“Shit, man. Now I have to play it. Ahh! Where’s my guitar?” Quickly glancing around a room covered in posters celebrating the likes of Type O Negative, King Diamond some group called Idles Hands is Gabriel Franco of Portland-based gloom ‘n’ rollers Unto Others. Struggling to find the right words to describe a particular scale used in a popular RPG, he figures it’s best to show rather than tell. “I can’t leave you hanging,” he explains as out comes his tool of the trade. He strums a progression of notes that is instantly familiar to everyone in the conversation, and just as swiftly the instrument returns to its home off camera. “That kind of shit, right? I love that shit.”
By any metric, Franco is a true lover of music. Though often pigeonholed in a Sisters of Mercy-sized box, those who have payed attention know that the quartet have regularly flexed their dynamic range over the years. This musical exploration culminated in 2024’s Never, Neverland, their most sonically diverse release to date. Yes, we are once again under the buzzing neon lights of the Kill Screen arcade, but music is still first on Franco’s mind, leading to our impromptu recital. His gaming proclivities are not well advertised and, thanks to a rigorous recording and touring schedule, not his primary focus. For a couple of lifelong nerds, however, we couldn’t help but immediately pick up on a universally famous sample from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time being used at the beginning of track “Time Goes On” while spinning their latest album. After our hour-long interview, gaming’s influence on the frontman runs deeper than expected, but it’s the title of the band’s debut EP—2018’s Don’t Waste Your Time—that feels much more present. All playing and no play has thankfully not made Franco a dull boy.
What was your first gaming experience?
Man, that is a good question because I’ve never really thought about that. It would probably be some kind of, like, Galaga on my mom’s Nintendo system when I was growing up. But the first video games I actually ever cared about were Super Mario [World] and Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo and stuff like that. I remember playing with my brothers and playing them over and over and over again. You go, “Oh, do you know about the secret area here? Do you know about the trick here?” That kind of shit. That and a lot of Street Fighter II and just spamming [E. Honda’s] arm move over and over again. But yeah, those are my earliest memories of video games. The first time I actually cared about a video game and the experience was probably way later, like in high school or something.
Would you say then that growing up, you always had memories of video games being in the home?
Yeah, and you know, it’s kind of weird being in our generation here. I don’t know about you guys, but I know my parents didn’t play video games growing up. And if they did, it was, like, in the arcade in the ’80s maybe, so it wasn’t a huge part of their lives. Nowadays, of course everyone plays video games—the young people, the old people have played video games, people our age. Our generation is now running the world and making things move, and we all love video games and grew up with them, so… it’s really odd to me. [Laughs] I kind of liked the old world where the adults didn’t play video games and just the kids did, you know what I mean? It’s kind of weird hearing—we’re not that old—but “old” guys talking about, “Oh yeah dude, I love playing this shit,” Like, hey, get back to work. No fun is allowed, what the hell are you talking about? [Laughs]
I [Michael] think it’s less lamenting that the olds have gotten wind of the video games and more that we got old.
Yeah, that’s probably it. Dammit. Shit. [Laughs]
What have you been playing lately and what are the games that you typically prefer to play?
Lately, nothing. On the road, I don’t have time to play shit. Before the road, I was playing a lot of stuff, but now, I’ve cut it out completely. I’m back to songwriting mode. The thing about video games is it gets my creative energy out. After I play video games for two hours, I don’t feel like picking up a guitar and playing music because I’ve already been sitting there looking at a screen for a couple hours. So I have to cut that out in order to want to play music.
But before we left for tour, I was playing a shitload of Diablo II. I actually spent the past year becoming a fucking champion at that game, maxing out everything. It was quite a tedious process, but that was one of those games that I grew up with that I started playing was I was like 11 and I could never beat. And you’re like, I’m an adult now, I’m a big boy—I’m gonna fucking beat this fucking game. [Laughs] I had to forum my way through it, but I beat it.
That and then Stardew Valley, I was jamming a lot of that. I really like that game. Just those two really, that’s all I was playing before. Over the years, I find myself coming back to the same four games. It’s always Diablo II, Stardew Valley, Starcraft, Warcraft. Maybe World of Warcraft, although they’ve kind of gone off the rails at this point. And then, like, Final Fantasy and just emulator games, like Pokémon. Sometimes I’ll get bored and just fucking beat a Pokémon on 10 times speed, you know?
