Rob Scallon has been a YouTuber for 17 years. For the last 12 of those he’s been paying rent by building the world’s largest pedalboard, exploring unusual stringed instruments and more.
He says with a wry smile that it’s taken a game to bag him his first-ever Guitar World interview. But Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson isn’t any old game; it’s a role-playing product that puts music, and more pertinently, the guitar, at its heart.
Players start out with an acoustic, using riffs as weapons of combat, eventually upgrading to the full-bore, djent-powering might of an eight-string after having fought off XLR cable spiders and amplifiers with teeth.
The guitaRPG has been development for eight years and boasts a soundtrack featuring internet riff mavericks including Rabea Massaad, Yvette Young and Mary Spender.
It’s testament to Scallon’s career, in which ideas appear to be endless and new territory is consistently conquered.
Where did your musical journey start?
“I was a fidgety kid so I started with drums. Finding bass really sparked it. I went to Guitar Center when I was 12 and they were playing Primus on the TV – Animals Should Not Try To Act Like People had just come out – and it blew my mind. With the music videos it was like, ‘This is my calling!’ More than just being a musician, making music videos was the ultimate goal.
“As a natural progression, I moved to guitar – my friend’s dad got me an acoustic from Sam Ash for $50 – and I realized that, with just me and one guitar, I could write a whole composition and put it up on YouTube.”
You were quick to embrace YouTube.
“I completely committed to being a professional YouTuber in January 2008, which was a pretty wild thing to say at the time. No one on YouTube had a million subscribers – but it felt like I’d found this glitch in the matrix where I could be a musician online through video.”
What’s been your biggest lightbulb moment?
“There are so many amazing guitar players out there; and until I got an eight-string I was emulating other people. Originally I thought, 'I’m going to get this eight-string, make a few videos then sell it.' But I got a Schecter Omen, put it into an open tuning, and just fell in love.
“It felt like open territory: not many people were using them, and when they were it was always distorted, super-heavy music. Anchor was a true expression of me; I was doing something no one else was doing. I found my place as a guitarist – and it was just taking Midwest emo and adding a lower octave!”
Tell us about Fretless.
“It started eight years ago after I made Guitar Battle, a ‘choose your own adventure’ video where you had to pick the right instrument to win the game. Once we stumbled upon the guitaRPG idea, we realized there was so much fun to be had.”
“With Fretless, instead of collecting swords and shields, you collect instruments and you battle with riffs. You build and upgrade your riffs and you play along. You have to learn your riffs and the riffs of whoever’s attacking you, to do more damage or block. And instead of building your skill tree, you build your pedalboard.”
What was your involvement?
Enter Sandman backwards took months and months. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy
“I was the creative director. A lot of the music is reworked versions of my songs and I wrote some new eight-string riffs. The real credit goes to Jeff Linville of Ritual Studios, who put it together.
“Everything in the world is music, and everything’s in key. When I got the first demo, I started walking through the bell flowers to make a tune. I didn’t even get into combat!”
And there’s a stacked soundtrack.
“Working with guest artists was really cool – we got to bring their styles into the game. But it’s unique. It’s not just ‘make a song.’ They had to be a certain length or BPM, with different transition layers and endings.
“For the Xylomander, which is a big xylophone monster, we reached out to Rabea Massaad, who made a metal track with xylophone in it. Yvette Young performs in the game; that was an opportunity to bring in an artist we’re a fan of, and a great representation of the music community online.”
What’s your secret to ideation?
“The ideas are easy! My channel is about having fun with music, so what we can do is endless. The much harder part is figuring out what we can do within scope. A lot of times, we have an idea before an opportunity to do it comes along, like collaborating with Sweetwater on the world’s largest pedalboard.
“I learned how to build a team early on. A full-time YouTuber is a small business owner, and that’s tough. I think a lot of that gets lost. Burnout is really easy to get, and the content treadmill is exhausting. Constantly fighting for attention on the internet is exhausting, and it's gotten crazier.”
What was the hardest video to execute?
“Probably Getting Delay Without Using any Effects – and I had the easiest part of it too! I also did Enter Sandman backwards. I had to learn every instrument, including the vocals and guitar solos. It took months and months. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy!”
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far?
“The stuff that tends to reach a really wide audience has a very simple hook. When I did Slayer's War Ensemble on ukulele I thought it would tank. At that time there wasn’t a lot of metal on my channel; I didn’t think there was an audience for it. I was totally wrong!”
What other videos have surprised you?
“The First of October had a terrible first day. I remember saying, ‘You win some, you lose some – and we lost today.’ Now it’s the most anticipated thing we do every year.
“It’s a lot of work behind the scenes; not only are we making an album in a day from scratch, we’re also filming a video. With the first one, making the video was harder than making the album.
“I was fully expecting it to be a train wreck – we were going to make the worst album ever, and so it would be a really fun video. But we made some songs we really liked, and we found that making a 10-track album in a day was actually achievable.
“There’s not a lot of pressure to make a good album, given the circumstances. You can’t spend time thinking, ‘What’s my amp setting?’ When you get rid of that part of the process, you actually make better music. It’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Not everything needs to be a masterpiece.”
- Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson is out now via Steam.
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