Surrounded by flame, adorned in black robes and growling in blood-soaked tongues, Whitechapel frontman Phil Bozeman roars via their lead single and title track that the band’s latest offering, Hymns in Dissonance, is the stuff of nightmares. This most recent album is touted as a lyrical sequel to 2008’s deathcore pillar This is Exile, with a six-socketed horned skull featured both on their cover and in their music videos poised to shepherd the sextet’s following into their new era of darkness. With a lore built on hellish themes and appropriately horrific imagery, it should come as no surprise that one of extreme music’s most powerful and guttural voices has a lifelong history with graphic media—music, movies and video games—that would influence the group’s newest chapter of Satanic verses. It’s this predilection to the macabre that has lead Bozeman to the Kill Screen arcade, and we expected Hell to follow.

And yet, throughout our two-hour interview, Bozeman displays a maturity matched only by his enthusiasm for digital escapism. Rapidly approaching 40 years of age with nearly half of his life spent on stage with the band he helped form, the vocalist finds his tastes not changing, but broadening. Pixelated gore and gamer rage still factor into the equation, but his fondness for couch co-op—and more likely his fiancée—has added a bit more color to his palate. But no matter whether he’s playing something cozy or chaotic, Bozeman’s support of the game is undaunted. “Back then, it was like, ‘Oh, you’re a nerd. You’re a loser. All you do is sit around, play video games and dream about flying on dragons,’” he explains with annoyance. “Yeah, so stay the fuck out of it and let me have my time!” And right now, Decibel’s co-nerds are happy to do just that.

Looking for even more content from this mammoth discussion? Pick up the current issue of Decibel (dB247/May 2025) to hear why he thinks battle royales missed the mark.

What was your first gaming experience?
I think Kid Niki: [Radical Ninja] on NES. It was an arcade game, too. It was with my dad. It’s a side-scroller. That was my first gaming experience. I actually have it on video. It’s from 1987 maybe, something like that. I still remember that game almost to a T. NES was a lot of side-scrolling. Kung Fu is a classic, I love that game. Of course [Super] Mario [Bros.]. I wasn’t really big into Mario when I was a kid. And, of course, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!!

It sounds like they left quite an impression. Do you remember your mindset back then?
Oh, absolutely. There’s people that play video games and they’re just like, Ehhh, whatever, I don’t really care about them. But for me, it was just like, Yeah, this is it. I play video games literally every day, as much as I can. All of it sticks in my mind just because it’s just so near and dear to my heart. And, of course, that cascaded into Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat II is my favorite game of all time. I was a big fighting game guy back in the day. Mortal Kombat II, I still remember inputs for fatalities and all the moves and everything. It’s just like muscle memory for me.

What was it about II that stood out in the series in that time?
I played Mortal Kombat I on arcade at a skate rink. That was my first introduction to it. And, of course, my mom was like, “No, you’re not playing this game. It’s way too violent.” And then when II came out, it was just I on steroids. It had more characters, more fatalities and just expanded on the first one. I would go to this place called Putt Putt Golf & Games because they had it and I would go there and sit there for hours and play. On Sundays, my dad would take me there and drop me off, and I would just sit there and play it. There was a time I stole $35. I still remember the exact amount. [Laughs] It was, like, $35 from my sister and literally spent all of it on that game.

[Laughs] Did she ever get that $35 back?
I don’t think so. I mean, if she did, I don’t know about it because my parents probably did it. But definitely not from me because I was like, you know, eight or nine years old. I was just that obsessed with it.

Of course I had subscriptions to GamePro magazine. It’s pretty much obsolete now. I guess Game Informer is the only one that’s left [ed note: Sadly, Game Informer shut down in August 2024]. But back in the day, it was GamePro. I’d go to bookstores and just go straight to the magazines and then grab all the gaming magazines and stuff.

