We’re diving into the vibrant world of Doc Remedy, a creative force that seamlessly blends comic books, video games, and hip-hop.
The Origin Story
1st: To kick things off, Doc, could you share your origin story with us? Were you born and raised in Cleveland, or did you arrive later? What does living in Cleveland mean to you?
Doc Remedy: I wasn’t born here but have been in the Cleveland and surrounding areas since I was of age for school. I’ve moved around a lot as a kid with a younger sister and mostly a single mother trying to make things work, but my childhood was nothing short of fantastic. Regardless of uprooting schools often I always found friends and enjoyed things like comics, drawing and video games! I was technically born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and lived in a small trailer park, but we don’t need that popular parallel to my origin story, haha!
1st: Looking back, which came first for you: comics, video games, or hip-hop?
Doc Remedy: I was born in ‘83, so I was probably in kindergarten around the time I got into comics and video games. Hip-hop was a bit later for sure. I remember when the Marvel series 1 collector’s cards came out and I started to try to collect them because a small liquor store across the street carried the packs. I want to say by around that same time, 1st or 2nd grade, my grandmother spoiled us and got us a Nintendo with a few games and I would spend hours looking at the boxes, artwork in the booklets and other stuff the same way I did with the Marvel cards and a few comics I had. I vividly remember being enamored by the gold Legend of Zelda cartridge and thought it would be the best and most expensive game I’d ever own! I had a few comics and sequentially collecting them was hard, but I DID collect the Wizard magazines whenever someone could buy them for me. Those were my gateway to all the comics I liked and what was happening in each series!
1st: Can you walk us through the timeline of these passions and what initially sparked your interest in each?
Doc Remedy: It was the artwork, the stories, every character had so much to learn about. Not just comics, but my favorite games had lore that I loved as well, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Shadowgate, and games like those kept my imagination and love for art and storytelling running wild! I would try to draw my favorite characters from comics and games in heroic poses and even drew my own heroes and villains thinking I was going to be the next DC or Marvel when I grew up lol. The back side of the paper had their powers and origin story written down like the backs of the Marvel Series 1 cards did. So they all go back as far as my memory serves honestly.
Pro Marvel Issue #2
Today, these diverse interests have converged in your exciting project, Pro Marvel Issue #2.
1st: Let’s delve into that. What exactly is Pro Marvel Issue #2?
Doc Remedy: It’s an EP, a Marvel-themed collection of tracks and songs that came about from me wanting to bring life back to a single that I created in 2011 called Pro Marvel, which had both, lots of praise and complications after its initial launch. This is me revisiting it a second time, but differently and with a full package rollout! It’s really exciting!
The Significance of Comics
1st: You’ve been a comic book enthusiast since your early days. Now, with more life experience, what do comics represent for you?
Doc Remedy: Hope, humanity, morality, life lessons, love, all of that! Comics are a magnifying glass on society, carefully unraveling all the complex layers it has. Growing up people made fun of us comic book heads, thinking it was just cookie-cutter good guys with capes fighting bad guys and criminals, lol. The story arcs are far from that, we deal with death, loss, betrayal, unlikely friendships, government propaganda, technological advancements, etc. I absolutely love what they’ve become!
1st: “Hope, humanity, morality, life lessons, love, all of that!.” Could you elaborate on a specific comic book or storyline that particularly exemplifies one of these themes for you? What made it resonate so strongly?
Doc Remedy: I remember as a kid reading about the possibility that Ben Reilly (Clone Saga) was the actual real Peter Parker, and seeing how Peter Parker (who at the time was believed to be the clone) was the one that married Mary Jane with a child on the way. I recall a panel where Ben was struggling with it but decided he was destined to be Spider-Man, to let Peter retire and become a family man and a father and forgo his own happiness. I always thought that was super crazy and well written despite future story arcs. It showed his heroic duty! Other examples would be the constant friendship / rivalry between Xavier and Magneto, the dynamic is just so good! Humanity, love, morality, hope. So cool!
Merchandise and Audience Connection
1st: You’re offering cool physical merchandise, including limited-edition CDs with collector’s cards and distinctive shirts. What’s the concept behind these items, and what kind of connection do you hope to have with your audience through them?
