Photo by Alex Krauss
Art is often said to imitate life. The link between life and video games, with an interest in fantastical, superhuman or paranormal forms, is typically muddied, making it much easier to be seen as an escape from reality rather than a reflection of it. For Zachary Ezrin, founding member and frontman of NYC avant garde trio Imperial Triumphant as well as today’s player character in the Kill Screen arcade, the line connecting the Soulsborne series—a recurring favorite of this column, for those new here—to the art he creates is constantly coming into sharper and sharper focus.
For a band that is known just as much for their distressed Art Deco aesthetic (a tribute to the now aging megalopolis they call both home and muse) as well as their angular and at times opaque songs rooted in USBM’s urban history, one might see the connection as largely surface-level. Their golden masks and draped black attire would easily fit in the concept art of a retro-futurist dystopian title like BioShock or Prey as they do on stage. The visuals, however, account for only a fraction of that kinship. The harsh, unforgiving gameplay and resulting paradoxical appeal—you know, the “game” part of the video game—have given Ezrin a deeper understanding and appreciation of his own artistic approach. With their defining 2018 LP Vile Luxury seeing a fresh take via Century Media and Elden Ring’s highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC finally having a firm release date, Decibel’s nerdiest duo was eager to connect with the personable Ezrin and learn more about his bond with From Software—as well as maybe sell him on some more that the gaming industry has to offer.
And for those with a Decibel subscription, be sure to check out the analog DLC of Ezrin’s interview in the latest issue of North America’s only monthly metal mag. Don’t want to miss out on the whole story? Be sure to pick up a copy here.
What was your first gaming experience?
I’m a child of the ’90s, so I think I was at my cousin’s house because he always had good video games. I wasn’t allowed. He had Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis. It was a nice little world to explore.
Were you not allowed to have video games at the house?
Yeah, my parents were kind of strict. They never liked video games—still don’t really respect them, which… whatever. They’re from a different world, it’s cool. Growing up, they never bought me any games or anything, so my whole early world of video game playing was always at a friend’s house or a family member’s house. My whole life in the ’90s was just player two. [Laughs] Always in the bottom screen if it’s a split screen.
Was there quite a bit of excitement when you got a chance to dig in?
Yeah man, for sure. My cousin, he was really into sports, so he played a lot of sports video games, but I was really into the more fantastic shit. He had Twisted Metal. You don’t even know why you like stuff when you’re a kid, so I was like, This appeals to me. I really like that game. The creativity of it all pulls you in. It’s probably why a lot of musicians like video games.
What was the first console then that you got to call your own?
I didn’t get a PlayStation 1. I was around when they came out—never got one. Never got an N64, never got Sega Genesis, never got Super Nintendo. Oh, you know what it was?It was a [Sega] Dreamcast. I think me and my brother, we got it together as a holiday gift or something. We had another Sonic the Hedgehog game, we had some fighting game—I can’t remember which one. And then we had… I want to say some sports game, like a Madden [NFL], but not Madden, obviously. I remember we had this surfing game that we really liked, like [Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfing] sort of thing. We were a big board sports family. I’m still playing a lot of Skater XL.
Were you also impacted by the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack?
Yeah. That’s where I first heard that Anthrax collaboration with Public Enemy and I was like, This sounds pretty cool. I don’t know who these guys are, but I’m digging it. [Laughs]
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is very much an entry point for a lot of people. Those first three [soundtracks] had a lot of bangers.
It’s the same with film scoring or anything. The music is so important to the experience and I think if you have cool music in a video game, it goes a long way, whether it’s a score or it’s licensed music. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater rules, for sure.
I’m a huge fan of stylized RPGs and that kind of stuff, but I also like a game you’re just playing, like Skater XL, where there’s really no plot, there’s no goal. You’re just kind of cruising around, setting your own challenges and stuff. That’s how I was playing a lot of games as a kid. I didn’t know much about levels and shit. I was like, I’m gonna just keep playing until I die, and then I’ll just start again and that’ll just be fun.
Do you do any retro collecting? Have you gone back to get some of the consoles that you weren’t allowed to have as a kid?
