Las Vegas (CNN) -- Most people know international
recording artist Will.i.am (born William James Adams Jr.) as the
producer and front man for The Black Eyed Peas, the Grammy-winning group
that has performed at the Super Bowl and sold more than 18 million
albums worldwide.
But Will.i.am is also a huge gamer and techie. When it comes to
technology, he's much more than just a gear head. He actually visits
NASA for rocket launches and works with nonprofits such as FIRST (For
Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) to encourage kids
to build robots.
He also serves as Intel's director of creative innovation.
At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, Will.i.am
announced that he's doing a global tour with Intel to promote its new
Ultrabooks. Fans will be able to follow his journey as he visits 12
countries in 12 months recording music and filming his adventures. He
helped design the new willpower360 app, which allows viewers to
experience the Ultrabook Project from any angle.
And -- and! -- not only did Will.i.am help create one of the
top-selling music games this holiday season, Ubisoft's The Black Eyed
Peas Experience, he actually helped Microsoft design the Kinect for Xbox
360 technology that powers the dance game.
The man behind the games chatted with CNN about his love of video
games and tech at CES in Vegas. The following is an edited transcript of
that conversation:
CNN: What's a favorite memory of playing video games when you were young?
Will.i.am: We were poor. We couldn't afford video
games. So I would go to my friend Calvin and Douglas' house to play his
Nintendo or Markey's house to play the Atari 2600, Intellivision or
Colecovision. We'd always go to Markey's porch, and he used to have them
there. We had to pay 15 cents to play one of his games, whether it was
Pong or Combat. You remember Combat and having those graphics? Just
think about that. Wow!
CNN: What did you think of the music in those old-school games?
Will.i.am: I remember playing Donkey Kong and
Pac-Man and thinking, "Wow, who designed the audio for that?" Some guy
was like, "Oh, shucks. When Pac-Man eats the ghost should it be
booo-oomp!" I wonder what they were thinking when they made the audio.
CNN: Did game music influence you at all?
Will.i.am: I remember when Super Nintendo came and
then the graphics changed and that was a big leap because you saw Mario
from different angles. That was cool. I did a beat. I have a track where
I sampled that game. I have my hip-hop Mario underground music. That's
when he goes underground (in the game).
CNN: Did you play games as they got better over the years?
Will.i.am: Yeah. I remember Joust and then Q*BertC,
right with the graphics started getting better and then there was Pole
Position and Mike Tyson Punch-Out. That's when Nintendo started coming
in. I loved Duck Hunt. Do you remember Gyromite? What was that all
about? And then Zelda came out. That's when I was like it's all about
video games. Zelda. Did you save the princess yet? Did you get the
fairy? Where's the fairies at? Wow, that was like the dopest. And there
was that little pond that you had to go to get some more lives and
stuff. I loved that. I mean, that's my childhood from just video games.
CNN: What are you playing these days?
Will.i.am: My favorite game is Madden. That's it.
I'm a Madden addict. I go at it. I design my own teams. People online
always go, "I'm not playing you, you're a freaking cheater." And I'm
like, "What are you talking about? You can design your own team too. We
can just play with our own teams anyways."
CNN: Who's on your Madden team when you design them?
Will.i.am: Oh, I make names up like Little Whoop A**
or Little Speedy. I make a little short guy that runs really fast;
change his attributes and whatnot. I like big dudes, like 6-foot-2
quarterbacks. That's what I like doing. So that's why I play Madden.
CNN: Do you play any other games?
Will.i.am: I freaking love Grand Theft Auto. Don't
have me play that because I don't even do the missions. I just like to
see what I can do to make the cops come chase me and see if I can run
from them. But Madden's my favorite.
CNN: What was it like working on The Black Eyed Experience game?
Will.i.am: Two years ago, I would go up to Seattle
and consulted on Natal. That's what it was called before they coined it
Kinect. Project Natal. So I'd go up to Seattle and put in all the work,
when I finally saw the video game, I'm like, "Wow, that's what I was
consulting on?" And my group got the benefit off of all that flying back
and forth. I'd work with (Ubisoft) and say, "Oh, no, the dancing
shouldn't be like this. We should make it so once I sit down the avatar
shouldn't turn into a noodle. You got to fix it to like." And they'd
work on that. And I'm like, "OK, cool. Also, it should have some type of
gesture where the beat slows down and then the choreographer dance guy
instructor tells you what you're doing wrong. You should have it do
that. It should be real." And they'd work on that.
CNN: What impact have you seen your game have on fans?
Will.i.am: What I've noticed with BEP Experience was
it was the Christmas thing to do, it was the New Year's thing to do
when families got together. I read Tweets like, "Oh my gosh, I haven't
had that much fun with my daughter in years. I haven't had that much fun
with my wife in years. I haven't had that much fun with my brother for
years." When families come together and they're doing this Black Eyed
Peas experience with songs that they all know, it's great. It's a great
extension of the Peas. And it goes back to all the work I did going back
up to Seattle working on Code Natal, which is now Kinect. It's been a
great journey and I'm proud of the result.
CNN: What's your favorite piece of technology that you can't live without?
Will.i.am: Really I want to say my phone. I like my
phone because that's the thing, but really it's my laptop. I can Tweet
with my phone and I have all my addresses in it, but now it's backed up
to my computer. So if I lose my phone, I lose it. It has a code
(password) on it. Nobody's going to get into it. I just get a new phone
and download. It's really my laptop that I can't live without.
CNN: How do you use your laptop creatively today?
Will.i.am: I've been making music on desktops and
laptops for a long time now, so to use this Ultrabook, which is lighter
and offers better performance is great. I love DJing with it. I love
creating with it. If you imagine what it was like when Michael Jackson
was making music, we used to make music in studios and the music played
on the radio. Now you're making music on a computer and you listen to it
on the computer. So just the idea of that is amazing.
comment: I think that will.i.am is a very good singer thaat has exceeded himself, and I think that the Black Eyed Peas is a very good group. I think that it is good that Will.i.am is a solo singer, a group singer and a huge gamer techie. I think he is very smart and he can do a lot of different things. He has to dedicate a lot of time and effort to it. I think that it is good that he colaborate to produce the new ultrabooks and he also help to create one of the top selling music games this holiday season, Ubisoft`s The Black Eyed Peas Exerience for Xbox 360.
