Chuck Ragan talks 'The Flame in the Flood' soundtrack
In a pretty significant way, the works of musician Chuck Ragan and artist Scott Sinclair are inseparable.
Sinclair spent much of the ’90s creating vivid, eye-catching cover art for Ragan’s Florida-based punk band Hot Water Music, and the pair have a friendship that pre-dates that high-profile collaboration.
In the years since, Ragan has forged a path as a top-notch singer/songwriter, while Sinclair moved into the world of video games, working as an artist on “Guitar Hero” (2005) and “Rock Band 2” (2008) before serving as art director for Irrational Games’ acclaimed “BioShock” (2007) and “BioShock Infinite” (2013).
Most recently, the two men reunited for the now-available video game “The Flame in the Flood,” work described by its makers as “a journey through the backwaters of post-societal America.”
Ragan composed a heartfelt, rootsy score to complement the poetic game from independent studio the Molasses Flood, where Sinclair is the director and flounder. The story of a young woman and her dog struggling for survival in the wilderness, the game looks something like a cross between “The Oregon Trail” and Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road.”
Speaking recently from his home in California, Ragan said he took some convincing before signing on to the project.
“Personally, I’m not a video game guy, in fact I couldn’t be more opposite,” said Ragan. “So at first, I’m going, ‘OK, well, I don’t know.’ A lot of times, when I think of video games I think of shoot ‘em up games, and I just wasn’t sure how I would connect with it until (Sinclair) started describing the concept of the game, and it was right up my alley.
“Right away, he was basically talking of images of drifting down a river, rowing a boat, camping, being in the outdoors, and I’m going, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I love to do.’ So, pretty much even in the first conversation it was clear to me, I thought, ‘I need to write a lot of this music out there, I need to get out there. I don’t need to be sitting in a studio or in a basement, I need to be on the bank of the river,’ and that’s what I did.”
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Ragan said he found himself right at home amid the rustic aesthetic of “The Flame in the Flood,” in more ways than one.
“I am really fortunate to live in a place where my backyard is the foothills of the Sierras, we’re surrounded by rivers and lakes,” Ragan said. “So, putting myself in that position was really easy, I’m out there anyway.”
“The Flame in the Flood” soundtrack was released on Feb. 4, and Ragan is supporting the album by hitting the road with his rough-and-tumble roots rock ensemble the Camaraderie. The band features Jon Gaunt on fiddle, bassist Joe Ginsberg and Todd Beene playing pedal steel and electric guitar.
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Ragan and company hit Rough Trade in Brooklyn on Friday, Feb. 12, followed by a show at Union Transfer in Philadelphia on Monday, Feb. 15.
While “The Flame in the Flood” has aspects of classic Americana, it’s also a decidedly modern invention, a computer game made possible through a campaign on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter. It serves, in essence, as a marriage between the contemporary and the timeless.
“I thought it was very cool and ironic that a lot of people who may not be familiar with the outdoors or anything of that nature, or nature period, would actually learn a lot from this game,” Ragan said. “There’s irony that people could potentially learn more about nature and the outdoors by playing a video game, and that was a joyful thing to witness.”
CHUCK RAGAN AND THE CAMARADERIE
WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 12
WHERE: Rough Trade, 64 North 9th St., Brooklyn, New York
TICKETS: $20
INFO: 212-260-4700 or www.roughtradenyc.com
ALSO
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 15
WHERE: Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., Philadelphia
TICKETS: $15
INFO: 215-232-2100 or www.utphilly.com