The 2010s saw a Renaissance of avant garde black metal in the U.S. and those of you who lived through it are right now either having fond memories of discovering some of your now favorite underground artists or having flashbacks from your time serving in the great Keyboard Wars. We’re not here to fan those (mercifully) spent flames. It is, however, a proven fact that black metal in America was growing more distant from its origins in church-burnt European forests and embracing its dystopian urban and suburban surroundings, full of new evils from which it could plumb (you can learn all about it from USBM: A Revolution of Identity in American Black Metal by Daniel Lake). By chance, a vinyl die-hard from Wisconsin with roots in the hardcore and metalcore scenes would become one of the greatest enablers of this new wave of darkness. Adam Bartlett—founder and sole member of the indie label known as Gilead Media—has contributed in no small part to the rise of now underground darlings as Imperial Triumphant, Thou, Mizmor, Portrayal of Guilt, Krallice, Yellow Eyes and several more. And despite such success stories having originated from his roster, Bartlett still finds himself the sole member of what he describes as his “hobby”—one that he now only finds time to work on in the middle of the night after full days of working at one of the two record stores he owns in his home state.
Full disclosure: I (Michael) first became friendly with Bartlett at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic after being invited to a Discord server run by he and his wife to play some Overwatch. In that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to consider him a good friend, one with whom I spend time with most nights commiserating about music and being exceptionally obnoxious in whatever game we find ourselves playing. With his work schedule consuming the lion’s share of his time, online gaming has been a way for him to blow off some necessary steam and stay connected with the outside world. Bartlett is no slouch when it comes to gaming, having accrued thousands of hours of playtime in just a handful of titles alone including Rust, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Hunt: Showdown. Despite the frequency of our time together, the two of us at Kill Screen were eager to delve deeper into his thoughts on gaming and why—with so little free time—it’s still such an important part of his life. Below is the result of our 1-hour conversation with the label head. Stop worrying about your pre-order tracking numbers and start worrying about tracking your KD ratio.
What was your first gaming experience?
It’s been such an integral part of my development as a human, I can’t even remember what the first thing is. I just remember going to the video store on Friday nights. We didn’t own a console; we were too poor. Our family would rent the console and rent games. There’s that period of a year where all the memories probably go together. We’d go to the local video rental store, get an NES or Sega [Genesis] for the weekend and get a couple games. I remember playing Rampage with my mom a lot; that was super fun. We’d always get games at first that my parents probably thought would be fun, too.We’d play games at my relatives’ houses a lot, because they all had consoles. I’d be playing Super Mario or I’d watch my cousins play Tecmo Super Bowl, which I thought was kind of lame.
Oh, fuck! You know what we did have before that, actually? We had a ColecoVision. That’s what we had before we starting renting consoles. I would play the football game on there where you could just run the same play every time and get a touchdown. I’d win games 120 to nothing and it was stupid. And then the Pitfall game for ColecoVision. There was one other space travel game where you’d fly a ship and land on these planets and go through these little recharge ports to keep your fuel level up. I have no idea what it’s called. But those were the first games I played before we started renting the NES and the Sega and stuff like that. Those were sick. And I think that was a hand-me-down from my parents’ friends. They had gotten an NES, so they’re like, “Why the fuck do we need a ColecoVision?,” and gave it to us.
In kindergarten or first grade, we’d play games at school. We had a new computer lab of Apple IIGS computers or whatever they were. They had a file system server set up, so we’d log in and play games. It was sick. And all on blue screen menus, you know? It was super primitive.
Did your parents also share the enthusiasm for games?
Not to the degree by today’s standards, you know? They did play games once in a while. But it was definitely for me and my brother. Sometimes they’d jump in and play and they’d have fun with it, give us some input on some games that looked fun to rent. They couldn’t get us to stop playing, even if they wanted to play. [Laughs] They actually got us our own little 16” T.V. for the other room—which was a big deal for us to have a second T.V.—so that my brother and I could just play games while they were watching movies or whatever. They didn’t have a chance.
What have you been playing lately and, more importantly, what have you been enjoying lately?