I [Michael] remember Electronic Gaming Monthly and how that thing was like a fucking phone book every single month. I was like, I’m never going to be able to read all this, but this is just incredible.
That was just the way, man, because now you just find out everything before it even happens. With the magazines, you’re just waiting for the new magazine to come out because then you get the news and all that stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I like the convenience of everything. But at the same time, there’s just no mystery anymore. Leaks come out, you just know everything. If you’re going to play games or anything like that, you pretty much have to stay off the internet. I love RPGs. If there’s anything story-wise, you just stay off the internet because something’s going to come up, whether it’s Reddit or a video or something.

What have you been playing lately and what do you typically like to play?
Well, as much as I hate to admit that I’m this late to the game, [The Legend of] Zelda, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. I’m a big Souls fan. I love all the Souls games, played every single one of them. Well, I’m currently playing Sekiro: [Shadows Die Twice] and god, that game is so much harder than all the Souls games. [Laughs] I think [game director Hidetaka] Miyazaki is a genius. How he creates the world, even though I don’t understand what the hell they’re talking about half the time, just the imagery… I think Bloodborne is one of the greatest. Even though it is linear, the imagery and the world he created with that is just so sick. You just get lost. It’s very haunting, the things that he throws at you.

All those Japanese guys are just incredible. [Laughs] They are the gaming geniuses over there. Metal Gear, [game director Hideo] Kojima, I loved all those games. I play a lot of ARPGs. I was addicted to Diablo in my teenage years, Diablo II specifically. Diablo III, I liked it. Diablo IV… I don’t know. I’m on the fence about that one. Diablo II, I want to get a tattoo of the original artwork on me. It was just that big of a game for me. I spent so much time on that game. I do love grinding kind of games, games that you have to spend a lot of time on.

What’s the appeal of the grind? Is it the time spent or the satisfaction or what?
The satisfaction. It’s like getting stronger without lifting weights. You don’t have to push a bunch of weight to get stronger. You’ve just got this guy on the screen and you’re like, Yes! Souls, ARPGs like Diablo, stuff like that. I never really played through Elder Scrolls too much, which I probably should even though it’s very old at this point. There’s an MMO I got into a little bit and just kind of fell out of: Everquest. My friend got me into that one and I played it a little bit. Games like that, just grinding. It just never ends. I like games like that, too. They never truly end. Maybe the campaign or the story might end, but the end game just goes on and on and on.

You mentioned possibly getting a Diablo tattoo. Do you have any other gaming tattoos or would that be the first?
That would be the first. For whatever reason, I never got the MK dragon. I gotta get it. I just got older and I got to the point where I was like, It hurts, it sucks getting it done. I love them. They take time and they just suck getting them, but I guess that’s part of it. The older I got, I guess the less I cared about tattoos. But I do look at my arms sometimes and I’m just like, God, I wish I could just finish this so it’s all cohesive. I’m 40 now, so there’s just more important things in my life that I care about, like growing plants and watching birds.

You mentioned a lot of console games with the exception of possibly Diablo II. Are you primarily console?
No. I guess console for certain things, like Mortal Kombat. I’d probably play that on console. But as far as gaming goes in a serious manner, PC probably. Diablo is on consoles now, but it’s just not the same—it is a PC game. You can play it with a controller, but you are just limiting yourself beyond measure.

Man, do you remember Diablo 1 on PlayStation 1? That shit was miserable.
No! I didn’t even… They put it on PlayStation 1? I didn’t even know that. Especially in that era, it had to have been just like, why?

I [James] remember StarCraft 64 was a big deal, that they actually made it run on the [Nintendo] 64. Everybody, I think, was so focused on that it does work, that nobody was really asking the question of, But why would you do this?
Oh man, StarCraft 64. I loved like the 64 era, of course. Mine was Dreamcast. I loved the Dreamcast. I know it’s not the most popular one that ever came out, but I loved it. The memory cards with the screen on them, and they were 128-bit. That was the first system to do it. Did they reach 60 FPS on that one? I can’t remember. I know it was very smooth.