No, I’m not a collector, really. But in my high school years once I had my own computer, I got really into ROMs. I was able to go back and play all the Super Nintendo games I didn’t get to when I was a kid and just ripped through that stuff. It was so much fun.
What have you been playing lately?
Lately, in the last few years? I mean, the last 10 years let’s call it: All I’m playing is From Software games. That’s all I care about. I don’t play video games that much anymore until a new game comes out from them, and then I don’t do anything else.
Why these games in particular?
If you were looking to please a Zac Ezrin, it would just check every single thing on the list. Cool character creation? Yup. Amazing score? Yup. Medieval dark shit? Yup. [Laughs] Everything that I enjoy is in those games. I remember not even liking them when they first came out. When Demon’s Souls came out, I played it and I was like, This sucks. This is so hard. But inside the young Zac was like, Well, it is everything you like. I’ll keep playing. That’s how I feel everyone gets hooked. It’s like a metronome—they get frustrated, they go play again, they get frustrated, they go play again. And then eventually you’re just like, Oh, that’s the whole purpose of these games.
At what point did the FromSoft formula click? Was it with Demon’s Souls?
No, no, no. Bloodborne came out and I was like, [nods] Yeah, for sure, this is what’s up. That’s the sickest one, obviously. I was totally into it and I was getting the hang of how to play these sort of games. I’m sort of starting to find a bit of a connection between Imperial Triumphant and these Dark Souls games. Thematically, we don’t sing about this kind of stuff, but in the user experience, in a sense. Our music—coming not from my perspective, but from other listeners’ perspectives—can be very challenging, but there’s some sub-level of, I kind of want to like this and I’m going to keep trying it and trying to get into it. For many people, they tell me, “There was a moment where it just clicked for me.” And I feel like that’s a lot of people who play these games as well. They’re like, “This sucks. This is hard. I don’t know why, I kind of want to keep exploring.” And it’s probably different reasons, but I always felt like there was a real connection between the gameplay experience of Dark Souls or Bloodborne or whatever and the listener experience of Imperial Triumphant. I think that has really influenced me as a composer.
If you explore the plots of those games, it’s razor thin—nobody has any fucking idea what’s going on. But you’re curious still. I spent half the game just looking at architecture, and I’m like, This is so interesting. It pulls on your curiosity, your desire for more to fill in the puzzle. I’m really trying to do that musically and visually with my band. Give people just enough, but not lay it all out. There was a great example: We did a mix of [2020’s] Alphaville when we were mastering it, and one of the first masters that came back was, like, crystal clear. Super clean, you heard everything perfectly, and the whole band was like, “No.” We’re not going to hold your hand. We’re not going to spoon-feed you. We want to put a little fog and a little veil of mystery over what’s happening so that you have to listen, you have to explore, you have to go back and check it out again. I think that works because—for this style of music at least—I want people to be curious and unsure of themselves and really explore the sonic landscape. I think a lot of that, maybe subconsciously, comes from all that time in the [Elden Ring level] Subterranean Shunning-Grounds.
You have a very wide range of musical influences. Has there ever been anything from any of the FromSoft games or any other game soundtrack that has factored into the sound of Imperial Triumphant?
If we’re talking Imperial, let’s say Demon’s Souls soundtrack. I downloaded that back in 2010 or so, when that game came out. I was blown away because I was in music school back then studying [as a] classical composition major. All I was doing is listening to modern classical music all day, and then here comes this game that’s not just a generic score, but it’s subtle and creepy and not heroic at all. It’s really kind of dissonant and atonal and I was like, Oh hell yeah, that’ll work. That’ll do the trick. I listen to that score a lot and I really enjoy that. Something I try to do, especially in the early days of Imperial Triumphant, is break away from the machismo of death metal and black metal, which is just everything’s loud immediately and everything’s bold and strong all the time. I thought, What’s really scary and creepy is when things sound weak and feeble. You’re unsure if the guitar player knows what the fuck he’s doing. You’re unsure if they’re even aware of the time—and maybe they’re not. A huge part of what Imperial Triumphant’s sound is going for is to frighten you and make you uncomfortable and you can’t do that if everything is just like [pumping fist in tempo] Yup, yup, yup, just hard-hitting, four-on-the-floor all the time. That definitely helped influence me.
