All get around, he's on the rebound Hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby Pinball now to rejoice He's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee Miffed with syrup and honey Homes to life with his family And a random tangent Stories of his boys He's on the poor man's pod network We're gonna get more listeners Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 561 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and today I'm so excited, I hope I say his name right, the new hotness in pinball, Zyron Silvers himself. Welcome to the show, Zyron. Did I say your name right? You did. Thank you very much for having me on. It's a pleasure. Oh, God. It's so cool that you're here. For many, many, many years, I unfortunately was a driving instructor, and of course they always say those who can't do teach, right? And I was the worst driver ever, so I figured becoming a driving instructor, My mom said, at the very least, you'll stop being the worst driver on the road, Albert. Kind of like this, I'm not that great at pinball, but I can spot an incredible pinball player. When I was watching you play, even the night after Nationals, back in the hotel room, before I talked to you the next day and accosted you first thing in the morning, you probably hadn't had a coffee yet, and I said, wow, your flipper skills are incredible. You were doing tricks, I don't even know what they're called, man. It's like the first time you're watching Rodney Mullen do these flat ground tricks, skateboarding. you don't know about her. The first time Tony Hawk landed a 720, it ever went, what? You can't do three spins in the air, Tony. You know, so I just think it's so cool how you're, you know, people are kind of calling you one of the fourth wave or the COVID kids, that kind of thing. We'll get into all that in a bit. But what I want to start with is when you started playing tournaments five years ago, is that also when you first started playing pinball or had you been playing since much before that yeah so I actually just started playing pinball about six years ago but I didn't really play often I just kind of we'd go to the arcade on the weekends or whatever mostly I was on the video games with my brother but pinball caught my attention because of the physicality and the randomness and you could actually earn a game and it was actually cheaper so I kind of caught my attention that way didn't really play much until I got introduced to tournaments and then yeah I've just been playing pretty consistently since then. Yeah, I saw back in December of 2022, it looks like you played your first IFPA tournament. Like, did your parents by chance, or aunt or uncles have pinball machines at home? Or literally just six years ago, you would, you'd probably seen a pinball machine and maybe played one once or twice. But until six years ago, you really didn't actually, like actually concentrate on the rules and all that kind of stuff, really? Yeah, yeah, I didn't even really know about the rules till pretty, like, like a couple years actually into tournaments I didn't really even really know much about the rules and whatnot didn't really get too much into rules but yeah I uh had never owned a machine no one in my family owned a machine just kind of uh picked it up locally and just had a lot of fun and just continued to play and just do my best wow so what I'm curious what was the turning point for you I'm looking at your IFPA right now was the turning point for you like when you went out to in-disc and you did so well I think you got sixth in the side tournament there you got 90th in the open you know that's the first time you got like over 10 whoppers I'm seeing here like that you actually where was the turning point for you were like wow I think I'm actually pretty good I might be able to hang with the big boys um it was actually uh in 2022 it was in June I went to Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show yeah and they uh Jermaine throws a pretty great event out there and I actually took fifth out of 200 players. Wow. And a couple local people here that had actually moved from Seattle had suggested it and actually pretty much sponsored me to go out to that event. So I'm really grateful for them. And, yeah, that was pretty much my, you know, decision to try and get some more bigger tournaments was, you know, playing in the big tournament and doing pretty well in my head and just having a lot of fun and just meeting really cool people. I mean, people that have been involved in the game for a long time and just a lot of other cool things, especially at the conventions. There's so much to do and look at and experience. It got me. It got me good. They got you hooked. You're a pinball nerd for life now. That's what I love, too. When you're playing, I can really see it. Some of the players, you can tell, they're just there for the whoppers. Maybe they've been playing professional pinball for 10, 15 years or something. They're there for the camaraderie, but they're also kind of there for the points. It's a little bit of both. with you I swear to god every second I was watching you play first of all you're you're like just you're into your tunes you're enjoying your music and then at the same time you're dancing and bobbing and then you're doing like you're doing like you know hypothetically a couple times I don't know if it was Flash Gordon or something I was watching on but you were doing like like some pretty like dangerous like tap maneuvers and shats as a cross and stuff and I was like wow like he's you were just going all for it you weren't even taking your time you know that's a couple times I'm sure further on in pin masters you did a bit but you like to play on the fly quite a bit you like to have fun you prioritize hanging with the community i saw you made it to lumberjack johnny's with me me and my son hayden we made it both out there with you both nights i saw you both nights i was like this guy is a trooper he's staying out and you of course being 18 um you know you you're 18 currently you're not supposed to are really allowed to have tons of beers and such there but i think that even sober as a cow you were having a great time you're running around having fun um somehow some way we've only played in that that one tournament there the first tournament and i barely beat you by one round which is a testament to say because you're like i think that's probably the last time i'll ever beat you in a tournament um but let's go let's go back to nationals a little bit um how did that feel doing a nationals didn't you take out who are the main who did you take out in each round at nationals so first round i faced arizona's winner kevin curtis and uh i beat him on the seventh game and then the next round i faced multi-world champ eric stone that's right uh it went to seventh game as well and i actually lost by about 70 000 on f14 oh god which was pretty disappointing because it's pretty small gap and you're really close to you know beating a multi-world champ and you know getting more whoppers and more money and stuff but i was uh i was happy with my performance 70 000 for those of you who have not played tomcat f14 like that's a game that's measured in the millions like it's like you