Pricey Brian, thanks for taking the time to affix me on this interview to coach our group on SolRockers. To begin with, are you able to give us a short introduction to you? What’s your story, courting again so far as you would like?
I’m the Head of Product at SolRockers NFT and in my free time additionally the drummer for the multi platinum band Everclear. Some may assume I reside the lifetime of a Rockstar however I’m only a standard type of man. With a home within the suburbs, a white picket fence, a canine, 2.4 youngsters and to spherical all of it out a spouse that drives a minivan. LOL. Actually I’m simply a pc nerd who performs drums in a rock band.
I attended Berklee Faculty of music in Boston Massachusetts again in 1989–1994. Whereas dwelling in Boston I spent a very good 8 years enjoying with bands within the Boston music scene — 1990’s Boston scene turned out some nice bands and I used to be fortunate to be part of it. I performed with Tracy Bonham, went off to Chicago to tour with Fig Dish, and ended again in Boston to type American Hello-Fi with my finest good friend Stacy Jones in 1998. We recorded our document with Bob Rock in Maui, had successful single on MTV, and toured extensively all world wide within the early 2000’s. Now I’m enjoying drums with the band Everclear. One way or the other I handle to make a dwelling doing what I like — enjoying drums.
The pc nerd half is the place crypto and gaming is available in. I used to be hooked when my step dad purchased me the Apple IIe again in 1983. A 1.023MHz processor, 64KB RAM, two 5 1/4″ floppies, bulletin boards have been no match for my 300 baud modem. It performed video games too, good video games like Fortress Wolfenstein, Boulder Sprint, King’s quest and Decathlon. It put my Atari 2600 to disgrace. Then I had a brief stint with consoles together with ColecoVision, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Tremendous Nintendo, however.. then Doom was born. John Carmack and John Romero messed me up good, so good that I constructed my first PC due to their creation — particularly to play Doom. That 4MB of ram was costly too. I’ve been enjoying PC video games ever since — Battlefield 1942, Name of Obligation, Elder Scrolls video games, WOW, the record goes on and on. Mainly I got here from the identical technology as James Vacation, him and I’d have been good buddies. Now it’s time to develop the Oasis, or no less than a really small a part of it.
Why did you become involved within the cryptocurrency trade, and the place do you assume the trade shall be in 5–10 years?
I heard about this factor known as Bitcoin again in 2011. So you should use your video card to earn a living? Actually? Appears like enjoyable. I took certainly one of my laptop rigs, outfitted it with an ATI 5970, overclocked the hell out of it, joined a pool and began mining. Then I had two rigs, then three, a number of followers, I’m speaking oscillating followers, not these fancy LED case followers everybody has today. I mined 23 Bitcoin after which determined it wasn’t price pursuing, it was costing me extra in electrical energy to run the rigs in comparison with the going Bitcoin market worth. I held on to them for a yr and ended up promoting them on MT Gox for a whopping $27 a bit (doh!). In hindsight I believe I ought to have held on to them, perhaps… I painfully adopted Bitcoin on the sidelines for years, dabbled in Ethereum mining and at last began severely investing in crypto once more in 2017.
Keep in mind the dot com growth within the late 1990’s early 2000’s? I simply sat there and watched all of it occur, I didn’t financially reap the benefits of the quickest rising trade phenomena recognized to man. The web occurred and all I did was use it to play Quake. I might have gotten concerned however I didn’t. I needed to go and deal with being a musician. A chance like that may by no means occur once more in my lifetime.
Then comes Blockchain expertise. Thanks Satoshi! Blockchain tech is the subsequent growth, I’ve little question. It’s being adopted 2x quicker than the web, harvesting the brightest minds on the market and is giving us all the chance to develop the expertise of the longer term. And I imply the expertise of every thing. Good contracts apply to so many various industries, together with finance, knowledge evaluation, and the Web of Issues, let’s not overlook about gaming. Who new sensible contracts may very well be so helpful?
I’m not going to take a seat again and miss out on a twice in a lifetime alternative. So it both means I can redeem myself or go down in flames. I’ll both retire in Maui or greet folks on the native Walmart right here in Madison, I’m all in.
That’s wonderful. Now are you able to give us an introduction to SolRockers and the way it received began?
Again in 2012 I wasn’t simply mining Bitcoin, I used to be studying develop video video games utilizing the Unreal Engine and Unity. I’ve all the time had a ardour for sport improvement however I’m not a coder by any means. These sport engines gave me a approach to translate my concepts right into a useful sport with out being John Carmack. I’ve since developed third particular person shooters, twin stick shooters, first particular person shooters on a hobbyist degree. I’d convey my video games to buddies’ LAN events and play a spherical or two. It’s all the time enjoyable to see buddies take pleasure in your creation, bug free after all.
The emergence of the Play-to-Earn financial system actually grabbed my consideration. I began enjoying video games like Misplaced Relics, Alien Worlds, R-planet to call a number of. I had conversations with my brother Mike, additionally a crypto investor, about all of the P2E alternatives and he stated “Why don’t you create your individual sport? You understand how to develop video games”. In order that received me pondering and researching. I made a decision to mix the two issues I’m most obsessed with: gaming and music. I made a decision to mix the Rhythm sport style and the life-style of a touring musician to create a singular gaming expertise. I’ve had some unbelievable occasions over the previous 25 years; being a part of nice bands and touring all around the world, I need to re-create that have for everybody who joins SolRockers. NFT gaming and being in a profitable band are all about making a group, all of it made sense to me.
Early on, did you see a possibility to fill a void out there?
