Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad Nerds Out on Nintendo, Death Metal

The Black Dahlia Murder's Trevor Strnad admits it. He's a dork when it comes to old school Nintendo games and old school death metal. During a recent chat with Noisecreep, just days before the band were to embark on this year's RockStar Energy Mayhem Festival with Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth, Job for a Cowboy, and more, Strnad was packing his bags, and told us one essential tour item for him is his Nintendo DS.

"But I have this, like, aftermarket memory card thing where you can put a 1,000 different emulators on it and stuff," he says. "I'm kind of obsessed with that thing. I play Nintendo all the time. I'm basically stuck in the Nintendo age. Super Nintendo and Genesis are as about advanced as I want to go."

What's his least favorite title? "Some Transformers game that they only released in Japan, and it was the worst," he says. "I know why it didn't come out here. You instantly died. It's like, 'What the f---?'"

He says he loves playing "Adventure Island 2" and an old Japanese version of "Splatterhouse," and while he's out there on the road, with the band, he's always hopping in and out of thrift stores, looking for old school Nintendo cartridges. "I'm just a nerd still, and this band has enabled me to take it to the fullest, because metal is the thing I nerd out on the hardest," he says.

Strnad has a massive metal CD collection he says he's constantly trying to build. "Anything that has to do with death metal from 1988 to 1996...usually that's my window," he says. "I will buy any CD. It doesn't matter if the band can hardly play. If it's a piece of history, I'm there. It's my ultimate vice. I'm, like, an eBay lunatic. I am the guy who outbid you on eBay for the Adramalek CD."

While Strnad's pledged his allegiance to Nintendo (he's even got a Wii he hardly ever plays), he did criticize the gaming giant for one moment in its history: "The Robot thing."

He is, of course, referring to R.O.B., the Robotic Operating Buddy, that was an accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in 1985, and Strnad was not a fan.

"Nintendo's had a couple of bad ideas, and that was one of them," he says. "The robot looked great, and of course, every little kid when it came out was like, 'Oh my God it's a f---ing robot that moves!' The two or three games associated with it were bulls---, and all the robot did was pick up these little circles, turn, and stack them. Are you kidding me, dude?"