Are we talking OG Diablo II or did you pick up Diablo II: Resurrected?
Resurrected, but in my opinion, not much has changed aside from the graphics, and you can do the old-school graphics. I’m really glad they didn’t fuck with it too hard, and the things they did add to the game I feel like were solid and didn’t unbalance the game.
What was it about Diablo II where it made you say I want to max this? I can’t imagine that Diablo II is the only game that you played as a kid.
Well, there’s many games I played as a kid that I’ve maxed out now, that I’ve gone back in and basically 100 percented. But Diablo II was just there. I was like, Oh yeah, I haven’t played that in a while. I’ve been playing that on and off every year since I was 12 years old. You put it down and then you forget about it and you’re like, Oh, I’ll create a new character.
But why II and not I, III or IV?
Because III and IV suck, in my opinion, and I I’ve never played just because I don’t own a PC. I play II on my Switch. But the reason I keep coming back, I’m kind of conservative when it comes to video games. I’m not interested in trying new things and I’m not interested in purchasing new systems. I really want to buy a PS5, right? I want to play Elden Ring because I really think I’d like that game. Everyone’s been talking about it for years. But I can’t because that would just be stupid for me. I need to write music and investing, like, $500 in a fucking console, you could buy a new guitar, go to the bar and get fucking wasted for a couple nights. And I’m like, OK, I have to be wise here. So that’s the only reason I haven’t purchased new systems—they’re a time sink and I know how I am with video games. I’ll get fucking addicted and all of a sudden, I’m like, Oh my god, I’ve been playing this two hours a day for, like, the past month. Imagine if I had put that time into songwriting or some shit, you know?
And so these are the things I have to struggle with as an artist. It kind of sucks. I’m my own business here, right? In the cold terms. And the shitty thing about being your own boss is it’s so hard to relax because every single day you spend not doing something, you’re like, Well, perhaps if I was working, I could have come up with the greatest song I could have ever wrote that day. It’s really tough. You’re constantly fighting yourself, like, Should I relax? Should I not? So video games have this very love/hate relationship for myself. They’re complete escape.
So when would you ideally be able to slot them in?
Well, that’s why they came back into play—we finished recording the third album, and I said, OK, fuck this shit. I’m not writing for a while. I’m going to play video games. And that was great. But it’s been, like, a year now and it’s time to put them away. Not that I haven’t been writing for a year, just I write slower, I’m not as focused.
You said that you’re not really interested in trying new things. Have you had any interest in similar isometric RPG-style games, something like Path of Exile?
I’ve been recommended Path of Exile and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. If you’re like, “Oh, you really like Diablo II? You’d really like Path of Exile.” I’m like, “Yeah, but I don’t need it because I love Diablo II and it’s the exact game I want.” And furthermore, the reason I’m not going to touch it is because I don’t want to like it. I’m sure I would—that’s the problem. [Laughs] So that’s why I’m very conservative about what video games I want to play and what I want to delve into, because it’s just another addiction for me and I’ve got to focus. That’s my shitty video game love/hate relationship. [Laughs]
What you said was really interesting, where it requires creative energy. I [Michael] think you’re absolutely [correct], but can you elaborate on what kind of creative energy goes into effectively a predetermined script in a video game?
I think when you start playing a video game, when you’re most into it is when you’re not thinking about playing it. It’s when you’re in, like, a flow state. Once you’re in that, what you’re basically doing is you’re problem solving and action/reaction, which is what you do when you’re working or when you’re writing songs. And so in the video game, when I’m sitting there going, OK, this armor gives me +4 to stats, but I need to do this to get that from this guy to do that and run over there and do all this shit, it’s the same exact shit that I’d be doing in my regular life if I was working or writing music. The only difference is I don’t have to move my body, and so it’s probably a lot more pleasurable. [Laughs] And there’s also cool graphics and noises, and it’s fantasy, and it’s fun.
I think it uses up the same kind of energy because I’ve never been able to play video games for two hours and then sit down and write music. It’s like I’m spent. I don’t know if I can completely describe why, I just know that that’s what happens. It’s the same when I work out. If I go, say, lift weights for two hours, afterwards I can’t be as creative as I could if I had used that energy on writing music instead. I feel like you only get so much creativity out of one day, and if you spend it, you’ve got to be careful where you want to spend it. So I usually write music first and then I go do the other things afterwards.
