I’m interviewing Al Morris, aka Uncle Al from Murphy's Law, the original member of said famous underground hardcore fun band. It seems Al has been busy of late, still exploiting the old hardcore scene with a mobile app game called MOSH PIT that he created, due out in early March. Please weigh in on our Facebook page after you read this. What do you think of the Mosh Pit concept? If you have an i-Phone or i-Pad will you fork over $2.99 to get this? Are you too much of a tough guy to play games on your smart phone? Can your ghetto ass even spare 3 bucks? Let us know!
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IE: So tell us about MOSH PIT…
Al: It's an app that goes along with that old Murphy's Law theme "You Gotta Have FUN". It's a game, it's music, it's bands, it's cartoons, it's a mosh pit in your pocket and what could be more fun than that?
IE: How does it work?
Al: Well it starts out giving you a list of bands (like a matinee ad in the papers) and you pick a song and ZOOM you're thrust into a circle pit at CBGBs and the music is blasting from a band on stage. You then thumb up a bar full of characters- Lou Natick, Mo Green, Slim Kim, Rat Bones ( yes,THE Rat Bones) and others, all based on real people I knew back in da' day. With a touch of the avatar you launch your characters into the action- first they stage dive, then crowd surf, jump into the pit, circle around, then do some free style moshing before either getting slammed out or exiting. That's how you score points, by making it through without getting moshed on.
IE: What bands are featured?
Al: On the initial game (Mosh Pit Deluxe) we got your Killing Time, Crown of Thorns, Underdog and a great new band called Sai Nam, with Mike Dijan from Crown Of Thornz.
IE: Will there be more?
Al: Oh sure, all games get upgraded, but mine will also contain more bands and characters. Upcoming in the first upgrade will be Agnostic Front and The Mob, the other two I haven't decided on yet. I want to mix old school with new school.
IE: How did this whole thing come about?
Al: The idea has been rattling around my brain for the past few years, finally about a year ago I wrote up an outline and piece by piece, through a long learning curve, I made it happen. By reading up on everything on how to make a game to coding to animation, the internet is chock full of info. It started with me tooling around with an animation program called Toon Boom. When I figured out how to make my own cartoons I drew up a mosh pit and had these moshnoid characters run around in it. I used video footage of myself dancing around, playing air guitar, acting like a typical hardcore singer, rotoscoped it all and viola! I had my own Disney studio going on. A lot of work but very enjoyable at the same time. Then I had to find somebody to put this all together in a game format, that was a process too, but I found a company that gave me a good price. The next part was raising the funds. Instead of going to strangers in Kickstarter, I started asking around to my old NYHC buddies through Facebook to be investors. Sure enough, they came through with the cash in return for a piece of the profits from the sales and other things related. It took about a year to bring it all together, some delays, very nerve racking, but it's finally done
IE: When is it coming out?
Al: I’m looking at the 10th of March- they say Sundays are best to release new things. People are lounging around in their underwear ordering apps I guess.
Uncle Al (on left) on back of first Murphy's Law album
IE: When this comes out it will only be for i-Phones and i-Pads at first? What about me with my Droid dude?
AL: Wellll that’s a problem…You see, when you build something like this you have to decide which platform to build it on- Beta for Android etc or iOS for iPhone/iPod/IPad. IOS is a superior graphics platform to work with and there are twice as many people with iPhones than Android, so the choice becomes obvious for all the game builders. Very few builders start with an Android build, they do that after they go with iOS just to go after that crowd, which means they waited till they got the money from the first to make an Android version. I tell people that they can buy an iPod Touch on Ebay for $15 or wait for me to do my Android version. Sucks but that's life, Android users.
Al @ CBGB's way back when
IE: What have you been doing musically all these years since Murphy's Law?
Al: Well Chris, I had retired from active playing back in the 90’s after a brief stint with my band "Uncle Al" and settled down to my second career as an artist illustrator, got married and moved around a bit, first to LA then down to Brazil where my wife is from originally. When the recession hit I was pretty much left high and dry for funds so I dusted off the old guitar and played around Brazil for a year, this time doing more of an American country style set list of my songs. Though hardcore is popular down here I figured that music was much too frantic for my elderly sensitive bones and I kind of like doing the Johnny Cash thing. So I bumped around this foreign country playing small gigs in strange bars and getting lots of free drinks from people I had no idea what they were saying. A strange part of my life to say the least. Finally I decided that wasn't going to pay the bills so I thought real hard and came to an epiphany alone in a Brazillian bus station at 3 am in the morning…get a million people to give you a dollar and you become a millionaire! How do you do that? Easy- build a hit video game for mobile phones!
(Editors note: App is $2.99, maker gets a buck for each one sold)
IE: So you think this will make you a million dollars?
Al: It better, I can't afford to get back to the US.
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