And then my other band, Folterkammer—which has a record coming out in April—there’s a song that we’re premiering soon and the main riff of that I got wholly inspired from the Elden Ring theme. I was just listening to that, I was like, Okay, that’s pretty cool. Let’s learn it. I learned it by ear and because I learned it by ear, I’m probably not learning it perfectly. And then once I start messing around with it, it becomes its own thing. That score is also out of this world, that game.
Are those the two [Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring] that you would rank highest among the FromSoft series in terms of their soundtrack?
I mean, it’s tough to say. I think Elden Ring is a cool game and it’s so solid. You guys have done so many of these interviews, I’m sure everyone says this—Bloodborne is the best one. I don’t know why, because it’s definitely not the most fun one to play. It’s really hard and there’s a lot of parts where you’re like, Fuck, why are they making this? It’s such a challenge, you know? But to me, it’s the coolest one.
We’ve yet to get somebody to rank Demon’s Souls as number one, but literally every other one has gotten the number one ranking for people.
Well, Demon’s Souls for sure as a game is not the best one. Score-wise, maybe. It’s a pretty cool score and it does break away. The rest of the Dark Souls scores are okay I think, but they’re just not as prominent. There’s not as many things you remember, especially when it comes to bosses.
When you listen to the Bloodborne score, it does dance a little bit with dissonance and atonality and sort of a more modern classical perspective, which I don’t think you get as much in the other Dark Souls and Elden Ring pieces, which I really love. I just don’t hear that sort of music in fantasy games or any sort of video games. It really helps make the whole experience so terrifying and so unnerving. For me, Bloodborne is the coolest. It’s just so goddamn weird and creepy and you have no fucking idea what’s going on and you’re just struggling. I love it.
You guys have toured a lot. Do you get much, if any, gaming on the road?
You know what? I never did. I used to just sit in the van. And then my brother was like, “Hey, I have an iPad if you want to borrow it for the tour. You can download movies on there.” So, Netflix, boom—I’m just watching a ton of movies. And then my best friend [guitarist] Darren [Hanson], who’s also in Folterkammer, he sold me his Steam Deck. He goes, “Let me give you the Steam Deck, I’ll put Elden Ring on it and then you’re chilling.” So, I got that and then we did a tour with Zeal & Ardor and the whole tour I’m just chilling, Subterranean Shunning-Grounds, just shredding. The band is looking out the window being like, “Wow, look at the scenery!” We were driving through Canada and stuff, like, beautiful—and I’m like, “Whatever! I’m in the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds! These shunning-grounds aren’t gonna shun themselves!” And then even Manuel [Gagneux] from Zeal & Ardor recommended a game to me, which I got super into. It’s some weird name. I can’t remember. It’s a weird puzzle game where you’re an insurance adjuster on a boat…
The Return of the Obra Dinn.
Yeah! That one was really cool and I got really into that, man. I’ll be in the back of the van, we’re driving through amazing deserts in the southwest and I’m just like, “Well, I just figured out who killed this guy!” [Laughs]
Sometimes the inner world can be more interesting than the outer world.
It does help when you wake up and the tour manager says “Hey, you got a six-hour drive ahead of you,” and I’m just like, “No problem. That’s like five minutes in the Shunning-Grounds.”
We caught an image on the socials a while back of somebody standing in full garb, guitar over a shoulder, with a Nintendo 64 controller in hand and Mario Kart on the T.V.
Oh, that was me! That was in Vancouver at the Rickshaw. They have a side stage. In the little tiny green room, they have a GameCube and that was on the Zeal & Ardor tour. During a lot of Imperial Triumphant shows, there’s a big bass solo. It gives a chance to let Steve sort of interact with the audience musically and it gives us a chance to go off stage, smoke weed, hang out, get water or whatever. And so we went backstage and all the Zeal & Ardor guys are playing Mario Kart. So I was like, Let’s do a quick round. [Laughs] But I’ll be fully in my shit. I like all that juxtaposition stuff. It’s the same as photos of KISS in their full outfit, but they’re on the bus in New York. That kind of juxtaposition of out of place I think is super cool and artistically very intriguing.