Doc Remedy: The climate has changed so drastically with music and I feel like the success gauge and physical magic died as the tradeoff for the convenience and discoverability streaming music offers. Merch is still king, it’s the bread and butter for touring musicians and maintaining an active fan base. People that collect stuff, collect it with a passion. Gamers, sneaker heads, sports cards, funko-pops, horror film memorabilia etc.
Anything that has a market and has a large convention associated with it also has collector’s, people who like to own tangible products and be proud about it! I wanted to not miss that opportunity with a Marvel themed album, and knew I had to package physical items with something that had a lower manufacture cost, but also providing something original and worthwhile of collecting other than shouting to “stream me on Spotify and iTunes” to a crowd or social media page. So the artwork and collectors cards are a direct result of that! As far as cards themselves, I once again drew inspiration from the Marvel Series 1 cards in the look and design. The shirts are fun too, but the CD jacket and cards are so cool and people have already noticed! I’m truly humbled to have people that care enough to collect something I put out! That has always amazed me and makes me feel like there is an extra connection between me and them, instead of them just being someone who listened to a song.
1st: You talked about being drawn to the artwork in comic books. Can you recall a specific comic book artist from your early days whose style stood out to you? How did their visual storytelling influence you?
Doc Remedy: The first one that grabbed my direct attention as someone who was also drawing was Todd McFarlane for sure. The way he added the sketchy squiggly details, or things like his spaghetti webs that Marvel hated at first, but fans like me loved. I was really drawing a lot when he became popular at started doing Spawn. Of course others like John Byrne that had a very clean but classic comic feel from Marvel to DC, this guy was everywhere for many years! Huge influences among dozens of others really! Ditko, Joe Mad, Alex Ross!
The Backstory
Of course, like any compelling hero’s journey, there’s much more to this story. And it begs the question:
1st: How did we arrive at issue 2?
Doc Remedy: Long story short, after the Pro Marvel song was released in late 2011, people loved it, a podcast even used it for their theme song and it was soon after pulled offline by YouTube, where I then discovered there was a copyright strike due to an uncleared sample in the beat that I had used. That always bothered me because I felt it stunted the growth and potential of the song and I had to comply with the strikes terms (giving up publishing and monetization, manufacturing possibilities, etc.) and eventually had to re-upload it online, starting views and traction over. So, now we fast forward a bit to maybe 2020, I had first made another attempt at a “Pro Marvel part 2” sequel or successor (which I renamed Red Alert on this EP, using the same producer Pro Marvel had, my friend Hellah, this time using all analog gear, we’d be good!) and eventually decided to package them together as 2 Marvel themed singles, by just making a new beat for the original Pro Marvel and re-recording it. I didn’t want to call the new Pro Marvel a remix, so I gave it a comic like naming system and called the new rendition, Pro Marvel (Variant Cover). Thus the naming of the EP came about eventually as I slowly added a few more themed tracks to make the 2 singles into a short EP. That is how we got here, Pro Marvel Issue #2! It’s the second issued release of my Marvel themed musical endeavors!
1st: You mentioned being into comics around kindergarten and collecting Marvel Series 1 cards. Were there specific comic book characters or storylines from that early time that captured your imagination? What was it about them? How did these find their way into your lyrics?
Doc Remedy: There are so many! Maximum Carnage, Clone Saga, House of M, Dark Phoenix Saga, Infinity Gauntlet, Weapon X, World War Hulk, Spawn. I feel like comic lore in general just has so much inspiration you can draw from as a musician, especially an emcee! You can say stuff like “having the hardest bars like Wolverine”, or “spitting hot off the top like Ghost Rider”, “being worthy to hold a mic like it was Mjolnir”, it’s just endless.
ROM Hacks and Musical Endeavors
1st: Comics aren’t your only area of exploration; you’ve also ventured into video game ROM hacks, such as Orphan Moon. Can you elaborate on ROM hacks, tell us about your project, and discuss how your love for video games intersects with your musical creations?
