Review of Angry Video Game Nerd's new Rex Viper music project

 

Thoughts on Rex Viper

Hello everyone and welcome back to my music blog. It has been a while. No, I didn't give up on this. I very much enjoy writing.  Last summer I moved and it wasn't until December where I settled in and was able to get a computer and find time to write again. 

While I do a lot of retro reviews, I also very much like talking about what's new out there. So... The Grammy's? No. I won't be talking about that and no it isn't a sort of boycott over anything that happened on the show this year. The Grammy's has been garbage for decades. This year they may have been more apparent in their filth and ineptitude, but it has been that way for as long as I can remember. Maybe at one time it was some great night of celebrating the year in music, but I'm 33 and I can never think of a time in my life, and certainly never in my adult life, where I felt the best music of the day was accurately and appropriately being celebrated and awarded.  It's like any award show now. No one really watches, so they need gimmicks to get Twitter buzzing to hang on to some ruptured remains of relevance. The less attention you give them -- the better. If you're reading this, I assume you are a music lover and you already know institutions like the Recording Academy and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are just a pointless elitist circle jerk of nonsense where a bunch of out of touch suits, executives and bitter old songwriters that no one has ever heard of deciding what is good.

Anyway, instead of talking about any particular album that has come out this year, I want to talk about Rex Viper, since I'm not sure I will ever get the chance to again. Rex Viper is a band seemingly lead by James Rolfe of Cinemassacre, best known for going viral as a YouTube star in the late 2000's as the "Angry Video Game Nerd".   There was a boom in retro gaming going on at the time and the AVGN character certainly helped that boom become even larger and exposing video games that either the mainstream had long forgotten about or had completely never heard of. 

The Angry Video Game Nerd started out on old VHS tapes in 2004 and was uploaded to YouTube in 2006 where he would become an internet hit. In 2021 James Rolfe, now 40 years of age, is still uploading videos to YouTube as the AVGN along with occasional "let's plays" and commentaries on film as himself and various other uploads.

In July of 2020 Cinemassacre subscribers were surprised to see a music video dropped on this channel showing Rolfe, as himself, playing a guitar in the thumbnail with the songtitle being "Mighty Wings & Hadoukens" The song itself being a crossover cover of Might Wings by Cheap Trick and Ken's Theme from the video game Streetfighter 2.  The description of the video said this was "just for fun" which to me implies that the other musicians hooked up with James, they had this idea for a music video and song with a video game tie-in and James was on board with the project.  I believe it was after this post, the project became more serious, and later in the year in a channel update video, James announced the new band was being called "Rex Viper" and even displayed a logo.

The band consists of James Rolfe on guitar, James Harding on vocals, "Epic Game Music" on lead guitar, "Squarepainter" on bass and rounded out with Jeff Worton on Drums. Screenwave employees Keiran Fallon and Justin Silverman who play keytar and backing vocals respectively are also listed as part of the band, but I'm unsure how "official" they are since in the video Keiran is playing a toy instrument and Justin does a bit of comedic lip sync and other gestures when he is shown.  These two help with modern AVGN episodes, so I'm not sure if their involvement in Rex Viper is truly significant or if they are just there because this band is features on the Cinemassacre channel and the decision was made to include these guys as well.

As far as this first song goes, I thought it was fine. The mix of the two songs was well done. The band is going for an 80s power metal type vibe and I believe they achieved that. While James is the face of the band, I think the true talent lies in this band's singer, James Harding. He belts out a strong vocal and holds nothing back.  If anything, this project might even expose him to more big-time bands looking for a quality singer. Also, he also looks the part the most of anyone else in the band. Harding doesn't exactly look like your typical rock star with his short hair and thick, black glasses, but he doesn't look out of place as the true frontman in a rock band and also doesn't look like a fat slob wearing old Hot Topic clothes like many current bar bands look.

James would also post a video of him playing guitar by himself jamming some Black Sabbath riffs. More on that later.

"Nintendo Power of Love" was the next song and music video released by Rex Viper. Despite a thousand comments saying the title should have been "Nintendo Power of Glove", I'm fine with this title. The song is a cover of Huey Lewis & The News' "Power of Love" from Back to the Future which also utilizes the NES Back to the Future theme, which is basically a sped up version of Power of Love.

This I was not as much of a fan of. The cover itself was fine. Again, the vocalist was great and my favorite part of the whole thing, so he gets a pass here. To me, the "Rex Viper" project already jumped the shark and lost any sense of charm the project had going for it,

Let me explain.

Instead of letting this new band grow and stand on its own feet, what does James do? All of a sudden there's a hype video starring "Mr. Rigs" a one-off character from AVGN's Big Rigs episode back in 2014 is now named "Rex Viper Rigs" hyping up the next music video by Rex Viper.  That alone may seem somewhat harmless, but the video was a bit corny. I don't know if it hurt, but it really didn't help matters in my opinion. The actual shark jump for me came when I saw the thumbnail (above) of Rolfe, in his AVGN glasses, making his AVGN face in the thumbnail. I mean, look at that thumbnail. It doesn't even say "Rex Viper" on it.  If you were scrolling your subscriptions quickly you'd think that this is a new AVGN episode, not a music video like the previous thumbnail that featured James Rolfe, as himself, playing guitar. 

