So, I often explain to people that when I go to conventions, when I do special appearances. The least important thing I do, the last priority is actually gaming. It’s everything else that creates the good fortune that I’ve had and the appearance I make at these events.
I gotta tell you I love your Ricky’s hot sauce. It tastes amazing. Can you tell us about how you formulated that?
Yeah, it was way back, let’s go into the eighties, and I had this obsessive personality that was probably formed by gaming and an idea of pushing and wanting to be the best, wanting to excel, wanting to do what other people couldn’t do. And I was, say, 20 years old, and how was I gonna channel that energy?
In our family business, the main item on the menu was chicken wings. The main item on chicken wings is hot sauce. And I did have help from a much older gentleman. And he said to me, “I’ll help you make a hot sauce better than any hot sauce in the world.” And I just trusted him. I relied on him. I took what he helped me create, and then at a later time, I enhanced it even further. But without a doubt, it was based on the knowledge and the experience that he gave me.
But it was the obsessive personality from gaming that drove me and still drives me in that direction. And so that’s my real job. That’s what has actually given me the good life or success that I’ve had. Again, the gaming is extra because I have something to fall back on. Just as I was speaking of earlier.
It’s very cool. There was a lot made in The King of Kong about this, but how do you feel today about Steve Weibe?
I say let’s take away the time from COVID until now because a lot of things haven’t restarted, and I don’t know if anybody has seen Steve Weibe since then.
But let’s go Prior to that, I would normally see him about once a year and I would see him at an event. And at those, we were very cordial. I don’t think we ever had a negative word.
“Yeah, don’t get used to Arcades and Love Songs. I’m gonna go back to the bad guy soon.”
In fact, there were times when my son crossed paths, not with his sons but with some of his students. My son went to West Point, and Steve Weibe’s students were also at West Point. So, boy, I think it was 2018. I did a little something with Steve to honor the two students at West Point, my son and his students. And the old joke was, if we’re sending kids to West Point, we’re doing something a little better than Donkey Kong.
That was the old humor about it. We cross paths, and we have a little more in common because of the example I gave you.
It’s cool to see a different side of you in Arcades and Love Songs. Is there anything else people should know about you that they don’t know?
Yeah, don’t get used to the Arcade and Love Songs. I’m gonna go back to the bad guy soon. I have some opportunities coming up, and I guess sometimes the film people think it’s more fun to be bad than good. It’s more fun to be the antagonist rather than the pacifist.
But there’s some opportunities coming up and there’s a lot of inquiries that are being made as far as gaming conventions and such guest appearances, and I haven’t done many of those lately because we’ve been so busy with filming. We’ll see what happens.
We were supposed to go to the Netherlands. Back to England, back to Australia. We were supposed to go to Japan. To be honest, everything is always a choice of conflict when it comes to a schedule. Always. Not just the schedule of the gaming world, but the schedule of life. Movie producers used to gimme a hard time because they’d have something scheduled and I’d say I’m not gonna be there. And they’d go, why not? Because my son has a football game that day. You can’t miss your son’s football Match. You can’t miss one game. I said, not one. There’s no price tag on it. And I’m so glad I had that attitude. But now my son’s older and now my time’s more free. So, we’ll see what the future brings.
That’s awesome. Definitely family first. Arcades and Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day will be available on Global TVOD and digital on June 9th. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
June 9th. I’ll be in town. I can say that it accurately follows Walter’s life, but more so, it follows his attitude. It follows his outlook on life. It follows his positive attitude that everything will be fine, and he keeps moving forward. It really does. He’s always like that. I like the fact that it goes and starts all the way even before video games, and it goes long after video games.
It’s a beautiful thing to see. It really is. Everyone should see this movie. Thank you so much, Billy.
All right, sir, you are appreciated. Thanks.