Doc Remedy: Absolutely! For those who don’t know what a ROM hack is, it’s when you take the code from a video game (in this case NES) and edit or alter it. Old NES games have a huge following of people that make their own ROM hacks, mostly just graphical improvements or differences, but some way more complex. So I went back to the original Metroid game (I love the franchises lore) and made my own sequel ultimately that could be canon to the series If Nintendo every picked it up! I literally redrew every pixel in the game and rewrote the soundtrack, too, which was VERY challenging. For ROM hacking NES games, it’s not as simple as swapping out an mp3 or .wav file to change music.
Each game had its own sound processing engine and code, and the Nintendo system itself had no central audio engines. So you have to see how each games engine was built and write the music in their own coding language limited to using 4 channels; 2 synths (squares), 1 triangle (used for bass) and a noise channel (8-bit sfx). You can’t get fun and crazy, there are no polyphonic notes, and if it took up too much space it would crash the game when loaded! So THAT was hard! But another hacker broke down the audio engine and I used his notes, and eventually did it, I wrote new music for EACH stage!
When the 8-bit music was working and done, I rewrote all the music in my studio with real synths, guitar amps, and stereo orchestration! I know I can’t sell a Metroid ROM hack due to Nintendo IP, so I instead utilized the musical creation of mine as a release and called the soundtrack the Orphan Moon (Remastered Game Soundtrack) and that got me a lot of attention with certain circles. One gentleman even downloaded the game itself and loaded it on a real NES cartridge so I could play it on a real NES console (instead of via emulation) because he liked what I did so much! But yeah, I can’t speak much about where to get it, but there is a ROM hack online called Orphan Moon, that’s my Metroid game I literally hacked, redrew and put out myself as an amateur coder nerd guy! It was hopefully my first of many Video Game Soundtracks I do in my career as an artist and you can find that recomposed soundtrack on my website and all streaming platforms!
1st: What are some of your favorite video games from the old-school era, and what modern games excite you today?
Doc Remedy: As an old school gamer there were so many! Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man (I did a ROM Hack of that too, but it was way more basic and just an homage to my friend, Mega Ran, a very popular Nerdcore Rap artist), Final Fantasy (notably 1, 6, 7, tactics, 10), Castlevania, Shadowgate, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Street Fighter, Sonic, Mario etc. As far as more modern (ish) games, I like Marvel Rivals, The Returnal, Dead Cells, The Last of Us, The Final Fantasy 7 remakes, Metroid Prime Remaster (Switch) and many others. But I don’t have as much time to game as a business owner, husband and father, lol, so it’s slow progression for me.
1st: You successfully combined your love for Metroid with music in your Orphan Moon ROM hack. Are there other video game franchises or specific games you envision creating music for in the future? What draws you to those particular games?
Doc Remedy: I have an idea for a Super Metroid (SNES) ROM hack, but I haven’t dived into SNES game hacking yet, although the idea is great and shockingly an untouched story arc by Nintendo! Tell them to hire me, it’s what they need in the franchise! I’ve also love to be part of an RPG game one day even! Dark lore, religious undertones, maybe Enochian texts, the whole fallen angel, scribe of God thing; but that’s all just part of where the brain goes sometimes.
1st: As a producer yourself, how does your technical expertise shape your creative choices when crafting your own music?
Doc Remedy: I feel like as a producer, it has helped me as a song writer over the years because now I write certain elements like lyrics, chord progressions, instrument bridges and stuff like that with the production or mixing process in mind, knowing the final effects, or how the frequencies will carve out room for another instrument to lay over it. It’s super interesting. Other times I have the rhythm (even the percussive pattern of a rap) written before filling in the words. I don’t get to work on personal music much though because I’m the hired gun for so many other artists AS the producer or sound engineer. But it certainly changes my approach to writing music when I do! For example this Pro Marvel Issue #2 EP technically started in 2020 and it’s just now surfacing.
A Look Back at Doc Remedy’s Career :
Doc Remedy (emcee/producer)
As an accomplished emcee/producer, Doc Remedy has collaborated with a great roster of artists, including Ras Kass, Copywrite, Illogic, Fashawn (from Nas’ label), Seez Mics (Strange Famous Records), Planet Asia, Carnage the Executioner, Ayok (Grind Mode), M-Eighty, Sha Stimuli, Mykah 9, Mista Sinista (founding X-Ecutioners member) and many more.
