BEATALLICA Bassist: METALLICA Are 'Our Saviors'

Patrick Douglas of the Great Falls Tribune recently conducted an interview with bassist Kliff McBurtney of Milwaukee-based BEATALLICA, a satirical mashup act whose hilarious schtick marries the songwriting prowess of THE BEATLES to the deep-throated rock growl of METALLICA.

Originally, the group was simply musicians Jaymz Lennfield and Krk Hammetson spoofing METALLICA songs to entertain a crowd at a metal festival in Wisconsin.

"We do this annual event here in Milwaukee called Spoof Fest where local bands emulate and desecrate their favorite national bands and Jaymz and Krk were doing METALLICA," explained Kliff McBurtney. "After many warm beers one summer night, they decided 'hey, wouldn't it be nice to do a tribute to THE BEATLES?'"

The group put together a CD of recordings as a joke, which got in the hands of physics professor David Dixon, who then posted the songs on his Web site to share with his friends.

"He was our previous Webmaster of Puppets. He actually called the project BEATALLICA," said McBurtney of Dixon.

Through sheer word of mouth and Internet buzz, the songs began circulating. Soon, Sony Records caught wind of the project and quickly issued a cease and desist order against the musicians to stop playing BEATLES material. The problem — they weren't actually a band and weren't technically playing anything.

"(David) called up Jaymz and put it to him that he was now in this band called BEATALLICA and had fans worldwide and there's a major corporation that wants to sue him," McBurtney recalled. "Jaymz had no (idea) about what was going on with this."

Read the entire article at Great Falls Tribune.