If you’ve played action-adventure game Dead Rising, you likely remember that moment when you enter the mall’s large outdoor park and run into a group of prisoners in a military jeep. The group is chasing after a woman and an older man, the wild prisoners kill the man and then the cutscene ends. That’s when Lifeseeker’s wild rock song “Gone Guru” kicks in as the escaped inmates begin attacking you and the woman.
It’s a famous moment in the game, one which was luckily kept for the recently released remaster. But the guy who wrote that song and founded the band that played it still doesn’t really know why Capcom picked “Gone Guru.”
In a September 19 interview with TheGamer, Lifeseeker founder Marc Lariviere explained how the song made it into Dead Rising. According to Lariviere, he was contacted through the website CD Baby, where he was selling Lifeseeker’s album “Self Titled Debut Album” which contained “Gone Guru.”
“You could hear previews of the song there, so I guess someone who was scouting music for the game heard it there,” said Lariviere. “The person who contacted me told me that Capcom was interested in using ‘Gone Guru’ for a video game.” Lariviere agreed to a deal with Capcom, but wasn’t told what game his song would appear in.
Once he learned the song was in Dead Rising, he played the game and reached the aforementioned iconic scene just so he could hear “Gone Guru.” He told TheGamer that he was surprised so many people picked up on the lyrics because its actually hard to hear the song in-game. Funnily enough, while the singer finds Dead Rising’s mall “appealing and strange” and he appreciates the game’s difficulty for making it “special,” he struggled to play it.
“I may have to take another crack at it this time around. Maybe some of the updates will help a more casual gamer like me along,” said Lariviere.
When Lariviere heard about Dead Rising Delux Remaster, he assumed that Capcom would use the song again, but was prepared to “move on” if it was missing.
“Still when I heard they were using it I was smiling,” said Lariviere.
“Even though by now it’s a little bit old hat, there’s always new fans from Dead Rising releases who check out the whole Lifeseeker catalog and find stuff they like and become fans. To bear witness to that and know that a lot of your hard work has paid off and someone is enjoying the stuff you’ve made, that’s a great feeling.”
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