FLASHBACK / SIDE STORY Heavy Underground (2015)
Heavy Underground was a notable group consisting of Big O and Doc Remedy.
1st: What was notable about Heavy Underground?
Doc Remedy: If I’ve ever been consistent about anything, it is diversifying my target market, haha. Heavy Underground was a side project for me, and my friend OCRBeats (formerly Big O) that took a more aggressive Underground hip hop and lyricism approach to it. The beats were heavy, the content was in your face about voicing opinions or our disgust for the state commercial rap music has transitioned into. A select few underground hip-hop heads would call it “real hip-hop” 😆. Ironically we did start a second project and plan to re-release that first album on my small boutique indy label. (Our first) was just independently released the first time and some edits need to be made just on the sheer ideology of growth as people since we created it. Great digging here!
FLASHBACK / SIDE STORY Scenic Route and the Sun Gods (2008)
is a creative collaboration between emcee/producers Doc Remedy & HellahMentals.
They’ve been described as bringing a “green grass approach” to hip-hop.
1st: What is a “green grass approach”?
Doc Remedy: For us, It is organic and natural! Having a green grass approach meant an honest approach, being independent, un-influenced by commercial trends and it meant low budget! Those projects were heavily built around the people in our circle during the making of each one and very collaboration heavy. Community minded, DIY, natural progression, organic music from the energy of those around us for each song and record. We got written up a few times in publications for those projects and had fun doing them! Hellah is the only guest producer on Pro Marvel Issue #2 btw! We shifted gears over the years with our Scenic Route and the Sun Gods releases and the past few have been instrumental albums but every released has been heavily themed as a whole album concept still, even as instrumental albums.
FLASHBACK and JUMP / SIDE STORY The Krypt (2001/2019)
The Krypt is a horror-influenced side project that showcases the talents of Doc Remedy and his longtime friend SpOoKy.
1st: Horror-oriented Hip-hop. Interesting. Tell us more, and what’s up with the ’01 – ’09 time jump?
Doc Remedy: Oh, yeah, wow, that is deep! I met SpOoKy in late 99 or early 2000 and we both loved Horror movies and listened to a HUGE range of music genres, rap, rock, punk, grunge, classic rock, a little metal, ect, including the super controversial band ICP (I saw him wearing a shirt at work, where we met). Back then they were a HUGE thing in Cleveland and truly united a lot of people just based off association alone. He made a song called Horror Movie mentioning and referencing all his favorite on screen characters and broke down the door for the then mostly metal and punk venues to let him start playing his Horror-influenced rap for the crowds, as an opener and headlining act eventually. During those early days, we had worked on demos but they never materialized into anything (like a CD).
For ME it felt forced to make music about Horror culture aside from loving Horror Movies, because it just wasn’t me and what I wanted to rap about, I was more impressed and in love with lyricism, punchlines, positive vibes, etc. We went our separate ways (musically) but kept in touch and we eventually made a few things together before deciding to get the band back together and we dropped a small EP called Bloodlines under our group name The Krypt with a few ground rules.
I’d incorporate Horror elements and culture but I would only do that with an emcee (lyrical) approach and under no circumstance would I be a Horrorcore rapper claiming to be a serial killer or anything like that. For example the opening track is themed that I was “battling other emcees” but with Poké balls, and when thrown characters from horror movies came out of them, which materializes in the second verse.
On another song I make fun of the common braggadocio trope of rappers saying “they eat emcees” and made a song called Eating Intellect that is zombie themed, and a play on what “eating emcees” could mean. So I had to dig deeper to let horror elements surface, but not just be gruesome and gory for the sake of loving horror films. I spend most my artistic energy building people up so that just isn’t me or how I operate socially. I do LOVE that album though and we have started a follow-up, but not sure what will come of it. Super hardcore digging there! Great topic to bring up!
FLASHBACK / SIDE STORY Prhymal Rage (2005)
1st: Tell us more about Prhymal Rage.
