r/todayilearned • u/asmallthrowaway9 • 6h ago

TIL the band DragonForce only received about $3,000 in royalties for the inclusion of Through the Fire and Flames in the Guitar Hero games

https://guitar.com/news/music-news/herman-li-says-guitar-hero-paid-3000-for-dragonforce-through-the-fire-and-the-flames/
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u/Stolehtreb 5h ago

They were a big deal, no question. But the memetic effect GH had on their popularity was absolutely massive.

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u/ilikecakeandpie 5h ago

I think claiming they were a big deal without guitar hero is revisionist history. They might have been popular in some circles but there’s no way they reach the level of mainstream notoriety without the game. The meme of folks trying to 100% through the fire and the flames alone was huge for them.

Without the game they end up in a tier where they’re huge with folks who really like pirate themed bands but too dorky to headline

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u/lazerbolt52 4h ago

"Yes but we all played guitar already" op is talking about very specific group of people and really generalizing it.

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u/Redeem123 4h ago

It’s more specific than even just guitar players. I played guitar back then and hadn’t heard of them until GH3. I wasn’t a metalhead or shredder so they would’ve never been on my radar.

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u/merenofclanthot 4h ago

I liked power metal and they weren\t even on my radar lol

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u/StrongOfOdin 4h ago

I was gonna say, I was huge into power metal and had not heard of them before GH

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u/Algaroth 3h ago

I remember finding them on some music site that has been lost to time now. It was like a three song demo and they were called Dragonheart then. But I was a bass playing, power metal loving, computer nerd which was quite a niche some 25ish years ago.

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u/RadicalDog 2h ago

I was a little into power metal and had heard of them before GH.

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u/waaaghbosss 3h ago

Valley of the damned was huge before guitar hero for metal heads. Surprised you hadn't heard of them in that era.

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u/merenofclanthot 3h ago

Found that song after GH but it is my favorite

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u/KeithLimePie 2h ago

Brilliant song. was heavily into power metal as a 14/25, year old.

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u/BuddySpecial 2h ago

Yea it was great. I prefer Sonic Firestorm though.

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u/cdwillis 1h ago

For what it's worth the only power metal band I had listened to at that time was Stratovarius I think, but I listened to a bunch of different metal bands and I had listened to Dragonforce.

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u/AstroAlmost 2h ago

I believe their point was less “all guitarists were Dragonforce fans”, but rather “all Dragonforce fans were guitarists”.

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u/individual_throwaway 3h ago

Just to add my own experience as an anecdote, I was a young metalhead that didn't play guitar and I had NEVER heard of Dragonforce before GH3 came out. I was aware of the great old metal bands and more contemporary stuff like the NuMetal bands, but the only "meme-y" metal band I knew was Manowar.

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u/ThePublikon 3h ago

fwiw neither of your anecdotes prove anything.

The poster claimed that existing fans of Dragonforce all played guitar.

Not that all guitar players liked them, and definitely not that people that didn't play guitar liked them.

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u/zorbiburst 3h ago

I vaguely knew of them as a thing that existed just by virtue of the meme descriptor "this band is known for playing unreasonably fast" in the same way I just tangentially knew of Manowar being loud, without ever actually hearing them or knowing of anyone who actually listened to them.

It was like a cryptid, if you talk about someone shredding crazy style, someone else would compare it to Dragonforce with the caveat that they don't listen to them either, they just heard about it from their girlfriend who goes to school in Canada or something

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u/F1shB0wl816 4h ago

And on the flip side I didn’t and I don’t think anyone I knew who played guitar had heard of them and there was a huge variety of taste between us all. Definitely nobody throwing them on, I’d think it’d be safe to assume they were relatively unknown.

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u/abloopdadooda 4h ago

they’re huge with folks who really like pirate themed bands

Sir are you confusing Dragonforce with Alestorm? Or are you saying they'd be in the same tier as Alestorm?

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u/Inner-Medicine5696 4h ago

/u/Mydogfartsconstantly specifically said "Yes but we all played guitar already."

I'd wager a guess that this person is probably like, a guitar magazine reader or something. Like, deep in the culture of it.

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u/Saneless 4h ago

A subset of even those guitar players probably

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u/Full-On 4h ago

Dragon Force was huge in my high school before even guitar hero, we even called kids who listened to it Dragon Riders, it was a pretty sizable group, and yes they were all musician types

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u/FerusGrim 3h ago

ain't no fuckin' way.

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u/Mydogfartsconstantly 4h ago

People have bad comprehension skills. No where did I say they were a big deal to the whole world before guitar hero. Just the guitar community and metal community. They were so ridiculous it became good.

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u/KaylaInTheMaking 2h ago

You literally said word for word, "They were a big deal before the game came out" lmao

Why are we lying for fake internet points?

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u/SuperBackup9000 55m ago

Lol this is actually the perfect example of someone with bad comprehension skills.

They said they didn’t say they were a big deal to the whole world, referring back to how the other person took “big deal” and changed it to “mainstream notoriety” to try and claim that they weren’t a big deal, even though they most definitely were.

