Brendon Small (Metalocalypse) interview

BS: How's it going?

BS: What's your name?

BS: Well, nice phone manners, Drew. Nice to meet you.

BS: North Carolina? Is that where you are?

BS: Nice, a buddy of mine is from there. Zach Galifianakis. You know him?

BS: Yeah, he's a goofball.

BS: He's got a beard, yeah. And it works for him, too. It's a big fucking beard.

BS: Mr. Hollands Opus, whenever that's on TV, I like to sit through the whole thing.

BS: No, I've seen it. It's been on cable and I made a point to watch it before because one of my favorite things in the world are terrible music movies. Where they just don't get it and miss the mark. There are only a couple good music movies. There's Eddie and the Cruisers 2, is one of my all-time favorites of shitty music movies. It's one of the best things. I can watch it and re-watch it in the same sitting. Mr. Holland's Opus, the reason to make that a music movie to watch is the scene where there's that red-headed girl and she's having trouble playing the clarinet. Mr. Holland's just not getting through to her and she just doesnt get it and keeps messing up the notes.

BS: He doesn't lose his shit, no. He goes the other way. He makes her understand. He's Mr. Holland.

BS: Yeah. So he says, "what are the things you like," and she lists a couple of things. One of the things she says is, "I like that my father likes my hair, he says it reminds him of the sunset." And then Mr. Holland thinks for a minute and he says, "play the sunset," and she lifts up the clarinet.

BS: She says, "my hair reminds him of the sunset."

BS: Ehh, aw. That would've ruined the movie.

BS: No, this is a real scene. I'm verbally transcribing it for you. So anyway, he says, "play the sunset," and she plays maybe the most beautiful music I've ever heard in my life.

BS: It was a bunch of fucking....a cluster of fucking notes.

BS: No, it wasn't that great. But thats why I love that movie, because it's saccharine and shitty, and syrupy. It doesn't feel like musicians were involved at all. That and Eddie and the Cruisers 2, for the non-musical moments where the guy is bossing around the band and telling them what to do.

BS: No, no, no. It's a diamond in the rough. I feel like I'm the one who really discovered it. Not the first one, the second one.

BS: Part 2. Yeah. It's just a great story. Watch it. I'm a fan of horrible film.

BS: A movie's either got to be really good or really bad, none of this bullshit in-between. I feel the same way about comedy. I don't want to watch a guy getting good. I want to watch a guy who's already funny or a guy who is having a meltdown on stage. That's what I think is funny.

BS: [laughing] Oh yeah.

BS: I think driving people mad is sometimes funny.

BS: [laughs] With a man.

BS: I don't go forth to annoy people - that's not my goal, however I feel that's one of the more important elements of great comedy. But not the main one. You don't want to blow your wad with just being annoying. You've got to be subtle and aloof every once and a while, too.

BS: Then again, that does come around after a while.

BS: I don't know about that, I'm just talking about more like long car ride kind of humor. "Oh yeah, that joke was funny, now just fucking shut up. Well, alright, now it's getting funny again."

BS: Sure, but you're a grown man and you're driving people mad. I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with this. Philosophic vagueries that I don't really believe in.

BS: Yeah, I checked out your website. It's cool. I was reading the review on the new Black Dahlia.

BS: Also, it opens up a whole world of other stuff out there. One thing I've noticed about Metalocalypse is a lot of kids are saying that they don't like metal, but they'd like to know a lot more about it. Then you've got the weirdo Adult Swim guys who are just indie-rock goofballs who don't even like music or anything. They're at least opening up their minds to learn about stuff. They're intrigued by it because it's such an interesting subculture.

BS: Heh, yeah. Since I've had things on TV, I've stayed far away from message boards.

BS: You know what, I have friends who do other Adult Swim shows who put shows out there and are just trying to see how they're doing, and kids are fucking...it's amazing, the kids are merciless. I'm totally on their side. It's hilarious. The power of one voice to ruin your life - I love seeing my friends squirm. But its' like, you don't have to subject yourself to that. Keep focus and do what you want to do. If it's important to you, keep on doing it. People scrutinize you and have a good point, then maybe they have a good point. Sometimes those sweaty little dildos have a point about shit.

