Rescue 911 + Chill? We get tilted with Liquid Mike’s Zack Alworden
Doing his thing. Photo: Lars Juveland
By Rick Brewster
Zack’s been a good friend of mine for so long, I kinda forget he does pretty cool shit when we aren’t being degenerates together or referencing years-old jokes over text. A yooper currently based out of Marquette, MI, he’s the bassist in recently-popped-off Liquid Mike (since 2022), and also contributing to Charmer (since 2018). He’s a pro snowskater. He’s a skate rat. And, as you probably guessed with this being Nudge Magazine, he’s a pinball junkie.
He’s humble about all of it too. Not once has he been like, “you heard this new song my band dropped?” He’s more along the lines of, idgaf if you listen to our music or not. Do your thing. Don’t come to our show, but let’s hang later. I barely listen to his music, and I feel like a terrible friend for it. But Zack’s never made me feel that way. (I have seen him play, and it was pretty dope.)
Zack’s a die-hard pinballer. Knowing, and seeing, a broken standup on his local Rescue 911 be the bane of his existence for months on end solidified it. He’s one of us. So I called up Zack and talked for over an hour on touring, skating, Taco Bell, and of course, pinball.
How’d you get into pinball? And yeah, I’m giving myself a pat on the back for this one.
The timeline is hairy to me. I think it was 2019, when I came to visit you and Alan [Gerlach, pro snowskater]. You were living by Tilt at the time, I don’t know if we’re allowed to say that anymore. [laughs] I remember going with you and playing a little bit, like oh this is cool. When I returned to where I was living at the time, Escanaba, MI, there were a couple older machines that got brought into my friend Red’s workplace, a bar & restaurant. When the bar would close, we’d just stay and play. Those rules are so not deep at all, so it was a good experience to begin learning the rules of pinball. That whole time from like 2019 to spring of 2022, I didn’t take it very seriously.
In spring of 2022, it was a never-ending winter. It was too warm to snowskate, too much snow to skateboard. I was living next to an arcade [Vender Bender] that had a Shaq Attaq and a Rescue 911. My goal for the spring was to get the number one score on this Rescue, and that’s when I first learned every single rule of a machine. I’d read rulesheets, watch tutorials, I wanted to know every in and out of every single shot in the game. That was the moment I really started to like pinball.
Playing Big Hurt while peeping rules on his phone. Pretty unfortunate I caught him double flipping here. Sorry, dog.
And you ended up buying a Rescue 911, right?
Yeah. I hit my score, and it took like two months. The more you learn, the more you end up hating it. You realize half the things may not work. There was a crucial standup target that didn’t work, all these little things. To get that high score, I had to grind a lot harder than you’d usually have to.
That’s street pinball, baby.
Yeah. The owner of Vender Bender sold it. The owner of D82 [Erik Thoren] bought it, and I was hoping they’d put it out. He kept it for personal use, and I was just crushed. [laughs] That summer, I was on the Pinball Map app, trying to find any copy in the Midwest. I finally found one in Oshkosh, WI, and made a detour on my way to Milwaukee. I get there, and it’s not there. I call up the amusement company and ask about it, but they pulled it to shop it. Months went by and I got a call from a random number, I picked it up and it was that company. They said hey, are you still interested in Rescue? And it was quite a bit below market value. So I said I’m down and picked it up. Had it for about a year, played it until I got really sick of it, and sold it for a profit. Some EMT from the east coast had his friend pick it up, he was looking for that game for a while. I was so afraid of it breaking, it was in great working condition, so I thought I’m just gonna get it out of my hair.
Zack on TNA, but probably wishing he was playing the out-of-order Last Action Hero behind him.
You’re a Gottleib lover and a Stern hater. What’s up with that?
I knew you were gonna bring that up. [laughs] I think it’s a biased situation where that’s all I had at Vender Bender. I just thought they were fun. My hate for Stern games - let me clarify, I don’t hate all Sterns. I think I just don’t really like any game newer than like 2005. Action hero themes and things like that, I just have no desire to play that. I like old themes, ones about stupid shit like fishing. Like Fish Tales, what is that? That’s sick. That stuff is awesome to me. I don’t wanna play Avengers or Deadpool.
And when you’re getting into pinball, a ruleset that deep is really intimidating. Right away, I’m like oh cool, if I wanna learn any strategy to this game, I’ll have to study for four hours. But a mid-90s Williams, I only have to look into it for 10-15 minutes to understand the game, and I like that more. But no shade to the people who design [Sterns], they probably put their life into them and some of them are people I really like watching play pinball. Doesn’t Elwin design a bunch of Sterns? I’m never gonna hate on him. I love watching him play.
