BLUE ÖYSTER CULT Meets 'Warhammer'

IGN Music recently learned of a unique collaboration between members of the legendary heavy rock band BLUE ÖYSTER CULT and the development team behind the fantasy MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning. Lead singer Eric Bloom and guitarist Richie Castellano put rock heads together with some folks at Mythic Entertainment to write and record the Dwarf Slayer anthem "Kiss My Axe (While I Drink My Beer)".

IGN Music caught up with Eric Bloom and Josh Drescher, Associate Producer at Mythic, to chat about the making of the song and the reactions of fans of the band and the game.

IGN Music: Tell me a little bit about this song. How would you describe it?

Eric: It's a collaboration between myself and the developers at Warhammer to come up with something fun to do. I like to step outside — you know, I'm a big gamer, so I step outside of my rock persona and I can combine the two, which is fun for me. There was some sort of promotion, I think it's when the last two new characters came out.

Josh: It was the Knight Of The Blazing Sun and the Black Guard. The first major expansion after we launched, we added two new careers to the game. And "Flames Of Steel", featuring [Executive Producer] Jeff Hickman, was the song we wrote.

Eric: I didn't know who was singing or who was playing, but I thought it was a hell of a lot better than Stephen King's band [THE ROCK BOTTOM REMAINDERS].

Josh: No one's ever hit me with a bus, so that could be it.

IGN Music: Is Stephen King a gamer as well? You ever seen him in game?

Eric: I don't know. I've actually corresponded with him a little bit. He quoted "Don't Fear The Reaper" in one of his books, actually right in the prologue page, and that was kinda cool. And it was used in the movie as well, "The Stand". But he has a garage band.

I just thought that for guys who are not professional, I thought the song was pretty damn good. So I knew the people who were doing the PR. I write gaming articles on occasion as a guest writer for Beckett Massive Online Gamer. And the Editor there is a long-time friend of mine named Doug Kale, and through him I wanted to write a piece about Warhammer. So he connected me to the PR firm. So I called the PR firm, who hooked me up. Finally, I broke through and reached Josh and Jeff and other folks who work at Mythic, and that's how we started to talk about getting together and writing this song.

Josh: There's just a quick caveat to that. Our response time was slower than it should have been because our PR rep [Chris Heintz] has a bit of a reputation for being something of a prankster. And so when he sent me this email, he was like, "Eric from BLUE ÖYSTER CULT would like to come visit the studio." I just ignored him because I assumed it was another case of Chris trying to mess with me, telling me something preposterous. Finally after two days, he emailed back and said "You're aware that I'm serious about this, right?" I'm like, "Bring him in immediately!"

Eric: I would think if it was Ringo Starr, you would have said, "Get outta here!" But me, I'm on the B-List.

Josh: We would not have allowed Ringo to visit.

Read the entire interview from IGN Music.