Who won the round?
For sure not me. I’m not a great Mario Kart guy. Pretty sure I was like, “Oh, we gotta get back on stage!”
We’re talking to you because Vile Luxury is going to be seeing a reissue through Century Media.
Sort of our own remastering.
Exactly. We’re seeing a ton of games getting the remake/remaster treatment. I know that you said that you only really play FromSoft games and you’re experiencing the Demon’s Souls remake right now, but are there any other games that you feel would be deserving of the remake or remaster treatment?
I’m gonna come at you with a crazy one and this might be a little controversial, because the game was kind of already perfect for its time. Do you remember ClayFighter? I feel like it was kind of swept under the radar. But again, should it have a remastering or is it just perfect the way it was? Tough call.
Oh, you know what game is so sick that kind of went under the radar? I think if they redid it, it would have to be a total revamp, but this game War of the Monsters. It was a 3D brawl game. It’s sick, and you can play as a classic Japanese giant robot or a giant Godzilla-type [kaiju] or you could be a huge squid or whatever. It could probably be polished up and look pretty cool in 2024. I feel like that game deserved a second shot.
It’s just like Vile Luxury, you know? That’s the record that kind of started Imperial’s ascent. A lot of people, myself almost included, would maybe consider it our first real record where we found ourselves, the real lineup that we have now. And yet, when I go back to it, there’s a lot of stuff that I was like, I wish we had changed that, I wish we had done that differently. And so with Century Media’s help, we were able to go back and do that. I’m very glad and we’re very fortunate that we’re able to re-present it and do it justice where it’s not just, “Okay, we remixed it. Here you go.” We changed the cover, changed everything, remastered it, went into the actual tracks and fucked around and made it differently. At the end of the day, there will always be people who are saying, “Well, I like the original more.” And guess what—you can still listen to that one. But if you want a cool, different take on it, here’s this other one.
The themes that you explore are very much an exercise in contrast. You have the opulence and extreme wealth of New York City compared to the class divide, the urban decay and the social strife that you can see in other parts of the city. Do you seek these kinds of themes out in the games that you’re interested in playing or do you typically look for games that are an escape from that?
It’s a good question. I haven’t played any games that are set in the city exploring that kind of stuff, so maybe it’s an escape.
But you could make the argument for something like Dark Souls III, where you start off in on [Lothric]: It’s falling apart, but the knights have shiny armor and the grand, opulent buildings, and then you make your way down, as opposed to the opposite direction for Dark Souls [1], where you start in a jail and you’re in ruins and you’re trying to make your way up towards Anor Londo.
I mean, you can definitely see it. It is similar in the sense that in New York City, you could be in a five-star hotel having a cocktail and then go downstairs, walk five blocks and you’re in a just disgusting part of town that smells like rotted fish and there’s people doing heroin in the streets. Especially in Dark Souls, which is all one map, the opulent world is just as close as going to disgusting swamps of poison. It definitely feels like that. Maybe one day we could make an Imperial Triumphant video game where you are just constantly weaving between decadent worlds and absolute destitution.
Would you want an Imperial Triumphant game to be in that FromSoft style or is there another mechanism that you feel would be more fitting for the story?
I mean, of course, right? Obviously. But if I’m thinking creatively, what would be a fun thing to do would be one of those 16-bit platformers where you’re scrolling from side to side, like a Castlevania sort of thing. I think that that would fit, but also transcend people’s expectations, do something different that no one would expect. There’s a lot of curiosity and creativity that goes into the backgrounds and atmospheres of all these kinds of games and that would be my focus. An Imperial Triumphant game would just be a shit ton of crazy backgrounds and atmosphere and set pieces and stuff like that. Maybe the game’s fun to play. [Laughs]
It’s not a junk food band. We’re not easy listening, so I understand people that are just honest and say, “This is not for me.” I get it. That’s fine. But Dark Souls is not an easy game either and they found a huge audience. I’m still very optimistic that there is a huge world out there of people that like this sonic challenge and they like dense music, but the more you listen to it, the more familiar you are with it. It’s like when you’re fighting one of these bosses and you’re just getting frustrated because it seems so unachievable. And then after many attempts, many tries, you get comfortable and you beat him and then it’s like saying goodbye to an old friend.