BS: Somebody told me, I mean, again, I don't scour information about myself. Unless there's naked ladies involved, otherwise I'm not interested.

BS: Yeah, and I'm like, "I have been? Where?" I would very much like to see that happen. But I'm only on guitar websites. I go on Gibson.com and stuff.

BS: Um, I don't know. You know what? Here's the thing about TV shows. I've said this way back with Home Movies. Having a cartoon is very much like not having a cartoon. You just walk down the street and no one gives a shit. You get the paper and you get a coffee or something. It's not like the pressures of keeping up things, or people digging your shit. It just doesn't get to you. So it's kind of a nice way to be creative and not really be affected by what other people think. Having said that, the compliments of guitardom doesn't really get to you either. I just want to make sure it doesn't suck. That's all my goal is. Make it not suck.

BS: Yeah. It's fun playing guitar. The whole reason Dethklok exists is so that I have an excuse to play guitar.

BS: I don't know. I actually really don't know. I think about that every once and a while, if I were to put a solo out or something. I think it would have elements of Dethklok like all the Queen stuff that I like to rip off, and the old school kind of thrashier stuff. I like that. I don't know. I do like epic and dramatic stuff.

BS: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like metal. I first started playing metal when I first started playing metal, like every kid in suburbia who gets handed a guitar. Playing "Iron Man" and some of it you keep playing and some of it you don't. But the first thing to really get me into metal was King Diamond when I was 14.

BS: I don't know how old you are, but I'm 32. "Them" had just come out. I was like, "wow," because I was a horror movie geek and I like film. I like comedy like Marx Brothers and Woody Allen, and I was way into horror movies and b-horror movies and I discovered King Diamond and was like, "oh my god, this is awesome, it's so dramatic." I actually was sitting there being 14 years old, scared by the story.

BS: Yeah, he's a good storyteller. He creates a really eerie atmosphere. I was like, "oh my god, this is great. It's a concept album." Because I also grew up on Jesus Christ Superstar and all the Andrew Lloyd Webber stuff.

BS: Yeah, don't want to ruin your "cred" by saying too much. But no, it's funny. That stuff actually does move you in some way. And then Andrew Lloyd Webber had really strong melody and really cool harmonic movement, and really cool odd-time shit. Jesus Christ Superstar is one of the most dramatic and cool pieces of epic rock.

BS: It's also gay. I mean, it's like a combination of all the things that make something kind of cool. Almost the embarassing qualities of it.

BS: Oh yeah, yeah. Wait, is he in that now?

BS: Yeah, the Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde thing, which I haven't heard or seen. I remember Gary Cherone at one point was Jesus Christ. The guy from Extreme and from an incarnation of Van Halen. When they started getting their shit together.

BS: I thought of three or four things at once. I thought, "there's got to be a record, some kind of tour, and oh man, what if we got King Diamond?" That was before any other voice over work, or getting anyone else to do anything. The other thing was like, "oh, guitars, amps, pedals, gear." So all that stuff kind of happened in one afternoon. I was like, "oh fuck." I almost exploded because I had so much to do.

BS: Oh yeah, because, I mean, I've been listening to him since I was fourteen. I've always been keeping up with him and what he's doing, and he always sticks to his guns. He knows what he does and he does a great job with it. He's so passionate about his work. Getting to talk to him on the phone for the first time, you know, it's meeting one of your heroes. It's super exciting. He's totally a perfect gentlemen with amazing phone manners. I would ask him all these geek-fan questions, and he was so nice about answering that stuff and telling me what he was working on. He told me about the new album that's out now.

BS: "Give Me Your Soul, Please," yeah. But yeah, he was one of the coolest guys and he was the first guy I thought of. And I was like, "I don't think I have to direct you, I think you know exactly what you're doing," and he recorded it at his own studio in Texas. I got to ask him, one of my favorite things, was like, "King Diamond, what are you doing..."

BS: No, they call him King. It was Lars Ulrich who helped me get his number, through their management. Everyone referred to him as King. So yeah, I remember picking up the phone and going, "I'm sorry, is King Diamond there?" [laughing]

BS: I know, yeah. I'm like, "yeah, this is Brendon, from Dethklok." "Oh yes, Brendon from Dethklok, hold on." But I remember asking him, "what is King Diamond doing in Texas," and he says, "Great weather. It's always warm here."