Yeah, if real life was a video game, you would only have 15 mental energy points to allot, and writing songs takes 10 or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Video games are so weird. This is kind of a left turn a little bit, but for me growing up, it wasn’t cool to play video games and you get made fun of by the cool kids, right? Now, I’m sure everyone plays video games, but I always felt like it was kind of taboo. Even now as an adult, I don’t like really advertising that I play video games because I feel like it makes me seem lame. You know what I mean? Like, it’s something losers do. And so even though I love them, that must drive into this love/hate thing with video games. I don’t know what it is, but it must go back to some childhood fear of like, being called a big fat nerd or something. And this is coming from the guy who played Final Fantasy and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and collected Pokémon. So yeah, I guess I am kind of a nerd. [Laughs]
You’re among your people. Do you feel like that kind of judgment from others is still [there]?
I feel a need, for sure, to not advertise that because it’s almost like you want to present yourself as, What are my best qualities here? And me being lazy on the couch is not one, right? So you go, OK, what am I? How do I want to be perceived? Maybe that’s insane to think about, but video games, they’re not something I generally shove to the forefront. That’s something I do in secret when I’m hiding from the world. I don’t know. It’s like taking a bubble bath for me, I suppose.
[Laughs] That is an amazing way to put it. So, then… why agree to this interview, I guess?
I mean, I play them! So I do have something to talk about. So yeah, here we are. [Laughs]
We discussed how everybody plays video games now. Does it feel easier as time goes on to kind of admit that?
Yeah! Sorry, I guess I kind of came off a little wrong. I didn’t mean like I’m trying to hide it—it’s just not something I advertise. That’s why I agreed to this interview. It’s not because I’m like, “I don’t want anyone to know I play video games.” It’s just generally something I don’t really talk about. But I was like, Hey, let’s do Kill Screen. It’s pretty fun. I’ve seen your other interviews with Frozen Soul and stuff like that and I was like, I’ll do one of those.
Well, I [Michael] said the key three words, which are “Time Goes On.” This whole interview started because we immediately picked up on Navi [from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time] at the beginning of the song. Why that particular line to go into that song?
Aerosmith has an album called Just Push Play. I always like telling people what to do in the music. It’s really fun because I’m like, How can I be as direct as possible? That one was great because it’s just, “Hey, listen to the song!” But to be honest with you, I was just listening to the demo and sometimes when writing music, I don’t know about other people, but I just hear shit in my head. That popped into my head right at that spot. I was like, Oh, I guess I’ll throw that in there. It was probably just pulled from some random memory of playing that game, but that’s about it. It just popped into my head and I was like, Sure, throw it in. Who gives a shit? Because it felt right, and that’s about it.
It’s funny because that N64 Ocarina of Time, I didn’t really play that very much and I still haven’t. I suck at that version. The ones I played that I love the most were the Game Boy ones: Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages and The Minish Cap. Those ones are super fun to me. But the fucking N64, those games, every single game, the camera angles, man, I can’t do that shit. I hate the N64 camera angles. They drive me nuts. I can’t see the goddamn game! Maybe I’m in the minority there with the N64.
How much time would you spend just hitting C-Left or C-Right to try and position something in a corner, and then the camera would physically bump into something and bounce off stuff? It’s terrible.
I feel like they did that just to increase the difficulty of the game, you know? I don’t know what the hell they were thinking over there. The only game I could ever really get into on N64 was Star Fox, because that one was fine. I recently tried replaying GoldenEye and I was like… Dude, I couldn’t play it. [Laughs] The controls were wacky. No matter what settings I changed them to, no matter how I tried to do them, I was like, This is wild. I don’t know how to play this.
And we played that shit all the time as kids!
I know, yeah. N64, it’s got some classics for sure, but I’m usually more inclined [to play] the easier games. I just like kill something, get the treasure, put on the armor, get stronger, repeat. And then there’s a boss every once in a while.
Over the years, Unto Others has had a lot of different influences musically. Would you say that OSTs have influenced your music writing abilities at all?
Yeah, for sure. In fact, I’ve talked extensively about this in other interviews about Diablo II, actually. You know all the “oughs” and stuff like that in the earlier records? That’s all just me doing the barbarian yell from Diablo II. I’m sure there’s several soundtracks, like the Final Fantasy X soundtrack. That’s one of my favorite games of all time. That had a huge influence on me for sure. The Japanese kind of sounds, or that more Chinese scale that’s used in there, I don’t know what scale that is, but it’s kind of like an Iron Maiden-type scale, the harmonic minor. His name’s Nobuo Uematsu, I believe. He does all the Final Fantasy music. I love his style and that definitely bled into my songwriting.
