Even though he's in the midst of working on the third season of the hit animated series "Metalocalypse" -- which chronicles the lives of the members cartoon metal titans Dethklok -- for the Cartoon Network and he's hard at work on the fictious band's sophomore album, "Metalocalypse" co-creator, composer and general mastermind Brendon Small still found time for a vacation. And, not surprisingly, his respite involves plenty of rock.
This month, Small will be heading out on a weeklong, six-city tour with the all-star students from Paul Green's School of Rock, a program teaching the art of rock to students ranging from ages 7 to 18. The tour will come to Sayreville's Starland Ballroom on Saturday (April 4) before wrapping up the next night at the Trocadero in Philadelphia.
"The way I look at this whole tour is this is my vacation that I've been looking for, just playing songs that I really like and songs I already know and playing with these virtuoso kids who are going to make me look like an a------ on stage," Small said, adding that "these kids are really great players, and it will be fun for me just to try to keep up with them. They know what they're doing."
Small recently checked in with Metromix to give us the heads-up on what to expect out of this tour, along with some inside information on the third season of "Metalocaypse" and Dethklok's impending album, both of which are expected to hit in the fall.
How did you first get connected with Paul Green and his school?
A buddy of mine, Mike Kinneally, who's an amazing guitarist who I've been a fan of for years, called me one night and said "I'm going to be checking out this guy, Paul Green, and these kids that I may end up working with. Do you want to come and check out this show?" and I said "I know exactly who that guy is." I have the documentary, "Rock School" (2005), I bought it and watched it probably 10 times; I love that documentary. That guy's a goofball and I love him.
You know, I started playing guitar when I was 14, and I wish I had somebody pushing me like that, just for me to get over my stupid stage fears and all that stuff, and I immediately just identified with what he was doing. And then I went to the show, and I was just completely blown away by the kids' playing, by how much fun the show was, by the set list and all that stuff, and immediately I was like, "This is probably one of the better shows that I've been to in a couple of years." And then I saw them another year later, a year and a half maybe, and again that show wound up being the best show I had seen in a year. I go to tons of shows, metal and not metal and stuff and most of them are pretty boring.
For the tour, are you guys going to be doing Dethklok stuff together or is it going to be a mix of Dethklok stuff and other metal?
Yeah, it's going to be some classic rock, some metal and a few Dethklok things here and there. I continually stress that this isn't a Dethklok show. Some people, they just immediately equated that because I was going out that this was a Dethklok show, so I want to make sure that they know that this isn't a Dethtour; there will be one soon.
The Dethtour is like a combination of live music and animation, this whole coinciding of two different things meeting together nicely, and this is going to be about the kids, this show. So, I mean, I'll be on stage, I'll be hanging out, we will be doing Dethklok stuff, but it's pretty hard to play and the kids, from what I understand, are nailing it all. We'll be doing some of that stuff, and it's just a really cool set list, all in all.
Is that something you could ever see happening on the show, Dethklok teaching metal to a bunch of kids and taking them on the road?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, we kind of pitch those ideas back and forth. There's never a shortage of ideas, but I don't know that (the kids) would survive through that episode. But it definitely crossed my mind.
How's work on season three of "Metalocalypse" coming?
It's coming good. My whole goal on the show is to keep it moving along, to keep it not stagnating and to make it not suck, and that's where I am right now. We've done 40 episodes, the ratings are always really good, we sell a lot of stuff with the show, the record moved great, the DVDs moved great, we sell more t-shirts than any other show out there. But, the network won't necessarily let us rest on our laurels, which is kind of good. It definitely keeps me alive and alert and all that stuff.
You know, TV's a really weird thing, because it's not like you have one project; you have a whole bunch of miniature projects and you have to make sure that you're still interested in it. Dethklok is the most work I've ever done in my life, even though it's (for) this tiny little 11-minute 30-second show. But, combine that with being the executive producer and the main writer and the voices and writing all the music and the score at the same time. It starts to add up, but I couldn't design a more fun job. I just need more vacations, I think.
Will the recession be hitting Dethklok in this next season?
We'll see, if these scripts get approved. I definitely have a lot of that. I've always said it's kind of funny, that's what I wanted to call the next tour, the No Recession for Metal Tour.
It's really funny that a lot of companies, and this just came out in like the first quarter I guess reported earnings, that as everyone reported a loss in corporate America, the one company that reported an earning in the first quarter was Hot Topic, which shows that I think this world is like, they're not going to let anybody get them down, they're going to support their bands, no matter what they're going to support all that, the stuff that they dig.
But, in the show's real life, Dethklok will definitely, I think, experience a little bit of what's going on financially. There may be a corporate bailout, there may be a bunch of stuff.
And how's work on the new studio album going?
It's really good. I'm really happy with the sounds we've gotten in the studio. I'm really happy with the songs, they're faster, they're harder to play, and I think it's going to give the first one (2007's "The Dethalbum") a real run for its money, but I'm really happy with the way it's turning out.
And will it be songs from season two or brand-new songs or kind of a combination of the two?
It'll be mostly songs from season two and then a couple of new news, so some stuff that no one's heard before. And then all the songs from the season, there's a whole kind of elongation process where there are a lot of new sections that you will have not ever heard before because they didn't exist before, and so the songs, they take on their own lives, but one thing is for sure: for some reason, in the second season I made everything faster and it's much more difficult to play, so it's definitely a really big guitar workout going on for me right now.
