Hi everybody! I'm geeked. No, I didn't just say that I AM a geek (although I am) I said I'm geeked. Why? Because I've got an awesome person to interview for your reading pleasure today. Seriously, we're going to have a good time.
See, once upon a time I was cruising around Youtube watching some videos and I came across one called Best Game Ever. If you're not familiar, you should be. It's the story of a Dungeons and Dragons group and that one annoying guy that they all hate and screws everything up. Remember that guy? Every tabletop RPG player has had to deal with some version of the dude at some point. I got a bit kick out of it. Actually, I kind of freaked out and started annoying my co-workers and roommates by playing it too much.
Anyway...
The song was by a guy named Mikey Mason, and eventually, I wandered over to Spotify to see if I could find him. He had a ton of stuff on there and has added more since. We'll get to the whole catalogue soon, but rest assured if you don't already love tracks like Kobolds Ate My Baby, Waiting to Wait in Line, (Love at) Warp Factor 9, and Build My Wings you will soon.
So, welcome to Jimbo's Mikey! Say hi. How are you today?
Tired, but working. Still recovering from DragonCon, actually.
Cool. How was Dragon*Con?
DragonCon was amazing as usual. It’s weird… I’ve been performing there for 5 years, and it’s only in the last two or three that I’ve actually let myself enjoy it a bit. DragonCon (or any convention, really) is different for performers who perform for a living.
At DragonCon, most of the performers you’ll see have a day job somewhere, and they look at DragonCon as a way to build an audience while on a vacation where merchandise sales can defray the costs. Performers have a break-even point, after the travel costs, the hotel costs—which are always at the maximum rate they’re allowed to charge, the costs of food, etc… Once we cross that break even point, we’re actually earning our salary for the week. It’s a bit harried.
Performers don’t get paid time off from work, and many of us can’t afford vacations. Still, I’ve never worked a DragonCon where I didn’t make money. Because of the costs involved, it’s never as much as it seems it should be, but it’s always a good time.
Good! I'm glad to hear it. So, to start things off Mikey, tell us a little about yourself and your music. I'm a huge music fan and a geek too, but what led you to get into making music for geeks? I mean, I love it but there have to be bigger markets out there. Why that one?
I’m a geek, that’s why. I was doing musical stand-up comedy, full-time, touring the US and beyond and writing material that I didn’t really care about or for. I wrote a song in 2011 called She Don’t Like Firefly, and it went viral (viral for back then—nerdist.com, Time Magazine, SyFy, and several other national mentions helped. Once I realized there was an audience for the things I really cared about, I started making a concerted effort to write more material that I truly enjoyed.
That's awesome. So you're obviously a gamer. You've done a ton of songs about games like D+D, Kobolds ate my baby and even one about World of Warcraft (which had me dying laughing) . What are some of your favorite games and can you give us one little known gem that we all need to play?
I love RPGs. Kobolds Ate My Baby is a super-fun, rules-light system that lends itself to having a good time. I mostly play D&D Savage Worlds, but for a lesser known system (it’s not really that lesser known) I’d have to recommend Fiasco, especially if your friends are into theatre and improvisation.
Before we get started on your work, I'd like to ask a question regarding my personal crusade here at Jimbo's: How do you define what is Science Fiction and/or Fantasy? I know that there are people out there who would limit it to just the traditional arenas of writing, television and film, but what about other things like gaming (whether tabletop stuff like Dungeons and Dragons or video games like Halo and World of Warcraft)? What about songs like Not Quite the Chosen One or The Button, both of which are by you. Where do those fall on your list of what is and is not Science Fiction or Fantasy?
The Button is science fiction/fantasy. Not Quite The Chosen One is is pure comedic fantasy. I try not to get hung up on definitions as much, anymore. I gravitate towards things I enjoy or am interested in. So even if someone doesn’t categorize those two songs the same way I do, if they liked music and those genres, they’ll probably enjoy the songs.
You bill yourself as a Comedy Rock Star on your website and your Facebook page, but yet you've done some serious tracks too. I consider Opposite of Cool to be my personal theme song, and it's the kind of thing that anyone who grew up as one of the less popular kids in school can definitely identify with. I had a really neat conversation with my daughter after listening to Celebrate because she's going to be starting her last year of Middle School in a few days and it had me thinking about how her life is going to change and why she's going to want to try to remember some of the stuff I wish I could. Talk about that for a second. How does the guy who wrote She Don't Like Firefly suddenly veer off into some serious content for a second?
Comedy Rock Star was a branding choice from when I was a musical standup comic that just kind of hung around… When I started getting comedy gig and performing out of state, I’d take time off from work when necessary to facilitate it. On the paid time off form, I’d write “going to play comedy rock star” as the reason. I had an incredibly supportive company and they were as flexible as they could be with my schedule.
When I started doing geek rock music, it was all comedic, because that was what I was transitioning from. At the time, I didn’t think folks would want to hear a serious song from me, so I didn’t bother putting them on albums. I simply didn’t consider it. I’d still write them when I felt like it, but performing or relating them didn’t really occur to me.