Even things like Halo and stuff. You know, you never know what subtle, little things are going to leech in. Video games have totally had a huge effect. And Diablo II, the music in there. Matt Uelman, the guy who does the guitars in that, he wrote all the acoustic music in there. There is a riff in there, I call it “the Opeth riff.” It’s when you’re in Act I and it’s like, That is fucking cool! How do I play that on guitar? And now I’ve used that probably 20 times in different songs of ours. It’s all bled in, for sure.
A lot of your songs feel like short stories in and of themselves. They tell a story, they have a setting in mind. Have you gotten any kind of storytelling ideas from video games? Not necessarily like “this song is inspired by Legend of Zelda,” but in terms of conveying an environment, do any stick out to you?
You know, that’s a good question. I’d probably have to go one-by-one in my head to think. I’d say the closest that probably came from like a video game perhaps would be something like “Nightfall.” That’s kind of got a video game, Castlevania kind of vibe to it. But as far as a song being based on a video game? I don’t think I have one… yet. Maybe that’s what I gotta start working on here. [Laughs] Definitely influenced, for sure.
Would you go with Diablo II if Unto Others was supposed to do a video game song or would you try to do a deep cut and keep it very hidden?
Diablo II would be fun… I think I’d like to do something with a bit more depth. I like putting emotion into the songs and Diablo II is more of hack and slash. I’d probably do something like Final Fantasy, to be honest. I like the beautiful stuff in that.
The titles that you mentioned—not all of them, but a lot of them—were a little more fantasy leaning. Do you find that you often enjoy more of a fantasy tone as compared to horror or sci-fi or modern warfare or something like that?
Yeah, totally. I like fantasy RPG, MMORPG games. I like strategy games. If you can combine all of them into one, it’s even better. I’m not a first-person shooter kind of guy. I don’t like games where I’m playing against real people. I don’t like games that I can’t pause. I want to look at a map and be like, I’m gonna go over there. I love maps in games, too. It’s just like, I’m gonna go and see what’s over there and explore and look for treasure chests, and stuff like that.
So you really lean on that escapist quality for gaming?
Yeah. I’m not really playing, like, NFL Blitz, you know? Although I have dabbled. [Laughs]
I [James] feel like NFL Blitz is up there with NBA Jam as like, “I don’t like sports, but I like this,” you know?
Yeah, that’s something you’re playing because you got bored of all your other video games and it’s the last one in the pile. And you’re like, “You want to try this, dude?” That’s at least what it was to me. I was baffled that people would want to play sports games instead of just going out and playing them.
You mentioned Final Fantasy X is one of your favorite games. What about X sticks out in the series for you?
That was just the one that came out when I was 12. Their promotional team smacked me in the face and I was like, I must have that game. I played it a thousand times. People have been like, “VII is better! VIII is better!” I’m like, “I wouldn’t know. I’ve only played this one a million times.” I tried playing VIII, but when you start in the later ones and try and go back and the characters aren’t speaking, there’s only text bubbles above their heads, you’re like, “What the fuck is this shit?” and you toss it off.
When Final Fantasy X hit, I [James] remember my friend had it and going to his house and just watching him play because it was just amazing.
Yeah! “The graphics! Wow!” [Laughs]
And so much spoken dialogue. You could look back at old PlayStation games and say, “Yeah, there was a little bit of spoken dialogue at different parts,” but nothing on the scale of Final Fantasy X. It was just mind-blowing at the time.
Yeah. Well, that was the big selling point, I think, was in the commercial. They had the super high res cutscenes. As a kid, I thought, Oh, the whole game is going to look like that! [Laughs] But I still liked the game, either way. I liked that it was a story. I recently replayed it last year on our world tour. I think we had 12 flights that were over 9 hours on that tour or something like that, and so I had a lot of time to kill. That thing is great for a flight because you barely have to do anything. You walk, you press A. You don’t have to be involved, so I can just put it up against the back of the seat and just press buttons and watch the game go by as I just drink Jack and Cokes and eat Pringles and stuff.
We would imagine that for somebody who isn’t always going for the latest and greatest, who’s very conservative with time and wanting to make sure that you’re not setting yourself up for failure by surrounding yourself with video games constantly, that finally picking up a Switch was a pretty significant decision for you. What is it about the Switch that led you to pick up that one compared to a PlayStation or an Xbox?