BS: I would go there just for that reason, too, actually.

BS: Well, yeah, I mean, here's what we wanted to do: we wanted to do an entertaining show about something we gave a shit about. And whether or not we wanted it, there was a huge amount of responsibility the second we said, "hey, lets do this. Aw fuck man, now we have all this fucking shit to deal with, about this and that," and I get it. Because metal is about credibility.

BS: Yeah. We wanted to make sure because I think it's very easy to think about snotty hipsters shitting on metal. I think because there is a joke there where oh, people take themselves seriously and, "ha-ha, look at you, you care at what you do." And I mean, I think in the same way you can go watch the Broadway production of Wicked and go, "ha-ha, you all got dressed up and learned the words, ha-ha." But you know, thats how you put on a fucking amazing show and move people. It's fuckin'...so fucking...that's why black metal is awesome, that's why Amon Amarth are awesome, thats why fuckin' Cannibal Corpse are awesome - it's like, they fuckin' give a fuck, and they fuckin' mean it. And that's cool. You can make fun of that if you want to, but I think that joke will run short very quickly. We just wanted to make sure that people knew that our show was like, it's not so much about metal, it's about celebritism. Celebrities are...that's who everyone looks up to. You watch the news and it's all about ridiculous celebrities. At one point, celebrities could be crazy narcotic freaks, get everybody pregnant, and maybe shoot a couple people, but they were talented! Like back in the old days.

BS: Fatty Arbuckle might have raped that girl, back in the 20's...

BS: They're not even talented anymore.

BS: Reality shows took over ever since the war started and it's not reality.

BS: Over the last seven years, since the war started, the whole world just fucking….like back when they used to have protests about wars and people used to have messages, George Bush put the kibosh on that, like, the second The Dixie Chicks spoke up and had a fucking opinion they were shunned and their careers were killed. Everyone in the whole world got scared and bacame like "Hey, let's escape this in reality. Fake reality." Let's talk about how Paris Hilton is hot and she sucks but she can blow. Great. "What does she do?" Nothing. "Is she a model?" Kind of. "Does she act?" Uh, no. "Does she say anything?" I don't know.

BS: She sure is. Our show is about celebrities. Like helpless, ridiculous, narcissistic idiots that whether or not we want to, we're giving them our attention. But on our show they get to be about something cool. And they do have talent and they can make music. But we're still shitting on America and celebrityism.

BS: Yeah. Metal can be like a hugely important thing or hugely destructive thing it just depends on how...

BS: It's incredibly violent. It's funny how you sell violence on TV because we're not allowed to have tits or humping or anything like that on the show but we can split a guy's head open with an axe. And then the kind of notes we get are like "Make sure there's not excessive blood." And then we come back and we're like "What does excessive mean? We don't think it's too excessive. Maybe it would be excessive if it filled up outer space but not the swimming pool." So our show is not about violence for violence's sake. We set it up and it pays off and we're calling it slapstick.

BS: It's funny, the networks don't really care about the violence. I think with death being the ultimate slapstick, that you're going to die, it's kind of funny. People die in absurd and embarrassing ways all day long.

BS: I don't really think about it too much. I'm not a morbid or morose person. I'm more of like a wisenheimer…. You know what, let's not say that. I don't want to use that word.

BS: I think half of being alive is knowing that you're going to die. And if you can take the piss out of death and kind of celebrate it a little….that's how death metal is sometimes. I mean, you're going to die so it's relatable.

BS: Exactly. So it's relatable. Again, I think if you can take the piss out of death then your life can be worth living. I know there are people who fear death and who are neurotic people and think about death constantly but I got work to do. I gotta think about work.

BS: I have a very big plan for where the show is gonna go. What me and Tommy are doing is just little pieces as we continue because we'd like to just tell the story. TV is at its best when it's episodic and it can tell you a bigger story. The Sopranos and similar shows taught us that. They really tell a bigger story and I think that's the only reason to do a TV show.

