Brad "the Evening News" Stanton - Lead Guitar
Colin "Salty" Mitchel - Lead Guitar
Scott "the Party" Moffat - Drums
David "Plexico" Marshall - Keyboards + Percussion
Kirk "Hammer" McVean - Bass Synths
Nick "Gigantor" Taylor - Manager
Former members:
Scott Munro - Bass
What is THWOMP? On first glance it's a collection of indie rockers with a passion for gaming and the nostalgia inspired by the music of games from the classic era of console gaming. They re-create the classic gaming themes we all know and love at a visceral pace and with unparalleled energy. The show is high-energy, fun, and accessible to everyone, whether you've played these games or not (but let's be honest -- you all have ... a lot.)
But THWOMP is more than that. THWOMP is the product of the adolescence of the digital age. As computers have gone from hobbyist basement shrines to being in everything from phones to microwaves to cars, the digital age is old enough to look back on its nascent years and begin to wonder where it came from. Just like we all reminisce about our childhoods, THWOMP is a reminiscence of the childhood of the digital age, where the cultural phenomenon of video games was born and began to take hold of the imagination of children.
They were lucky to be right at the age where NES consoles began to dot the houses of their neighbourhoods, followed by the revolution of the SNES and everything that followed it. Mario, Megaman, Samus and Link were all influences on their young brains, and the countless hours spent stuck on that one impossible level laid the foundation for THWOMP to come. After all, the music from these games are short loops, rarely longer than a minute in length and never more than two, so once the hour mark had passed it had been heard 60 times. This repeated over days, weeks, months, and years. Little did they know that a powerful potentiality had been born, one that would be tapped into over a decade later, by seemingly the most randomest of happenstances.
THWOMP was born when Brad, the Evening News, literally happened upon sometimes-THWOMP-bassist Scott Munro playing the boss theme from Final Fantasy VI, a game that many of us had spent more time on than any other. It was like a revelation. Suddenly that deeply laid groundwork spent fighting bosses over and over in Final Fantasy VI sprung to life, like the offhand comment that suddenly brings to mind a forgotten but vivid dream. The Evening News was gripped -- he was the prisoner of a compulsion that would not -- could not -- be denied. "This must be a thing," he said. Scott was of no mind to argue -- the Evening News had that look. You do not argue with that look.
In the coming months, the Evening News spent every spare moment dedicated to the labor of love that THWOMP has become. Tirelessly, he painstakingly re-created the situations that laid the groundwork in the first place: the endless, endless repetition of video game themes. But now, he had a mission. It began, as it should, with Final Fantasy VI. He'd reach an area with a song he'd want to play, pause the game, and one note at a time, transcribe the music for four parts: drums, two guitars, and bass. Sometimes this would take hours for a single part; with up to eight voices in an SNES game playing simultaneously, it's difficult to pick out the note you need, and even more so that you have to wait for the next time around if you missed it. As we said: most certainly a labour of love.
First it was Final Fantasy VI, then Megaman 2, then F-Zero. Once the work got off the ground, it was an easy job to recruit the aforementioned Scott in addition to his Gunther bandmates, Scott "The Party" Moffat and Colin "Salty" Mitchell. The trio were not idly chosen: the meaty tones of Gunther were the perfect platform for the mouthwatering rock reinterpretations of Megaman and F-Zero. Sharp, edgy, thick, jagged: these are adjectives. But they are adjectives that describe Gunther's -- and so THWOMP's -- sound. After a few months in the rehearsal space, creatively dubbed "The Space", it was ready. THWOMP was born.
To say their first show was a nerdgasm would be to understate things so drastically that it would be closer to the truth to describe Facebook as "a niche website" or the Star Wars prequels as "bad movies". Their dear friend Chuck was hired on to provide a video background of the actual levels being heard as THWOMP rocked them out on stage. Now, months after the nostalgic moment that inspired THWOMP's creation, those lucky souls were experiencing the exact same catharsis.
That shared feeling of tapping into our collective pasts: that is what THWOMP is.
Since that fateful day almost six years ago, THWOMP has added members, added material, lost members, and been shaped into the entity it is today. Dave "Plexico" Marshall, who was among the lucky few at the inaugural concert, joined the band on keyboards about three years later. The addition of keys drastically increased the band's versatility in many-voice arrangements; games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy saw the repertoire expand from a handful of songs to half-hour epics. More challenging projects like Secret of Mana, Gradius III, and Final Fantasy VII -- the one and only Playstation game in the line-up -- could be conquered. Meanwhile, as Scott (the first) became too busy with other projects, Kirk "Hammer" McVean was brought in to fill the void, bringing with him a unique dynamic. Instead of the bass guitar, Hammer heaps thick bass steaks onto the plates of the audience with both new and vintage analog synths, bringing a unique symmetry to the line-up: two guitars and two keyboards, rotating around the massive rhythmic apocalypse of The Party's drums like the spiral arms of great galaxies orbiting around supermassive black holes. Grandiose? No. Appropriate.
THWOMP has also seen their focus change from bar gigs to the convention circuit. It was a match made in heaven: if you can find an audience more suited to the nerdgasm catharsis that THWOMP provides than anime, gaming, and comic convention goers, well ... I guess what I'm saying is that you can't. In this year of 2011, THWOMP is branching out to new corners of North America. Stay tuned: you may soon be within reasonable driving distance of this can't-be-missed phenomenon.