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-How and when did the Minibosses form?

We formed at the end of 1999 in Massachusetts. Ben, Matt,and I all went to the same college, UMass Amherst (pixies college). We were math and science and music geeks. Matt and I were already in a band called The Jenova Project and we used to play some video game stuff as bridges in our songs, and then when we broke up we thought it would be fun to make it video game music only. It’s also less confusing for us, and for those who come to see us. (Hahahahhaha..) In the summer of 2000 we moved out here to our current home, beautiful Phoenix, Arizona.

-How long does it usually take you guys to learn a song?

It varies depending on the song. Some pieces we keep as standalones, like double dragon, and everyone just comes to practice with their part prepared. So standalones could take five minutes. The longer medleys…well…we try to mess around with a variety of orders…so the longest ones can take a week or weeks until we’ve found an order that we’re all happy with. The medleys are fun because there are so many ways you can attack them, you can try to make the craziest transitions, you can try to play the songs in order as if you’re playing the real game, it’s just really fun and challenging to tackle the medleys.

-How often do you guys play live shows and how many of them do you think you guys have done so far?

We document them all on our website.PAX should be show #176 or so if we don’t add any more until then. Let’s see, we’ve played 172 shows so far over 8 and a half years, that’s about 1.7 shows or so a month, but obviously there are times where you don’t play at all, or play many shows in a stretch…

-Was last year the first year you guys performed at PAX?

No, we have been very lucky and have played every year at PAX. It’s a great honor and we are happy to be asked back again this year.

-What do you guys like most about PAX?

The overall ‘vibe’. Almost everyone there is in this weird, euphoric, game-happy trance. You can walk around the halls and see hundreds of DS’s…the same halls that have adjourning rooms where tabletop is taking place…it’s just amazing how much gaming is actually crammed into one place. The concerts are also great for us because we love playing, but everything about PAX gets us really excited – it’s definitely a show we look forward to all year. We were all just talking about how much fun PAX was last year because rock band was just coming out and playing it in the exhibition hall was a blast…

-Will you guys be performing new renditions for PAX 2008?

Yeah, we have a lot of new stuff for this year. Usually we play almost the same set each year, because we play a lot of classic NES stuff, and as much as you’d like to please everyone and play some obscure games out there, many folks are there to hear the most popular ones, and hell let’s face it there’s a reason why the most popular, NES soundtracks are the most popular. They rule. And we never want to play too long. Our ideal set time would be 45 min to an hour, but you can’t really do that at PAX, that’s kind of the exception…we’ll play until people leave. So we’re gonna definitely play a bunch of old stuff, but we’re also mixing it up with some brand new medleys, like the whole soundtrack to Castlevania 2, we’ve also got a new Batman medley, there’s some other stuff too…

-What have been some of the greatest highlights for the Minibosses?

Definitely all the PAX’s, those have been amazing. Any time you get to travel is fun, so playing a Nintendo-sponsored show in Mexico City was a definite highlight. Let’s see…we’ve played some shows with some bands that we love, like Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, The F–king Champs, Moistboyz, Totally radd!!, Fatigo, Colorstore, Sweetbleeders, Polysics…so many, I can’t remember them all. Playing with and meeting so many different musicians and people is probably the greatest thing we’ll all walk away from this with.

-What are the long term goals for the band?

We have always had the same long term goal – to keep having fun. It’s got to be fun. Practice has got to be fun. The shows have got to be fun. Doing the daily chore stuff of a band – flyering, booking, etc – that stuff isn’t necessarily fun in and of itself, but it becomes fun when everyone is in it together.

Make sure to check them out at http://www.minibosses.com and also head over to YouTube and check out some of their great performances.

- Avid X (www.mypaxblog.com)

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