The market is one enormous void, it’s an open slate. That’s one of many the reason why I’m so enthusiastic about this mission and blockchain video games generally. Similar to each new expertise, it will get
adopted by hobbyists and independents. That is the interval in blockchain gaming when impartial developer concepts can shine and make an affect on the trade. I imagine we at SolRockers are doing simply that.
When deciding on the course of the paintings, we didn’t need to create a spinoff of an ape and a pixel artwork SolRocker was out of the query. We needed it to be unique and life-like that includes detailed devices and clothes, however with a light-weight hearted cartoonish really feel. The nice rock bands of the 80’s and 90’s have been excessive of their inventive expression. The hair, make-up, tattoos and clothes gave us so many choices and we spent months creating and revising. We had so many nice concepts. The SolRocker title is a mix of the Solana blockchain and Rockstar life-style with a slight play on phrases. I believe you get the concept.
A key level about our mission that’s vital to relay is that SolRockers Battle of the Bands is a sport that options participant owned NFTs, not an NFT mission that guarantees a utility sport. The sport itself is our essential focus and the mixing of the NFT is a key function. The paintings will seize their consideration however the sport is the final word repay. Actually.
We additionally observed that you’ve your individual token known as $IROC, that shall be used on your distinctive rhythm sport. Might you inform us extra about how this works?
$IROC tokens are the lifeblood of the SolRockers ecosystem and maintaining the token financial system balanced is our essential precedence. $IROC tokens are awarded to gamers/stakers and are used to buy gadgets in our NFT minting and merchandise market. We have now various methods our token is utilized in our sport. Additionally, we really feel it’s vital to “burn” tokens as customers create belongings in our sport ecosystem. We by no means need to dilute the general worth so a deflationary factor shall be integrated into the $IROC token utilization.
What have been the most important challenges for you and SolRockers because you began the mission?
It’s uncharted territory so it’s all challenges. I spent a number of time researching all of the points and transferring elements that make up an NFT mission, to not point out the sport. The artwork work, NFT technology, rarity, minting course of, discord server, web site, token minting, entrance finish sport dev, again finish sport dev, media creation, NFT market itemizing… and that’s simply my job. My brother’s received extra. Who knew a blockchain sport mission may very well be so time consuming? So discovering the time to do regular household exercise has been a problem.
I believe the most important problem for the mission is breaking by way of and getting observed. The NFT market is rising at breakneck speeds and has change into a bit saturated. Ethereum primarily based NFTs are a major instance. The Opensea NFT market positive lives as much as its title. Though the majority of the NFT market is on that blockchain we felt it wasn’t a very good match for our mission, or blockchain gaming generally. Solana was.
We selected Solana not simply due to its effectivity however we noticed it as the subsequent blockchain to be adopted by NFT creators, traders and sport builders. However with new expertise comes critical hurdles. Solana NFTs and sport improvement continues to be in its starting levels so there are a number of unanswered questions with inventive improvement wanted to finish a mission like SolRockers. Fortunately we now have blockchain backend engineers that may innovate and pull it off, I see them because the Rockstars.
Who do you assume could be the perfect audience for SolRockers?
At first look it’s NFT collectors and avid gamers nevertheless it’s additionally music lovers, instrument collectors and artists. People who take pleasure in being a part of a music and gaming group, who love to precise themselves by way of music and NFT creation. We would like this open to everybody.
I believe there are a number of kinds of “avid gamers” within the P2E atmosphere. I like enjoying video games, I can sit there and grind all day lengthy if wanted. Then you will have somebody like my brother who’s extra within the defi factor. I believe he doesn’t spend greater than 20 minutes in anyone sport, however he “performs” a number of. It’s vital to create a sport that’s interesting to everybody.
Understood. Now what has been your best achievement so far, and what has been the most important failure or setback personally or within the historical past of the corporate?
My best achievements so far could be the truth that I’m nonetheless in a position to assist my household doing what I like — enjoying, and expressing myself by way of music. The best achievements associated to SolRockers are nonetheless forward of us. We simply began in November of 2021 so there’s not a lot historical past to speak of. Discuss to me two years from now and I’ll have an inventory. We have now little setbacks each week nevertheless it’s nothing we will’t overcome.
What’s the subsequent step for SolRockers within the subsequent 1–2 years?
Develop and launch a enjoyable and interesting gaming expertise the place customers get to roleplay that Rockstar life-style, create a band, observe in a studio, go on tour and play at totally different venues — with backstage debauchery included after all.
A difficult Rhythm sport isn’t full with out a nice choice of songs. Artist collaborations will play an enormous half on this. Fortunately I do know a number of. However exterior of the mainstream music trade are a number of wonderful bands and artists that deserve consideration. We have now plans to present everybody a approach to take part and become involved. Our plans embrace giving the participant and artist a approach to create and improve our sport. SolRockers Battle of the Bands will function the power so as to add new songs and create new track patterns. And we would like our group to be rewarded for his or her inventive efforts. It being a blockchain sport provides us the means to take action. The group will all the time come first.
The place can folks assist what you are promoting? Aside from that, thanks on your time, Brian — any closing phrases?
Help our enterprise by visiting our socials like twitter, fb , becoming a member of our discord group, and naturally try our web site.
Web site: https://www.solrockers.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SolRockersNFT
Discord: https://dsc.gg/SolRockers
Fb: https://www.fb.com/SolRockers-104379062257709
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcq8s8kElrxwKXJtYjkP7rw
Brian’s Twitter BrianNolan (@BamBamBNolan) / Twitter
And if you end up at an Everclear present within the close to future, cease by the merch ten and say howdy.
