Interview with Jon St. John

One of the more important names in Duke Nukem lore is that of Jon St. John. Jon has been the voice of Duke Nukem since Duke Nukem 3D first appeared on the scene January 29, 1996. Since then, every Duke Nukem game that has come out (and there's been a lot across all platforms) have made use of the voice talents of Jon. We frequently get asked what he looks like (despite having had his picture on our site since June 1997. But less frequently appearing are interviews with Jon. Well, no more.

The gaming news site ZERG Watch published an interview with Jon back in April, and we wanted to make sure you saw it. In it, they talk to Jon about a great number of things. Jon has a very versatile voice, and has been in a number of other popular games besides the Duke Nukem series, as well as other things outside videogames. It's a cool interview with someone who you don't often hear from in this format. Here's a few snippets from the interview.

Zergwatch: Have you ever answered a telephone using the Duke Nukem voice or have you ever misused or abused the Duke Nukem voice (or any of your other voices) for a laugh that you could share with us? Jon "Duke" St. John: Oh yeah...many times. I often have friends ask me to place a call to some unsuspecting victim and get medieval on their asses in the Duke voice. I once called a radio morning show on the east coast and harassed the DJ's in Duke's voice...they had recorded the call and ended up using parts of the call over and over again on station promos!

Zergwatch: One of the cool things we found on your website was that you offer a service to make custom Duke recordings. How does that service work and how much does it cost?

Jon "Duke" St. John: It's very simple really...I can record a message of up to 30 seconds in length which is available in any audio format for use as a ring tone, answering machine, etc. for fifty bucks. You email the script to me, Duke says whatever you like, and after you make payment on Pay Pal, or after your check clears the bank, I email the audio back to you. Please keep in mind that I will not say "this is Duke Nukem". I will refer to myself as "Duke" and I will say anything you want me to say...I have no issues with profanity...in fact, I enjoy it!

You'll definitely want to check out the entire article; Jon talks about how he feels being involved with Duke Nukem all these years.

As a side note in Duke Nukem lore, Jon St. John was not the original voice of Duke Nukem. Back in Duke Nukem II, the character spoke two words in the "cinematic opening", those being "I'm Back". That was voiced by 3D Realms staffer Joe Siegler, and the screaming Duke did in that game when he died was by Todd Replogle. But it's been all Jon since then.

If you want to check out some of Jon's versatility, check out these outtakes from the Playstation 1 game, "Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown". Some of them are still darn hysterial, 11+ years later.

Posted by Joe Siegler on May 28, 2008 at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
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