Mix Youtube with music and you get Nathan Sharp

Madelynn Johnson – Staff writer

What do music, acting, video games and “Dungeons and Dragons” all have in common? NateWantsToBattle, obviously. Who is he? He is a YouTuber with around 1,390,000 subscribers.

Nathan Sharp is a musician, voice actor, video game commentator and even a “Dungeons and Dragons” (affectionately known as “DnD” to the game’s fans) podcast member. Taking everything he does into account, it is clear to see that Nate’s focus in his multibranched career is his voice.

Due to his passion for the “Pokémon” franchise, he originally focused on delivering news about the latest games coming out to fellow fans (which explains the odd YouTube username, in case you were wondering). Through his passion for music, Nate has shown himself as an unapologetic nerd with a killer vocal range and a talent for playing guitar.

Nate started his YouTube music career with nerdy parodies of popular music. He took the instrumental versions of various songs and sang new lyrics over them that had to do with anime and video games, such as his “That Day,” “Attack on Titan” parody of “Pompeii,” “All About that Base,” “Pokémon” parody of “All About that Bass” and many other nerd culture essentials. On a slightly more serious note, he also did covers of popular songs from video games, such as character themes and boss battle themes.

Over time, Nate released original songs and albums based off of popular video games and tv shows, such as his rock opera based on the story of “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,” “Songs of Time,” and his original song “Let Me Try,” based on events from the popular Cartoon Network show, “Steven Universe.” He has also covered popular songs and put his own spin on them, and he has covered the opening songs of various animes, “Fairy Tail,” “My Hero Academia” and “Naruto Shippuden” to name a few.

In 2017, Nate released his first 100% original album, “Sandcastle Kingdoms,” and held a tour on the west coast for this album. As he released more and more covers over the course of the following months, Nate made an independent record label in 2017 called “Give Heart Records,” thus rebranding his channel as Nathan Sharp.

Of course, his old username has not entirely faded away, as he still openly tours around using that name. He recently released a line of merchandise using the known moniker as well. Earlier this year, his second original album, “Paid in Exposure” was released and he held another west coast tour for it.

Besides working solo, he has done collaborations with a few different musicians in covers and original songs, namely Cristina Vee, Andrew Stein and AmaLee. This past September, Nate announced his new band, “Roll For It,” headed by himself and fellow musician and friend, Andrew Stein, with their cover of “Girls Like You ft. Cardi B” by “Maroon 5.” It is clear that the future will be very busy for Nate as he pursues his solo career and a career with Roll For It.

Besides his musical prowess, Nate has many other vocal talents. He is a voice actor for various English-dubbed animes on the website “Funimation” and other independently-made animes in the U.S. He has a second YouTube channel besides his original music-oriented one for video game commentary, called NateWantsToBattleGames, where he plays games solo or with friends. Nate is also currently a participant in “Dark and Dicey,” a DnD campaign podcast with Cristina Vee, Hunter Hughes (also known as Dookieshed on YouTube), Zach Callison, Anna Brisbin and Kaiji Tang.

While Nate’s resume is certainly impressive, what makes him a compelling artist besides his strange beginnings? For starters, he has a vocal range is akin to Brendan Urie’s from “Panic! At the Disco,” and he has actually covered some of that band’s songs, such as “Death of a Bachelor” and “This Is Gospel.” His music tends towards the punk-rock and alternative-rock styles, even when covering pop songs. If you are a fan of those genres and Urie’s pipes, you might find yourself at home listening to Nate’s music. As an added bonus, he is not too bad to look at. Taking everything into account, NateWantsToBattle is “Perfect By Design.”

Madelynn Johnson, a first-year, studies English. She is a staff writer for Le Provocateur.