know one two three four million is like a decent game obviously maybe not on one that tight right but like 70 000 that could have been two switch hits that could have been obviously like you know one multiball or less you know could be a bonus so and you had that man do you know how loud Eric would have screamed if a guy, a person 806th in the world, had taken him out. We would have heard that scream all the way through Madison, Wisconsin, all the way up to De Pere, all the way through. Oh my god. I love Eric. He's a very passionate player, but were you a little, he's a little intimidating to play against. Were you just a little intimidated playing against him? Um, I wouldn't say intimidated. You know, I've definitely heard about him, and I've watched a couple of his gameplay videos, so I know he's a very good player, and can, yeah, I get pretty intense, but I'm a little more on that intense side as well, so it was kind of cool playing with him. But, yeah, I wouldn't say necessarily intimidated, but just, you know, just having fun and playing pinball and doing what I love to do best. So it was a lot of fun. But, yeah, at one point he was starting to get a little upset because I had actually – I was ahead of him 3-2. Oh, oh. And he was all like – I can't remember exactly what he said, but he had said, some of these other rounds, man, I could have got through so much easier. Well, that's true. I mean, that's the thing is, like, your ranking isn't true. I think your rating is closer to where you are. I know your rating is much higher in the efficiency. But, like, just when I'm sitting here looking at it, like, even at Nationals, you know, Dalton won that, of course. Congratulations to Dalton. And Drew Cord, I can never pronounce his name. Drew Seagot. Sedolia. Sedolia, thank you. uh but you were playing in there like I'm looking in here like you got you tied for 24th obviously you know there's a couple other awesome players in there who played out of their mind uh well David Elrod of course is around 2000 uh Drew Sitch even from Canada ran out the same went out the same round Travis Murray another incredible player went out only one round in front of you so like you made it to that you know you made you were two rounds away from getting in there with all the top players and maybe more impressive from that is okay first of all is there one standout game or one standout moment for you nationals before we talk about pen masters um yeah uh i would say that first flash gordon game i did really well on it for only three balls i think i got like 800 000 wow and uh because i felt good on flash gordon just because of how deadly that game can be but uh not only that but it felt better later actually because of pin masters uh because i kind of shit the bed on that game in pin masters oh no you know it felt it felt good to uh felt good to place good on like play a game very well that i'd not really had access to i i believe i got to watch your flash gordon game and it was really neat for me um that luckily that's the reason why sometimes you buy and sell games uh i did have that game in my arcade for a while so i was very comfortable i did picket nationals and i did manage to win on it i don't think i got 800 000 on that sob because that sucker was tight it wasn't like volley tight but it was like and that's the thing is like a lot of people playing you know watching they don't understand they're like i'm coming from a place where it's like a seven hour round trip for me to get to the closest tournament in my province i actually have to do a three hour round trip to get to the second closest place and it happens to be in another province north of me called New Brunswick, and that's the one that I won, not because it was an easy province to win, but just because I'd rather drive three hours round trip than seven. But the point that I'm getting to is all the machines that I play on, the reason I do relatively decent is because I'm good at, you know, I've played in hundreds of tournaments over eight years. I'm decent at like saving the ball. I'm good at nudging. I'm okay at slap saves. I'm horrible at accuracy. I suck at remembering rules, unless it's like an EM or something. I can remember one or two right but I guess the point is that for just a just a regular dude like me who's ranked like what now I'm five thousandth but I was closer to seven thousandth when I went you know for just a regular middle of the road you know player who's played in a fair amount of tournaments but doesn't ever play on tight machines like that that was not just I didn't go from machines that were set like a five out of ten to a six I went from machines that are set like a four or five out of ten to like a ten you know and making that jump for me is near impossible So for someone like yourself, do you have a really good pinball location near you that will set the machines, not D-80 too hard, but close to that for you to practice? Actually, not at all. Honestly, my main location here in Boise, Idaho is where I live. It's a brewery with about eight machines that are in good condition. I think seven, actually. And the other location is an arcade that has about eight machines. But other than that, I don't have much out here. so it felt good to go there and play on these really tough machines i mean and especially like godzilla like i you know played the local one so many times i felt super confident and uh you know i just went to district 82 and it was set up super tough like no outlane post no ball save stuff like to that sort and uh it felt good to just be able to adjust and like be adapt adaptive to uh you know that different skill change you and you did it like wow like for you that's what i was thinking i was wondering if like maybe you're working like with someone locally in boise and like they're setting all the machines super hard so you can practice but you're saying no zyron silvers doesn't need it he can adapt he's young he's quick he's versatile he's got all the rods and cones in his eyes still he's got that that's the thing even when i play my my 19 year old son he's like when we play on a modern stern our first four or five times like when we first played ninja turtles or whatever he's destroying me in score because his reflexes are so much better than mine you know given the same opportunity maybe on an em i could beat him but uh you know i would have i would have made fun of myself at 35 saying this but somewhere past 40 like i'm i'm just so much later on the ball so that's certainly an advantage you have if you went if you came into nationals and pin masters at 800th in the world and you finished at around 400th Where do you think a year from right now let say hypothetically we don know that you going to win Boise or you going to win Idaho again I don know Maybe there some young dude just like you practicing and getting better and he going to come up and challenge you next year He's even younger than you. I don't know. But let's say I'm just curious. If you come back and you play well again in pinmasters and nationals, do we think that you could be breaking into the top, I don't know, 250, 200 maybe a year from now? I would say potentially yes because I have a few bigger events on my radar. I'm going to