BS: Absolutely. And I think that now TV shows are made to ultimately be watched on DVD. On DVD you can really appreciate the entirety of the season. I don't really think about how the show is going to play out on TV. When we're putting the show together I think more about how it is going to play out on DVD, as two big DVD's back to back.

BS: There has to be a lot of things that happen to complete a story so I don't know. I've said this before but TV isn't like having a band where it's like this is my passion, this is what I do, this is mine and I'm going to do it as long as I can. TV is more like, here's an idea, give me lots of money and if no one watches it, it's over. And then it's taken away and it's gone so you just tip your hat and keep on walking until you think of another idea. TV can be taken away at any second so you try and kind of live for the moment and do it while you can do it. A show like Metalocalypse is a fucking exhausting show because there's not that big of a staff. I write the music myself and still write the scripts, do all the voice and just manhandle and nitpick everything and I gotta be the bad cop.

BS: And I always have to be that guy. We have so much to do at once and we have so many projects. We're in the middle of I think fourteen different episodes and different points of production. Some of them are in outline stage, some of them are being rerecorded or reanimated.

BS: Yeah, it's a fifteen minute show and it's easily as much work as….I mean Home Movies was a half hour and this is easily more work. Just with the artwork alone and everything it's way more work than a half hour show.

BS: I just kind of asked around. The whole thing with Adult Swim is that they give a lot of support and are very cool and open. They have to look to me and Tommy as authorities as far as what to do with the show because they're not really metalheads. So they said "Yeah, let's let the people who know what they're doing do this." So I was like "Great, I really want to do this. Let's find somebody." So we tossed around a few names and came up with Adrenaline. So I went and met with them and immediately liked them just based on attitude alone. I like to work with people that enjoy working.

BS: They've been working out great for us. We're really happy.

BS: I don't know about that.

BS: I can't really comment on that. I've lost all sense of objectivity towards what this music is. I don't know, I like it personally and I like to do stuff I like. I think of Dethklok or anything that I get to do music for as an opportunity….like, I think TV is really generic and any time you hear rock or anything that comes close to metal it just sounds stock and generic and I was like "Why not make it specific and have it coming from one place and care about it?" I mean, how many opportunities am I gonna get to make a record and play all the instruments and do all the solos and all the singing? I'm probably only going to get one so I may as well make it kind of cool. That was my thought, you know? I don't want to half-ass it or anything. It should be fun and be what I like about things which is to say it should embarrassing, stupid and epic.

BS: I've ripped of Brian May so much that I'm just waiting for him to serve me with papers.

BS: Well, I wanted real drums because I had been programming and I wanted a bigger sound than the TV show. With the show I'm basically just sitting with a G4 Pro Tools LE and basically direct lining all guitars. So I decided that I'd like to work with a real producer and produce a record with real drums that sound big and fat and not produced. I mean, I program drums but I'm not really that good at programming. I put the double kicks in there and they're not too loud but you can hear them. So I wanted something with some personality and some musicality so I talked to some people at Century Media and asked for some recommendations and immediately everyone said Gene Hoglan. And so I called him up and you know, I've been a huge fan of his for years.

BS: I don't know. I love Death but I've really been listening to a lot of Strapping Young Lad.

BS: Exactly. Every one of their records is amazing. I love that they're not afraid to be melodic and musical. It definitely comes from a place.

BS: Yeah, my favorite kind of music doesn't have a style attributed to it. My favorite kind of music is written by a person who understands harmony and melody and can make it strong. Basically just making a really awesome piece of music and that can be done on a banjo or anything, it doesn't matter. But that band just has a strong meeting of the minds and everyone gets it. I particularly like Gene's drumming because he would do stuff like divide up the kit and divide up the kicks and just be really thoughtful about his time. So that's why I picked Gene. He was the only one I talked to. He just worked out really well. He's a great guy and again, he's incredibly musical. When he had something to say I would always shut up and listen.