It was very smooth. Such an under-supported system, unfortunately.
And they had a perfect marketing campaign for that. I still remember, it was “9.9.99” [the release date]. I was waiting, because it was the day after my birthday. I told my mom, “I want a Dreamcast. Please get me a Dreamcast.”

Did the Dreamcast happen for the birthday?
Oh yeah, it did. That was the first time I ever played—well, I think it was the only time they released it—Shenmue. That was almost like a life simulator. There’s so much you can do. And Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. Of course, they had the 2K series for sports games and stuff. I’m a big sports guy, but nowadays, I don’t really play sports games or anything like that.

When was the drop off for you? When did you grow out of that?
I’m from the South—college football, I love NFL. I was more of a pro football guy. I guess when Madden just became the same game every year, there was just nothing new. If you had Madden ’16 versus Madden ’10, there was no difference except roster. It’s the repetition, every single year. I love playing basketball games and stuff. Of course FIFA. You didn’t even have to be a soccer fan. I didn’t know any players or anything like that, I just thought it was fun.

With sports games, they had such a good thing in the ’90s with NFL Blitz and NBA Jam and everything, where the emphasis was on fun. And then they became these, like, simulator games. Whereas you mentioned, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing is certainly larger than life, you know? Somebody doing a flip and a basketball is on fire, like, come on—anyone can jump into that. You don’t need to be a basketball enthusiast to enjoy that game.
Oh, I played NBA Jam all the time, and NFL Blitz. They’re hilarious. It’s just over the top. It’s kind of like watching King Kong Vs. Godzilla. You don’t go in it thinking that it’s going to be this masterpiece narrative movie. It’s just fun. It’s just big monsters smashing shit, and that’s what you want. And that’s what you get.

But I am a very serious gamer, too. My fiancée, she’s not a gamer by any means. Whenever we play, like, [Donkey Kong Country Returns] or whatever, I rage at stuff and I get mad and she’s like, “I don’t understand, it’s just a game.” It’s like, “You’re just not a gamer.” That’s just what happens. We get frustrated and mad and when we can’t beat stuff, it pisses us off. And she just doesn’t understand it.

The number of times that I’ve [Michael] had to tell my girlfriend, [yelling] “No, I’m having fun! This is fun!”
[Laughs] She literally said that to me the other night. She said, “You just don’t seem like you’re having fun.” I was like, “I am having fun. I’m having the greatest time of my life right now. But if we don’t beat this level, I’m going to throw the controller at the screen.”

Do you have different approaches in terms of when you’re picking a game of like, “I need something a little bit more serious,” versus, “I need something a little bit more lighthearted and mindless”?
I always did serious gaming when I was younger. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve just changed a lot. Like I said, I grow plants and watch birds. I never cared about plants, never cared about birds. And then my fiancée brought in a plant—she’s into plants and stuff—and I was like, “Oh, cool. Is there a plant that looks kind of manly that I can get?” And then I got one and it just spiraled out of control after that. And then birds, I never cared about birds. And then we got a bird feeder and I started learning all the birds and stuff. [Laughs] I don’t know. Getting older is weird. You change a lot.

I think the serious stuff is still there. I love competition, I love competitive gaming. Call of Duty, I played that more competitively. I played public matches and stuff during Modern Warfare 3 and 2 and stuff. I like the search and destroy competitive play, game battles and stuff like that. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to become a little bit more light hearted. We played that game It Takes Two together. That game was so fun. The game was so cool. We’ve been searching for games like that, because a lot of them are side scrollers and those are fun. We played through Rayman Legends together and it was absolutely incredible. Couch co-op, it’s almost a niche nowadays.

