Periphery embark on their next big tour, the band's biggest gamer, Tom Murphy, found time to have a chat with us about his views on gaming and its impact on his life.
Tom Murphy: We don't really, its weird. We don't play Xbox Live together, but we all have it for ESPN and all those sort of features. We really play games when we’re on tour together, and we play a lot of single player games by ourselves.
Hooked Gamers: Speaking of which, Periphery are set to tour again soon - you guys will be playing at the Sonisphere Festival in the UK and then moving on towards Australia. Have you demanded a console in your dressing room? Or do you take some gaming gear with you?
Tom Murphy: We are not that big yet haha. I mean we are headliners in the upcoming US tour and we are going to have a tour bus, which means we can have our own Xbox and TV. I am happy with my emulated games on my phone, I love playing classic Genesis games. We do take a Gamecube around with us and we play Soul Calibur II a lot. We got really good and challenged fans on tour. We used to win all the time haha. Spencer (Sotelo, vocalist) got really cheap with Nightmare so we used standard weapons and banned him from using the Soul Calibur. We also take some other Gamecube games with us too - games such as Mario Kart and Smash Brothers are the standard.
We don't want to take our Xbox just so that in the unfortunate event something happens to them, we aren't left without one. I mean we can't really afford to replace them.
Hooked Gamers: Looking at the Periphery facebook page there seems to be a large amount of gamers within your fan-base. Do you and other members of Periphery attempt to game with fans?
Tom Murphy: I mean I have told some people my Xbox Live gamertag, but its never really happened so to speak. It’s just so hard to find the time, but it is really cool to play with the fans online and play with them on tour. I have been trying to get us on Attack of the Show and pushing G4 to allow us to play, we really would just like to nerd out with fans! We have a few tracks on the upcoming MMA Supremacy game and we recorded a cover of Metallica's One for the Homefront soundtrack. So we do feel our fans who are gamers still have touch with us even without playing with us.
Hooked Gamers: Do you feel that gaming is another form of bonding with the Periphery community?
Tom Murphy: Yeah, I mean its not something we think about, it comes naturally we don't really try to have it happen. We just say what we enjoy and then if it appeals to some fans it happens. It helps us connect to the fans for sure. It is funny because our management says we can do it, “but not too much, because then you'll be too normal”. At the end of the day we are just being our normal selves, and it just happens.
Hooked Gamers: Yeah, of course, So as a band, do Periphery embrace their geeky side? Or would you rather not be known as the ‘nerd band’?
Tom Murphy: You know, it cant be helped because A) We play metal, kinda like nerdy technical metal, and B) We definitely have a lot of interests that fall into that geeky side of things. We don't try and defend it, it just happens. And it’s not like we don't like it; it's just there. I mean being a geek is relatively different now to when I was young, it is now more widely accepted. But when I was a kid, it was supposedly a bad thing, now it is kind of the hipster thing to do.
Hooked Gamers: Although Periphery is a band, and Hooked Gamers is a video-game website, the two link well, with all members of Periphery being gamers. Is there a correlation between your music and video games at all?
Tom Murphy: Definitely, a lot of times we begin the writing process from inspiration, feeling or a tone. Whether that be from video games or TV. We have a few Final Fantasy influences in our songs like our song, Not Enough Mana. Also our guitarist Misha (Mansoor) wrote a song called Light, which is heavily inspired by the anime, Death Note. Although lyrically it has nothing to do with it, instrumentally we take sounds and styles from the series. There are motifs we take from a lot of different things, but we disguise our lyrics fairly well. And with our new album we are going to expand lyrically and give Spencer his own voice because he came in so late last time, so you never know what might appear.
Hooked Gamers: So lets get down to yourself, as a gamer, what are your fondest memories in gaming?
Tom Murphy: I first remember when I got a Super Nintendo when I was kid and I remember getting Final Fantasy II and I just wanted it so bad because the box looked cool. I remember this was my first time playing a role-playing game - I didn't come out of my room for months. I used to play Contra as well with my cousins a whole bunch, I guess playing Nintendo was just a big part of my life when I was young. Final Fantasy was generally a big part too, and I remember buying Tobal No. 1 just for the demo of Final Fantasy VII, which blew my mind so much. I just finished it again recently on my phone. It’s still great. I also remember playing the first Modern Warfare, which was pretty mind-blowing.