BS: Mike I knew about Mike because, well, when I was in high school I was a shred guitar player. I had like Paul Gilbert and Yngwie instruction videos and I was just getting good at that shit and it then became desperately uncool to play your instrument. That was like at the start of the whole grunge thing. And I was like "what the fuck is going on here?" I was really upset that people were embarrassed about playing. And when I went to music school I went through this huge Frank Zappa phase. That was all I fucking cared about. And I knew who Keneally was because he had played with Dweezil Zappa and of course with Frank Zappa first. He was Frank Zappa's last live touring guitar player. And I looked up his solo records and I was just blown away by how creative and how technical he was and how musical all of it was. It's smart but it didn't take itself too seriously and it was funny and it was just shit that I like. I like being blown away. I like people who are virtuosic and don't take themselves too seriously and yet are amazing people. So oddly enough, about ten years later he got in touch with me because he was a fan of Home Movies which I couldn't believe because I was such a huge fan of his, and we became friends. He's just such a sick guitar player. I watched him play last night in Hollywood and my jaw just dropped. He played with Marco Minneman who is the drummer for Necrophagist and who is just one of the scariest drummers to watch. So anyway, I sat down with Mike and basically told him he could do whatever he wanted. I was like "I like you, you're an amazing guy and I want you to play with me. Please." And Brian Beller played with Mike and can do anything on bass. So basically I just wanted solid musicians who I knew well and just really liked a lot because with this tour we're going to be spending a lot of time together.

BS: I would actually like to do it later. We're dividing up our season in the middle of producing this thing too so I'm like writing and producing this tour in the middle of writing and producing our season so I would like to do it later but it's pre-sold and this is the one thing that I don't have anything to do with. I'm a control freak and I got to do everything on the record myself. It was just me and two other dudes and I called the shots. (laughs) And that's the way I like it. Same thing with the TV show. That's why you create a TV show and write and produce it because you're a control freak. But with this, the only I have control over is what the animation is gonna look like and what we're gonna sound like. Everything else, I don't know. It's a college tour and there's some kind of corporate sponsoring going on. I think Guitar Hero 3 has a lot to do with it. You know, it's our first outing and I'd really like to be able to do something under the radar but this isn't going to be under the radar at all. Basically what we're doing is playing as a picture so it's gonna be kind of like the Gorillaz. The focus isn't on us, it's on the pictures. We're gonna be playing but we're not gonna be wearing big Styrofoam faces or anything.

BS: We're not gonna dress up or embarrass people by doing that. [laughs] My goal is for us to sound good. I don't care what we look like. We're gonna be in the dark. If you wanna squint and see how we play sweep arpeggios, that's fine, but it should like a big, stupid, Universal Studios ride or a Disneyland ride. It's gonna be dark and fucked up and we're gonna tell a little bit of the story and have some comedy and things like that. Anything can really happen so I don't know. I'm like twice removed from the production of the show. It could catastrophic. It could be very cool. It could be cool catastrophic and horrible which could be funny.

BS: It's either gonna be Dethklok or Spinal Tap, I'm not sure.

BS: I think I'm covering all my bases saying it could really suck but I'm playing with three great players so no matter what those three guys are gonna sound good. I don't know about me or the animation though.

BS: I don't really have it any more but when I first started doing stand up, yeah I had a lot to get over. When I was 15 I entered a guitar competition that I think changed my life. I was so fucking horrible and so embarrassed…

BS: Yeah, there kind of was. But if I had made an episode based on the actual experience I had, the fucking darkness that enveloped me from being so embarrassed, it would have been a much different episode. It was traumatic but it did really help me. I was just like "You know what, guitar? I don't like you and you don't like me. But we have got to fucking figure this shit out. We can't let that happen again."

BS: You know what? No. On the show there's only one part where there metal happens and everything else is not metal. Like when I score the show sometimes I try to have just the gayest music happen. Like when there's a montage or they go to a restaurant, I always want to have something so not metal happening. Like even in the first episode when they go shopping, the grocery store music is like the polar opposite of metal. And writing those types of cues is fun. As the show continues we're getting more dramatic with the cues, more kind of orchestral and stuff like that and it's really fun for me. It keeps me thinking and not doing metal. I have to keep doing metal though. After a month or a week on and my fingers turn to fucking jell-o. For me, the guitar is kind of like that movie Memento. Like how he wakes up every day and goes "Ok, who am I? These are pants?" After having the guitar in front of me for like a day and a half I start going "What is this thing? What do these strings do? Why do I have this? Oh yeah, that's a pick, I know that. Alright, let's get cooking here!" And then "KWONK!! What the fuck am I doing here?" So I've like taught myself back into it every time. I don't really ever get sick of metal though because there's so much cool stuff going on and it's so easy for me to get inspired and it's so fun to go to shows and again, just surround yourself with cool musicians. When you're doing comedy there sometimes comes a point where you just get sick of jokes and start thinking that comedy isn't funny. You just kind of get sick of everything you do. But I'm always excited to hear new records that come out.

