Rotary Downs has arrived on the Xbox 360. Two tracks from the local indie band’s Best of the Beat 2010 Award-winning album Cracked Maps and Blue Reports—“Promised Land” and “Bullet On A String”—have been adapted for the popular video game Rock Band.
Photo Credit: Jenny Bagert.
Rock Band, for the uninitiated, is a game in which players simulate the performance of rock songs using controllers modeled on musical instruments. The Rotary Downs tracks were adapted for the game by The Authority, a song-authoring house that produces content for Rock Band. “We started the process over a year ago,” says Rotary Downs drummer Zack Smith. “Getting the songs remixed in a way that The Authority could pitch it to Rock Band.
“Our songs have been in digital media for a while,” he adds. “We’ve embraced the fact that no one buys records in stores anymore, and we look for different avenues to get our music out. [Rock Band] was always an option that was out there, we just never had the right songs for it. My friend who runs The Authority really dug ‘Bullet On A String’ and ‘Promised Land’.”
On March 23, Rotary Downs will premiere a new video for “Promised Land” at Le Bon Temps Roule. The event will include a Rock Band game competition featuring the two songs. Smith hasn’t had a chance to try the songs out yet. “I don’t know if I could play it that well,” he says. “I tried to play rock band before, I was real bad at it. I’d probably do horribly at my own song.”
You can download the tracks at the Rock Band site:
