This week’s RBN artist interview is a little different than normal. One could say the musicians I interviewed this week were more… two dimensional… than usual. The band Freen in Green is, in fact, an animated act with a very well established story.

The members of the band (pictured above in-studio) include vocalist Smoker (a genie and the self appointed band leader), bassist Adam (the boring, serious, and normal person in the band), guitarist Aptiva (an an inanimate object given life by Smoker to fill the role as a guitarist), drummer Mint (a pathological liar created from a piece of mint), keyboardist Mysteri (the shy, mysterious one who just showed up one day), and intern/manager Marcus (who officially handles all Freen in Green business).

I recently had a chance to catch up with the band and ask them a number of questions about themselves, their uniqueness as an animated outfit, and their involvement with Rock Band.  Check it out!

RockBandAide: Tell us about Freen in Green and the members of the band.

Marcus: Well, I’m the band’s manager, Marcus Russell. Freen in Green is–

Smoker: Hello, future fans! I’m Smoker, Genie of the Marble, and vocalist for the best band in the world. I was called out of my marble by Adam one day, and although he might have thought that just because I was a genie he could order me around, I soon put him in his place. He can have his wishes, as long they coincide with mine. And I’d always wanted to be in a band! But we were short on a guitarist and a drummer, so I grabbed an old wrestling mask and some old candy that was lying around and brought them to life. As for Mysteri, well… I don’t even know how or when she joined. I just noticed her hanging around sometimes and nobody seemed to mind.

RBA: How would you describe your music to people who have never heard it?

Mint: IT’S MINTY FRESH!!!

Aptiva: It’s a whole buttload of genres and styles mixed into one big package!

Smoker: Our music is hard to describe. It’s not so much “sound,” as… cocaine for your ears. Metaphorically, I mean. I do NOT recommend pouring cocaine into your ears.

Adam: One word… hell.

RBA: Smoker, if you are a genie, couldn’t you just wish your way to the top of the music charts?

Smoker: Well, I can’t fulfill my own wishes. I can just try to force Adam to wish for things. It’s kind of a pain, because Adam doesn’t really care about anything, especially not about being popular. Or goatees. But where would the thrill be from wishing myself to the top? There’s no honor in war if you use hax, you get what I mean? I like playing life on “Hard” mode, even if that means limiting my tremendous, indescribably awesome powers.

RBA: Adam, you were the one who initially started the band through the serendipitous discovery of the magic marble. How would you say your life has changed since that fateful day?

Adam: From bad, to a living nightmare…

Smoker: He’s such an ungrateful little bugger. After all I sacrificed for this band?! He just doesn’t understand. I beat him and boss him around because I LOVE this band.

RBA: Smoker and Adam seem to have a somewhat tenuous relationship… Could one call this sexual tension?

Smoker: You definitely could, if it would make us more popular.

Marcus: Ahahaha!!

Adam: Uh… You’re kidding, right?

Aptiva: SMOKER AND ADAM SITTING IN A BUUUUUUSH, SMOKER TURNS AROUND AND POKES HIM IN THE TUUUUUSH… wait a sec…

RBA: Aptiva, how long did it take for you to learn the guitar? It seems that you have been playing for many years, however I’ve been told you haven’t even been around that long.

Aptiva: Oh, It took me no time at all! Smoker poofed me to life with all the skills I needed. If I wanna play something, I can! It’s great! And I’ve been around since I think October last year or something like that!

RBA: Mint, why does the band constantly doubt your stories? Is there a chance that you may be exaggerating or embellishing your personal goings-on?

Mint: I do kinda maybe get carried away sometimes… There was an extensive course at Candy Academy about telling the truth, which I do whenever I can! There was also a course on assuming things, and forgetting whether it’s an assumption or truth. I passed with 300% on both!

Aptiva: Wait, Candy Academy? You said a different school name last time you told that story, Mint. Unless you went to… TWO SCHOOLS!?

Mint: IT WAS THE SAME SCHOOL! I led a team to open it up to other candies as well, because other candies need education too you know. It’s a growing problem in the world.

RBA: Also, how do you play the bass drum with no feet?

Mint: Aptiva helped me rig something to let me hit it, but I can’t talk about it much, Adam doesn’t like fire hazards or sharks…

Adam: I told you to get rid of that thing last week! Grow legs or something, I don’t care! Just get rid of it!

Aptiva: It was pure genius, I tell you. GENIUS!

RBA: Mysteri, how much input do you give in to the creative process of the band?

Mysteri: … [Smoker gives Mysteri a light slap to the head] Eek! I don’t know…

Marcus: She’s pretty shy, but she plays keyboard where she sees fit, most of the time without us even being there. Sometimes she leaves tracks on the FiG mixing computer for us to hear, that she came up with. In live practices, she’s been known to play rhythm guitar on “Erratic Eruption” and “Ramp Truck,” too.

RBA: What are some of your musical influences?