Unfortunately, yeah. And I [James] understand why. The ability to play with people online really opened a lot of things for a lot of games and companies. But yeah, couch co-op shrinking as much as it has, I feel like it’s a little sad.
Absolutely. It’s almost like it’s dying. It Takes Two, people loved it, people talked about it. I guess they’re making another one. I put it on the watch list, just like, When is it coming out? Because I had such a good time. I still do serious gaming. If I’m playing Sekiro or something, I do that when she’s gone. That’s, like, me, no one else. Especially Souls games, like Elden Ring. Elden Ring was incredible. All that stuff, that’s the kind of stuff I take more serious. And Diablo. I started playing Diablo IV and it’s just not the same for me. I still would go back and play [Diablo II: Resurrected]. That’s my serious stuff. But as far as online gaming, I haven’t really been doing that too much lately just because, again, we play Zelda together, even though it’s single player only. We just get lost in the world together and it’s almost like watching a movie, but we’re controlling it.

That can be a lot of fun, too, even if you’re not playing because you’ll be watching the screen and be like, “What’s that over there? Can you go check out on top of that hill over there?” Or like, “Look, there’s a cave there!”
Yeah, exactly. That’s what we do. She’s kind of toned me down a little bit with games like that, because whenever I would play by myself, it would be just objective, objective, gotta get this done, gotta go as fast as possible, gotta just go, go, go. And she’s just like, “I just like to go over here and collect the apples on the tree and go cook food.” And at first I was just like, “No, why aren’t you going over here? It’s right there! How do you not see it?” And I’ve kind of calmed down, toned it down. The stuff that she likes to do, I’ve started to actually like doing, which I never thought I would. [Shrugs] I don’t know. It’s just getting older, man. You just change.

Do you intentionally carve out time when it’s like, “All right, the two of us are going to sit down and do this”? Or is it just an event of circumstance, like something comes up when you’re both on the couch?
It’s almost become not a nightly thing, I would say, but most nights during the week because whenever I’m off tour, I just don’t really do anything else. I’m very thankful that I get to do this and this is my vacation. But she’s a social worker, so she goes and does that during the day and she’ll get home and she just wants to relax. We usually just go sit on the couch. It’s either the Apple TV gets turned on or I grab the Wii remote and turn it on and throw it over to her. I’m just like, “All right, let’s go.” It just kind of goes like that.

You had mentioned the game It Takes Two is a great couch co-op. If anyone were to ask you what’s a good couch co-op game other than that one, what would you recommend?
Rayman Legends. I know it’s kind of old. I liked Mario Wonder, I just thought it was a little bit too easy. Any of the side-scrolling newer Marios. Me and [my fiancée] tried to play A Way Out, but it was too linear and didn’t really have much action in it, so we just kind of got bored with it. What else have we played? Trine. It’s kind of obscure and weird. There’s not really any fighting, it’s just puzzle-based. One character can do one certain thing and another character can do another one and you switch between them in game in real time to figure out the puzzle. Like, this guy can make this wall move and then you gotta use the wizard to like get the box to jump over on. That’s how desperate we got, because there’s not a lot of choices. The couch co-op people are kind of S.O.L. right now.

In other interviews, you’ve mentioned that you’re pretty reserved, that you’re not a very socially outgoing person. Do you use video games as a way to socially recharge, to kind of disconnect from the outside world?
Yeah, I’ve always been kind of a pretty reserved guy. I have a lot of friends that play still to this day. I’ll get on Discord with them—I haven’t in a while—and just bullshit. It’s like, I’m kind of in my own sanctuary. I can come and go as I please. In social events, I’m kind of agoraphobic, I guess you could say. If I don’t have an escape route or a way to get out and just go be by myself, it can kind of make me anxious a little bit. More so back when I was even younger than I am now. But for me, gaming is an escape. You get to go live in this world. Real life can suck, so it’s nice to put that veil over your eyes and just go live in this alternate world where there’s interesting characters and people that aren’t going to screw you over or something.

People that don’t play video games and just say that they’re a waste of time, they’re not. I think that they’re great therapy. Yeah, some people can maybe take it a little extreme and never go outside. But I’ve always been a big advocate for it and people that say that they’re a waste of time and you’re a loser if you play them, you’re completely, completely wrong.