Now that you have the Steam Deck, are you more open to exploring different games while you’re out on the road?
For sure, especially on the road. The last tour we did with Behemoth, I was ripping Armored Core [VI]. I mean, really expanding my reach to just a different FromSoft game that’s not a Dark Souls game. [Laughs] But what’s great about the Steam Deck is the battery life’s terrible, so I only get to play for, like, two hours and then it dies, which is good because otherwise I would never even make it on stage.
When I’m on the road, because you can buy the games online on Steam, you don’t have to go to a store and shit like that, so I’m not inconveniencing anyone. If I have Wi-Fi, just download something and check it out. Manuel told me another game to try—I can’t remember this name either—but you have a spaceship and you cruise around other planets and solve puzzles…
Outer Wilds?
Yeah. I didn’t really get into it, but I’m willing to believe that it’s because I played it on the Steam Deck and maybe if I was looking at a big TV, it’d be a better experience for me. I understand that and I do appreciate the creativity that went into this game, but I’m not a big outer space guy.
You’ve talked about setting quite a bit. It seems like that’s something that really catches your attention. The FromSoft games—not all of them, but most of them—have a more Medieval setting. Do you find that the setting in particular is something that really hooks you?
For sure. I think the setting is everything, of course. Imperial Triumphant sets you into a world that’s retro-futurist. Maybe it’s a little Fallout, maybe it’s a little BioShock, maybe it’s a little Bloodborne, whatever. But it’s all that filtered into a major metropolis world. New York is like that—especially now—because it’s old and it’s hanging on to all the legacy, that glory that it once was. You walk into the Plaza Hotel now and you feel like you’re in BioShock. It’s fancy, but it’s kind of disgusting, also. Shit’s falling apart, you look at the ceiling, it’s not as nice as it once was. Waldorf-Astoria, forget about it. That place is basically on fire. The only building I think that still holds its integrity is the Chrysler Building, of course. It’s the greatest one ever. The interior is gorgeous. The Empire State Building, a little bit of sellout because they change their colors to whatever is popular, whatever holiday it is. I don’t really like that. I like just classic lights.
The setting, I think, is very important. I would say that Imperial Triumphant’s music definitely rings strongest if you’re listening to it in a city, at least for me. Maybe someone who goes out into the woods or the desert and puts it on and it’s a home run for them. But for me, whenever I’m listening to demos or stuff I’m working on, I’ll be walking in the city. This is crazy how this happens, where I’m listening and then an ambulance will go by and I’ll hear a siren and I’m like, Maybe we should just put that in. That sounds really great. The city sounds really bleed into the music. I do try to create an atmosphere with our songs, especially on Vile Luxury really, which is where we first start really leaning into these New York themes and creating an atmosphere and trying to do it mostly with music. If you listen to songs like “Lower World,” there’s field recordings of the subway and stuff like that. That helps, but I think it’s more exciting when you’re using instruments—whether it’s brass or guitars or drums or choirs—to achieve this New York City claustrophobia.
The brass intro on [“Swarming Opulence”] felt very particularly New York.