BS: I'm looking forward to the new Exodus album. It's supposed to be a bit heavier but still thrashy.

BS: Oh yeah, I love that too. Their old stuff is really great but I just like the really thrashy stuff. Let's see, the new Arch Enemy is awesome. I love listening to their guitar playing.

BS: I hear ya. I just love how they aren't afraid to get a little hard rock. Again, I love the drama in all that stuff. It's funny, in death metal and melodic metal… I love people who are like, devoid of melody and kind of atonal…

BS: Who?

BS: I'm not familiar with them.

BS: Awesome. But yeah, I like extreme shit that just keeps building and getting crazier and crazier and you're like "Where's the downbeat? What the fuck is going on How do they know when they're done?" And then I also like shit like "Fuckin' yeah man, put a fuckin' melody in there." Make it silly but make it good. Don't be afraid. Fucking own it. So yeah, I go both ways on it. There's so many different kinds of music to listen to that you don't want everyone to be the same.

BS: Yeah, it's like it own kingdom of animals where there's different phylums.

BS: Exactly. And I do like the new Black Dahlia.

BS: Yep.

BS: Totally. I've kind of forced myself into a situation where I have to be creative with metal. It's about palette cleansing and not always listening to metal.

BS: Um, I listen to like film scores and stuff. I'm always trying to get ideas for like different arrangements, different chord structures, minimalism and stuff like that. But I'll listen to any embarrassing thing, I don't give a fuck. I think I have the new Arch Enemy in my car and I got the new Down cd also. I haven't got that far into but I really dig it. Basically, I listen to a lot of metal but you have to have a palette cleanser every now and then. Like ginger while you're eating sushi.

BS: Some of my favorite bands are Queen, The Who, The Kinks and British invasion shit like that. Again, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Wait, don't print that.

BS: Ah, that's fine. You know what though? That's one of the big parts of rock music. The grandiosity and the drama.

BS: Fuck yeah, dude.

BS: There's not really too much to report at this point. I'm working with the guys but nothing is really, I mean, getting a movie off the ground can sometimes take like ten years. Battlefield Earth took 14 years. Anyways, they're working on it and I always get little reports of progress and things like that.

BS: No, the script is all done it's just that they want to shoot it in Norway and get the financing but they wanna do it the right way and with their own money. Their hearts are in the right place which makes me believe that it's gonna be a good movie that's authentic.

BS: No, it's not a documentary. It's more of a…. I'm sure they have a better description but it's more a story between Varg and Euronymous. It's not really a music movie and it's not really a metal movie. It's more about what was going on between the two guys. Basically I met with those guys, Hans Fjellestad who is directing it, and we really clicked. Now he's actually working on Metalocalypse doing editing and stuff like that. And another guy was the line producer of The Dethalbum, so everyone was kind like "Yeah, we'll work together. We're on the same page and we hate the same shit." I think I said this earlier but there's nothing worse than a shitty music movie and concurrently there's nothing better comically than a shitty music movie.

BS: Yeah, that was originally called The Barbarian Chronicles and it's a really cool idea. I read a really good script for it.

BS: Yeah, I still think it's a really good idea. I worked with Worldwide Pants, David Letterman's company on that and they were awesome. But the networks couldn't really get their head around how to do animation. It was there that I really learned the difference between Adult Swim and how they treat comedy and animation versus people who just want to…but basically they cashed out on it and kind of killed it. I'm actually much happier that it's dead with that network because I went right back to Adult Swim with Metalocalypse immediately after and was like "Ok, this is a show that's ready to go." I think the other one would have been a good show too. I think it would've definitely had an audience.