Do you ever find yourself exploring the indie side of things?
Oh, yeah. The one game that I have not played yet that I’m so adamant to play is Hollow Knight. Games like that, the indie side is like for people like us that grew up in that era. Games are very transactional now. Back in the day, it was just “what you get is what you get,” so they had to put all their passion into it because there were no updates, there were no patches or anything like that. It’s almost made it worse because there’s a lot of games [where] there’s just a constant stream of revenue for them—pay-to-win or pay-to-play or whatever it is.

New skins, new weapons, new mounts, whatever.
Yeah, they’re cosmetic and they don’t grant you any sort of advantage, but they know what they’re doing. It’s just brain rot in a way. That’s why I kind of started playing single-player games again. They have to put a lot of thought and time into the story. That’s why I loved the Souls series. You have the online PvP stuff, but for the most part, people play it for the AI because it’s so hard and so challenging. I feel like Souls games are keeping that alive by creating the games that they’re creating.

But now everything is so transactional. One game I play on my phone is Clash of Clans, and that game, if you do not spend money, don’t play the game. And I’m guilty of it, because it’s a grind. Like I said, I love the grind. But at the same time, the amount of time if you played it for free, completely free? Years, decades, for you to get to a certain point. And it’s just like, Well, I live once. There’s so much more out there. It’s weird. I watched the South Park episode where they were making fun of pay-to-play games and it’s just like, yeah, it’s kind of what it’s turned into. The passion for people that make games, there’s still some out there and the indie side of it definitely has that passion, but the bigger studios were just kind of like, [waves hand dismissively].

These indie studios are doing it usually self-funded or not funded at all, and they’re making amazing games. How much money do you guys need, man? Just make good shit and people will pay for it. Whenever you lose passion, people will notice. One studio that I always thought was really good and then they put out that abomination [Cyberpunk 2077] was CD Projekt Red. The Witcher 3 was incredible. And then Cyberpunk, talk about one of the worst gaming launches in history. Just a buggy, unplayable mess. And if this was 1995, that’s it—that’s what it is. You can’t go back. If you release the game and it was like that, there’s no going back. And I think that’s a big thing now, too: everything releases in beta. We are the beta testers. Why aren’t you guys putting those funds into actually having play testers play the game? They might be, but not good enough, apparently, because they released Cyberpunk that way. Everything is alpha or beta. It’s never just finished; there’s no such thing as a finished game anymore, almost. Elden Ring and the Soul series, those games are usually finished. Yeah, they have some bugs here and there, but nothing catastrophic.

You said that Hymns in Dissonance is a lyrical continuation of your second album, This Is Exile. Over the years, have you ever drawn any writing or visual inspiration from any of the games that you enjoy?
Oh, absolutely. Dark Souls, just the imagery, because the story, I have to really dive deep to understand what the hell they’re talking about. The narrative in the game, you’re just like, What are these people talking about? But yeah, absolutely gaming is huge inspiration on my writing style. You love horror games; I do, too. That’s what I really loved as a kid: the Resident Evil series and Silent Hill and stuff. Metal and gaming just go hand-in-hand, in my opinion. Cannibal Corpse was my introduction into the more heavy, darker, insane side of metal. Gaming and then Cannibal Corpse, that’s kind of where everything was born for me. I definitely take a lot of influence from gaming and, of course, my elders from metal and stuff.

“Metal and gaming just go hand-in-hand, in my opinion… Gaming and then Cannibal Corpse, that’s kind of where everything was born for me.”

