BRENDON SMALL On Rise Of A.I.: 'Things That Looked Like They Cost Millions Of Dollars To Make Are Now Going To Be Very Readily Available'

In a new interview with Nikki Blakk of San Francisco's 107.7 The Bone radio station, Brendon Small — writer, director, producer, musician, actor and stand-up comedian who best known for co-creating the animated series "Metalocalypse", a dark comedy that ran on Adult Swim from 2006 to 2013 — spoke about how the emergence of generative artificial intelligence models will massively disrupt the future of the entertainment industry. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "This is such a crazy time that we're talking, because a lot people are kind of waiting to see what happens, a lot of people are waiting to see what happens with A.I. Will people have a job in the future? I'm talking to my compositor, we're talking about A.I. stuff and we're going, 'Oh my God, the things that we're doing, the things that we're rendering, all these little minuscule things can be solved with the prompts, and maybe this won't be a job anymore.' The compositor that I'm working with is also teaching classes at UCLA on compositing, and he's wondering, what does the future look like? But the truth is that I think you always need a person sitting there and sorting stuff out and getting your logic together and telling the story because nobody else knows. Even people get so granular and minuscule in the moment of what it is that they're creating that the bigger picture always has to kind of come out. And if you're not telling a human story, then what's the point of anything?"

Small added: "I think the truth is that things that looked like they cost millions of dollars to make are now going to be very readily available. And the fact that our iPhones have really good cameras that really capture light well and everything, that's crazy. Basically, it's not gonna cost a lot to make something. That's kind of the good news. But the question is what's the quality? Because you look at movies now and you see movies that are dropping out, they're coming out, franchise movies, and you're wondering to yourself, is this a passion project? Is this somebody trying to second-guess an audience? Is this somebody dumbing down stuff because they think we're dumb? But I really do believe there are artists out there that really have great voices. They're gonna do what they're gonna do no matter what. And they're gonna tell stories and try to communicate with us. So I don't think A.I. is going to change any of that stuff. It may fool people and it may be dangerous for an election, A.I. can be dangerous for a lot of different reasons, but there are gonna be things where… I mean, I have played with A.I., with prompts and everything, and it's just insane."

"Metalocalypse" is a cartoon series about a fictional death metal band called DETHKLOK that's bigger (and far more powerful) than THE BEATLES. The show ran for seven seasons, with the final episode being an hour-long rock opera, "The Doomstar Requiem".

After "Metalocalypse"'s rise in popularity, Small assembled DETHKLOK as an actual live band to play the music featured on the show, with Small himself handling vocals and guitar.

DETHKLOK's first three albums charted in the Top 20 of the Billboard 200 and the third release, "Dethalbum III", peaked at No. 10, making it the highest-charting death metal album of all time. In addition, "The Doomstar Requiem: A Klok Opera Soundtrack" made it to No. 7 on Billboard's soundtrack chart in 2013.

After several years of dormancy, DETHKLOK returned last year with a new album, "Dethalbum IV" and an animated movie, "Metalocalypse: Army Of The Doomstar". It was hard fought since Adult Swim abruptly pulled the plug on "Metalocalypse" show a decade ago, despite its rabid following amongst the metal crowd, many of whom came to appreciate the show's regular easter eggs and voice appearances from the likes of King Diamond, METALLICA's Kirk Hammett and CANNIBAL CORPSE's George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher. Indeed, "Metalocalypse" may be the only quasi-mainstream show to be truly catered to a metal audience, which can explain its enduring popularity and the steady drumbeat of requests for its revival.

As previously reported, DETHKLOK will embark on the "Mutilation On A Spring Night" tour in the spring. Running from April 7 through May 3, the trek, produced by Live Nation, will see support from DRAGONFORCE and NEKROGOBLIKON.

Last year's "Babyklok" co-headlining trek with BABYMETAL was the first DETHKLOK tour in over a decade.