It wasn’t until my fifth geek rock album, Red Letters, that I put a serious song on an album. My mom had died earlier that year, and the writing/recording of the album was very cathartic for me. It’s an angry album, ostensibly about holidays and special occasions (“red letter” days,) but all the songs are about frustration, loss, cruelty, isolation, self-destructive behavior, or regret. Yet it still manages to be funny. Angry? Yes. Vulgar? In places. But funny. Except for Eulogy, which is a song I wrote in college after a friend died, but which took on whole new realms of meaning when my mom passed.
I played it live whenever I did a show that year. I remember playing it at ConCarolinas, openly weeping in front of a packed ballroom of folks, many of who were weeping with me. It was a song that had meaning to us, like the other, funny songs I try to write, but simply about the human experience. It changed my views of what my fans would deem acceptable on an album.
I know you do a lot of cons. I'm guessing you've got some good celebrity stories. Have you met anyone super-cool? Do you have a story or two you could share with us?
I meet super cool people all the time. Most of them aren’t famous. Famous people can be very cool, too—don’t get me wrong—and I do have some celebrity stories. I played a game with Will Wheaton at GenCon one year. He killed me with ruthless efficiency, and was very kind about the whole thing, treating everybody at the table as a peer. Ernie Hudson was great to talk to, and as generous as he could be with his time. Willem Dafoe is super-intense but very polite and smells great.
Of course, you do more than music. I remember how happy your Friendship is Tragic T-shirt made my now ex-girlfriend when we were still dating. (She's a good person. Long story.) So tell us a little bit about your non-music offerings. Now might be a good time to throw in some links to places where people can buy your stuff too.
I…well… I do stuff. I’ve always considered myself an artistic and creative person. I make art (which is now mostly confined to t-shirts, as I don’t sell prints from a shop anymore, at least for the time being.) You can find my t-shirts at https://comedyrockgeek.threadless.com/
Music you can find on YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, etc… But if you want to buy directly from me, you can go to https://mikeymason.bandcamp.com/ and buy albums or single tracks. There are links from there to buy physical discs, as well.
I know you've got a Patreon as well, Mikey. I'm a happy subscriber. So why don't you tell people where they can find you on Patreon and what the benefits are. You know, like how I can get all of your tracks early.
Thanks! You can find my Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/MikeyMason . As for benefits, I try not to stratify the people who support me too much. The basic benefit is this: if you support me at $1/month, every time I record a song (and sometimes when I write one and do a scratch demo or whatever) you’ll get a copy of the song. All of them. For $1/month. There are other, more ephemeral benefits to supporting at a higher amount, such as getting handwritten postcards or being credited by name on every track that came out while you supported at a certain level, but I know some fans will try and support beyond their means, and I’m adamant that people take care of themselves and their bills before trying to take care of me or mine.
So, if someone supports what I do and can afford $1/month, that’s awesome and helpful. If they can afford more, just as awesome and appreciated. I just don’t want to “upsell” anyone.
I’d rather have 1000 supporters at $1/month than one supporter at $1000/month. Like Ryunosuke Satoro said, “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."
I know you do some podcasts too, including In the 'Verse with Mark Gunn. I think I'm forgetting something. Why not drop a link or two to those and tell us a little about what you're working on there?
Currently, the only podcast I’m actively working on is In The Verse: Songcrafting In The Firefly Universe. You can find it here: https://fireflydrinkingsongs.com/intheverse/
In each episode of the podcast, fellow Browncoat musician Marc Gunn and I rewatch an episode of Firefly, discuss it from an artistic/structural perspective, and then each back off into different corners and write a song inspired either by the episode or something in the episode. As you can guess, our songs, like our musical styles, differ greatly. But the music is good, and Firefly-centric. And when we’re done, we’ll have an album or two. (Maybe three?)
My Patreon patrons get copies of all those finished songs as well as many of the demos.
Oh, and of course your social media accounts. Where can fans follow you online so that they can keep up with Mikey Mason? Is there anything special that you share there. Don't forget to drop the links again.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ComedyRockStar/
Instagram: @crsmm
Twitter: @comedyrockgeek
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/squedge
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/comedyrockgeek
And you can find links to all those things and more at mikeymason.com
And of course, I know I'm not a perfect interviewer. I know that you were just bursting to tell my audience something that I forgot to ask. So here's your chance. What do you wish I had asked you? Don't forget to answer your own question.
What’s your favorite book? Well… I love a lot of books and have written more than a few songs about literary characters: Hat Full Of Sky, Wisdom Of Hounds, Dibbler’s Lament, A Moment’s Courage, Electric Monk, etc… but I’ve only written an entire EP of music about one book: American Gods by Neil Gaiman. You can find it on my Bandcamp site.
And that's it! Thanks for stopping by Mikey! I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me.
Thank you!
Links to a couple of Mikey Mason's albums are listed below (Just in case you didn't use his links and are too lazy to page back up):
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