Funny quick story about that: The record, we finished it and we had used MIDI horns, and we never sent it to [Gilead Media owner] Adam [Bartlett], because we were on Gilead Media at the time. We never sent it to him and it’s, like, two weeks late. We’re in rehearsal and we’re all just looking at each other like, “None of us are happy with the horns.” I think maybe [bassist] Steve [Blanco] brought it up or something and we were all agreeing. We’re like, “It’s just not giving the right vibe. It’s not the right atmosphere.” So we made a pact. We’re like, “Alright, we’re going to give ourselves one week.” I was like, “[Drummer Kenny] Grohowski, you wrote the song. If you can write out the horn arrangements, I’ll call [producer] Colin [Marston], see if he has any days available to record.” We all called everyone we knew in the jazz scene to try to get a horn quintet together on literally a week’s notice and see if we can make it happen. It was, like, one random Wednesday, we were able to do it. They went in, banged it out like pros and Colin remixed, remastered it, sent it to Adam and I think that literally made the whole album—using that real horn quintet section. It’s worth it at the end of the day. This song will ring out forever, so you gotta put in every little ounce of detail. Stuff like that is probably also influenced by Bloodborne and Dark Souls. The details that they put into their game, shit that if you’re not even looking, you won’t even notice and it’s so detailed. Every item has a couple paragraphs about it. Like, are you kidding me?
I [James] was thinking of that, too, with some of the settings. For example, going into Anor Londo and just thinking of the way the lighting works, these are things that really stick out in my mind. Maybe because I’ve played that environment so many times , but I can think of that right away.
And who knows how many stories they have like that, where they have some early version of Anor Londo and they’re like, “Looks pretty good, but the lighting, it’s not quite right. Let’s put it at dusk time, really push that.” And it changes everything.
I [Michael] always have a personal sense of sadness seeing all of these FromSoft games where you really feel that love and attention to detail to every single pixel on the screen. The curse of popularity is that there are so many people out there who are just going to be burning through these games and not give those details another thought ever in their life.
That’s fine, though. The thing is, they probably don’t even realize that those things are influencing them. And I’m guilty of it, too. Another hot take: I don’t listen to the dialogue. I just don’t. It’s always esoteric and weird and slow and British and I’m done with it. I’m just cruising through, like, Skip, skip, skip, skip, don’t care. That’s one part of the game that I just don’t really absorb. But architecture and lighting and set design, I go crazy. I’ll just be in Anor Londo or [Tomb of Oedon] in Bloodborne, I’m hanging out there and I’m just looking at the moon and the fucking graves and shit. I’m just hanging out, not progressing but enjoying myself. Everyone gets what they want out of the game.
We talked about the Steam Deck. Are you more interested in trying out more polished AAA titles or would you seek out something that’s more rough and indie with a bit of soul to it?
I’m into anything, man. If it’s good, it’s good. That’s where I stand. I like the shit I like. Hopefully it clicks. At the end of the day, I don’t force myself into situations I don’t enjoy. Like Red Dead Redemption 2. I threw in the towel so fast. Look: I don’t want to be a cowboy, you know? It can’t be too realistic, man. Next thing, they’re gonna be like, “Oh, it’s tax season, and you gotta prepare your W-2.” It’s too much. The detail is beautiful, but it’s just such so much talking. Go talk to this guy—oh wait, he’s really far. You’re gonna have to get on a horse. Be careful, your horse might break its leg and then your whole journey is fucked.
Are there any games that you’re looking forward to?
Real cliché answer: Elden Ring: [Shadow of the Erdtree DLC]. That is gonna be sweet. I feel pretty confident that there’s no way it doesn’t knock it out of the park. For sure gonna be awesome. That’s what I’m looking forward to.
We’ve actually had at least one or two people say that Elden Ring almost became too polished, that they just know the formula too well now, and they kind of missed some of the jankiness of the earlier Souls games.
And that is crazy. I mean, I can kind of understand that. When I listen to Immortal Battles in the North, I like that the kick drum sounds sloppy. But I also like Sons of Northern Darkness, which is also a really polished record. I think Elden Ring is the reward that they finally get for decades of grinding and having a huge underground audience. They finally just created the game that everyone wanted. It’s their Black Album, you know? It’s not the darkest game. It’s not the most fucked up or creepy game, but it’s really fun, man. And what’s also cool is that it got a whole bunch of my friends who don’t really play those kind of games into Dark Souls and Bloodborne and stuff, and so now I have people to talk to about this shit. [Laughs] So, that’s a plus.
Vile Luxury – Redux 1924 is available May 3 via Century Media and can be pre-ordered here.
Pick up dB235/May 2024 featuring Ezrin’s extended Kill Screen interview here.
Follow Imperial Triumphant on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
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