Doc Remedy: Prhymal Rage is a collective I started housing me and close friends I was working on music with (Hellah being the first), and others we gathered along our journey. It was never really a record label, but it often operated similarly is some ways. Basically it’s a bunch of solo and like-minded artists, emcees, producers and whatnot that frequently collaborate, promote and network together under the umbrella name Prhymal Rage. It has become like a stamp of approval, that you know what to expect, or that an event will be operating professionally.
We take pride in being big brother, helping and teaching other artists the ropes and maintaining that image. Ironically as we have all grown older, become enrolled into careers, families and other things we’ve been less active (as a collective) so moving forward, Prhymal Rage WILL finally be a small boutique record label. Pro Marvel Issue #2 is technically the first release since integrating into being a boutique label. Next some really cool things will be happening on the website to truly help independent artists navigate through this digital age. We started Prhymal Rage in July of 2005, so this is also year 20 for us! So many stories can be discussed with all we’ve experienced and done!
1st: Speaking of family, I had a question about your children, what is the song “Up From Here” about?
Doc Remedy: That song is about transitioning to the next step in life as an artist, father, husband, starting a small business, financial maturity, all of that. It was supposed to be for my first “solo” album as an actual emcee in over a decade in which my kids want to title “UP”, but Pro Marvel Issue #2 crept in lol. BUT that album is in the works slowly, my children have helped me immensely with that album both in conceptualization, sonic elements, rhyme challenges etc. It’s going to be me back at my roots, doing a traditional lyrical hip-hop style, but with a maturity I didn’t have the last time! I’m excited for it! I have a bunch of them ready to go too!
Doc Remedy on Hip Hop
TODAY
1st: You have a rich history in hip hop, a genre that holds diverse meanings for different people. What does hip-hop mean to you?
Doc Remedy: It’s culture, art and understanding. From the graffiti, Bboys, the art of lyricism and rhyming,
and the voice of the oppressed, it’s all packed into 1 with a punch. If a rock song speaks on a controversial topic they might do it in under 100 words. In Hip-Hop, some of these songs can get so dense and content rich, it’s like an entire book worth instead of reading just an epilogue! I’ve always been especially drawn to concept albums like Deltron 3030 (Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala), or albums with lots of musical influences and jazz roots like Blazing Arrow by Blackalicious. I could actually name 100+ others but that is a whole different convo! It’s freedom of speech, Hip-Hop is a way of life and it isn’t really supposed to be about what the commercial labels push; drugs, women, chains, material things. That’s just their attempt to market it and it doesn’t represent what people like me do 1 single bit!
1st: Hip-hop is more than just the music; it’s the power of words and lyrical expression. You pack a significant amount of substance into each song. What guiding principles do you adhere to when creating your music? How long have comic books been part of your music process?
Doc Remedy: Listen, comic books shaped me hardcore! Like Peter Parker who has hardwired rules to his internal character, I have that same logic with music. Even as an engineer and producer I have turned down countless jobs and potential clients! If it conflicts with the energy or what I ever want to be known for, my name will not be attached to it! That was my struggle with The Krypt all those years before finding the balance of entertainment, but not going too far from my spiritual core. I have always incorporated comic bars in my lyrics, since before the baby boom of the Nerdcore music genre (which we probably owe to my friend Mega Ran). I even reference it on the song “Red Alert” where I say, “Been rapping bout comics since I penned a verse, now everybody else just pretend they nerds”, which is 100% true! I have always had lines in my songs with comics or game references and other artists used to try to clown me for it for not being club or street enough. All good, this is who I have always been, truly! Just a guy that loves comics, games and hip-hop culture.
1st: You drew a parallel between your “hardwired rules” in music and Peter Parker’s character. Are there other comic book characters whose core values or principles have influenced how you approach your art, business, or life?
Doc Remedy: I think just drawing from many is the key. Parker, Murdock, Batman, Superman and Xavier all have a very poetic way of looking at the value of an actual life, and justice having layers and potential for retribution. Treating people of all walks of life as equal, sticking up for the little guy. It’s solid core principles for sure!
1st: You mentioned liking Marvel, DC, and Image. What are your top five titles or storylines from each company, and what makes them compelling to you?
