Interview: Ongaku Overdrive Founder Kent Ward Talks to Us About Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA!
Posted on February 11 2025 by Kristen G. Rosario
Charity gaming marathon Zeldathon will be collaborating with Florida-based video game music coalition Ongaku Overdrive to host a live charity concert stream airing this Sunday called Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA, which will be raising money for LA Wildfire Relief. One of the key figures helping put this event together is Kent Ward, the founder of Ongaku Overdrive.
Known mainly for the concerts his group puts on in Central Florida, Ward has been hosting video game music events for nearly 12 years now, featuring musical talents such as Mega Ran, Bit Brigade, Super Guitar Bros., Ben Briggs, and more. With Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA just a handful of days away, we thought this would be a good opportunity to speak with Kent Ward about how the collaboration between Zeldathon and his group came to be, what convinced him to start Ongaku Overdrive, and more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Zelda Dungeon: For those unaware about Ongaku Overdrive, tell us about it.
Kent Ward: Thank you for having me. Ongaku Overdrive started in 2013 and has hosted dozens of concerts in Central Florida featuring live game music. This means that bands with instruments come to our area to perform music from your favorite game soundtracks. It doesn’t matter what the genre is, as long as it’s related to video games.
What was the driving force in getting Ongaku Overdrive started?
Funnily enough, I was running a prominent anime club in Orlando and staffing local conventions like Anime Festival Orlando and MegaCon. I was heavily involved in the local anime community. I was attending another event in the area called Nerdapalooza. It was a music festival that was a general celebration of “nerd culture,” but anime was always left out for some reason. I strongly believed that some of the acts that played on that show could do really well in front of anime fans, and I proved that with a charity show my anime club hosted, headlined by the now-legendary Mega Ran.
How did this collaboration with Zeldathon get started?
A little over a month ago, the wildfires broke out in Los Angeles. It was shocking to see how devastating they were. I had a planning meeting with the Ongaku Overdrive team for our 2025 events, and a couple members of the team pushed that we do a charity stream to raise money to help LA recover. I felt that we did not have the bandwidth to put together a show so quickly, so I put out a call on Bluesky requesting help for the cause. Klinkit, the executive director of Zeldathon, reached out to me to offer help. We chatted in direct messages and started working out a game plan which would have members from both groups work on this show together.
What should viewers look forward to seeing at the event?
Viewers are going to see how powerful and talented the video game music community is. We have FamilyJules, who has music in Crypt of the NecroDancer and Cadence of Hyrule, closing out the night. We also have some great VGM favorites like Lacey Johnson, Steven Strums of Super Guitar Bros., Bi Score, Jackson Parodi, and many more.
For those who don’t know, each Ongaku Overdrive concert you help create is themed after a specific video game series, and you have done a Zelda-themed event before with Power, Wisdom, and Courage: A Tribute to Zelda. Any likelihood we’ll see another Zelda concert in the near-future?
We have been more involved in local conventions to survey fans to find out their favorite game soundtracks. Zelda has placed high, and the more vocal fans are for us to host another Zelda show, the more likely it is to happen.
What was your introduction to the Zelda series?
My father bought us an NES months before the Super Nintendo came out. It was bundled with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, but the original The Legend of Zelda was one of the first games we got. We didn’t have Nintendo Power, so we drew maps in notebooks to figure out where everything was.
What would you say is your favorite Zelda game and score from the series?
I always go back to A Link to the Past. The world and dungeon design, especially with light and dark worlds, is timeless. Link’s Awakening has had many of my favorite Zelda tunes, especially “Mysterious Forest” and “Tal Tal Heights.”
Why should people be tuning in to Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA?
Right now, the people in Los Angeles County need healing. There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, and we need some wins. We need to help each other out. Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA will be a fun way to do this, especially with some of the things our performers are planning for their sets. If you love video game music, this will be a fantastic way to enjoy it, and for a great cause.
That’s awesome. Thank you for your time.
No problem! I appreciate you reaching out. Sunday is going to be awesome.
Full Disclosure: I have actually personally known Kent Ward for quite a number of years now and have been to some of the live concerts Ongaku Overdrive has hosted. Not only is the quality always evident with the performers, but you can always tell that everybody attending is a having a good time. If that level of quality is harnessed into Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA, I’m sure everyone watching will be having a great time raising money for a good cause.
If you’d like to learn more about Ongaku Overdrive, you can head on over to their official website, as well as follow them on X, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, Patreon, Twitch, and YouTube.
Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA will be streaming on February 16th at 12 PM PST/3PM EST on both the Zeldathon and Ongaku Overdrive Twitch channels. You can head on over to the Tiltify donation page for the event if you want to start donating now. To find out more about the concert stream, you can head on over to the concert’s official page. Zeldathon even has the schedule on their website right here.
What do you folks think? Will you be checking out Fairy Fountain: Hearts for LA? Let us know in the comments below!
Kristen G. Rosario is an Editor who joined Zelda Dungeon back in September of 2015. His current goal is to become a full-time video game journalist, hoping to eventually gain a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism. While he pursues that dream, he not only takes care of his adorable dachshund Angel, but also helps run a YouTube channel with his brother. The Zelda series is a quest he hasn’t fully completed yet, but hopes to get there one day.