I haven’t been having a lot of fun playing shit lately. It’s hard to say. I’ve been playing a lot of Hunt: Showdown, Rust, Overwatch 2. Overwatch is out of habit. There’s still some really fun games to be had on there but it’s kind of at the end of the night because there’s nothing else to do and I’m sick of playing all the other shit. Every winter, we go through a Rust phase because it just seems like the time of year where you’re hunkered down and you just feel like grinding for resources and stressing out over our base getting raided. Hunt, I’ve kind of backed off a bit because I’ve been having some performance issues in that game that remind me of the [PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds] days, so it’s not been super fun. But when that game works, it’s sick. But there’s a lot of desynch and hit reg issues that I’ve been experiencing on there that make it not as fun. Other people that I play with have been having problems, too. I’ve been going back to Back 4 Blood a lot because there’s been some new maps on there that I haven’t played.
I reinstalled Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time since it came out because they’ve changed that game a lot, so it’s actually fun now and actually looks good. I didn’t get very far in the first place, but it’s not just easy mode. You can’t just walk into an area and start shooting everybody. It kind of reminds me of The Witcher 3 in that regard. No matter what level you are in Witcher 3, if you go into a region with guards and try to fight them, they’re gonna fucking kill you. They’re always going to be a level too high, so you can’t just run around stomping people like [Grand Theft Auto] or whatever. It’s kind of fun in that regard that you can’t just run around killing everybody; you’re going to get your ass kicked. So I like that there’s some consequence to your actions. You actually have to be careful in certain circumstances.
That’s kind of the bulk of what I’ve been playing lately. I feel like it’s sort of a boring array of stuff just because I have so many hours in most of those games. There hasn’t been too much new stuff.
You and I [Michael] are on Discord most nights. What is it about online multiplayer games that has you coming back, even though you face these frustrations?
It’s the social aspect, really. I don’t do shit in real life. I don’t go out. It’s mostly because mine and my wife’s work schedules are so demanding, both running businesses. We get home late, we eat dinner late, I relax for a while. I probably have more work to do, so I’m gonna be on the computer doing work shit. So a lot of the times we’re in between the queue of a game, I’m doing work anyways. It’s something I can do to break up a little bit of having to work on stuff and also have some social time; also feel like I get to do something.
It’s difficult sometimes for work brain and social brain or game brain to coexist. Behind the screen where I’m trying to have fun is the screen where I can’t have fun. [Laughs] It can be a little tough sometimes, but it’s better than never talking to anybody or never doing anything. And I feel like a lot of that kind of started from pandemic time. That’s how we got to know each other.
In terms of social stuff, the pandemic was fine for me. I kind of like having a good excuse to not go do shit. [Laughs] Obviously I’m glad that my fucking retail business can operate—my record store [Eroding Winds Record Shop]—and that bands can go on tour and all that shit. Obviously that stuff’s inarguably better. But the social aspect for someone like me that didn’t like doing shit in the first place…
There’s 7 or 8 of us in there. Come and go as you want, jump into a game with other people or don’t. Just hang out in there and hear other people’s voices so that you know other people exist. That’s it. There’s no real social pressure outside of us sweating over a game.
What percentage would you say is online multiplayer versus single-player?
I’d say that probably 80% or more of the stuff that I play is multiplayer just because we have such a large group of people that play all sorts of different games that are rotating throughout our Discord any given night. There’s always people looking to play shit. I’ll start the night by just sitting in there doing work because my wife is playing something or someone will be streaming a game in there that they’re playing, so I’ll just have that on on the corner of my display while I’m working. But then people see that and they show up and they’re like, “Hey, who wants to get into this?” On the rare instance where there’s nobody in there, I’m usually doing work shit. Sometimes I’ll be running Witcher or running Cyberpunk when I do get to play. I have two full playthroughs on Witcher. The way people are about Souls games, that’s my Witcher 3. I’ll just keep playing it. I’ll just keep doing a New Game+, New Game+++ every time.
Would you say Witcher 3 is your top at least story game of all time?
No. The Last of Us is the best story game of all time, I think, but I do not want to replay it. When I first played Last of Us, it was the Christmas the PS4 came out, so the PS3 was cheap and they had a bundle with the console, Last of Us and [Batman: Arkham Origins]. $199 on Black Friday weekend! I started playing Last of Us that night; I finished playing Last of Us Monday morning at 9 am. Two sessions. It was 10-hour and 11-hour sessions. So when I finished playing Last of Us—not knowing anything about the story outside of, like, post-“apocalyptic infection”—it was like I just got done reading my new favorite book. I just spent 20 hours in two and a half days to get through that story. I think that’s the best story game that’s ever been made for my money.
What about The Last of Us Part II?