Starting a multiball on Twilight Zone at the pinball-bar-that-must-not-be-named. (Editor’s note: it’s just Tilt/LITT, guys. Chill)
What’s it like being in a band? Is it partying all night and eating Taco Bell every day like my dumb ass imagines it is?
In the beginning a little more, before you’re in your 30s. Not to say we don’t party still. But there is a lot of Taco Bell for sure. [laughs] At least with Liquid Mike, Monica [Nelson]’s vegan and I’m vegetarian. We don’t always have time to stop at a respectable restaurant, so Taco Bell is quick and can accommodate our diets. We just applied to this thing called Feed the Beat that Taco Bell does, where they sponsor bands and give you a $500 gift card. We’ve been trying to do it for years. I think our manager submitted us for that, so hopefully this time it comes through.
(Editor’s note: Bmoen, graphic designer of Nudge, was in a band sponsored by Taco Bell. I know because we used his giftcards nonstop in our other band together. Perks of knowing celebs. Disgusting behavior.)
I had no idea that was a thing. I was joking about the Taco Bell stuff, but that’s amazing.
Yeah, they’re kinda down. Sometimes you’ll be in a Taco Bell and they’re playing music, and you’re like what the fuck? They’re playing this band? They had a commercial during football season last year where they used a band called Militarie Gun, a band that’s hot but not a huge band by any means. Not like a Sabrina Carpenter, something hugely mainstream. You kinda gotta be in the know, and it’s cool they’re paying attention to that.
But, being in a band is nerve-wracking. Over the span of the last year and a half, I’ve played over 100 shows, but it’s still nerve-wracking. Which is probably good? But what no one tells you about being in a band is that it’s a lot of waiting around. You go in the van, you wait. You get to the venue, you wait some more. You do sound check, and you wait some more. You play, and once you get done playing, you wait some more. It’s a lot of hanging out.
Photo: Lars Juveland
Other than pinball, how do you pass the time touring?
The number one time burner is just hanging with the other bands. I’ll also bring my skateboard, but that comes with its own set of worries. Like, if I ruin this tour for everyone if I get hurt skating before sound check or something. You wanna get physical exercise, because you’re sitting around so much. I’ll probably skate twice a week when I’m on tour or something like that. But more often than not we’ll be on our way to venues, and I’m already on the Pinball Map, checking out the area, seeing if there’s anything I can walk to. If I’m really lucky, the venue might have pinball, which is rare. But it does happen, and it’s fuckin’ awesome.
You’ve played at some venues with pinball in the green room, right?
Oh man, it’s rare. But it’s happened, and it’s amazing. But then, I’m not hanging out with anyone that night, and they know I’m gonna be on the pinball machine. [laughs] If we’re part of a touring package, and they’ve played that venue before, they’ll usually let me know ahead of time. Like “we’re playing this venue Zack, you’re gonna love it, there’s pinball at it.” They already know.
One of the ones that comes to mind is the NorVa in Norfolk. They had an old Playboy in their green room, but their green room was this crazy lounge with a sauna, hot tub, big screen TV, pool tables. That night our singer’s voice was pretty much gone, so we had to play a really short set. Everyone’s like, is that okay? Is everyone down? - insinuating that only playing a couple songs was kind of a bummer. We only played like three songs, and let the crowd know we did our best. But I’m secretly like oh hell yeah, I can’t wait to get back to that green room. [laughs] The last chord rung out, I dropped my guitar, and ran right back into the green room.
Another situation was this place in DC called Black Cat. On the floor of the venue, they had a Johnny Nmemonic, which I had never played before that day. I play for a bit and I’m out of quarters, so I go up to the promoter. They have to give you a buyout, like a per diem, which basically pays for your dinner. I was like hey man, do you mind if I get this in quarters? [laughs] Like, I just wanna play pinball. He was cool, he puts in 10 credits, and I didn’t have the heart to be like “yo, that’s not gonna be enough.” [laughs] I rip through the 10 games and I’m back in his office a half hour later like, can I get some more quarters? He finally gave me the buyout in quarters, and I’m not exaggerating, I played all night. There was a band before us, I played through their set. Played our set, and there was two bands after us. Everyone in the audience is going nuts, and I’m just back there banging this pinball machine around.