The new album and This is Exile, they lean very heavily on anti-Christian, Satanic imagery. Hell is no stranger to video games. You have more literal interpretations of Hell like Doom, Diablo, Agony, or you have the more symbolic Silent Hill, Limbo, Alan Wake. Do you have any particular preferences when it comes to a more demonic presentation? Is there any one game that you feel nails that imagery especially well?
Hmm… I would say Diablo 1, for sure. I don’t know what it is about that game, but it’s so unsettling. That’s my perception of it from whenever I was younger. But modern day? It’s hard. Doom is almost kind of silly, in a way. With Doom, the imagery? Absolutely. Oh my god, if I saw this in real life? Just kill me right now, because I don’t know what I’d do. But with Doomguy, you’re powerful, jumping around everywhere and got this fucking [pantomimes chugging guitar riff] in the background. For me, stuff that’s sinister, like Silent Hill, where it’s very ominous and very tread lightly, tread carefully… Speeding through stuff, that’s not unsettling for me. Stuff like Silent Hill is unsettling, or Resident Evil, where it’s like, What’s behind this door? The real creepy, you-don’t-know-what’s-coming kind of thing. The new Resident Evils were definitely creepy, but it wasn’t their idea. They just kind of stole the idea from these other developers.

That was my [James] complaint with [Resident Evil 8:] Village. When you’re in the castle, you get to the end of the castle and you go into this hidden cathedral chapel up in the mountains and there’s gargoyles flying all about and rag-wearing men in a bloody basement swinging a sword and you fight a dragon. Am I playing Dark Souls? Because that does sound fun, but I thought I was playing Resident Evil. What happened here?
Yeah. I was excited for Village because I thought it was going to be kind of a return to Resident Evil 4—it’s real people and they’re diseased or whatever. Resident Evil 4, I don’t know whose idea it was, how everything came together with that game was incredible. RE1 was great, RE2 was incredible, then RE3 was kind of ehhh. And then they went to that over-the-shoulder view and the whole narrative of the game was just so sick for me. I thought it was probably one of the best Resident Evil games in history. RE6 and RE5, I never even played them because it just seemed kind of stupid to me. They tried to keep going with the RE4 look of it and everything, and they just didn’t really execute. But then switching over to Biohazard, I thought that one was pretty creepy and whatnot. But it’s just P.T. They just kind of stole the idea and all these new walking simulator indie games. That’s one thing I really love playing: You go on Steam and you have all these indie games that are creepy simulators walking through these houses. I love shit like that. But they just took that idea from everyone else and made it a AAA title.

What standout titles in terms of the more creepy walking simulators stick out to you?
From the Darkness, Summer of ’58, Visage. That wasn’t really necessarily a walking simulator, that was more of a game. The one that I played a lot of their games is [EMIKA_GAMES]. They make a lot of those games. What I would do, all my friends that were playing games were too scared to do it, so I would just get on Discord stream and they would watch me play it. There’s a few games I played we play together, like Devour. That game is pretty fun. There’s one called Infliction, that’s a walking simulator. Suite 776. There’s just a ton of them. Find Yourself, that’s another one. If you if you look up Emika, they make a lot of those games and I love them—just jump scares, kind of fun and they’re very short.

You mentioned on the Garza podcast that you’re drawn to morbid imagery. You’ve said that as you’ve gotten older that’s softened a little bit—especially playing with your fiancée—that you seek out some of these more lighthearted games. Do you still find value in seeking out these more macabre titles or do you think that going forward you’ll be more inclined to check out something a bit less heavy handed?
I don’t know. I was introduced to it at such an early age. I was watching the Faces of Death videos. Granted, a lot of that was proven to be fake. But I was just very curious as to what real death was like, because you see it in movies but a lot of people just want to forget about it, just don’t want to worry about it. But for whatever reason, I was like, No, I want to know. I want to know what it looks like. It sounds horrible. I guess I became desensitized to it. I was left alone a lot whenever I was younger, so my curious mind got to do whatever it wanted. My dad passed when I was 10 and then my mom kind of went off and she was kind of a drug addict. I was on the AOL dial-up internet, just looking up dark web shit—videos of people actually dying.

