Just beat "Flirtin' With Disaster" on Expert, eh? Congratulations—enjoy your reward of 35 smelly fans. A pittance, I say. Now meet the guys with the most
Rock Band fans in the whole friggin' world (over 630 million!),
The Fiff Purriod Boyz. They just finished up high school, but if there were Ph.D's for pulloffs, they'd get 'em. (P.S. - If you want a thong with their faces on it—and who doesn't?—go
here.)
Now hit the jump page for the interview.
Name:
Home:
Age:
Plays: |
Tyler Schroeder
Richmond, Indiana
19-years-old
Bass and guitar |
Brandon Brookbank
Richmond, Indiana
19-years-old
Usually plays drums, sometimes bass and guitar |
Mitch Widau
Richmond, Indiana
19-years-old
Bass and guitar |
When did you start playing the game?Around Christmas time.
Did you play any rhythm games before Rock Band?Guitar Hero II and
III, but not really that much. Our first real rhythm game was
Rock Band.
What got you guys serious about trying to get to the top of the online leaderboards?It
started out as a dream. Back when we just had cracked the top 500, we
decided we were going to get to No. 1. Most people at our school didn't
think we would ever make it to No. 1. Once we hit the top 100, our
friends kept saying they would throw us a party if we made it to top
20, top 10, top 5, etc. We're now No. 1 and still haven't seen that
party.
Tell us one random fact about yourself:
Tyler: "I read a
Baby-Sitter's Club book before bedtime each night."
Brandon: "I drink at least three gallons of milk per week—and it must be 1 percent."
Mitch: "I successfully got an 'A' in every high school English class without ever reading a book."
How often do you play?Six hours
a week, tops. We all are pretty busy people. Occasionally we will all
be free and play for four to five hours in a day. But recently, our
playing time has averaged maybe an hour a day.
Playing so much must've gotten you into some hardcore competition with other bands. Do you trash talk with them?We
wanted to stay classy and not really talk to our competitors. We
didn't make becoming No. 1 a competition—we just did it for fun.
Bender v2.1 began taunting us after we first took the top spot. We got
about 90 million ahead of them and decided it wasn't worth our time to
talk trash back. Other bands we feel are worth mentioning from the
long journey to No. 1: Bad Tuna, Orangutang Complex, Omar and the
Flying Leaps, DuckHunt, Ballz Johnson.
Can you give our readers some general tips on playing each instrument? Drums (Brandon): "Play the bass pedal with your foot, and use both hands and sticks when playing the pads."
Guitar (Mitch): "Play the frets with one hand and strum with the other."
Bass (Tyler): "Learn how to do alternate strumming (up and down strum)."
Singing (Everyone): "We can't sing."
The Rock Band 2 setlist was recently released. Which of those songs are you most looking forward to playing? Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" and Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son"
If you could add one thing to Rock Band, what would it be and why?GROUPIES!! (You know why...)
If you were about to die, what song would you want playing?Brandon: the John Mayer cover of "Message in a Bottle"
Mitch: "Sweet Child O'Mine" by Guns 'N Roses
Tyler: "Smile Like You Mean It" by The Killers