Our projects are grouped into multimedia franchises that are in various stages of development; some are in active, constant production, while others are still in the conceptual phase. Together they form an interconnected collection we call the SPS-Verse.
Nobody's Hero
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Our 2016 second album Nobody’s Hero is a concept album that tells the story of a man who is granted superpowers by a demon and, after succumbing to temptation, must realize the error of his ways before it’s too late (think Devil’s Advocate meets Deadpool). After the album was recorded, we wrote a movie screenplay based on the story (along with two sequels and a flash fiction piece) and created a beer recipe to go along with each song on the album. One of the recipes (“Head of Sin”) was produced on a limited basis by McMenamin’s, a Pacific NW-based chain of brewpubs and restaurants. Also, we’re currently in the preproduction phase of adapting the first screenplay into a graphic novel. Eventually, we’d like to create something we call the “Nobody’s Hero Experience,” which would combine all the related elements of the franchise into a single event: movies, music, beer, merchandise, and even a custom blend of coffee (which shows up in the first movie script) called S-P-Espresso.
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Glorified
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Our 2019 third album Glorified is also a concept album, this one about an elite soldier in a dystopian future who goes on a rogue search for her home and her humanity (think Mad Max: Fury Road meets The Mandalorian). The album spawned a companion manga-style comic book series that we produced in collaboration with the San Jose-based artist Jenny Ho. Four issues of the series were released, which you can find at IndyPlanet or GlobalComix, and the premiere issue received a four-star review from the (now defunct, unfortunately) pop culture review site The Valkyries, who said “A solid opening to a new series. It lines up interesting world-building, solid artwork, and enough questions to keep a reader wanting more.” We have scripts and storyboards for eight additional issues which, when combined with the first four, comprise Volume One of the overall story (we have ideas for a total of fifty issues across four volumes), with each issue corresponding to a song on the album.
We’ve also produced a one-minute proof-of-concept trailer for a possible animated adaptation of the comic. Our idea is that the show’s opening theme song would be “Gloria” from our first album (the song that inspired the story in the first place), and each episode’s closing theme would be the corresponding song from Glorified (our Beer & Ramen EP—see the Standalone section below—includes two songs from Glorified with the verses translated into Japanese). And then for future seasons that adapt the subsequent volumes, we would use songs from bands and artists that we know and respect. And to top it off, we’d eventually like to produce a whiskey called Toxikah that would be based on an alcoholic beverage that shows up in the comic. A portion of proceeds from this franchise go to support the Oregon chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention as well as the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO). |
4-D
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The concept for this franchise originated from two ideas: one, we wanted to challenge ourselves to write an entire album that consisted of only four-chord songs, and two, we wanted to create something for a younger audience that was sort of like Pokemon meets Avatar: The Last Airbender. The underlying story has evolved over time, but we think we’ve settled on the final version, which is about a preteen child who finds themselves in a competition with three other kids in a sort of high-stakes scavenger hunt to recover valuable artifacts from the fourth spatial dimension. As for the album, we’ve divided it up into four seasonal suites, two of which—the Winter Suite and the Autumn Suite—have been released, while the Spring and Summer Suites are currently targeted for 2023. We’re also developing a card game based on the story that we hope to release along with the completed album. Eventually, we hope to produce an animated TV show along with related products like a soda line and augmented reality games.
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CIVIL
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This is our planned fifth future album as well as a concept for a horror-thriller film series about a serial killer who targets, for lack of a better word, jerks—basically, people who are lousy human beings, but don’t go so far as to commit actual crimes. As CIVIL’s killer would say, “They’re the people you’d like to kill, but won’t, so I will.” It’s kind of like Dexter but with a much looser moral code. The title CIVIL comes from the core idea of the story, which is that people should be more civil to one another, otherwise you might become a target.
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Fortress Storm Attack
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Our 2014 first album Fortress Storm Attack is a collection of songs that Brian, our singer/guitarist, had mostly written on his own prior to Second Player Score being formed. We don’t have a full franchise attached to it, except that what we’d like to do one day is turn it into an anthology of animated shorts similar to Love, Death & Robots, where a different creator comes up with a story that reflects their interpretation of one of the songs on the album.