Eventually, a venue worker was like hey, you gotta meet my coworker who’s into pinball too. I walked up and introduced myself, and he asked if I wanted to play. We walked toward where the Johnny Nmemonic is, but opens up like a secret door, and there’s all these other tables back there. No one’s allowed back there, it was a little speakeasy-type area, and there was six more games, Congo, WWF Royal Rumble, and more. He let me play back there all night, so I didn’t have to ruin the vibe of the venue. [laughs]
Zack never met a Gottleib he didn’t like. I’m not actually sure if that’s true, but I’m going with it.
What do your bandmates think of pinball? Have you gotten any of them hooked?
Mike [Maple, lead of Liquid Mike] loves it. With either of the bands, it’ll be me pulling the move of “yo, what if we went here to eat tonight? Oh, there’s pinball here? What the hell?” [laughs] Sometimes it happens naturally, and they’ll be like “Zaaaaack!” [in a groaning tone]. I’m like, I swear, I didn’t know!
They’ll play and flip around a little bit. But Mike understands rulesets and actually plays. Just last week, we were at our local brewery playing Earthshaker, and he got the #3 score on it. I was all of them, but he just beat one. He gets it. I’ll teach him rulesets, and he catches on quickly. He’s naturally good at it. He doesn’t grind as much as I do, he’ll kinda just play when I play, and he’s naturally better at it than I feel like I am. But other than Mike, not really anyone else. We’ll play like once a week, go to Ore Dock [Brewing] and play.
Photo: Kay Dargen
At Ore Dock, you got the alter ego Carl U. Miller. (CUM) Talk me through that.
Oh man. That’s my greatest achievement in pinball, honestly. I don’t have very many expectations when it comes to pinball, but I love the idea of being a delinquent. [laughs] Like I tell you, I wanna be pinball’s bad boy, or like Pete Weber the bowling guy, “who do you think you are I am!”. In a sport where there’s no real room for a bad boy, that’s what I wanna be. [laughs]
In 2022, I was playing Freddie [A Nightmare on Elm Street] and I didn’t have the chops at the time to hit a grand champion score. I kept hitting 3rd or 4th on the leaderboard and thought it was lame to put my real initials in, so I started using the really mature alias of C-U-M. I started doing that everywhere if I wasn’t gonna get the grand champ score.
I started doing that on local machines, and there’s not a lot of competition in a small town like Marquette. The leaderboards pretty much reads my real initials, and then the following four are just CUM. Just last weekend I happened to see a Facebook post about it from the brewery. The funny thing is too, they don’t know it’s me.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I’m there a lot, but the most acquainted I am with the staff is a “hey, how’s it going.” I know some of them by name, but I’m almost certain they don’t know it’s me. When Mike got high score #3 on Earthshaker last week, he put FAP. So now it’s all CUM, and one FAP. [laughs]
What do you tell people you do for a living? You’re in bands, you’re a pro snowskater, you’re a social media admin, you manage what’s effectively a small warehouse of snowskates & scooter parts out of your house. What’s your stock answer?
At this point, I usually just say I work for a snowskate company. That’s the bulk of my income. I will include riding sometimes, but that or the pro board isn’t really where the money comes from. And the other third of my income is playing & touring in bands. If I get pressed, I’ll get into doing the community management side of things for the snowskate company. It’s mainly controlling social media, responding to people, emails, and all the shipping and distribution of US orders.
Two pro snowskaters on NBA Fastbreak.
Ignoring the fact Nudge has a strict no-children policy, would you tell kids to get into music, or get into pinball?
Uhhh… well. I think one of them has the potential to bring you a lot farther in life if you’re good at it. And I’m definitely not talking about pinball. [laughs] Man, you know what, pinball was actually detrimental to my health for like a year there. I had to take a step back on it.
It kinda was. I remember that.
I was bumming on it. I’m bad at picking up and learning things quickly. Luckily everything I do I learned when I was younger and had more of an attention span, and as I get older I think I just expect that I *should* be good at something. Something’s really infuriating about paying money and draining immediately on a game. Probably a sign of something deeper going on. [laughs] I’d be cool in like 10 minutes, but sometimes it’d ruin an hour of my day. I was like, I gotta chill on this, it’s just a fucking game. I barely get mad at pinball anymore now though, it’s been years since I got rage-y. So I don’t know, watch out kids, it might take a toll on your mental health.
Photo: Lars Juveland