I think Last of Us Part II is a great sequel, but Last of Us Part I is a once-in-a-lifetime game. You can’t do it again. I don’t think that game can be improved on. Last of Us II was great, I had fun playing it. I had some mixed feelings about the ending, even though I overall thought it was great. You remember watching [The Lord of the Rings:] Return of the King for the first time and it faded out 15 times and you’re like, “Jesus, fuck, when is it gonna end?” I had a little bit of that with Last of Us II, I’m not gonna lie. I kind of wish it would have ended a little sooner than it actually did. But during the final scene, I was like, “Pretty worth it.” I don’t think there’s room for improvement from Last of Us I. It was too perfect to me.
I [Michael] know there’s at least one game where you have 1,000+ hours in it. What’s the game that you think you have the most time sunk into?
I’d say it’s probably Rust because when you really get into a Rust playthrough, or a Rust wipe, you’re in on it. I’ve been playing that game for six years. I have 1,500 hours in Rust. 1,500 is kind of, like, you’re an average Rust player. Anything under 500 hours in Rust, you’re new at the game, it seems like.
It’s interesting in that PC games have that kind of extra value. As much as I [James] enjoy certain story-driven titles, once you play it a few times, you know what’s happening. You’re not gonna get up to that 1,500 hour mark.
Yup! Exactly. With a game like Rust, which I think we got for $10 when it was in early access. Every time there’s a wipe—however frequently the servers decide that’s gonna be—it’s a brand new map, procedurally-generated. Same sort of regions, but it’s all laid out totally differently. The player base is probably gonna be a little bit different. The experience changes every week or every couple of weeks. Even though the grind is always the same, it creates a different gameplay experience every time. You always find a new place to build your base or new people that you want to beef with and raid or whatever, new areas that you want to try and loot heavily, different PvE objectives you want to try and obtain and defeat. It makes it easy to sink a lot of time into it. There’s a lot to do.
Not too frequently, but you’ve definitely shared some gaming opinions and gaming highlights on the Gilead Media Twitter. Have you ever gotten much of a response from that?
Not really. I don’t think a lot of people that follow it are super into gaming. I don’t have anything super entertaining that I share on there, either. It’s just funny shit sometimes. If I’m really hyped on a game, I’ll share a little video clip. I don’t want to create gaming content, either.
You don’t want to engage with those people. [Laughs]
I don’t want to engage with anybody, but especially with the Internet gaming audience, for sure. You know what people are like in online games. I don’t want to talk to you for fucking 15 minutes in an Overwatch match, let alone ever again outside of that. [Laughs]
Have you been able to bond with any bands on your roster about gaming?
Enrique [Sagarnaga] from the Silver—who also plays in Crypt Sermon and Daeva—he and I played games a lot historically. He hasn’t been playing as much at night lately, though, so we’ve kind of been missing out on that. I also haven’t been playing a lot of the new [Call of Duty:] Warzone, because I don’t like it. Also, he’s exceptionally good at Call of Duty multiplayer, so the lobbies that he gets, I’m the one that can’t get a fucking kill because he’s so much better at it than I am. And I was heavy into the first Warzone. Like, I was in it on the first Warzone. I have 1,000 hours just playing the first Warzone game and, holy shit, the new Modern Warfare II multiplayer makes me feel like a fucking boomer. He and I have played a lot of games together, all through the release date of Warzone I all through the death of that game, pretty much.
There’s some of the other bands on the label that I’ve played with. Dudes from Portrayal of Guilt, dudes from Forn. Some of the dudes from the Minneapolis-area bands that I’ve worked with, I’ve played games with them. A lot of the other ones I talk to about games. The dude from Mizmor [A.L.N.], he and I talk about games a lot, [but] there’s not multiplayer stuff that we both play together. Eric from Northless, he actually plays a lot of Rust, so we’ve been playing together. I’m sure there’s others that I can’t think of off the top of my head, but those are some of the ones that I know for sure.
What’s the required [kill/death ratio] to be signed to Gilead?
[Laughs] Shit. I’m gonna have to come up with one. I’m gonna have to come up with a baseline KD, baseline SR for comp in Overwatch.
Minimum low gold in Overwatch. Minimum 2.0 KD in Warzone.
Dude, a 2.0 in Warzone is fucking nuts.
I [Michael] don’t play Warzone. [Laughs]
Good! Good. You shouldn’t.
Any games that you’re looking forward to in 2023?
I’m real bad at being excited about games before they come out. The couple of times that I have been, it’s burned me. There were five of us in the [Discord] channel when Cyberpunk came out. We’re like, “Alright, let’s all get on tonight. We’re gonna make our characters.” I spent 45 minutes or whatever making a character and then you never fucking see your character [model] outside of a 2-second loading screen. It doesn’t matter at all, pretty much, who your character is. The game ran at, like, 40 frames on a pretty good computer at that time. It was just a nightmare.