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Joel Suzuki
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This is an award-winning series of young adult sci-fi/fantasy novels written by Brian, our singer/guitarist. It’s a coming-of-age story about a boy who travels to a world where his autism is a source of magic. Inspired by Brian’s son, it’s been described as “like if Percy Jackson went to Pandora.” Seven out of seven (or possibly eleven) books have been released so far, along with an audiobook version of the first book. Brian has also written a screenplay adaptation of the first book, with hopes that it can eventually find its way to the big (or small) screen. You can find much more information about the series at the Joel Suzuki website.
Brian donates one dollar from every book sold to Autism Empowerment, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people and families in the autism community. |
Try Again Tomorrow
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As longtime Seattle Mariners fans, we became so frustrated by their streak of consecutive years without making the playoffs that in September 2018 (the 17th year of said streak), we wrote a screenplay for a feature-length film about an actual curse that had been placed on the team and the efforts of a couple of die-hard M’s fans named April and Lydia to get the curse lifted. At first the script was called Jinx, but it was later changed to Try Again Tomorrow, as that seemed to capture the theme of the story a lot better. There’s no tie-in album, but we do have an unrecorded song called “Think About Baseball” that would go well on the soundtrack to the movie, if and when it ever gets produced. We also have a draft of a novella adaptation of the screenplay.
P.S. The Mariners finally made the playoffs in September 2022, four years after we wrote the script. We’re not taking credit—we’re not even saying if our characters were successful, because no spoilers—but, well, if we helped put that intention out into the universe, then we’re happy. |
Hold My Beer
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This is a half-hour dramedy series about an autistic young adult who, after receiving an ultimatum from their parents, decides that their goal in life is to open their own brewpub. The series is set in Vancouver, WA, so right now we’re looking to independently produce it (or, at least, the pilot episode) utilizing as much Vancouver/Portland, OR-based talent as possible, including having all local bands on the soundtrack. We want it to be a showcase of Vancouver's culture and craft beer scene while serving as a source of community pride.
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The Author
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This is an action-adventure series about an English professor and struggling author who is recruited into a special government program where he’s issued a writing instrument that can essentially script reality—kind of like Scribblenauts or Death Note. Our vision for this one is to have it be a “forever franchise” similar to James Bond or Doctor Who, where the lead role is recast every so often and the stories go on and on. Currently, there’s no tie-in music or other such elements, but that will, of course, change.
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Rider Nine
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Just as Power Rangers was an American adaptation of a Japanese live-action superhero (“tokusatsu”) show called Gorenja (“Five Rangers”), we’d like to do one that adapts the highly popular Kamen Rider (“Masked Rider”) franchise. Because the hero of the show rides a motorcycle, the title Rider Nine was inspired by the racing number of a dearly departed friend who died in a motorcycle racing accident.
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Superseniors
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This is a superhero show (or film, we haven’t decided yet) about a senior citizen who develops superpowers as a result of a lifetime of ingesting trace chemicals in her food and water. Fighting crime as a ground-level vigilante while dealing with real-life senior issues like loneliness and living on a fixed income, she would save the day not only with her powers, but with her wisdom and experience as well.
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Standalones
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No, “Standalones” is the not the name of a TV show about people standing around by themselves (although something could probably be made out of that). It’s a catch-all category for all the stuff we do that isn’t necessarily tied to one single franchise. This includes music like our Beer & Ramen EP (songs sung in Japanese, made primarily for the Japan market) and various singles (“Blood Letter,” “Anything, Anything,” “The Fear”), our Second Player Speaks podcast, a weekly blog written by singer/guitarist Brian, a weekly Internet radio show on 99WNRR.com called Gettin’ Squatchy hosted by our drummer Kyle’s alter ego Dex, a Twitch stream where our bassist Dan plays video games for fun and profit, and half a dozen short film scripts, five of which feature an alternate universe version of Second Player Score. This category also includes future wish list projects such as Kylezpub (a brewpub located in downtown Vancouver, WA), a restaurant chain similar to Dave & Busters called Second Player Station, a video game studio, and much more.
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