MegaDriver

MegaDriver
Origin	São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Genres	Heavy metal Instrumental rock Video game music
Years active	2003–present
Website	www.megadriver.com.br
Members
Nino MegaDriver Tura Rubão Jeff Allan The BigThunder
Past members
Ricardo Daniel Nettão "The Butcher" id9 KillerKeys
Notable instruments
Nino's Mega Drive Guitar and his Sonic the Hedgehog guitar

MegaDriver is a Brazilian heavy metal and video game music cover band formed in 2003 by Antonio "Nino" Francisco Tornisiello, who uses the stage name "Nino Megadriver".

History

MegaDriver is a Brazilian heavy metal cover band. Their covers consist almost entirely of video game music, especially from the Mega Drive system (called Genesis in North America). Because of this focus, the band's style has been termed "game metal". In fact, MegaDriver's founder, Nino Megadriver, claims that MegaDriver is the first "video game metal" band and that others started copying the style soon as it got attention by the media and on the emulation and gaming scene.

The band considers itself to be a "non-profit independent project" and does not charge for its music. Their stated goal is to "pay homage to classic video games." To this end, they have made their entire repertoire available for free download at their website.

They have released six CDs titled Action Metal, Push Start Button (Round One) (a demo CD), Top Gear, Swords, Shurikins & Fists and, more recently, MetalHog, as well as several singles. In addition, the band has released four full soundtracks for the Metal MAME project, which reprograms MAME images using heavy metal remixes of the games' original music. They have even gone as far as to making their own music videos with their songs in the background, i.e., the video for "Raging Storm" is a tribute to Geese Howard, using various footage from Fatal Fury games, artwork of Geese, and also footage from the Fatal Fury anime.

Appearances in the media

MegaDriver has made several appearances in the media, in both news articles and on music and tech channels (including G4 and MTV). MegaDriver also appeared at the Arena Gamer Experience 2006, performing some of their remixes of well-known game tracks.

In late 2007, controversy arose in the last Video Games Live Brazil, where many fans expected to see the band in concert; but as far as it's known, there wasn't any contact between the VGL staff and the band members. Surprisingly, a new, relatively unknown band "8 bit instrumental" (8bitvgm for short - link), from the Minas Gerais state, was invited to perform at the Brasília VGL presentation, where they gathered many fans. There still ongoing debate as to why Megadriver was not invited; however, the band did return to open Video Games Live 2008 and 2009.

Line-up history

The band is made up of four members: guitarist, founder and frontman Nino MegaDriver (born Antonio Francisco Tornisiello); Rubão, the bassist of the band; Jeff, the drummer; and finally, Allan, the new vocalist. There were also a small number of other members, such as Nettão (also known as "The Butcher") who was once drummer, replaced by Jeff. This also applies to id9, who has left and been replaced by Daniel. At the end of 2007 Daniel has left the band, replaced by Rubão. Ricardo, former rhythm guitar, left the band on January 2010.

Customization of guitars

One point of interest is two of the lead guitarist Nino's instruments: a guitar made from an original Mega Drive, and a guitar made in the shape and image of Sonic the Hedgehog's face. These console mods are unique and gave inspiration to several other console mods that are usually shown at Youtube as "new stuff" (a Sega Master System Guitar by instance).

Members

Current members

• Nino MegaDriver – lead guitar
• Rubão – bass
• Jeff – drums
• Allan - vocalist
• Tura - Rhythm guitar

Former members

• Ricardo – rhythm guitar
• Nettão "The Butcher" – drums
• Daniel – bass
• id9 – bass
• KillerKeys – keyboard

Discography

Studio albums

• Push Start Button (Round One) (2003)
• Metal Axe - The Golden Axe Remix Project (2004, rerecording of the whole soundtrack of Golden Axe)
• Metal Beast (2004, rerecording of Altered Beast)
• Action Metal (2005)
• Sword, Shurikins & Fists (A Tribute to Yuzo Koshiro) (2007)
• Top Gear (2007, rerecording of Top Gear)
• MetalHog (2008, based on the Sonic the Hedgehog series)

Singles/EPs

• "Metal Contra" (2004)
• "Raging Metal" (2004)
• "Metal For Gamers" (2011)

See also

• Video game music culture

References

• Judao (Portuguese)
• Game Master Magazine (Portuguese)
• RetroGamer magazine (English)
• Game One magazine (Portuguese)
• EGM Brasil magazine (Portuguese)
• Yahoo News (Portuguese)
• Nintendo World (Portuguese)

External links

• MegaDriver
• MegaDriver at Metal MAME
• MegaDriver at MySpace