try and go to Northwest Pinball Arcade Show again. A lot of us like to do that, especially because a couple people here locally used to live in Seattle. So we like to all make that trip and have fun. And so we're going to definitely do that. We're going to try and do Papa, which is in Chicago. That's on our radar. We're going to try and do Northwest Championships, which is the other event that Jermaine runs. That's an excellent event I haven't been to yet. and um i think i'm gonna go to cali extreme as well which is in the bay area it's a pretty big event for several years now and uh yeah so i have i have some events on my radar and if i do well those events uh we're definitely gonna do in disc again wow and like i mean papa sounds really cool this time it's for a good charity andy bagwell's running it i believe and like it just sounds you know I think Fox Cities Pinball will be there live streaming again hopefully they did such a great job wasn't one of the coolest parts that you got to go watch yourself on Fox Cities on Twitch later yeah it was it was cool I mean and not only just to hear like how everybody was like super proud of me and like up-and-coming players like exciting to see but um just like seeing like the little things that you could have done better like the little adjustments that you could have made like to uh improve your game so I think that yeah it's actually really awesome and it's a very very good tool actually and i think a lot of good players can use the streams as a tool i mean because that's how i learned a lot of the rules on these games because i don't have access to these machines but i watch the stream i see what the good players do you know i see you know like what the rules are and then i go there and i use that information so this is such a great question uh i mean okay of course i think it's a great question it's my show and my question but um like I don't know eight seven eight years ago one watching one of my very first live streams ever was the finale of pinberg everyone said oh albert if you're only gonna watch one live streamed pin like pinball event this year you better you know it's it's the stanley cup I'm sure you've heard of pinberg so I ended up watching bow and karen's and escher lefkoff and escher's dad had offered him a free ice cream truck because I think he like he he wanted I don't remember what the bet was but for some reason or another I don't know if he said Dad, can we get ice cream on the way home? And he said, fine, son, if you win the thing, I'll get you the whole ice cream truck. I don't know how it happened, but somehow this bet was there. And, you know, of course, he was reminded of this while playing Bowen, and he ends up going on to beat Bowen on skateball. And from that moment forth, just watching the way that Escher flipped and how calm he was and, you know, doing tap passes and everything else that he was doing on skateball, I said, this freaking kid's going to be around for a long time in pinball. And it wasn't until I was laying in my hotel room, half drunk, after just playing with you, which I don't think I chatted with you too much there, but just playing with you at, you know, first D82, then playing with you there, and then watching you on the TV, I went, I was laying there, I was like, I gotta get this kid on my show, I hope I can be the first podcaster that gets a hold of him, and, because a lot of, you know, a lot of, like, I know Don's Pinball Podcast, and a lot of other people on the come up, the first time they were on a podcast was kind of here, because I'm a bit of a smaller show, and I just record live, the audio's not as good as all of the big boys, so to speak, but I really had watched you and I thought, is this guy the fourth wave? Because I don't know, like is Escher and Jared August and Zach McCarthy, are they all wave three? Is this Zyron Silvers guy the start of the fourth wave? I don't know. I heard people tossing around the name COVID kid. Would you say that like during COVID on the come up, you actually like watched a lot of other really good players and streamers? And is that where you, did you kind of have extra time during COVID to get good? Or was that just a coincidence that all kind of happened while you were getting good? that's actually funny you mentioned that because um i happen to be very blessed during covid because everything kind of got shut down like we didn't really have a place to go and my dad had just recently made pretty good friends with this uh bar owner there was a pretty new establishment and they had some machines in there yeah and uh when they were getting shut down my dad uh had uh said hey you know just because you're shutting down for establishment like doesn't I mean, you can't let your friends come in and stuff, just kind of joking around. So this guy, his establishment is actually closed now, sadly, because of COVID and everything. Oh, shoot. But this really nice dude would actually let me and my dad come in with a few other people. My dad would mainly throw horseshoes in the back and stuff. But I was over there tearing up Iron Maiden and stuff, just playing my heart out because I didn't really have anything else to do. and I will say I was very blessed to have that access to those machines during that time because otherwise I wouldn't have had anything. My skills wouldn't have been as sharp. They would have been more dull. So I'm very blessed for him. Wow. And so not only are you this rad kid who happens to be – I don't want to get you in trouble or anything, but you did skateboard in almost late. You had like one second on the clock, and even Josh Sharpe was like, Get over here, Zyron. and you literally skateboarded into d82 i think like uh it was pretty awesome yeah yeah yeah uh we were actually uh staying pretty close to there and there was this awesome like concrete path and it was only like a mile and a half out and uh i just told my dad i was like i think i'm just gonna skateboard every day not to not to only just get my blood pumping and just kind of get the energy up but just to uh you know show people what's up and then i'm a skate kid and everything so that's so awesome so basically uh you know you just told all the other up-and-coming players how to get your blood flowing how to get pumped up you go skateboard for 15 20 minutes before every match and you can go from 800 to 400 in three days as well i don't know if that's just the uh curriculum for that but it can definitely help just because i'm i'm not used to getting up that early for tournaments you know locally it's kind of or nighttime stuff and stuff like that. So you have to figure out ways to adapt, like I was saying earlier. It's all about adaptation. Yeah. What were you doing, Eck? I was doing energy drinks because I was on a totally different time zone. My son got me into energy drinks. Normally I have a coffee company on the side, so normally I'm all about the coffee. But down there, like I didn't want to be drinking like nine freaking coffees and running to the bathroom all the time. So I said, how can I get 300 milligrams of caffeine for my 43-year-old heart to get her just pumping right on the edge of falling apart. And it's like, oh, you just drain these, you have to take a little