Doc Remedy: Wow great question:
Marvel, no order…1. I love Scarlet Spider, so Clone Saga? 2. Superior Spider-Man was crazy seeing Octavius take the mantle! 3. Infinity Gauntlet was epic! He was OP! 4. Old Man Logan was cool, I loved how the suggested Wolverine’s power wasn’t healing, but survival! 5. Maximum Carnage, it took everyone to stop him!
DC, no order…1. Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller gave us the first GOOD dark Batman IMO. 2. Batman Year One, great origin retelling! 3. Watchmen, might be my favorite “team” or characters from DC. And the movie!!!!! 4. Kingdom Come was just beautiful! 5. Death of Superman, seeing that final blow uppercut from Doomsday! Still iconic!
Image, no Order…1. Spawn of course, I have / read the first 100ish or so. Love his story! 2. Spawn Blood Feud, was just gruesome! 3. Witchblade, loved the mythos and it was my first introduction to The Darkness if I recall! 4. The Darkness, the super cool anti-hero, I don’t remember too much of the actual comics but loved the art and I probably have like 15 variant covers for one of those issues alone, haha. His Darklings were the inspiration to 2 of the character cards in my Pro Marvel Issue 2 EP limited edition merch!
1st: Have you ever considered creating your own comic book or graphic novel that connects with your musical projects?
Doc Remedy: The thought has crossed my mind, I have a super cool concept on random notes over the years, scattered with a fresh take on super-heroes and origins of their powers that I’d love to explore further, but other than the story I strangely never conceptualized any specific characters (heroes) or given them names. I did come up with a cool race I called the Codarii though! Just lots of origin story stuff. None of it that connects to any music, but we shall see! Who knows!
1st: You have teamed up with a lot of talented people. What is the art of collaboration to you? How do you manage the complexities of working with so many others?
Doc Remedy: It has to be organic for 1, I can’t force it. I also like to make sure no compromises are made and all parties are 100% on board before releasing music. Over the years I’ve become big on sharing and splitting royalties properly, even if it’s pennies, it’s the proper way to do things and people respect me largely for that! My motto has become “We eat together, whether it’s ramen or steak!” but I also make sure others retain their own personal creativity and don’t try to dictate that as long as it falls within my moral code and rules. A few tracks slipped through the cracks in the past with things guests artists have said and it’s the reason they are harder to find or not on streaming platforms! Growth HAS to be part of the process and collaborators need to be aware of that!
1st: For those who are just discovering your music through this project, what can they expect from the overall experience?
Doc Remedy: Expect lyricism, someone who can rhyme with intricate patterns at times, super dense content, some bars you might not catch or get for the first dozen plays. I’ve always been known to get random messages from people that say they just caught or got a line or reference, or triple entendre. It’s part of who I am as an emcee! Also expect previous and future projects to NOT sound the same or be similar at all! I’ve done a piano instrumental album (Sad Boy Soundtracks) in promotion of mental health, the Orphan Moon game soundtrack, Pro Marvel, Horrorcore releases, underground hip-hop stuff, I’ve even ghost written battle rap bars for YEARS and made a few bucks doing that, I have explored cross genre elements and live / rock sounds etc etc. I just love being creative and exploring new markets because there are so many niche markets out there music can fit into and be associated with!
1st: You also have your own business. Could you share some insights into that and how it incorporates comic-centric cool elements?
Doc Remedy: I do, I run a small print company! I handle merch, flyers, banners, business cards, pocket folders, vehicle magnets, FDA compliant food product labels etc etc for a ton of small companies, independent and signed touring musicians, some notable national brands and startup businesses often. As far as integration with comic-centric elements, I’ve printed promo materials for indy comic runs, shirts, bookmarks, merch table clothes, banners etc. It keeps me connected to the source and grounded to the pulse of a lot of types of people, helping them with art work, seeing their designs, I love it!
1st: Where should readers go to find out more about any of the above?
Doc Remedy: Almost anything I’ve been associated with can be found on my website www.PrhymalRage.com and my print business is at www.theprintremedy.com – I stay busy, but I’m always easy to find and reach!
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