BS: Not right now. I'm so busy with Metalocalypse right now. I've gotta start thinking about a new record and I've gotta start writing for season three. There's just a lot of story to tell with this one and I wanna keep my focus where it's at now. In the future though, who knows? We'll figure that out later. I thought the idea was great though.

BS: It's very Monty Python-esque. It kind of felt like the vibe they had in Holy Grail. Just kind of a modern thought process but crammed into the middle ages. That's a great starting point. You can really get fantastical with the world if you want to. You know, dragons and orcs. I was thinking it would just be cool to have bipolar orcs or something in a world with no medication, just wizard warriors and stuff. I don't know.

BS: I think it's fun to have someone who is innately insensitive have some sensitive, well not sensitive, but vulnerable characteristics. To be vulnerable is a weird thing no matter who it is. It's kind of like, it doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong, you know? It's just something that I'm drawn to.

BS: No. In fact, I'd like to get rid of it. I hate having a website. Clearly.

BS: I think it's been longer than that. Home Movies season two came out and it was just one of those things where I was like "I think I'd just like to abandon it." Just leave it there like a car on the side of the road and claim it was stolen. I actually went as far as to contact someone about updating and redesigning my website so it was black on black. Just my name in black text on a black background and it just has nothing. Maybe you'd click on something and it would say "fuck you" or something, I don't know. I don't like to be in charge of blogging or any shit like that. I hate it. But I'll make sure someone is in charge of updating the Dethklok myspace page.

BS: Well, it's good be in touch with people that dig what you do but when I get time off I just wanna fucking eat a pizza and not do shit. I just hate updating shit. It's like homework. It feels like fucking school. And I hate school. There's nothing worse than school. School sucks and I'll go on record saying that.

BS: For what?

BS: I didn't really go to school for it. My last year of school I studied writing and stuff and they forced me to write a TV script.

BS: You know what? For that reason you should go then. If you want to go and have someone try and show you what works and what doesn't, that's not gonna happen. All they're gonna do is say here's shit you could do right now, you have your instincts…

BS: In that case, the one thing I learned from taking….like I took the Robert McKee Story Seminar, which is like a famous Hollywood seminar that you take, and it made writing seem less daunting. And that's the important thing is that it shouldn't be daunting. If you do have a good idea then you have a good idea and all you're going to do is get better if you want to. Your first draft will always suck and sometimes you have to throw shit away and it's not always going to be consistent. Sometimes you have a good story sometimes you have a bad story. Sometimes a bad story will go through you and you'll fix it and make a great story. And sometimes you'll lose so much objectivity that the thing you love, everyone else hates. If you cam force yourself into a situation, it doesn't matter if it's community college or whatever, as long as you're learning it's cool. And there's a certain artist's maturity level where at first you hold onto everything you write and you think it's great but it's good to hate your shit and grow from it and be able to look back on your work and say "Oh yeah, I was horrible, I didn't know what I was doing and it's good that I've gotten better." So you don't have to go to any fancy school or anything it's just about putting yourself into a position where you're forced to…that's how I started doing stand up was I forced myself to.

BS: You should go watch people doing stand up then. When people ask me for advice about writing and getting a TV show and all that stuff, it all goes back to stand up. People are always looking for a new voice.

BS: Yeah, you don't really have to lock into one particular style, you can do all those things. You can try a different style each night. All it is is just writing writing exercises. You put yourself on the spot as the story teller of the joke and you're the produce/writer/actor of your set. And with stand up too you're going to suck your first year. You're gonna have good nights and bad nights but you learn and you grow and you become…

BS: Exactly. You become mediocre. The thing with stand up is that I don't think there's too much of a point in doing it unless you're gonna do something different with it and put your own take on it but the comedy world is kind of flooded with people who, more or less, don't share that philosophy.

BS: Every now and then you just get that cool feeling that, "Hey, this guy is really different and has a unique point of view. I wanna know what's going on in that guys head. That guy is cool."

BS: I guess my advice would be to hang around stand up places and then pick a date. It's like quitting smoking where you're just like "Ugh, in a month and a half I'm going on stage no matter what and I'll use this time to prepare." That's the best thing you can do. And you'll learn a lot of lessons just watching comedy.