Aptiva: Oh, that’s easy! I like Buckethead! Paul Gilbert of course, uhhh… Marty Friedman, Uhm… Murdoc Niccals! Beck too, actually! He makes really catchy riffs… Vince the Shamwow guy! He played guitar, but he sold it to start his slapchop commercials… or Mint says he did anyway… uhhh… Daita, from Siam Shade, too! Oh, there’s way too many!

Mint: Back in Candy Academy, I had a bad habit of skipping my classes to play video games! I ended up failing them all, but I still got my PhD in Mintyness somehow! Anyway, most of my influences are from old Sega games, but I do listen to Rock, Alternative, and Classical too!

Adam: I don’t have any…

Mysteri: G-Geddy Lee… Machinae Supremacy… P!nk…

Smoker: I like a little bit of everything. Lately I’ve been particular to Tenacious D, Lady Gaga, and 80′s music.

RBA: How much influence have other acts such as the Gorillaz had on your band?

Smoker: I have a love-hate relationship with those monkeys. I love their music, but… jeez! Every other comment people make to us is “Ohh… You guys are just like the Gorillaz!” Excuse me, this planet is big enough for more than one animated band. And if it’s not, well… I hear they just made their last album, whereas we are JUST getting started. [Smugly puffs on her cigarette] Mark my words, my pretties… we are going to outshine their legacy!

Aptiva: Y’know, I think the Gorillaz know about us! Smoker met a writer from Tank Girl before, and she told him to tell Jamie Hewlett [artist of the Gorillaz] about us, and maybe pass it on to Murdoc, 2D, Noodle and Russell, and some Damon Albarn guy or something. Noodle’s guitar playing style hasn’t really affected my playing yet. Maybe one day!

RBA: Where do you find inspiration for your songs? What has been the oddest source of inspiration?

Mint: A “Ramp Truck” drove by with some guy driving cars off it once, so we made a song about it!

Aptiva: What? I thought it was ’cause of Crackdown, and that guy playing with us kept racing us with the ramp trucks! But anyway, the weirdest inspiration I’ve ever had was–

Mint: –No! It was real! I know ‘cuz I WAS the Ramp Truck!

Aptiva: Oh… Wait what? Ugh, nevermind.

RBA: How many songs do you have in your catalog? Which one has the most meaning to you?

Marcus: I think right now we have around 10 with ideas down… Personally, “Frontier Factory” has the most meaning to me, since it was the song that they showed me when they “hired” me.

Aptiva: “Erratic Eruption!” It’s the craziest on guitar, and it sounds the coolest! There are sooooo many mistakes on the guitar track, and most of them we just left in. Like that one noise in the middle of verse two; that was me pick sliding, up strumming, and my sleeve hitting the string all at once! I think Marcus has that in the Rock Band version! That was frikkin’ AWESOME. Oh man…

Mint: I like “Erratic Eruption” too! The best part was playing at a volcano! Though it was kinda hot in there… I needed “Iceblind” to help me cool down, but then I got frozen in ice… “Nocturnal Wasteland” would’ve been good to have at the time…

Smoker: I’m partial to all the songs with vocals, because, well… I’M in them. But if I had to pick a favorite, I think right now I’d have to say “Ramp Truck.” I think I channeled Jack Black a few times in there.

Mint: I thought… I thought your were channeling KERMIT THE FROG!

Aptiva: Omigawd, I forgot about “Ramp Truck!” That’s my favorite too!

Adam: The only meaning any of these songs have for me are bruises and frustration… and broken basses…

RBA: Have you ever performed live, and would you ever consider going on tour, possibly with other acts as the Gorillaz or Dethklok?

Marcus: Er… Dethklok seems a bit too hardcore, and they might end up killing us, so I’d probably wanna stay away from that. Plus, I’m not a big fan of Duncan Hills Coffee. As for live, FiG hasn’t actually played live as a full unit with the final songs yet, but a dysfunctional version has played at a high school battle of the bands. They didn’t win, though; They lost to some people doing a cover of “Party in the USA”… ugh.

Aptiva: That’d be awesome. I’d love that! Dethklok has an uber awesome tour bus…tank…thing! And I REALLY wanna play live! The most I’ve ever done was hold online jam sessions where I had people listening a few times. One time Mysteri and Smoker joined in, too!

Mint: Oh my god I’m gonna go mod the Freen Machine after their tank bus!

Aptiva: Omigawd, yes! Do it, do it, do it!

Adam: NO! No tank busses allowed, Mint. I don’t want to go to court more than 3 times a week…

Mint: Well… What about a tank BURGER then?

Adam: NO!

Mint: Awww…

RBA: What can your fans expect to see, or more importantly experience, were you to perform live?

Aptiva: Heee, I’m gonna let you all in on a secret… We have different versions of “Frontier Factory” and “Ramp Truck” that we’re only gonna play live, with bass solos and guitar solos.

Marcus: Aptiva!

Adam: Bass solos? What?

Aptiva: Oooooh, yeah, Adam, I borrowed your bass!

Adam: What? I told you NOT to touch it! Remember what happened last time?!

Mint: We wouldn’t want the poison control team back again…

Aptiva: Oh yeah… Sorry… But for live shows, they can also expect lots of epic lights and pyro effects and all sorts of great stage effects, I LOVE messing with those!

