Indiana's Indie Music Source
“I FIGHT DRAGONS is a High-Def concert experience influenced by an 8-bit video game dream world. They are both an audio and visual powerhouse to have at the club”
Zack Daggy: Who all makes up I Fight Dragons and how did you form as a band?
Brian Mazzaferri of I Fight Dragons: Well it’s Brian Mazzaferri, Bill Prokopow, Mike Mentzer, Laura Green, Hari Rao, and Dave Midell. I (Brian) had the twisted idea of a chiptune-pop-rock band, and basically started assembling the intrepid band of fighters it now consists of. I knew Mike and Bill from growing up, Hari and Laura from having worked with them musically in Chicago, and Dave came in last through a referral from a friend when we needed a drummer.
ZD: How would you describe the band’s style?
IFD: Chiptune-Pop-Rock, or if people don’t know what chiptune is sometimes we say Nintendo-Pop-Rock, but basically we’re a rock band that uses video-game sounds as one of its primary instruments.
ZD: What made you decide to include Nintendo and superheroes in IFD’s style?
IFD: Basically our overarching idea is trying to recapture the Epic nature and Wonder the world held for us when we were younger. Sonically that translates through the chiptune, but visually it takes on other elements like the superhero-garb and our videos and TVs we use for our live shows.
ZD: How exactly does one learn to play music on an NES controller?
IFD: The same way one learns to play video games! Hand-eye coordination FTW! :P
ZD: What’s your favorite video game and favorite comic book?
ZD: Tell me what a typically IFD live show is like.
IFD: For our shows we try make it as much of an experience as possible. We’ve got videos that play on TVs live, we hand out glow necklaces, we dress up and jump around, we just generally try to make it an awesome night that people want to experience again! Here’s a live review that sums it up pretty well:
http://gamemusic4all.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-fight-dragons-concert-review-and.html
ZD: Where all have you played, and where would you like to play in the future?
IFD: Mostly we’ve played around Chicago, venues like Cubby Bear, Martyrs’, Elbo Room, Abbey Pub, and the Apple Store, but we’re starting to play more out of town. For example we’ve played The Rave up in Milwaukee and we just played at the Brat Fest in Madison. We’re definitely going to be hitting the road more in the near future too! Hopefully everywhere across the US! :D
ZD: Not that I’m complaining, but why do you keep giving all your music away for free? Don’t you like money?
IFD: Lol, you’d be surprised at how many people still buy the EP on iTunes! Basically I think free music is kind of like a handshake. Get to know us with some free music, stick around and maybe you’ll want to buy some music later on, or a t-shirt, or whatever to support us. Maybe you’ll come see a show. I feel like it’s our responsibility to introduce ourselves rather than make people pay to get to know us.
ZD: What would an IFD movie be like and who would play in it?
IFD: We would be 6 superheroes fighting against the evil Draconis, our arch-nemesis. He has a stolen supercomputer from an alien planet that he hacks into to control people’s minds, and we have superpowers given to us by hidden programming in video games that was unlocked when we displayed a level of profiency indicating we were mentally capable of handling these powers.
We would play ourselves, and Christopher Walken would play Draconis :)
ZD: What’s in store for IFD’s future?
IFD: ADVENTURE!! :D
Mothpod 129 – Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Mothpod 142 (Available June 22nd, 2009 at Mothpod.com)
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