And then that game No Man’s Sky. That game on release date, I was so hyped up for that and it just was such a let down. I’ve heard that game is good now, too, but I have not reinstalled it to try. Honestly, I usually wait or find out about games after. I didn’t play Witcher 3 until 3 years after it came out. I didn’t play Overwatch until a few months after it came out because a friend told us it was great. Rust was out in early access before we started playing it. One of the first games that really got me back into PC gaming—after playing a lot of Doom when I was a kid—was Team Fortress 2, and I played that well after it came out. I kind of rely on other people to get me into shit. I’ve never played any of the Souls games. I love watching people play them, I think it’s super fun to watch. I don’t think they’re for me.
I have one buddy of mine that has gotten me into most of these games. I know for a fact if he tells me he loves a game, it will be a great game. He’s batting 1000, I never have to second guess any game that he tells me to play. I will literally buy shit just because he says he loves it if he’s excited about it. I get too much in the cycle of just playing shit that I have to get too amped up about a lot of new games until I have someone that is real to me that exists in my world that’s not just a fucking content creator somewhere. Someone I actually know tells me they love a game and why; that’s usually what gets me excited about a game more than anything else. Last of Us II was probably the last game where I was like, I’m buying this the day it comes out and I’m fucking playing it the day it comes out. And it was worth it, obviously.
Were you playing on a PC when you were younger, grabbed some consoles a little bit later and then came back to PC?
A buddy of my dad’s showed us early on when I was a kid how to run Doom and Duke Nukem and stuff like that. I actually recently found a sheet of shit written with a typewriter of all the Doom cheat codes and all the key binds. That was one of my favorite periods of playing games. There were some other weird games that were just free games on Windows that I used to play—some car racing game and shit—but Doom, obviously for everyone our age, is an integral, defining game of our past.
Once the PlayStation 1 came out, that changed the fucking world for gaming, I feel like. PC gaming was more difficult and more expensive back then. It’s not as easy as today where you can just buy a system that’s ready to play every game that you could possibly want and there’s all these launchers that just make it so easy. Which is great, but back then you had to know how to run a computer. You had to use MS DOS launch prompts and shit like that. It wasn’t as easy. I think of it as the golden era of consoles—N64 into Playstation 1. I never played any Xbox games at all, but that period right around then. The Sega Dreamcast was sick when it came out. There was all this sick stuff happening with consoles around that time that I just didn’t give a shit about playing games on PC. So it was a lot of N64, PlayStation, PlayStation 2 shit for years and years and years, until 2007 when Half Life 2 came out and TF2 and Portal. [The Orange Box] is what got me back to playing games on a PC, for sure, and then Left 4 Dead after that. After that I was super Valve fanboy until they stopped making games and Steam just started blowing up. It started where you could just get anything on Steam. The only time I turned on the console in the past 15 years or whatever was to play Witcher, Last of Us and a couple other games. But mostly all PC.
You have a Nintendo Switch, yeah?
Yeah, that’s true. The GameCube was fucking sick. I played a lot of GameCube and a lot of Wii—a lot of the other stuff that was kind of between the PlayStation [1995] and 2007-ish. A lot of the consoles in there were really fun, too. I’ll still play Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch. God, what was the GameCube Legend of Zelda game? Twilight Princess? I got really heavily into that. That was a fucking great game.
What can we look forward from Gilead in 2023?
The LP for the Sunrise Patriot Motion album [Black Fellflower Stream] that the band self-released last year. It’s guys from Yellow Eyes and Bambara doing weird Yellow Eyes-y black metal-inspired goth post-punk stuff, so that record fucking rules. It’s already out digitally, but we’re doing the vinyl for that. A new Pyrolatrous album—the New York City group that I’ve done a record for before—they have a brand new record. I’m doing vinyl for the most recent couple of Krallice records. A couple of debuts that I’m really pumped about: Kaldeket from Minneapolis—super melodic, intricate black metal with tons of synthesizers, so I’m really pumped on that—and the debut from Big Garden, which is a couple guys from Thou and some other sick dudes from New Orleans doing Hum ’90s alt-grunge worship with all clean singing. That record’s great, too. I’m trying to take it a little bit easy this year, but that’s the list.
Running two record stores and a label and saving animals…
And trying to have a personal life. It’s a bit much; who would have thought? [Laughs]
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