Adam: … Yeah, and you almost set me on fire the last time you started practicing your “stage effects”…

Smoker: That was fun. I helped.

Mint: Hahaha!

Aptiva: Adam! This is important and official and jazz, we shouldn’t be bringing this stuff up here I dun think. Sadface.

RBA: How did the opportunity present itself for putting your music in the Rock Band Network?

Marcus: Well, as a typical college student, I was pretty into games as you can imagine. In 2005 this ‘Guitar Hero’ thing swept the nation by surprise, and I was one of the people infected by it. Later on I learned Harmonix had went on and made Rock Band. Naturally, since it was like the Guitar Hero franchise that I loved, but better, it quickly became my favorite game on the PS3. (Well, that, and y’know, the Guitar Hero 3 controllers didn’t really sync to the consoles very well, so Rock Band was kind of my only source of rock for a while there.)

When I found out that Harmonix was making Rock Band open sourced, I let as many bands as I could contact know about it, and FiG just so happened to jump on it. I handle all the authoring for the note tracks, while Aptiva, Mysteri and Adam handle the venue, lighting, and camera authoring.

Aptiva: “Erratic Eruption’s” crazy use of pyro effects!? That was all me! Mysteri did the other lights stuff though.

Marcus: Y-Yeah. There should be a song in playtest right now, Aptiva. You shouldn’t be announcing it like it’s final; things could change.

Aptiva: Bah… It’s too awesome, it better not change! I’ll kick some booty if it does, seriousface!

Marcus: Right…

RBA: As the first band in the Rock Band Network with such an “animated” background, do you see yourselves paving the way for other less dimensional acts?

Aptiva: Huh? I don’t get it… Last time we paved something, we got charged for vandalism and made someone less dimensional…

RBA: How did you decide on what songs you wanted to make available for Rock Band? Was it a long process, or a simple decision?

Marcus: That was easy. We don’t have too many songs finished right now. Originally, since we were still learning the ropes on how to author properly, we thought we’d submit a song (“Frontier Factory”) to an authoring company, which we decided on Noble Rhythm due to their fancy and clean site interface and informative song stats pages. It was a simple and effective choice, since “Frontier Factory” was the first real song that the band ever made, and it’s a toughie for drummers, especially during the verses.

We knew we wanted to submit “Erratic Eruption,” and “Ramp Truck” ourselves. They’re catchy, at least moderately interesting to play, and just jumped out as the right choice for a game like Rock Band. “Erratic Eruption” was chosen for the guitar players, since it has blistering solos, and crazy pinched harmonic verses. Also, we knew we could play around with the pyro effect for the venue a lot, and we weren’t sure if an authoring company would take our suggestion to add tons of pyro seriously.

“Ramp Truck” was a bit tougher of a choice. While it’s our most popular song, as well as probably our catchiest, it didn’t really have any tricky or interesting parts outside of the rhythm guitar part, and since it didn’t have vocals, we decided it’d probably be a pretty bland choice to put out first. But, seeing as Aptiva already managed to leak it, we’re currently working on a separate, live version of “Ramp Truck,” which will feature a bass solo, and an extended guitar solo. If you’ve ever heard of Billy Talent, think of what they did to “Devil on my Shoulder” for the live/iTunes session, but applied to “Ramp Truck.” It was the direct influence for that.

We’ll definitely keep supporting the RBN, and if there’s a song we feel is interesting enough to make for an enjoyable gameplay experience, then consider it in. In a perfect world, we’ll have the entire first album in, some way or another. Remixes, perhaps? Additionally, that’d allow Rock Band players to see Mint’s little easter egg in the track listing…

RBA: Being that your music will be featured in the game Rock Band, have you played the game much? Would you play your own song in the game to see how it is?

Marcus: Yesterday, we had the entire band over here, rockin’ out to “Frontier Factory,” and we regularly test our own songs via Audition Mode, so yes. And as I said before, I’m a huge Rock Band fan.

Aptiva: That Noble company thing really did a good job on “Frontier Factory!” Hey Mint, we should make them a medal or something!!

Mint: Can we use a shuriken?!

Aptiva: Omigawd yes! Also people should totally playtest “Ramp Truck” and “Erratic Eruption” for us when available!

RBA: Is there anything that you would like the Rock Band community to know about you that we haven’t touched on yet?

Mint: I’m a frikkin’ mint!

Smoker: Look for us in the Guinness World Book of Records. We’re under “Best mutha effin band that ever was and ever shall be.” Because I have will it so!

Aptiva: I think Mysteri can sum it up the best for us! [whisper]

Mysteri: U-uh… uhm… W-we l-l-love… you.

Aptiva: Thank you and goodnight!

Adam: Get out while you still can.

RBA: Thanks, everyone!

For more info on Freen in Green, check out their official page, or on Facebook or Twitter.  Their songs “Frontier Factory“ is currently available in the Rock Band Network, and they have other songs currently in development for release via the RBN. Directly below are samples of their first track in the Rock Band Network. You can also download all of their tracks here.

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