The last system I had purchased before that was a PlayStation 2. My brother gave me his Xbox 360 to play like Halo on. I got it two years ago, around Thanksgiving. My brother lent me his because I wanted to play Diablo II. Then I got hooked on Diablo II and he needed his Switch back, so I was like, God dammit! That’s why. Like I said, I don’t have a PC. I just have Mac and you can’t play Diablo on Mac, so I was like, Fuck it, and I dropped the $300 to get that.
You mentioned a couple Nintendo consoles in a row there—NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64. Then you mentioned bouncing over to PlayStation 2 and having a 360, and now back to Switch. Is it kind of like sitting in an old, comfortable chair to be hopping back into a Nintendo?
A little bit. Honestly, Nintendo feels like the Mac of video game systems these days. They have all the bubbly, fun games, all these games with rounded corners, it feels like—your Marios and stuff like that. They have [ports] of Skyrim and Diablo, but those aren’t their products. Their products are all bubbly and they kind of have their own platform. Whereas everyone else, they got a Steam Deck or a PC or something and you can go wild with that shit. I wouldn’t say I like Nintendo more than anything else, but Nintendo is great. I grew up playing PlayStation, Xbox 360 and GameCube—[those were] the trifecta we had during my formative years, so all three systems I’m cool with.
You just got off a tour [and] you have a European tour slated for February and March. You have a little bit of downtime before that starts. Do you see yourself getting a PlayStation and splurging a little bit, or is it still going to be tour mode until you get through that?
No, probably not. I was looking at PlayStation 5 yesterday, actually, and it’s on sale. It’s, like, $350. I can afford it, I could get it, but I’m like, Dude… you don’t have fucking time. I was just writing music right now before I got on the phone with you guys. If I was playing video games, I wouldn’t have gotten the song started here. These are the things I gotta think about. But the other thing is I have a month and 10 days before I have to leave because we have some shows in Athens and Istanbul before the European tour starts, so I really only have, like, five and a half weeks left ’til I have to go. I’m the tour manager as well as the singer, so there is so much shit to take care of in advance. I gotta book all the hotels and a bunch of flight crap and blah, blah, blah. The amount of stupid advance bullshit, I won’t even bore you with it. But there’s a lot of advanced logistics, customs crap and all this stuff. That’s my main thing, plus budgeting and money and all that stuff. So, yeah, it’s pretty time-intensive work.
So jumping into a big, new video game endeavor at this time doesn’t really line up with with what needs to happen.
No, not at all. I’m trying to focus on getting a record finished by June, is my goal. I want to be done with a bangin’ 30 minute, kind of Reign in Blood-length album that’s just all killer, no filler, front to back. Like I said, I’ve had this last year where I’ve been kind of taking it easy, and I’m sick of that now. I want to get back into the headspace I was in in 2018 when I was writing the first record, when I was writing Mana. I want to get back into that “do-or-die, nothing comes above music, the music and the songs come above everything” [mentality]. If I’m working on a song and I have dinner plans or something, but I’m not done with the song—sorry, I’m not doing dinner, I’ve still got shit going on with this. It demands your full attention. Unfortunately, you can’t turn creativity on and off, so whenever it comes, you have to bow to it. I just really feel like I haven’t been doing that for a long time, and I want to get back into that.
As somebody who doesn’t like to try new [games], are there any games coming up that look interesting?
No, just Elden Ring. That’s the only one I want to play. If another Elder Scrolls came out, I would buy the PlayStation 5 or whatever console it was on. If they said, “OK, the sequel to Skyrim is coming out in a couple of months,” I’d buy the PlayStation 6 and I’d be like, Well, let’s do this. Oh! The chocolatier game [Haunted Chocolatier]. I’d play that one.
Hopefully it makes it to Switch before they do Switch 2 or whatever the fuck they’re doing.
Well, luckily, that guy puts his stuff on Mac, so I can play that on my desktop. So yeah, [Haunted Chocolatier] and Elden Ring, for sure. Other than that, I don’t really know of any other games coming out. I’m not getting really ads for any of that stuff, I think.
Because you’re working all the damn time! [Laughs]
I guess! Yeah, shit. [Laughs]
Never, Neverland is out now via Century Media Records and can be purchased here.
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