IV, and you just do three monsters. No, no. I was actually doing the rain with no sugar, so I didn't crash. I was trying to do all the stuff you're supposed to do at nighttime. Like, you know, just, I mean, what am I talking about? I was drinking at Lumberjack Johnny's until 2 a.m. But, I mean, you know, short of that, I tried to get a good night's sleep and do what you can, right? What I love also about watching you play is a lot of the times, and I had never heard this before, but you were playing, and I don't know who it was. I'm not sure if it was Andy Bagwell or maybe Escher or someone was saying, maybe Travis Murray, someone was saying, like, oh, look at that flutter flip there. That's so cool what he's doing, and honestly, sometimes you're flipping, and I wasn't really sure what you were saying. So for those hardcore pinball nerds, I don't want to lose too many of the people who are not tournament players, but do you even know what a flutter flip is? Had you even heard this before this tournament? uh i yeah i kind of heard the term but uh yeah it's not like it's not like you know i'm like i'm not too big on like the words and stuff i just kind of you just do your thing you're just a natural yeah just try just yeah just uh you know try and adapt and like if it fails it fails but like yeah yeah yeah like i only have access to a couple classic machines so i'm always trying different little flipper skills and stuff because those classic flippers are definitely different from like let's say a williams or modern stern uh so you have to like learn that uh that change and flipping so uh yeah i would always just try a little little things like this you know when i had a few extra replays maybe i got a couple specials uh just on those extra credits because uh yeah like you have to learn those little things that's the difference between the good and the great players those little flipper tricks and stuff like that wow now we have to talk about pin masters because i mean you did have a fifth place at northwest um out of like 90 players or or more incredible players so like obviously that was up until uh no california extreme you got 12 38 whoppers but like wow fifth place 102 whoppers and like you were like you made it to the final grouping right well semi-finals semi-final really close to finals wow and and so jason zahler won it escher got second jared august got third i mean those are literally the three people you would assume at the top with raymond dave oh right there he got fifth so you're right outside that i mean according to this even you beat luke nahorniak like he's number three in the world incredible player um you know just well everybody in here's just colin urban zach mccartney z mac you beat ZMAC. You beat the pride and joy of Canada, my fellow Canadian Jack Tadman. Like this guy was, Jack was playing out of his mind there. Dalton, you beat Dalton. Zach Sharp, might have heard of him before. Neil Graff, like you beat so many of these incredible players. What do you think, do you think it is the format of pin golf that allowed you to get like five times the whoppers you've ever got before? Or do you think that just maybe you had already played on those machines, and you were comfortable? Like, what is it that caused Pinmasters to allow you to really just, just, like, nail it in or dial it in? What was so different about that? Like, what did you do maybe differently there? Why do you think you did so well in it? It's kind of a loaded question. Just give me one sec. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say, it's kind of a loaded question, right? So, for me, it takes, like, a lot of mental game. Like, you have to, like, really, like, mentally figure out stuff like that helps you calm down and there's like for me there's a lot of different stuff that goes in a mental game that i don't want to get too much into but no no don't give away all your secrets but uh yeah it was it's a lot of like it's a lot of mental game and just believing in yourself and you know like just yeah it's a lot of belief and mental game and uh like like i said i had watched the stream so i knew i know how to play those games like some of those games i had really never even played till the tournament like the old star trek i had never even played uh indie 500 i'd played maybe twice i mean just some of those games i'd you know never really played so uh it's it definitely wasn't the games like that i had played them before it was just kind of more just mental game and just going in there and believing in yourself and uh but it's also about having fun too it's not all about winning and stuff it's all about doing the best you can and having fun yeah another another podcasting site wrote on their facebook like hey what was the biggest story of pin masters or nationals or what he wants to talk about on the next show or something like that and i wrote something to the point of talk about how the 6,500th ranked player got last place at pin masters yet possibly had the most fun and that you know that was supposed to be my story i kind of told on my pod today right was talking about how i think i don't know if I had the most fun you might have had slightly more fun I mean who knows maybe Eric Stone had the most fun well wait I think he went home he didn't play pin masters so but uh here's the thing it's like you got to remember that it's meant to be fun because I have seen at least one or two people come into pinball start playing taking it way too seriously within a year or two and just like studying the rules for hours and hours and hours and practicing and just every time they don't get first they get grumpy or angry and it's like if you forget what the fun is about then you know it becomes a hustle and once it becomes a hustle it's not like a side hustle it's not like a joy that you have and then it's you know not as fun right but what I was going to say is would you ever can I don't know that you you know want to do this but I think that and again I don't know how much time you have I have no clue if you have like a part-time job you're probably in high school or something but if ever you wanted to start streaming I think a because you have a unique flipper style b because of how talented you are c because of like you're like a younger dude who has all the time and energy I'm just I don't know if you have all the time but I'm suggesting because of your age you know you could take five to ten years and who knows like you could end up being I don't know twitch's next laser los or something like that and have hundreds of subscribers and people watching you and I don't know even or maybe you can even go the escher route escher just live streamed a couple times a month when he feels like it right he doesn't do it all the time but I always thought if you ever you know even if you didn want to do it for income just for fun I really think that you would get a very good following a young following we need more young people in pinball If you ever decided that you A needed extra income or B you had a cool place to stream that you wanted to shout out and show I would highly, like if I were you, and again, I don't know, are you going to college or university or are you working full time? Can I ask about