‘I missed it, I missed it all’: the guy behind the Metal Gear song that goes with everything was ‘two years’ late to the meme because nobody told him about it

A little fun fact I didn’t know until recently: Jason Charles Miller—lead vocalist of Godhead, but more well-known among MMO sickos like me for being the voice behind iconic Final Fantasy 14 tracks like To the Edge, Close in the Distance, and Unleashed from the newest Arcadion raid tier—is the guy who sang Rules of Nature from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Now listen, I’ve never played Metal Gear Rising, but I absolutely love Rules of Nature. It’s a straight-up banger, and ended up spawning the meme ‘Rules of Nature Goes With Everything’ all the way back in 2013. Why? Well, because Rules of Nature really does go with everything: Anime, other video games, that scene in Sharknado where the guy chainsaws his way out of a shark. The way the song swells before the titular phrase is screamed and transitions into a melodic chorus as the action kicks in. Truly peak.

I recently had the chance to sit down and chat with Miller about his career, and I couldn’t help but bring up the song and the numerous parodies that span off it. Except, it turns out that for years, Miller had no idea that the song had even gone viral.

“Get this: I missed it. I missed it all,” he tells me. “The whole ‘Rules of Nature Goes With Everything,’ I found out about that like, two years later, because my name wasn’t credited on it right away.” Miller says that it was “only when [Konami] re-released it on Spotify that my name was credited as the singer, so no-one knew that it was me for a couple of years and so no-one knew to tell me about this meme.”

Miller joked that the scenario was “So frustrating!” adding, “I wanted to live in the meme moment, but I didn’t get to. I got to at least look back at it.”

I do find the idea of being late to your own meme pretty funny, but it makes sense if nobody knew Miller was the one behind Rules of Nature for a hot sec. Apparently it’s something the singer has become pretty used to, though. “I did three songs for Cyberpunk 2077 with one of my side projects called Rezodrone, so people didn’t know right away that that was also me,” he said.

It’s all in good fun though, and Miller said he enjoys when people finally make the connections between the different games and realise he’s the same person. As someone who takes a weird sick pleasure in recognising voice actors and singers across different media—I’m like a walking IMDB page at this point—it’s cool to see Miller crossing over into so many different games I’ve enjoyed. Even if I spend years not realising it’s his voice in the first place.