I think if it happened in front of me, right next to me, that would be different. It’d be like, OK, I need to get away from this shit. But I think the older I have gotten, I have become more lighthearted. I’m a huge animal lover. It’s weird to say that I can watch people die and not animals. I cannot watch animals die, even if it’s in a movie. If a dog dies, I’m like, Nope, skip that scene. I don’t even want to know about it. It’s not that I don’t have love for humans. I love people. It’s hard to explain. I just got into that stuff at an early age and I think I’m desensitized to it, but I also don’t want to really look at it as much anymore. The real stuff. The stuff that’s fake and just for entertainment value, whatever, I love that stuff. But as far as looking at the real stuff, I’ve kind of grown out of that.

[That discomfort] seeing videos of animals dying, does that extend to video games? Because me [Michael] personally, I really dislike when killing animals is part of the game mechanics. You look at something like The Last of Us or Ghost of Tsushima, you had to take out dogs in order to not alert the guards and it really bothered me. But I can murder an entire village in Resident Evil or Dark Souls and it’s nothing.
Oh, absolutely. Even in Zelda, when you hunt. Granted, they just go, “Ow!,” and just, poof, in a cloud, so it’s more lighthearted and more cartoony. But I still have my arrow pointed I’m just like, Why am I doing this? Again, I’m a huge animal lover. I have kind of an unhealthy obsession with dogs. If I see one, joy just enters my head. I can’t look at a dog and ever be upset. So yeah, animals and children, that’s where I’m like, OK, nope—draw the line.

The band has tour dates lined up for March. Do you get to game much on the road at all? Have you crossed paths with any gamers while you’re out on the road?
To answer your first question, yes, I do bring my PlayStation with me. I usually just try to load up on single player games just because internet’s not really accessible. I mean, you can, but it’s horrible. Most of the time, the NAT type won’t even let you. But yes, I do game a ton whenever I’m on the road.

And gamers, as far as in bands? They’re MIA, man. A lot of them are very casual about it, like, “Oh yeah, I’ll play Call of Duty, and then… not play another video game for a year.” They’re talking about bands and music and I’m like, “OK, yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up about that. But what about the games, though?” That’s how it is for me. I’m just like, “Who cares about the music? Whatever. Games! Let’s talk about games!” Some guys are just really into death metal. That’s all they talk about, is this brutal band or this brutal band, whatever. I’m just like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t care. Anyways, let’s talk about fucking video games.”

“Did you see that new Elden Ring trailer? Holy fuck!”
Yeah, seriously! I need someone to talk about this shit with and very rarely do I find someone that’s into it as I am. I don’t need them to be as hardcore into it as me, but at least meet me halfway or something. But there’s a lot of them that just don’t really. OK, I will say, Lorna Shore, when we toured with them, their bass player Moke [Michael Yager], super big gamer. So anytime anybody’s talking about music, yeah, who cares? Anyway Moke, what’s going on, man? Did you see the Game Awards? Did you see this new IGN preview of all these games coming out?” He started playing Path of Exile II. That was relieving [that] he was a big gamer. I was like, Thank god I can talk to someone about this shit.

I [James] can imagine that being a great moment: it’s day two of the tour and you walk by and see him getting his PlayStation out, he’s got a controller in his hand. You’re like, “My man!”
Yeah! And it’s so funny because our guitar player Zach [Householder], he’s very into horror and he does like video games, but he’s like an 80-year old about it. I’m big into it and he’s kind of super casual. He asked me the other day, “Have you played the newer God of Wars?” I was like, “Zach, dude—come on. Have I played the God of Wars? Yeah, like, four years ago, dude.” I get it, some people don’t play games, but it’s always the case with him. I’m just like, “Of course I fucking played it. Are you kidding me? That was literally four years ago. I’m past it.” Next he’s gonna ask me if I played Elden Ring. He is a clueless gamer. And I kind of like it because I kind of get to live vicariously through him to rediscover it.

That’s the perfect opportunity to feed him all the games. Just be like, “Dude, Bloodborne’s next. This is gonna change your life, bud. Here you go.”
But the thing is that he sucks at games, so if I give him Bloodborne, he’s gonna be like, “I haven’t even passed the first boss for the past six months,” you know?