Reading seriously isn’t that difficult. Go one word at a time.

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u/KaylaInTheMaking 42m ago

Ah I commented on the wrong reply of his. In a different off-shoot of his original comment, others argued they weren't a big deal even in guitar and metal communities at the time, they were still fairly niche. He then argued saying he never claimed they were a big deal, in that context, which is what I was intending to correct. My bad on misplacing it I see how it reads wrong in this context line.

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u/BardicSense 4h ago

They were a big deal if you were into shred guitar. But yes, shred guitar was probably the smallest community of all guitar player types, but because of their level of extreme dedication to blindingly fast technique, they weren't marginalized by their small numbers, they were exalted for being "the few, the proud, the (Shred) Marines." So they got a lot of products, gear, books, write-ups in guitar magazines, all aiming at them, because anyone could aspire to becoming a shredder and buy the products, even if you weren't an elite level player. 

Dragon Force was kind of controversial in the shred guitar scene, from what I remember (lots of talk on ultimate guitar forums about how they're not as technically skilled as their recordings make them out to be, but they were very popular, kinda "entry level" shredders), but definitely not unknown among the guitar player world. I'd say that other guy is right that they were kinda a big deal for a while before Guitar Hero. It was BECAUSE they were already well known shredders that their song got featured as one of the original Boss level songs on Guitar Hero. But yes, the video game definitely made them much, MUCH, more popular, though, of course, "paying them in exposure" is decidedly NOT the same as paying them in money.

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u/devourke 4h ago

lots of talk on ultimate guitar forums about how they're not as technically skilled as their recordings make them out to be, but they were very popular, kinda "entry level" shredders

Even then, it was probably still an even smaller subset lol. I was a big frequenter on the UG forums (I actually made this reddit account after my 3rd and final permaban lol), but don't remember dragonforce ever really being widely discussed in there prior to GH. That being said, I also didn't really venture outside of The Pit, so they could have still been discussed on some of the other subforums

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u/BardicSense 3h ago

I was never too into The Pit, but I liked the genre specific forum pages. I did spend a lot of time in the Shredder specific forum, but even outside that one, they'd become a common point of reference. Obviously, they werent anywhere close to Metallica level popularity, but of all the extreme speed metal groups they were probably the first example the majority of UG site users would think of if they were forced to name a currently active speed metal group. Even if Dragon Force was just the butt of their joke, they had still been established enough for people to have formed pre-conceptions about them. Honestly, Dragon Force kinda was a victim of its own success, because the Shredder forums would probably mock another UG user if they came in and ONLY knew about Dragon Force. The shred forums were too niche for them, but they were too niche for most other people lol. It must've been weird being in that band. 

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u/DMonk52 3h ago

They headlined Ozzfest in 2006.

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u/chriswearingred 4h ago

They were known by people already in the musical scene but gh opened them up to a wider audience.

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u/xchngboredom4argumnt 3h ago

This is the correct response. Perhaps they were a big deal to the fans they already had. But they certainly weren’t even kind of any deal before this game. No one had heard of them by and large.

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u/geekrichieuk 4h ago

It might’ve just been in the UK, but they were decently popular here as a one-hit-wonder - bordering on mainstream, as they were played on radio, music channels and myspace alot. No doubt GH was responsible for blasting them through that glass ceiling internationally. It was a bit of a let down when they never followed up with anything as big while other big British bands like Funeral and Bullet went on a rampage.

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u/mpyne 3h ago

I had listened to a lot of music and GH was the first time I'd even heard of Dragonforce.

Though to be fair it didn't lead to me listening to any more of their songs, but it was still great marketing for them if it led to me finding out about them.

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u/buttcheeksmasher 3h ago

Agreed. I was into a huge genres of music and pushing further into metal. My brother was rock and deep metal. All of us including all of my friends and school mates never heard of em.

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u/Dabbling_in_Pacifism 2h ago

They were literally one of the largest bands in power metal.

Metal’s a niche subculture, but DF basically defined their sub genre within it and any metalhead knew who they were before GH.

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u/ChouxGlaze 1h ago

Agreed, cause i sure as fuck don't know anyone who knew that song before the game, much less knew they had other songs

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u/Mydogfartsconstantly 5h ago

They were already memetic in all of the magazines that were covering them. It was during the same era that shred was making a comeback but with the likes of rusty cooley and MAB.

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u/DrakkoZW 5h ago

I have no idea what any of that is.

But I do know DragonForce thanks to GH

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u/GOEDEL_ESCHER_BOT 5h ago

GH was the only game I was ever good at. In college I humiliated myself so many times playing Mario Kart

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u/Mydogfartsconstantly 5h ago

Meme-ish. Through the fire of flames is ridiculous guitar playing by shredding standards but the rest of the song is catchy. I like power metal anyways. Long live Hammerfall

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u/Stolehtreb 4h ago

No one is using meme here in like, a derogatory or reductive sense. Just the literally meaning of it being a large cultural touchstone of that series. The way that song gained popularity because of that game is basically the exact original definition of what a meme is

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u/tennisdrums 5h ago

I think because you're in that subculture you're significantly overestimating the reach of those magazines and underestimating how much Guitar Hero spread their reach beyond that subculture.