any of that stuff? Yeah, so I graduated from high school last year, and then I kind of took a year to just kind of figure out myself and kind of figure out what I want to do. Love it. Uh, and, uh, lately it's been pinball just, so I've been playing a lot of pinball. That's why I'm pretty good right now. But, uh, yeah, I do, I do have the time, like you were saying. So I definitely think that'd be something I'd be interested in. And actually, uh, the local arcade that I was talking about is, um, talking about, uh, paying for building a, uh, streaming rig. So that'd be, that'd be a lot of fun. Wow. And if you worked out a good deal with them, like, you know, obviously talk about it, contact a couple other people who do streaming and stuff, but like, you know, you always work out a good deal. Like, Hey, you're hooking me up with machines and whatever. I'll give you whatever, whatever a certain percent of the subs or vice versa, or, you know, you're advertising for them as well. You're bringing locals in that sort of thing. So it goes both ways. It helps. It's a symbiotic relationship, right? So I just, I think you're entertaining. I think that you would be fun to watch live stream. Now you don't have to share this if you want. There's like three things I say to never talk about on a podcast. We never talk about religion, obviously. We never talk about politics, obviously. Let's keep the conversation light and fun. It's pinball. But the one question I'm going to ask you, and this has caused arguments at other jobs I've had, but I've got to know. And if you're not comfortable answering, don't. But what the hell kind of music are you listening to in those earbuds? Yeah. It's a lot of more underground hip-hop kind of like, less known. I've always really connected with that. Like it's always kind of had a message and get out. I've always just felt a deep connection to it. I mean, and like, yeah, I mean, it's, it's really helped me through some rough times in my life. Hip hop has, and along with reggae kind of like, kind of my white boy reggae, if that makes sense, kind of like some iration or slightly stupid, but, um, I really like like Damian Marley, Stephen Marley, um, you know, people like that. Like I really vibe with them and they can always get me in the good mood. and calm myself down. Wow. I figured it was something like that. I mostly listen to rock and indie rock, but back in the day, I did listen to Beastie Boys and Sublime and a lot of, I don't know, Rancid was kind of on the verge of being ska and punk, but I listened to a lot of that stuff. And then my son nowadays only listens to, well, my oldest son exclusively listens to mostly rap, typically lyrical rap. He hates mumble rap, but he does listen to what he would call, I think, white boy rap, like Mac Miller, well Eminem is like just incredible it's above any of that but he listens to a lot of rap and hip hop do you agree that we are far due we've got like 150 million no we've got about 100 rock and roll themed pinball machines we finally got Elton John last year which is probably perhaps you know it's crocodile rock I guess it's a form of rock it's kind of classic rock right which is cool and all don't get me wrong I'd rather Elton John than say a lot of other themes that we've got in the last couple years however and it is the most gorgeous machine ever cheers to Christopher Franchi uh save some glitter for the rest of the continent maybe but you know other than that it's a beautiful machine wouldn't you love to see a rap or hip-hop themed pinball machine and maybe not this year or next but don't you think we're overdue uh yeah me and my dad have actually always kind of talked about that it'd be cool to get like a Wu-Tang or something like that just kind of like you know like got that group style just like all the other rock games but uh it's just totally different style you know but i mean if you're if you're if you're like you know one of the best up-and-coming players under 20 years old and you're you're rocking out to indie rock or sorry you're rocking out to like like smaller like independent hip-hop and and rap and stuff like that and you like that whole side and my son's doing that and then my other son is doing that and they're both listening on their earbuds whenever we're going out to play pinball they're not listening to the aerosmith they're playing they're not listening to the metallica they're playing they're listening to like hip-hop and I just think the easiest simplest way to help try to get like people under I don't know 35 no one really under 35 is still listening to I mean I'm sure somebody is listening to Taylor Swift right I'm sure somebody wants a Taylor Swift and Mo Machine they're not us you know what I mean and so like we just we I love okay Foo Fighters incredible because finally we had like a non-dad rock band we had someone in the 90s so that was incredible and I love that I'll take more 90s rock, but I'm good for 80s and 70s and 60s and 50s and Elvis machines. We're good on those. We have all the best ones. Maybe we're missing arguably Sepultura or something crazy like that, but I would just love to see it. So everybody, shout it from the rooftops. If you're under 25 or even 35 or even 43 like me and you want a hip-hop pin to come soon, reach out to Snoop Dogg or Eminem. I'm sure we all have their phone numbers. They both love pinball. So I would love a half Snoop Dogg, half Eminem machine. That'd be great. I mean, just anything to try and, yeah, like you said, get new players because that's really what pinball is a little bit lacking is the new generation that really embraces it and wants to be involved in it a lot. I mean, obviously we see some of these younger players like me or Escher or Zach McCarthy or Jason Zoll are involved, but the percentage is still lower on the youth side compared to the older people's side. So, yeah, that'd be amazing to get something like that out there and try and influence more people to get involved in the game and even try it out. You see that on location, you're like, oh, shit, I love Snoop Dogg. Maybe put a little weed spinner on there. Oh, my God, that's the topper, right, or the whole thing fills up under the glass? You'd have to know the Snoop Dogg. He's coming by the smell. um but like literally Snoop Dogg was on a show with um uh Jay Leno and Jay Leno kept trying to talk oh come over here take a look at these cars Snoop Dogg okay that was a bad Jay Leno but he's trying to get him over there and Snoop just kept saying yo I want to go look at the I want to go look at this pinball machine over here he's like yeah no no no we'll let you play pinball after you know it was funny and then Eminem of course had a uh his last uh LP or whatever it was it came out had a custom Eminem pinball machine on the front and then the last song that Snoop Dogg and Eminem did, they were talking about pinball and there's a pinball animation in it, right? So it's like... Really? I actually didn't know that. That's awesome that you told me that. Thank you. It's called Crip Your Enthusiasm. And it's like... Oh, wait. No, no, no. That's a separate Snoop Dogg song. I'll send you the link to it. But it came out last year and like halfway through he goes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like a pinball, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And you can see the animation. Unfortunately, they play the old EM bells because still to this day people relate that to modern pinball. I don't know how or why, but can we stop doing that? If you're listening, you're listening, Universal. It's enough with the bells. