"Rowdy" Roddy Piper Guest Stars in Night Traveler Series

Pro wrestling icon and star of John Carpenter's "They Live" provides the voice of The Pyro Messiah in Episode III and IV of Night Traveler: Prophecy of the Elder.

Best known for his antagonistic antics in the world of professional wrestling, Roddy Piper has made a career out of his skills with a microphone. It is only natural that he has turned his attention to voice acting.

In the Night Traveler adventure series, Piper lends his voice as the tyrannical overlord known as The Pyro Messiah. “I’ve had over 7,000 professional fights,” said Piper, “This is like the Yin to the Yang for me.” The role of The Pyro Messiah was written specifically for Piper, although series creator R.E. Asbury was not sure he would accept the part. “When I was writing the outline of the story, I had very specific people in mind to voice the characters. It was very hypothetical casting so I was thrilled when Roddy accepted.”, said Asbury.

Night Traveler creator R.E. Asbury on Roddy Piper: There was a time when I thought I was Roddy Piper. Not in a mental kind of way, or at least not too mental, but in an idolizing kind of way. The part of the Pyro Messiah was written from the start with Piper's voice in mind. I actually do a pretty good Roddy Piper myself, so I would bark out the lines as I wrote them. I remember talking about the project with my nephew and saying that I wrote the part for Piper, but didn't think I would be able to get him. I said something to the effect of "Maybe I'll call Bret Hart" or something like that. So I was able to talk to Piper while he was in town on some business, and he was very excited about getting into the voice acting game. I knew that he had not voiced the Roddy Piper character on "Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling" in the 80's, and couldn't imagine how nobody had tapped his talent for voice acting before. We set up a session out in Portland, OR a few weeks later and recorded the parts for the Night Traveler series, as well as some additional material to shop around. Since then Roddy has been working on a bunch of film projects, and even appeared on Seth Green's animated show, Robot Chicken!

Watch Episode III featuring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper Click Here

Night Traveler Creator Talks About Series

Night Traveler creator, R.E. Asbury, has taken a bit of time out of his hectic schedule to answer a few questions about the upcoming series. Here's what he had to say:

Q: Where exactly did the Night Traveler character come from?

A: I designed the Night Traveler character as the cover art for an album I released a few years ago called PROPHECY.

Q: Did you have the Night Traveler series in mind from the start?

A: Not really. It wasn't until I was on the road with PROPHECY that I realized people were interested in the character. At that point I wanted to do a one-off comic book and have a little fun with it. Once I started writing the story it developed a mind of its own.

Q: So the one-off comic book became a multimedia adventure series. Can you tell us more about how this evolved?

A: Well, as I said, the original idea was a single issue comic book. I would work on the story on the bus between gigs for PROPHECY. Because the story got too big for a comic book the next plan was for it to be an action novel. The problem with that was I felt like you needed to see a lot of the things happening in the story. At this point I didn't know what the format would be and came up with the idea of having guest stars involved somehow. So the action novel became an audio book so I could cast guest stars to voice the characters. This took me back to feeling like you still need to see some of this stuff. The end result is a multimedia adventure series that has all the elements that each individual format could not deliver on its own. Its a little bit of everything: cool artwork, sound design, guest stars, animation, and a cool story!

Q: How did you acquire the talents of the Night Traveler guest stars?

A: Jeremy Bulloch and I were both appearing at a sci-fi/pop culture expo in New Jersey. Being a big Star Wars buff and huge fan of Boba Fett, I had wanted to cast Jeremy in the part of Sir Logan pretty much from the beginning. I wanted to include my personal favorites from my childhood in the cast, never thinking I would actually have the opportunity. So Jeremy and I talked about the project and he was very positive and enthusiastic about it. Being that he lives in England and has a very heavy appearance schedule, it actually took a while for us to get together again to record the parts. But eventually we were able to sit down in Orlando, FL and got it done.

Cindy Morgan was also on the bill at the same show in New Jersey. We had talked about a couple things that she had coming up and hit it off really well. I don't think that as a kid in the early 80's, I realized that the girl in Caddyshack and the girl in Tron were in fact the same girl! I couldn't tell you how many times my brothers and I screamed "DOODY!" in our neighbors pool! I also couldn't tell you how many quarters I pumped into the Tron arcade game every summer at the Jersey shore. If I had half of them back I would be a rich man! Anyway, as fate would have it, Cindy was also in Orlando for the same event where Jeremy Bulloch and I got together to do the sessions. I had a part that Cindy was perfect for and she was very professional and a lot of fun to work with. We even played a little audio joke on Jeremy while recording the character ID's. We all had a good laugh.

Roddy Piper was the big coup for me. I was so excited and honored to have Jeremy and Cindy in the cast, but for me having Roddy Piper was something special. There was a time when I thought I was Roddy Piper. Not in a mental kind of way, or at least not too mental, but in an idolizing kind of way. The part of the Pyro Messiah was written from the start with Piper's voice in mind. I actually do a pretty good Roddy Piper myself, so I would bark out the lines as I wrote them. I remember talking about the project with my nephew and saying that I wrote the part for Piper, but didn't think I would be able to get him. I said something to the effect of "Maybe I'll call Bret Hart" or something like that. So I was able to talk to Piper while he was in town on some business, and he was very excited about getting into the voice acting game. I knew that he had not voiced the Roddy Piper character on "Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling" in the 80's, and couldn't imagine how nobody had tapped his talent for voice acting before. We set up a session out in Portland, OR a few weeks later and recorded the parts for the Night Traveler series, as well as some additional material to shop around. Since then Roddy has been working on a bunch of film projects, and appeared on Seth Green's animated show, Robot Chicken!

Q: As far as storyline goes what can you tell us?

A: I can tell you it's a lot of fun. Jake Whitman is the main character. He's your stereotypical musician type who winds up loosing his only steady gig because he's irresponsible. Through a series of events he is introduced to the origin of dreams and thrust into an adventure that he didn't ask for. There is a lot of pop culture influence, so if you like things like Star Wars, Land of the Lost, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and superhero type stuff, you'll get a kick out of the Night Traveler series.

For more on R.E. Asbury Click Here

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