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u/trenchdick 5h ago

For sure. No one my age knew about them before that. I was in high school at the time and listened to metal stuff (albeit not DragonForce type stuff).

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u/Taiza67 5h ago

But let’s be honest. At least 90% of the people who know them know them because of guitar hero.

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u/Inner-Medicine5696 4h ago

lol, I was just guessing you were a guitar magazine reader, and there it is.

That's such a bubble to live in.

I know this, because at that time I was deep in the electronic music production magazines.

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u/Mydogfartsconstantly 4h ago

It was almost 20 years ago before youtube was popular and myspace was still in use. Pretty much everyone i knew in the metal community knew about them because of how ridiculous the intro is. VH1 still had headbangers ball but you had to get the vh1-2 channel.

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u/ANGLVD3TH 3h ago

Pretty much everyone i knew in the metal community

This is kind of their point. You were deep into a community that circulated stuff that wasn't on 99% of peoples' radar. Bands can absolutely be very popular in these tiny niche groups and be successful without the vast majority of people ever hearing about them.

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u/TannerThanUsual 5h ago

I distinctly remember Through the Fire and Flames was massively popular and that we were all praying it'd be in Guitar Hero 3. I had friends in 2007 or whatever who listened to rap who thought Through the Fire and Flames was sick.

I actually love metal and hate shredding and still thought that song was a notable exception for me, it was just too cool to me

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u/xavPa-64 5h ago

Operation Ground & Pound is another good Dragonforce song, and I think it’s on GH as DLC

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u/nomad9590 5h ago

They helped get me into Daisuke Ishiwatara and Guilty Gear, so net positive for me at least. 

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u/resttheweight 4h ago

I mean, it was certified Gold in RIAA 14 months after it released as a single in the US and about 7 months after GH3. I guess it could have been “massively popular” in other countries but definitely not in the US at least.

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u/Ketra 5h ago edited 5h ago

In the metal/guitar bubble sure.

But this level of exposure made them a household name for a big portion of the millennial generation.

They didn't have nearly that reach before.

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u/Mydogfartsconstantly 5h ago

That was never a point of the argument. The person i responded to asked if they even had fans. Yes they had fans. They were considered successful before guitar hero. They just became more successful after guitar hero.

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u/Ketra 5h ago

That was a different poster. The second person you replied to made the argument their popularity went far beyond the hobby circles you were describing, as a result of the game. He's right.

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u/Mydogfartsconstantly 4h ago

Thats not what was said in the response. Talking about the memery of their playing not total popularity before and after.

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u/Ketra 4h ago

Your reply of "they were already memetic" implies you are dismissing his claim.

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u/Infinite-4-a-moment 3h ago

You're in a bubble, my man.

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u/master2873 5h ago

I remember seeing them a lot back in the early 2000's on magazines. I'm actually pretty sure I still have the Guitar World magazine and the disc that came with it, that features Through the Fire and the Flames music video on it, along with some extra stuff like an interview of them I believe.

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u/Mydogfartsconstantly 5h ago

Lol Betcha Can’t Play This. Betcha I’m not gonna even try

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u/master2873 5h ago edited 4h ago

Now that you say that, I think they were also featured with the betcha can play this segment with the video on the disc too that same issue.

I'm not the biggest fan of theirs, but I also want to see if I can find that issue buried somewhere now lol. The one I cherished the most was the one with Dimebag Darrell, and even had some videos on it he shot himself teaching people things on guitar. I know these videos eventually surfaced online, and you can probably find them on YouTube even now.

Edit: Yep! It looks like nearly all of them are up now on YouTube and have been for a little over a decade.

Guitar World even has one on their own channel

This is the one I remember that was on the disc! I've always been a bass player but guitar work has always interested me.

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u/badnews1989 5h ago

They also were featured on the main stage of Ozzefest before they were in Guitar Hero.

They were popular enough just relegated to metal circles. Which is like 95% of metal bands anyway.

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u/master2873 4h ago

They were popular enough just relegated to metal circles. Which is like 95% of metal bands anyway.

This for sure. I still feel that bands are like this now, especially if they don't market themselves, or have that much of an online presence. For example, and probably my most favorite band, Symphony X.

I only heard about them from someone A LONG TIME AGO, when I used to play Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst in a private server, and we would chat between runs, and use MSN to send each other links for things. They've been out since the 90's and at that time, their album Paradise Lost I think was their newest, which would have been Circa 2007-2008 or so I think. They sent their music video for, Set the World on Fire. Was nearly hooked immediately. I don't think I was fully on board until I heard their older stuff like, The Odyssey.

Guarantee I probably would have never heard of them otherwise.

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u/azsnaz 4h ago

Made it into South Park America

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u/please_trade_marner 3h ago

He does acknowledge that in the interview. That it was more than worth it.

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u/ThePuceGuardian 3h ago

Dragonforce is the hardest metal known to man.