When Gaming + Music Collide: Rockit Gaming Talks Writing Songs Themed Around Video Games

Austin-based duo Rockit Gaming is changing the game…

The video game industry that is.

Comprising Vince Newsom (Vinny Noose) and Russell McKarney, Rockit Gaming has made a career creating commercial quality music with lyrics themed around video games.

They don't fit into any one genre either. Alternative hip-hop, indie pop, electro pop, pop rock, rap rock, alt rock: they all fit as descriptors of their music, which includes over 200 songs.

The Nintendo of America brand ambassadors talked to Musical Notes Global all about how they first got into gaming, how they ended up where they are today, and more. Check it out!

How did you first get into gaming?

We've both been gaming since we we're kids. While Rockit suffered through games like Silent Hill at the age of 6, I was waiting for my dad to get home from work so we could tag team Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo! After that our love for gaming only increased to what it is today, we get to write music about video games for a living! It's pretty fantastic. 

How did you come up with the idea to start making music with lyrics themed around video games?

It all started back in 2008 when Rockit found some pretty big success writing songs about COD World at War Zombies for fun with an old group called Borderline Disaster. Years later in 2015 he started Rockit Gaming with Vinny (me) and had thought not only to make songs about one game but about every popular game and games we love! It’s a great way for us to make music for a living, about topics that we and so many other people love!

Your numbers are unbelievable. 36+ million views on YouTube and 1 million monthly streams on Spotify. Did you ever think your music would take off the way it has?

To be honest, we wouldn’t have started doing this if we hadn’t predicted it’s success. We knew with the size of the video game industry and how big pop soundtracks already were for movies, that this industry was about to explode! We’re so happy to be a part of it, and we hope to redouble our numbers for the second year in a row!

On top of that, your music can't be defined by any one genre and that's totally cool. Is it harder or easier to write songs without a specific style in mind?

As an artist a lot of times you will get sucked into writing in a single style and trying your hardest to follow up on that style with newer singles and albums. Since we write about video games, and since songs about things like Fortnite, aren’t going to sound at all similar to a song about, Resident Evil, we have a lot of breathing room and get to be extremely creative when it comes to writing music about different games. While our Fortnite music is going to be a happy 70’s, 80’s catchy pop vibe, our resident evil Resident Evil has a much darker and ominous tone to it with our own little dark pop twist chorus!

What is your favorite part of what you do?

Our favorite part about what we do is getting to be so creative so often.  We release New fully produced radio quality original songs every single friday at MINIMUM (sometimes 2 or 3 within a week) and they are just as catchy for non-gamers as they are for gamers. That has turned into over 200 songs in just over 2 years of writing recording and producing under the name Rockit Gaming. I encourage you to look up any of our Fortnite songs on Spotify or YouTube and give them a listen. Even if you don’t play video games I’m sure you’d enjoy them! 

You're also currently working on a music video for an indie video game developed tinyBuild for the E3 Pre Show. Can you tell us anything about that?

It was an amazing experience, and we’re actually working on a new project with tinyBuild coming up here pretty soon! What we were asked to make was a fully produced video (Music, Script, Film production) for their press conference for E3 that was shown right before the Microsoft Press Conference, and it was a HUGE success. It was a skit poking fun at game developers and the Battle Royale game crazy that’s going on in the industry today! 

Do you have any new music in the works for the rest of 2018?

We have New Music every FRIDAY! Check out our Spotify (200k monthly listeners) and YouTube Channel (230k subscribers), to hear all of our New music every single week! Don’t worry we write in tons of genres so there will definitely be something there for you! Thanks again! #GameOn

For all of Rockit Gaming's latest news and updates, follow them on social media:

Facebook: facebook.com/rockitmusicproductionsllc

Instagram: @rockitgamingyt

Twitter: @RockitGamingYT

Website: rockitgamingproductions.com

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