The reason I have such a problem with this is because we are two --TWO! songs into this whole thing and it already seems like instead of focusing on finding their sound and just pumping out good songs, they are more worried about being a YouTube hit by using James' AVGN character to artificially inflate the view count and perceived popularity of the band.  Especially with that thumbnail that looks like it was cleverly designed to trick fans and gamers into thinking this was going to be an AVGN episode so even if they clicked on accident at least it still counted and pleased whatever algorithm tricks they're trying to pull.

While the first video claimed it was "just for fun", I came into this one with a different mindset since now they are a serious band with a name and are publishing their music on other platforms. This brings up my issue with James Rolfe. Now, I know James out of character comes off as a nice guy and I may come off as a huge jerk for saying anything bad about him, but I just have to be honest... Rolfe is no musician. I'm aware that many of you may have a more liberal definition of what a musician is, but to me James is more of a hobbyist.  Remember that video of James playing Black Sabbath riffs? It was cool and all, but you could tell he just kind of dabbles with the instrument in his spare time. He's not a serious player. It's a hard thing to describe unless you play an instrument yourself, and I'm not saying you need to be some shred crazy virtuoso to be considered a musician, but James lacks the form, basic vibrato, palm muting and rhythm of a matured guitarist.

This wouldn't be that big of a deal if it weren't for one major detail, that being that James is the face of this band. Not only is this seen as "James Rolfe's new band" its him as Rex Viper Rigs as the band's "hype man" and roadie and it's James as the AVGN in the thumbnail of the latest song and the main theme of the song's music video. The whole thing comes off as "AVGN: The band" even though he is the least experienced musician of the group.

It kind of reminds me of the band Fozzy. The band fronted by pro-wrestler Chris Jericho.  The band's popularity has largely been pushed by being associated with a pretty big time wrestler during a time where wrestling was incredibly popular. All this despite the fact that Chris Jericho can't really sing (out of the studio) and is not a songwriter.  Guitarist Rich Ward is pretty much the backbone of Fozzy and everyone in the band knows how to sing so Jericho can be carried through a live performance without sounding like a total drunk karaoke singer.  

Nevertheless, Fozzy is "Chris Jericho's band" and the rest are along for the ride despite being the actual drivers. The same way James, now 40 years old, woke up one day and said he wanted to be in a band and instead of just being in a band and jamming, its more important to use what celebrity he has left in a completely different genre to try and push this project. 

It took one song and one video for this whole thing to go from cool/fun little thing James is doing these days to a straight-up vanity project for himself. That's all it comes off as now with James being little more than a glorified mascot to push the band forward while the actual musicians do the real work. Also, James prides himself as a filmmaker, and the music video for "Nintendo Power of Love" was not great either. It came off cheap, probably because it was, but it wasn't good, campy cheap. It just looked lazy cheap, but whatever. I'm no film reviewer. I just know I've seen a lot better music videos done by people with a lot less experience and money than James Rolfe has.

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I know I cut into that last release pretty hard, but that's my review and my honest thoughts. It's too soon to say this whole Rex Viper thing can't be saved, though. I just think James needs to lay off the AVGN themes and imagery and also take a bit of a back seat in the band. The thumbnails should feature the band. Not just James Rolfe and certainly not Rolfe as the AVGN.  It's already on his channel that boasts over 3 million subscribers. He doesn't need to be the ONLY ONE featured. We don't know anything about the band and unless you read the descriptions and search their social media, you wouldn't know the names of the others in the band as well. 

The material needs some work, too. If you're gonna be a parody band, then you better have good comedy to back it up in a world with Weird Al Yankovich or Steel Panther. The first song got away with mixing the two songs well and basically sticking the word "Hadoukens" in the lyrics to be the vocal tie in with the game. Nintendo Power of Love was pretty much just a hard rock cover of Power of Love.  Yes, there was a final verse added that shoehorned aspects of the NES Back to the Future game into the lyrics, but its not like they were cleverly inserted in a witty or satirical way.  So, with that said, if this band plans on releasing an actual full-length album, they have to put some work into making some funny, memorable lines instead of just taking a song from a movie that was also made into a video game that James reviewed as the AVGN and turning it into a power metal song. That was good enough the first time when it was "just for fun", but now that they are a band with a name, logo, hype man and on various music streaming platforms, then they have to up their game. Also, I'm not even sure with great material if a project like this even has a chance in 2021. We are well past the boom in 80s nostalgia where James made his name.  So, who is this project going to appeal to since its being pushed so hard? Appeal to 80s rock loving 40 year olds who are into retro gaming still? Yeah. This is going to need a little more work, unless they want to revert back to it being "just for fun".

Thanks again for reading, everyone.