Do you have, like, “this is a tour game” and “this is when I’m back home game” or anything?
Yeah, I guess lately I have. Sometimes I’ll reinstall Elden Ring and go back and play through it again because I do forget stuff. I’m just like, Wait, how did I do this? What did I have to do here? Just more of a time killer. There’s some games that I haven’t played, like, I haven’t played [Horizon: Forbidden West] all the way through because whenever I’m home, I just don’t really play games like that, I guess. But on the road, I tend to just load up on the single-player stuff; stuff that I never really would play at home. It gives me a reason to buy it, put it on the system, take it and then just play it.

Not super common, but we’re seeing more underground metal bands getting tapped for game soundtracks. Would you ever have any interest in Whitechapel’s music appearing in a game? If so, what series or kind of game would you be interested in collaborating with?
Absolutely. That’s honestly kind of been a dream of mine; just no one’s knocked on the door yet. I feel like maybe Doom would be the route we could go. As far as the ominous and dark games, the new songs from Hymns in Dissonance just would not go with it. I feel like our music would be more for a Doom-style game where it’s very fast-paced and chaotic and just brutal. I know Mick Gordon does all the music for Doom. I don’t know if he still does, but I know he was. It’s kind of that downtuned like, [pantomimes a chugging riff]. I thought death metal and stuff like that would go perfect with a game like Doom, depending on the scene or the gameplay that’s going on.

Are there any games that you’re looking forward to this year?
Of course [Grand Theft Auto] VI. I look forward to NetherRealm [Studios] stuff, but I don’t know if I do anymore because I wasn’t really a big fan of the last two MKs. MK11 for me was too slow, MK1 just feels gimmicky. It’s kind of a little bit faster than MK11. I loved MKX because it was fast, chaotic and just silly. I’m not a big superhero guy, so I don’t really care about Injustice. It’s kind of fun. I’m always looking forward to what NetherRealm is going to do next, but it just seems like they’re under the control of [Warner Bros.], so they just do what they say. Anything CD Projekt Red—of course Witcher 4. I’m looking forward to more indie games, more side-scrolling. I want more couch co-op games, but I don’t know if I’m going to get them. I need to go back and watch the the reveals that they had not too long ago. More indie titles. Nothing super specific yet.

When we were younger, growing up in a very different time of video games, sometimes things were not quite as polished, obviously. Do you think we were, in a sense, like a little more “lucky” that we got to experience that and you can jump back into a game from the ’80s and still have great memories, whereas it might be harder for a younger person to get into something with 8-bit graphics?
Oh yeah. Obviously no fault of their own, but I feel bad for them. I mean, it was just different, man, the late ’80s, ’90s. Arcades! There’s some here and there. The one thing that kind of revived him were barcades. There’s an arcade here. Family fun centers are almost coming full circle again. There’s one here and it’s just like, Yes! Bring those back! I went to family fun centers all the time because they had arcades, they had the rides, the bumper cars and all that stuff. In today’s world, everyone’s just [holds phone up to face] glued, and they don’t see past it. The iPhone and iPads and all this stuff, great inventions, incredible, makes our lives very convenient. But of course we’re humans and we just make everything worse. But getting outside and going to arcades and all that stuff, that era, I wish they could live through it just to see how much fun it really was.

People are more “connected” now, but I think that it’s the complete opposite. I think people are more disconnected than they ever were. We can contact people more, but people, they’re just very connected to themselves. People are very self-centered now. Those old days of games, you just have to be there to understand and they never will. It kind of makes me sad to know that they never will because it’s never going to be like that ever again.

Hymns in Dissonance it out now via Metal Blade and can be ordered here.
Tickets to the Hymns in Dissonance Tour with Whitechapel, Brand of Sacrifice, 200 Stab Wounds and Alluvial are available here.
Follow Whitechapel on Bandcamp, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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