Jason Charles Miller is an actor and musician known for his vocal performances inFinal Fantasy 14. Originally providing the voice of Raubahn inA Realm Reborn, the singer transitioned to providing musical performances inShadowbringersand has contributed some of the most iconic songs in the MMO’s recent expansions.
Miller spoke with Game Rant after the release ofpatch 7.2:Seekers of Eternitywhere he performed the theme for the Arcadion boss Howling Blade: “Unleashed.” But this recent performance is one of several he’s given in the game and others include two of the biggest fan-favorite tracks inFinal Fantasy 14.
Unleashing Howling Blade
InFinal Fantasy 14’sDawntrailpatches, the normal raid series tackled by eight players is the Arcadian, a take on sci-fantasy wrestling where combatants use the souls of creatures to enhance their own abilities. From the first wave of Arcadion matches,the breakout was Honey B. Lovely, a wrestler whose abilities were drawn from the souls of bees. The latest wave includes the wolfish fighter Howling Blade.
Boss music in the MMO, particularly when it has vocals, usually gives insight into the nature of the fight by either illustrating the boss and what they represent or drawing attention to the narrative conflict that the fight represents. Howling Blade’s theme is far from an exception in this regard. Speaking to what Unleashed says about the wrestler, Miller explained,
“I don’t want to give a spoiler, you know, but it seems that he has the frustration of not being able to find a sense of purpose in his work. He enjoys finding a sense of purpose in life as fighting as a gladiator, so fighting is kind of everything to him. Even in that first chorus, like ‘When I climb in the ring, we lock eyes, and that’s when I realize that I’m free. This is me. This is who I was meant to be.’ You know, that’s everything for Howling Blade; his whole purpose is to fight.”
Miller is given extensive notes for each piece from lead composer Masayoshi Soken, with whom he’s worked on multiple tracks including music for thereal-life wrestler Kenny Omega. From the extensive notes and context provided by Soken, Miller develops three or four performances to submit for consideration. These vary slightly, with some including slight deviations from what Soken requested.
For “Unleashed,” for example, some versions of the song were more aggressive, some were looser, and one was a perfect note-for-note fulfillment of Soken’s request. Miller appreciates that creative freedom to try different approaches to a song but ultimately lets Soken decide which iteration to go with.
“If I sing the melody, I’ll send them a track that’s completely the melody, note for note written exactly. Then I’ll put a little bit more embellishments on certain notes and see if he likes that or not. Sometimes he does, and sometimes I go too far. But he gives me that freedom to go too far and then bring it back if it is needed.”
“Unleashed” is so new it hasn’t been performed live yet, but Miller says that he’s often performing the variants of songs that didn’t make it into the game as a special, unique experience for those attending his live performances. And those live performances mean the world to Miller, with one in particular being special to him.
Taking Final Fantasy 14’s Music To the Edge
It’s become common knowledge in the years since, but the track “To the Edge” from the patch series followingShadowbringerswas written duringSoken’s battle with cancer. Soken is beloved by the game’s community both for his musical talent and his penchant for whimsy–exemplified by the digital Fan Fest where he played the Rak’tika Greatwood theme “Civilizations” on an otamatone in the most shrill and screeching rendition of music following the announcement of his illness and recovery.
But at the time “To the Edge”was released, not even its performer knew the situation Soken was in. Combining the leitmotif of Amaurot and the Ancients with some technically demanding key changes led by Miller’s vocals and the significance of the song toFinal Fantasy 14’s plot already made the song an interesting musical challenge. As Miller said,
“If you really know the story behind ‘To The Edge’ and what Soken was going through when he wrote that song, he wrote that song from a hospital bed. That gives a completely different context to the song, separate from the game, but directly to Soken the person, so a lot of people know that story as well…So you’ve got the weight of the lore, the weight of what happened with Soken, and then also the weight of, ‘Hey, don’t screw this up because the key changes, and it’s led by you, so you’re the one making that key change.’ I have to sing the note ahead in my head before I get there, and it can be a little–well, it’s challenging, and so I’m always feeling the weight of that anytime I sing that song.”
When asked what he felt reflecting on working with Soken during that time, Miller stressed that not even he knew what the composer was going through. However, he made a point to mention he recalled a mixed-falsetto note in “To the Edge” that Soken had told him not to worry about, which was also a particular challenge, but with a little power behind it and in his head voice, he is reliably able to hit the note.
The other much-beloved track Miller sang for the game is the emotional number “Close in the Distance,” which features in theEndwalkerzone Ultima Thule. “Close in the Distance” builds from a distorted and distant, haunting melody to the instrumental version of the version performed by Miller. As the heart-wrenching events of Ultima Thule play out, the song becomes clearer and clearer, giving an additional sense of weight and gravity to the already highly emotive song. That’s only amplified by the revelation that the songis from the perspective of Ardbert, the Warrior of Darkness fromHeavenswardandShadowbringers.
Miller describes “Close in the Distance” as a tear-jerker and an easy tie with “To the Edge” for fan favorites at live performances. His fourth piece, “Shadowbringers,” is a technically challenging piece like “To the Edge” but lacks some of the emotional resonance of the other two songs. It was, however, the title track to one of the most acclaimed expansions of the MMO. Miller looks forward to the opportunity to perform “Unleashed” live in the future and to see how fans rank it among his other works.
Jason Charles Miller is signed with the Japanese label Ward Records and worldwide on One Opportunity Records, something he credits to his work inFinal Fantasy 14. His new album isKnives in the Dark.