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, we're talking about young people here. I know you have a tournament soon. My voice is running out on me. I only have one or two questions left for you, but I'm curious. Besides, let's start with the format. What formats do you think would help get more, like, not even like, it doesn't have to be like, you know, anyone under 25, let's say. What formats really do you think younger people would, like, I don't know if, I don't know how many formats you've even played out there, but, like, I don't know, is, is, would you like to see more pin golf? I'd like more pin golf, but I'm just curious, what format do you think younger people would gravitate to? Um, I think pin golf is a pretty good one, like, it really, uh, makes you work for what you need to get every ball, like, every ball counts, uh, but, um, yeah, I think, like, Pinberg, the way they do it's pretty cool, because you're kind of always playing like it's not really like in disc or pop but you're kind of just waiting for one game all the time it's kind of like you're just playing you're meeting new people and stuff so I think yeah like some match play something like Pimberg does would be probably more would be more uh appealing to the younger masses well yeah Pimberg I think we did I don't know if it was eight or ten rounds a day but like even even with Swiss pairing because there was a thousand players in the tournament even with Swiss pairing I only ran into the same players once or twice over two days so you meet like hundreds of people right like literally you play with like four new people every hour on the hour and then depending on if you're in the top groups like the group you'd be in you'd probably have about five minutes to run to the bathroom or grab an energy drink or something and then run back and play I wasn't playing in the highest level so I had about 20 minutes or 15 minutes just enough time time to uh run down have a beer or tailgating something and do whatever and then run back right so um but I think that is cool and outside of formats I'm just curious like what other things can we do to try to like get more people not just even men or women or younger people but overall what do you think would be good either for televising pinball or like what what do you think really will move the ball because I feel like still to this day when I say pinball most people still think I'm talking about ping pong or they go like this with their hands and they think they haven't made a new one since like 1970 right so what is it that we can do maybe would you like just if you had any ideas I'm curious and you know I didn't give you any prep time but I'm just curious like what can we do to get make it more inclusive for all people of all ages and get them into it more like um is there anything you can think of off the top of your head well I think like you were saying themes really help like a newer age of themes would pretty would be pretty good but um yeah i think uh just kind of more like awareness of it there's not really much awareness in the actual mainstream eye it's just kind of like you know like its own little thing but uh yeah there was more like awareness and like how much fun it actually is and like you know the community that's involved in it i think uh yeah a lot more awareness because I think like yeah like you said when you mentioned the word pinball just kids and younger generation kind of just think of yeah like old ding ding ding yeah exactly uh so yeah I think just a lot more awareness and like to show people how cool it really is and you know how how cool some of these people are that are involved and just how nice some of them are and just the whole spiel I just think if people kind of knew just more about it and just kind of what like what it really is about then uh we get more people involved for sure okay second last question to you right now like probably 50 to 60 percent of my listeners don't play and have never played an actual pinball tournament and i think they're kind of afraid that like someone's gonna judge you if you're not great or if you accidentally take someone's ball of course if we're at nationals or pinmasters and like i did i accidentally said where's the ball and was sitting in the shooter lane okay maybe a tournament director would be like a really dude you played like 200 tournaments you qualified for nationals you didn't even look okay so in that particular case I totally get it but in 99.9 percent of tournaments they're going to happen around the world that a new player would go to people pinball people for the most part are so welcoming and so open and honestly your first few games like if you go take the wrong ball someone always be like oh by the way just to let you know like here's where player two is here's where play like they'll always be very forthcoming and very you know I just think pinball people are some of the best people on the planet like literally your first time out there they'll probably talk your ear off on rules and you know maybe that kind of thing but if someone's listening right now and they've never played a pinball tournament what would you say to them to encourage them I mean you've already talked about how great the community is so that's there for sure um like what's the main advantage you notice from someone who just enjoyed playing by yourself and now playing in tournaments what would you say to encourage someone who's never played a tournament to get out there and just go play their first tournament um i would say it's just like like it's a lot of fun like just to meet new people like uh you'd already mentioned the community but um it's just a lot of fun to get uh competitive even if you're not good you just you know you just play and you just try it out and you just kind of learn as you go and it's just always fun to try new things in life like it's always fun to uh experience new things you know like so um i think i think it'd be i think it'd great for anybody listening to go and go out to your closest local tournament check it out see what it's all about and uh you know if you don't like it you don't like it but if you do then hey you know you have a new uh niche a new community you know so it is like i compare it to like i used to be into triathlons and stuff like that and like we went years without having a single thousand dollar bike being stolen from the area without them locked like it's kind of that same camaraderie Like, you know, sometimes at my old league in London, Ontario, which, by the way, reminds me of Boise. I was looking at Boise, Idaho. You know, you got like a quarter million people. We had a quarter million people-ish when I left. We right at the exact same level of north so we probably got around the same winters and summers Did you ever snowboard as well i uh i tried and we just never really got involved because uh