Bleep Bloop
the Night Away
I
by Jacob Heacock
n high school Sean Callahan began recording experimental indie rock and electronic music and
recording it for limited local release. This led him
to composing soundtracks for local plays and short
films. Callahan was born in Keene and grew up in
Weare, NH. In 2011, Callahan adopted the name
“nickelPunk” to begin exploring the underground
electronic scene and became an integral component
of the Chiptune Movement in the Boston area. He
made a big move to Seattle, WA in 2012 and that’s
where he’s been ever since. In 2013 nickelPunk
was asked to compose and produce the soundtrack
for TOODX game, “Bosses Forever 2.Bro”and then
in 2014 the soundtrack for “Sportsball”, another
TOODX game. In 2015 nickelPunk was signed on
as guest composer for Starr Mazer. Now, in addition
to video games, nickelPunk is focusing on creating
soundtracks for films, producing up and coming artists, and creating standalone albums.
nickelPunk: A Yamaha keyboard, computer mic
Cider: Can you describe 8-bit music for anyone
nickelPunk: In 2011 the head of TOODX , Auston
who has never heard it?
nickelPunk: Chiptunes and video game music,
contemporize music like from Nintendo.
Cider: Who are your musical influences?
nickelPunk: David Bowie, The Beatles, Han Zim-
mer, Harry Gregson Williams, Prince and ELO, and
Skrillex.
Cider: Do you make any dub step music?
nickelPunk: Yes, bass and house come up a lot,
regular EDM.
Cider: How long have you been making music?
nickelPunk: I’ve been making music for 13 years
and professionally now for four.Cider: What did you
use to mke your music when you first started out?
4 • CIDER MAG • cidermag.com
and a 2002 Dell.
Cider: Did you teach yourself?
nickelPunk: It was all self-taught, but I did play
in the school band - sax and took some guitar lessons. I was all self-taught with recording. When I
was 18 I started talking with other musicians from
the community and then I was fully electronic. Back
then, no one was listening to trance, which was
what I was making. It’s changed a lot. It wasn’t until
I was older that I started to research music theory
and it helped. They say we stand on the shoulders of
giants and I shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel to
write a melody.
Cider: How did you begin making this 8 bit style
of music?
Montville (also from New England) wanted music
put on a Nintendo cartridge and I knew it couldn’t
be hard. I use a Gameboy as an instrument in my
orchestra. There is a lot of innovation with it but it
isn’t my primary instrument. First project title was
a few hobby games, Bosses Forever for web browsers in 2011. The next was Bosses Forever 2.Bro released on the Ouya and PC. These were warm up
for soundtrack Sportsball on the WiiU, which was a
pretty big deal because I’m on a Nintendo console.
Don’t get me wrong I love all the consoles. I would
put music on a new Atari if they asked me. I just
want the Magnavox Odyssey 3000 to happen and we
could all ride the wave.
Cider: What do you use to make your 8-bit music?
nickelPunk: A Game Boy. I have a computer that
I built with the newest virtual synthesizers FL Studio and an old copy of Reason. Ableton Live is pretty good. Keytar CoreArcade100 and a guitar that’s
nice. Mostly the computer does the playing. SportsJune• 2015