By Jonathan Williams

For the past few years, many video gamers have wasted countless hours living out their rock ‘n’ roll fantasies on Guitar Hero. But for Atlanta-based improv actor Pat Young, his heart is really in it when it comes to playing this game. In fact, Guitar Hero was one of the many things that made his relationship with his father that much more special.

Originally from Connecticut, Young moved to Atlanta after earning a theatre degree from Florida State University. The aspiring actor chose Atlanta over Orlando (“where I would have been owned by a big giant mouse”) as a stepping stone towards eventually pursuing a career in film and television in New York or Los Angeles. But after moving to the unfamiliar city, Young soon found himself once again turning to his father for reassurance.

“I was very close with my dad,” Young recalls. “He was very supportive of me and everything I did. I moved to Atlanta in 2006 and I didn’t have any friends or a job. I was doing OK until a week later when my car died. He ended up coming down to help me and a few months later came down to visit again. I was telling him about Guitar Hero, which had just come out. I told him it was the coolest video game I had ever seen. The next morning I found him playing ‘Smoke on the Water.’ I thought it was hilarious. It was just like the South Park episode.”

Over the next few years, Young got some of the acting and improv opportunities he was looking for. He’s been in Relapse Comedy Theatre productions such as History of the Devil and regularly appears in Stone Mountain Park productions like Dr. Busybody’s Boogiebot Blast, Wake the Bear and A Crossroads Christmas Carol. But while he was hitting high scores in his professional life, he was hit with a personal whammy when his father was stricken with a heart disease.

“He ended up passing away in November of 2009 from atherosclerosis,” says Young. “Before he died, we talked about making bucket lists and doing stuff we’d always wanted to do. I’d always wanted to break a world record [and] I wanted to try and do something that combined those three ideas: Guitar Hero, my dad and breaking a world record. And I wanted to maybe help other people who are going through or have experienced heart disease.”

Beginning at noon on Feb. 23, Young will attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for playing Guitar Hero with an event called Hero for the Heart, a benefit for the American Heart Association. The current record is a little longer than 50 hours, but Young plans on playing for 72 hours on the stage of the Horizons School‘s theater, with a goal of raising $5,000 in the process. And the timing couldn’t be better – Young’s father’s birthday would have been Feb. 26, and February is American Heart Month.

“I will be playing Guitar Hero the entire time,” he says. “There will be other people jumping in from time to time and there will be people playing online as well. But I’m the only person that is going to be playing for 72 hours.”

But even if you aren’t into Guitar Hero, there will be other ways to help the cause. Hero for the Heart will also include a silent auction featuring art by the likes of Stephanie Anderson of Neon Armour body painting, and there will be different contests throughout the event with prizes such as Guitar Hero bundle packs, DJ Hero items and, for the person who donates the most money to the cause, the Golden Fiddle Award, a Les Paul controller custom painted by Young, who is becoming a true Guitar Hero over the next three days.