just my dad never really did it he kind of tried a couple times and he got hurt kind of bad so i never really got too much into snowboarding but um i'd definitely be interested in trying that out and i actually should i thought that where you lived maybe maybe maybe um because I did actually like wreck my face a long time ago so the doctors have said I'm without getting like metal and stuff implanted I'm not allowed to go in the half pipe or that really do any tricks snowboarding but hey if you wanted to sometime when I'm out there because I'm not really supposed to skate like I can skate but I have to I've broken my one elbow in 14 different spots BMXing my other wrist several times and then actually for those of you because I don't think you've listened to all 560 episodes of my show. I actually started this because I wrecked my elbow while doing just a simple rock and roll on like a four foot quarter pipe, which I used to be able to land really easy. But as a dad, your bones get older and you think you're cool to show your sons out at skateboard. And then you snap your wrist in half and you say to your wife, honey, I have no creative outlet. I can't do anything for like the next three months. I can't work. I can't do this. I can't even barely play pinball. And somehow, some way, I don't know if it's her idea of mine but we came to the idea i should start a stupid pinball podcast and for like the first 20 episodes i told no one i just did it my house i didn't post it anywhere i told a couple close friends i only got 30 or 40 listens and who knows 600 episodes later here i am talking to the new hotness the covid kid himself mr zyron silvers do you can you think of anyone else that is kind of being included in the fourth wave like yourself um like you were mentioning earlier you said uh Maybe there's a new and upcoming kid in Idaho that's practicing and getting good. And so I do want to give kind of a shout out to him. His name is Quinton. He's 12 years old, I think. And he actually just beat me Friday night in a local tournament. And he's up and coming and hot. 12? Yeah. So that would be a lot of fun to see him in a big tournament. So I was just joking, but Quinton is the real deal. It looks like, like, what did we do? 12? That's incredible. There was a nine-year-old that took out my son, gave him his final exit Lumberjack Johnnies in the Progressive 8 Strike, and I talked to the dad after. He goes, oh, yeah, he's been playing for five years. I said, five years? You have to put a stool under him right now to play. He's like, oh, yeah, he's been standing on a chair. I was like, what? So if parents out there, if you're listening, get your kids playing younger. Zyron started playing at 13. I kind of played a little bit when I was younger. But get your kids out there. Start them early. It's a cool experience. It's a cool experience. You have that. even if your dad was doing horseshoes in the back, it was still a cool experience for you guys, right? Second last question for you, and then I've got to let you go because I do not want you to lose this tournament to Quinton again. Come on. But who are some of your pinball heroes? Like, who do you find watching play a lot? Which styles do you love? Like, do you have any of the top guys that you get to pick their brain or anything like that? Yeah, Bowen Kerins was kind of a big influence. Like, he was the first person I really watched ever, like, play pinball and do a tutorial and stuff. So he's kind of one of the pioneers of the IFPA and stuff, and he's definitely, like, a pioneer of tutorial videos and stuff. So he's definitely a big influence. He's helped me learn so many of the machines that I would have no idea what to do if it wasn't for him. So a big shout-out to him. I don't know if he's listening, but a big shout-out to Bo and Cairns. uh another amazing player that um i've watched uh over the last couple years and um yeah i learned some skills and techniques from him and a lot of other good players i mean as well like escher lefkoff jason zahler um those are some of the people i'd watch on the streams and stuff and just kind of get familiar with the flow of the ball and just like the different flipper skills and rules and stuff like that so yeah there's there's been a lot of influences for me to get me involved in the game and to help me get better but um yeah bow and carrots is probably the main influence for me wow that's so cool now i don't know if you heard this but what i'm doing for my top five most rad people that i ran into during my trip trip to d82 and lumberjack Johnny's. I don't want to forget about Lumberjack there, of course. The top five rad people that I ran into, they get $50 cash. I am so sorry. It is only Canadian. That's not very much in America. I think it's like 40 bucks or something. It's less, maybe 38. I don't know. But the point is, I'm going to toss you $50 cash and then on top of that $50 of merch. So I'm going to try to make like a really cool t-shirt up and maybe even include the top five people's names on there, figure out what size you want. I'll probably hook you up with some Pinball Nerds podcast trading cards maybe some free coffee or tea whatever I don't I don't know we'll figure it out but you're gonna get that and on top of that what I'd like to do for you if if you'd like it I don't know if you think this would have much value but I did hear Escher Lefkoff talking about for a lot of like you know newer not newer because you're not newer you've played you know tons of tournaments but for a lot for anyone who wants it he does offer a service well he will take a look at your your streamed games and your recorded games and he will kind of give you some tidbits and like help you out with it and all that kind of stuff and what I wanted to do if you wanted to again this is totally up to you is I would love to take that $50 cash that I was going to give you and I don't again I don't know how much it is I can reach out to Escher or you can doesn't really matter um but I thought like if you think it would have value and help your game maybe we could toss that money and if it's not too much I'll probably just cover the whole thing for you if you'd like um but like I thought if you thought that would help at all we could maybe get Escher to help you with that. Again, I don't think there's too many things you're doing different, but we can talk about that off air. But the main thing is I wanted to give you that awesome little prize package because I think that you're doing a great job. Any, you know, 50 bucks isn't much, but maybe that buys you into one or two local tournaments or it grabs you an extra fricking cheeseburger or Big Mac or something on the way to a tournament, something like that. So, um, yeah. Anyways, how does that sound? Dude, that is very greatly appreciated. I really appreciate you for that. that's awesome for you to do that. And, uh, yeah, I'll, uh, I'll, uh, yeah, I think, I think that'd be fun to try out with him. I think that'd be cool. He honestly, I think for you, because he probably has seen how good you are and you're on the come up. I really think he might, I'm not saying he doesn't go over and above for all of his clients, but if it's something that you're interested to, you