Fans of the hardcore punk scene will undoubtedly recognize Refused, a Swedish band who’s been playing off and on since the early 1990s. They’ve served as inspiration for groups ranging from Linkin Park to Paramore. Their last full album, The Shape Of Punk To Come, has slowly earned a reputation as a classic. Where does a band go from there? Apparently, video games.
CD Projekt RED announced back in July 2019 that Refused would be performing as SAMURAI in Cyberpunk 2077, doing all the musical work with lead singer Dennis Lyxzen handling Johnny Silverhand’s vocals while Keanu Reeves would be handling all the regular speaking and acting work. In today’s Night City Wire stream, members of Refused talked about the process of taking on the mantle of a fictional band and trying to perform as a fictional character.
Lead singer Dennis Lyxzen waxed poetic about the process. “I wanna write these lyrics myself. It’s kinda interesting to get into the mindset of who is this character and what would they write about and what’s their agenda,” he said. “He’s like the future version of us.”
Drummer David Sandstrom summed the process up more succinctly. “It’s been a mind***.”
Recording work for the songs seems to have taken place at Cobra Studio in Stockholm and Parasit Studio in Umea. Assisting the band was CD Projekt RED’s English Adaptation Director Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, which Lykzen noted was different because of the director’s knowledge of how the character is supposed to be sounding compared to what the recording take captures. “It’s been a bit, at times, frustrating,” he said with a laugh.
In parallel with the stream today, the track “A Like Supreme” has just gone up on Soundcloud. This joins “Never Fade Away,” “Chipping In,” and “The Ballad of Buck Ravers,” all of which will be appearing in the game.