BS: Well that will happen forever. You just expect people to get laughs on stuff that's abominable and hacky and not coming from and particular view point whatsoever. Which is fine if you're experimenting but if it's you're final product you should try harder. I have a real love/hate relationship with stand up. My philosophy is that there's gotta be something out there that's funnier than comedy right now.

BS: I don't know if it's a be all end all for most comics but some guys, amazing comics like Louis CK, you're just like "Wow, that is that guy's format. That's his ideal way of communicating." But I don't know if that's true for me. I do like doing it and it gets my brain working and it puts me on the spot in a way that I think is important. It's good to put yourself on the spot and not let yourself get comfortable every once in a while but I don't know if it's a be all end all for me. There's other ways I like to express myself. I like comedy, I like movies, I like music. I like all sorts of other kinds of shit.

BS: That's a philosophy that I hold very dear. When you make a decision to make a TV show it means that you're going to be thinking about that shit constantly and you have to have an angle on the comedy. If you don't have that your show is going to get away from you. And my philosophy is…I was just thinking "Why is metal so awesome? What is it about death metal that I like?" I think it because it's about brutality and the idea that death is right around the corner and there are many horrible ways to die. Like getting fucked with a knife, you know? It's a great song by Cannibal Corpse. And you're like "Okay, I get it. What a horribly awful thing." But inadvertently you end up celebrating the fact that you're alive. It's like watching a horror movie or a slasher movie. At the end you kind of celebrate the fact that you survived it and that you're alive. Inadvertently, obviously. I don't know if that's true but it's part of this philosophy that I'm building. There's a lot of shit that I think is brutal in everyday life that you tend to overlook. If you could put a magnifying glass on shit that happens every single day that is just brutal. I mean, they shut off the water in my apartment the other day. I couldn't even take a fucking shower. That's brutal, man. I know a guy that has to travel an hour and a half to get to work every day. That's fucking brutal. The DMV is brutal. I got a parking ticket the other day. That's fucking brutal. Just the stupid mundane shit that you don't notice every day.

BS: Oh they put the boot on your car. I'm notorious for forgetting to pay shit. Same with Tommy. We're both equally irresponsible and stupid. Like, I'll give him a ride to the DMV and vice versa. That's kind of how we do things. I'll get a call from him or he'll get a call from me and one of us will have fucked up and done something stupid. But it's brutal, you know. Anything like that. A cold. That's fucking brutal. Hanging out with your parents. Fucking brutal. Picking out a birthday present for somebody. Like if you start dating a girl and then two weeks later it's her birthday. What do you get her? It's fucking brutal. Shit like that. Breaking up with a girl. Fucking brutal.

BS: The answer is, "yes."

BS: I don't know that he came up with it but he worked on it. You'd have to ask him about it. I think he came up with a name or two for the teams. He was working on it with what's his name? The head of the WWE. Um, Vince McMahon. So yeah, he worked for Vince McMahon for a while but I don't know that he would be considered the inventor of it.

BS: May should have?

BS: That was good.

BS: No, I got enough stupid backwards talk to deal with Swisgaar and Toki.

BS: Who, Swisgaar?

BS: What we're doing in the second season is, like, it's always changing a little bit. What we're doing now is we improvise all five characters at once and I think they start finding a different kind of range within it that so I'm sure it will switch back between episodes. We don't notice because we're kind of more concerned with intent than the actual voice. Only in the first couple episodes did we really overdo the voices to make sure that they were in their pocket. It's funny though because you'll find that on all the shows that I've worked on the voices change pretty often. They usually go down lower than where they started.

BS: No, I think they actually become less exaggerated.

BS: Well, the record is doing well. I think it's #21 on the Billboard charts. We kind of have an unfair advantage in that we have a TV show to help advertise the fake band.

BS: Maybe Someday we will be.

BS: They had good songs.

BS: It's not really a compliment anymore.

BS: America, don't tell people they look like Peter Tork. You look like a longer haired William Hurt. That might be better.

BS: Hey, whenever I have work to do I'll do anything to not have to fucking do it so it's my pleasure talking to you.

BS: Thank you.

Go out and check out the stand up thing and see if it's something you want to do.

Hey, that's cool too. Then again, I had my first TV show when I was 23 so, you know, keep working at it and it'll happen.

You too.