don't have to decide today. You can mention to Escher. I don't, I don't think it's like a thousand dollars, but let's say it's like one 50. I would either cover half of it for you and you could cover the other half or just whatever we'll figure it out I think that Escher would be very fair with it and who knows because I think a guy of your skill level to get like a mentor like I know Escher's leaving the country and stuff like that so he won't be I think he's going to New Zealand or something right but um I think that like I think that that would just accelerate your game faster but if it would take away from the fun of you learning yourself don't do it but think it over let me know worst case scenario I'm gonna paypal you if you have a PayPal? Uh, I, yeah, I can set one up or I'll, I'll, I'll set something up. We'll figure it out. Either a parent, a friend, a family member, whatever. If they have a PayPal, I cannot Vimo here from Canada. They won't let me do it. It's so silly, but worst case scenario, I'll figure out a way to even do a bank transfer or whatever. And if you end up wanting to do that with, uh, Escher, we'll talk about it. But I just think that you, you have so much potential and I'm not going to say like, I don't want your parents to get mad at me. I don't want to say like, Oh, you never have to go get like a 40 hour week job because I don't know it's going to be very hard to pay all the bills but honestly with how good you're playing if you pick the right tournaments each year that you can come in and not easily but if there's a good chance you can get top 10 and wait and make a couple hundred bucks if you find the right tournaments you start live streaming there is a chance that you might only need a part-time job for the next couple years or honestly depending on you know because you're so young like I'm letting my son live here till 2021 or 22 or until he's basically such a dick to me, I would make him move out, but he's such, he's so kind and respectful, and he friggin' shovels the driveway for me all the time, he walks, he's a pleasure to have here, so he can stick around as long as he friggin' wants, mind you, he's never going to go live stream for me, it's hard enough for me to get him on the friggin' podcast, but what I'm suggesting is, maybe, maybe, maybe, and I could be wrong, you could be one of the few people who may never have to get a 40-hour week job, per se, unless you want to be ballin', or maybe, who knows, you start your own pinball company i don't know or something to do with pinball coding whatever designer in the future who knows the world is open to xyron if someone did want to support you say financially or something like that or send you an email or what's the easiest way for them to contact you if they wanted to either support you or just reach out and talk to you oh i got an instagram if that works that's the best yeah fired up all right yeah so it's uh it's z y f l o with an underscore it's Zyflo because uh back when I was like 14 15 I used to make rap songs and Zyflo is my rap name so that's my Instagram handle is Zyflo Z-Y-F-L-O with an underscore oh my god there's probably a zero percent chance you'd want to play like 10 seconds of one of your songs right now uh we'll save that for next time we can save it fine but no no no freestyle for you real quick if you want. Oh my god, dude, okay, I'm going to say goodbye to everyone, I'm going to say goodbye to you, but like basically at the very end, when, you know, let's say you do however long you want, but yeah, if you want to do a tiny little freestyle, that would just be absolutely incredible, both my sons will be impressed, it's probably the only part of this whole interview they'll listen to. I have been listening to rap for like 80 hours, so I'm actually getting back more into it. I would love to hear what you got, buddy. To all the listeners, please go back and listen to my, I'm sorry, three hour blog that I did earlier today, I guess, depending on when I post this back on the 27th of March. I absolutely loved it. I had a great time. Please listen to it in little chunks. Zyron, thanks for beering here. Until next time, Pimple and Urge, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Zyron Silver's Pimple. Thank you. Have a good one. Alright, so you want me to freestyle for you? Yeah, let's hear it, man. Let's hear it. all right you got to give me a couple words to use though so you know it's legit okay like um pinball all right nudge nudge okay uh i don't know could we do like oh well nothing rhymes with escher i was gonna say like um uh i don't know eric stone or something all right that sounds good cool cool pinball nudge and eric stone cool all right all right I'm going to start with Eric Stone and then just kind of go from there. Cool, cool, cool. All right. I've been on the road playing pinball, trying to have some fun. Got to get the stall, having the ball every time we roll. I just got to try and go down the road. And I rolled up and I beat Kevin Curtis, had to beat Eric Stone. I couldn't quite. He had to leave me alone, go to the next round. He had to have a ball around town. But I came back for pin masters. Everybody was looking at me like disaster You don't know nothing about it, I'm the master Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the caster That's what we do every time I just had to live it up with these rhymes You cannot give it up with my time This is mine, this is my design And I will climb every time I rhyme I'ma have fun every single time But we gotta keep this shit flowing Gotta keep this, this shit rolling Down the river, down the boat Y'all don't even really know But we gonna keep it 100 Yeah, I just gotta go and trudge Every time I'm rolling through the sludge I hit the pinball machine and nudge Y'all don't even know about my thing I just gotta keep it 100 and hang We just gotta roll when we can Yeah, we just gotta do what we can You know we gonna have a ball Every time we play pinball Woo-hoo! Digging it, digging it, dude. Just a little bit of fun. that was a little bit of form you didn't even write that ahead of time that was out of nowhere i loved it okay i'm not gonna lie your pinball skills might be slightly ahead of your rap skills but that being said you're probably the best combination rapper pinball player on the planet i don't maybe eminem or snoop dogg might be coming at you i don't know their scores maybe secretly they're pinball wizards they probably are but who knows for now we reign you the king of all rap pinball zyron silvers keep doing your thing if anyone sees him out there go high five this man tell him he's doing a great job maybe offer to buy him um um a drink in a year or two when he's legal age whatever state he's in and other than that until then just uh go skate in the morning and do what he does so thanks so much for being here have a rad time tonight and go win that tournament buddy awesome thank you very much and i really appreciate the opportunity it was nice talking to you and i hope you have a good afternoon and uh yeah cheers my guy uh you can stay on here for a second. I'm going to say bye to the nerds now, and good luck. Until next time, Pitbull Nerds, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. D82.