DETHKLOK Creator Talks METALLICA, KING DIAMOND, CANNIBAL CORPSE

Joe D. of Metal Hell magazine recently conducted a phone interview with DETHKLOK / "Metalocalypse" creator Brendon Small. The interview, which appears in the February 2008 issue, includes answers from Brendon as himself, as well as responses from Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Pickles The Drummer. A few excerpts from the interview follow:

Metal Hell: What does writing from a third-person perspective allow you to accomplish?

Brendon: I'm not sure. It's fun to have a comedic angle that you can pass off on other people but most of the views and thoughts of the DETHKLOK songs come from me and how I feel about things anyway; just trying to find the darker humorous sides of things and express them in songs. There's a song called "Hatrededy" on the deluxe edition that's about stand-up comedy and how brutal it is, like going on stage and dying, or even doing well and still hearing that kind of "fuck you" towards the audience, like what do you want me to stand around and entertain you? There's such a huge hybrid of emotions when you're performing comedy that I thought it would be funny to tap into the darker sides of that stuff and write songs about that. So that's one of the songs that does express how I feel, but I get to filter it through this band.

Metal Hell: How did the guest appearances initially come about?

Brendon: METALLICA was the first one. I knew from a friend that they were interested in doing cartoon voices, 'cause they just liked it, but we contacted them, I don't think they knew what they were getting into at all. They knew they were doing a show about a death metal band and blah-blah-blah, but we went up to San Francisco to meet them and had them read a whole bunch of stuff and they did a great job and they were super-awesome and funny and all their stuff was great. METALLICA started it and after we had METALLICA, the biggest metal band in the world already as a voiceover, it gave it some validity. Then we got ARCH ENEMY and NEVERMORE through our buddy Jody, who was at Krank Amplifiers at the time. He said, "How would you like to get Michael Amott on your show?" I was like, "That would be amazing, I'm a huge fan of his." We have a bunch of endorsement deals on the show. I called Gibson and all these different people and said, "I've got a TV show, let's work something out," and then when bands come to town you go and see 'em and you meet 'em and talk to 'em. I introduced myself to (George) Corpsegrinder (Fischer) backstage at a Sounds Of The Underground show and told him about the show and how we're huge fans of theirs, and he's in season 2 and he's got a recurring character that's a lot of fun. Basically, we just called people. For King Diamond I went through METALLICA's management and they said Lars keeps in touch with King Diamond, so through Lars and through METALLICA's management I got in touch with King Diamond and called him at home and talked to him about the show and he was honestly one of the coolest people I've met that's a celebrity. King Diamond was amazing and he was the first person I thought of. We thought who could we get on the show, and it was like, "What about Dio and Lemmy and all those guys?" and I'm like, "Those guys are awesome but I'd rather go into what you don't see on TV that often." You always see TALKING HEADS and Ozzy and all those guys. "I'm like what about King Diamond, what about Corpsegrinder, what about NEVERMORE or ARCH ENEMY or EMPEROR or DIMMU BORGIR, all those guys that you would normally not expect to see in a show like this and when the metal fans found out about it I'm sure that they were going insane to find out that some of their heroes got to be funny and be a part of something that's incredibly different but somewhat supportive of the metal community.

Metal Hell: For Skwisgaar how would you compare your style to Toki's?

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: The ways I would compare my guitar styles to Toki's is that basically the main difference that separates us is that he is sloppy's and slow and really doesn't have his understandings for tone, whereas I does have that. He sometimes will put on his guitar backwards. There have been times where we plays a live show and he forgets completely to plugs in, whereas I will do everything's right. I've been trying to impeach him's from the band for's you know a pretty's long time, so there you are.

Metal Hell: For Pickles, how did you feel about the SNAKES & BARRELLS reunion last year?

Pickles The Drummmer: Yeah, you know, I like being a frontman of a band, I kind of miss it every once in a while, so SNAKES & BARRELLS was like, I love it, it's fun, but the first reunion attempt did not go well. They all kind of went back on drugs; on that totally awesome sweet Alabama liquid snake and that album is still soaring to the top of the charts even though we never really got through an entire song, but yeah, there's still talk of a reunion. I'm in touch with those guys. They're doing better and I'm in the middle of suing them for the rights of the name SNAKES & BARRELLS 'cause we're all kind of co-owners of that. If I can get the name then maybe I can re-do, you know another tour, or put out another album, 'cause there's an audience for that. There's people who wanna hear it. With DETHKLOK, anytime anyone has a side project people get a little jealous, but I don't see no wedding ring on this finger that says I gotta do DETHKLOK all the time. Pickles is gonna do what Pickles wants to do, so deal with it, DETHKLOK.

Read the entire interview at Metal Hell.