Arcade Knights’ ’80s synths link past, present and future in “Neon Dreamers” and Cyber Hack

If you want to go from a 1980s video arcade to a dystopian world of 2088 with a pit stop in 2025, you can get there by riding Arcade Knights’ authentic ’80s synths on “Neon Dreamers” and the album it ends, Cyber Hack.

And you can do all that while you read the graphic novel of the same name (Cyber Hack: Uprising), for which the album is the soundtrack, because everything he does tells a story.

The video will take you right into dystopia.

“I have, with that full album, Cyber Hack, including ‘Neon Dreamers,’ a graphic novel that I wrote,” said Arcade Knights. “There’s also lyrics in the Cyber Hack and ‘Neon Dreamers’ tracks, that helps tell a relavent story, it’s all linear. From the first track to the 11th track, there's a full story that unfolds.”

Musically, the story is narrated through 1980s hardware sounds. He emphasizes hardware, not computers.

“Yes, I’m an 80s kid, and what I’ve done with Arcade Knights is I use ’80s synthesizers, authentic synths, authentic sounds, all in hardware. I don’t use a DAW. I use the hardware. So, with Cyber Hack, it’s an old school feel with a modern twist, because what I also add to the music, aside from the authentic ’80s synths, is modern glitch sounds, cyberpunk elements.”

The hook in “Neon Dreamers” conveys the feel of the music and a hint of the story of the album and the novel, and Arcade Knights’ approach to music:

We’re neon dreamers lighting up the sky
Chasing our tomorrow, never asking why
With our hearts electric breaking through the dark
In this digital world we’ll make our mark

He is making his mark in a digital era with, as previously noted, ’80s hardware. He started putting out music in January 2024, the month, he says, that he left computers behind to make music. He tried the digital audio workstations.

“I wasn’t able to really get my feelings through the mouse and into the interface. And then I said, ‘I’m done with this,’ and I went back to hardware synthesizers, hardware sequencers, hardware groove boxes with authentic ’80s sounds and the tactile feel of me hitting pads and turning knobs to get the synthesizer frequency pattern just right.”

His day job is as an ethical hacker — he hacks the systems of critical infrastructure to find any weaknesses so they can be eliminated before bad guys can exploit them.

“I protect power grids, oil rigs, the big, heavy kind of industry.”

In fact, some of the tracks on Cyber Hack include industrial sounds glitches from his work. For instance, one of them is wrapped like an industrial power transformer.

“I changed the pitch and worked the sound, so it’s my sound.”
 
The story in Cyber Hack is based on the potential threat of AI.

“The story has this battle of an evil AI with a retro ’80s hacker group that is defending our freedom today. That’s the idea behind the album and the music, and every track, every key signature I use is related to a feeling I want to invoke through this journey, this album. So, from start to finish, there’s this kind of up-and-down conflict. There’s a heavy, rebellious anthem, and then there’s a resolve at the end.”

“Neon Dreamers” is the final song of the album, and he says that through it you can get an idea of where the story goes.

Everything he does has a story, and every album has or will have a graphic novel to go with it. The novel for an album he released last year, Dark Fate, will be out this October, on the anniversary of the album’s release. Cyber Hack, the novel and the album, are on Amazon.

Everything he does is on retro-based equipment. He wants to bring that sound, that feel of the ’80s arcades, into the present and adapt the modern world to it. He also does his own mixing, mastering and engineering—everything from start to finish, in hardware.

And vice versa.

“I’m creating synthwave-cyberpunk music. I’m expanding it back to the past into a retro arcade feel, but really still having the true dystopian future aspect, like Blade Runner, which is cyberpunk.”

The name of his band, Arcade Knights, comes from the feel of that era, when he was a kid. He cites the soundtracks from Miami Vice, Rambo, Terminator, Tron, and arcade halls, “all those flavors.”

He is trying something new, with his albums doing double duty as albums — wonderful electronic listening — and as soundtracks for his graphic novel. A great deal of the charm and, for him, the passion, is doing it on ’80s hardware, with ’80s sounds brought into the 21st century.

“I really want to make this a full-time thing, so I’m really putting my heart into it. And dude, it feels awesome! Nostalgia meets modern neon and cyberpunk.”

Ride into the past, the future and the present and connect to Arcade Knights on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

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