Don Miller. By day, he’s an English teacher.

Despite his rising popularity, from performing at Philly’s popular rave Making Time, to his gallery at the University of the Arts, to his recent trip to the Sperm (wtf) Festival in Prague, Miller took some time to sit down with us for a quick interview about his life, influences, and chiptune culture.

So first of all, how did you come up with the idea to start creating visual art out of Nintendo games?
When I was younger, I played a lot of Nintendo. As I grew older, I was inspired by a lot of the work I had seen other artists do on similar systems. For years I saw homebrew programs and demos created by talented people on the Commodore 64 and other home computer systems. Although I knew it was possible to use those systems, I wanted to try something different. I’ve always been a big fan of the look and feel of the games on the NES. I started to teach myself the hardware and software necessary to create my own programs. As I came in contact with people in the US chiptune music scene, I felt the need to take what I created to perform at live music events.

Is the process difficult?
I would like to say it came easy to me, but it didn’t. Learning the necessary hardware and software I needed to create these visuals is certainly challenging, but also part of the thrill. I still push myself to learn more and more, and I’m surely not going to stop anytime soon.

You’re an English teacher… what do your students think of your art?
Truthfully, they only have a vague idea of what I do. Of course they’ve found my MySpace page, but I’m not sure if they understand or really care. They sure love when I travel, because they get a break.

Your visual art often goes along with video game music events. For those of us who don’t know, what are chiptunes?
Chiptunes are songs that are made with old video game or computer hardware. More importantly, the music you hear is synthesized in real-time from the sound chips, not sampled.

Why do you think chiptune music appeals to so many people?
For some people, it might be the nostalgia. For most, it is something more. Not only is there a whole world of chip music out there, but a wide variety of genres. That is part of it, I guess. You have a big mix of musical genres and styles that contribute to a very diverse scene. More than that, I think it is the raw energy and DIY feeling of the performances. The musicians are making the most of these classic machines, and creating truly remarkable music with limitations that most electronic musicians couldn’t even begin to understand. Furthermore, in a time when even DJs play low-quality MP3s at clubs, it is great to hear artists playing music from actual hardware. Nothing beats the crisp bass sound of a Gameboy or a Nintendo on a loud sound system.

What other artists in Philly are a part of this scene?
There is Cheap Dinosaurs in West Philly. He makes music with a Gameboy and a couple of classic synths. Animal Style is another local who makes music with a Gameboy, but plays live guitar in his sets. Finally, there is Alex Mauer. He makes music on a variety of consoles, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari, NES, and even classic computer sound chips. Last year he and I teamed up and I coded complete albums for him on the NES.

You recently had a gallery at the University of the Arts; where else can we see your work?
I’ll be at Pulsewave this Saturday, April 26th. Pulsewave is a monthly chiptune event that has been happening in NYC for the last two years. I also create electronic fliers in the form of NES programs for this event every month. You can find out all the info at Pulsewave's website. Next month I’m in St. Louis, and I hope to have a busy summer once school is out!

Although it’s not really a gig, or a place to see my work, I am very excited to be teaching an upcoming class at the Hacktory, a local non-profit organization dedicated to promotion of technology in the arts. The class is title “Introduction to NES Audio,” and is being held on June 14th. Check out their site for more information. I’m really psyched for this because I am extremely interested in seeing this scene get bigger and bigger.

Learn more about No-Carrier at his official website, www.no-carrier.com.