Deth Be not Proud

Brendon Small of Metalocalypse brings the rock.

by A.D. Amorosi

[rock]

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Going into season three of Metalocalypse, finishing up DETHALBUM II — these sound like things the guys from Metallica might do. Rather, it's the handiwork of Brendon Small, the 34-year-old creator, writer, voiceover actor and musician whose drug-and-violence-addled Scandinavian death metal band Dethklok has its own cartoon, Metalocalypse, on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. So popular and authentic are his characters Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Pickles the Drummer and Nathan Explosion that Small has made records, placed songs in video games and toured as would any mega-metal band.

Rock School-er Paul Green and his kids open for Small after they'll have sat at his feet last week at their Black Lodge lab session.

City Paper : Do you remember your first voiceover job?

Brendon Small: To tell you the truth, the majority of the voiceover work I get is because I created a show and cast myself. That's how I got my first job. A lot of people ask me how they can get into voiceover, and I give horribly disappointing advice: "Get incredibly lucky and have an opportunity to create your own show and then cast yourself." I'll be telling this and much more spirit-crushing advice to the Rock School kids. And yes, I will be giggling while I do it.

CP: That's cold. So what do you say to people who remember you from Home Movies?

BS: I usually say, "Hello, how do you do?" and "Thank you for watching my crappy television program made by infants." But usually nobody knows that show and if they do they call it Home Videos and call me Brandon Smalls. But seriously, the show is much better known now than when it was in its original run. The ratings these days are actually pretty solid. I get asked by fans to do new episodes daily. And I say no daily.

CP: How close to the thumbnail sketch of that show's protagonist, 8-year-old filmmaker "Brendon Small" were you really?

BS: He's not very close to me. I mean, this was about a kid whose parents were divorced. Mine were still together — though I tried to perform a citizen's divorce several times. I think the only thing we have in common is that we hate the sun and made home movies with a bunch of awkward neighborhood shut-ins. Oh, and I played a fuckload of soccer — begrudgingly, and drunk.

CP: What do you dislike most about the business of cartoons?

BS: I'd have to say the animation.

CP: You started in standup comedy, right? What was your forte?

BS: Actually, I performed regularly until not too long ago. It's just recently that I've been too busy with Metalocalypse to get on stage regularly. I think my forte's been characters. I would tell jokes and stuff like that, but absurd characters ended up always getting a bigger reaction with the audiences. Makes sense because improvising and writing for characters is my favorite part of production. But you probably remember my characters, "Shit Head Cocaine Cop" or "Perpetual Boner Priest" or "The Man Who Only Vomits onto Endangered Species" — remember those guys?

CP: You were courted by David Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants. Are they in a different league than Adult Swim/Cartoon Network, or does Swim play as hard as the big-money boys do?

BS: Nah. Both parties just want to do something that's interesting to them and can get some kind of audience. I really dug my experience with WWP. And working with Adult Swim has been really good. We seem to want the same thing out of the project, they're never like, "What if the show was about a reggae band?" If they did, we'd have a problem because of how I feel about reggae.

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CP: OK, so what's so hot or light-heartedly funny about Scandinavia for metal?

BS: I actually really dig Scandinavian music with no irony. I mean there's a lot of cool badass metal like Enslaved, Dimmu Borgir. Then there's some cool indie rock stuff like Dungen, and then there's always ABBA. Seriously, Mamma Mia! Oh, but Yngwie Malmsteen will always have been my first Scandinavian love.

CP: With Dethklok, did you dick around with other metal subgenres?

BS: Basically we wanted to represent a few different metal styles with the band, looks-wise. Nathan Explosion, Pickles and Murderface represented the American death metal world. I knew I wanted there to be two guitarists so that I could write cool Brian May-style harmonies. You need more than one guitarist for that. It was that simple. And I figured they'd be European or Scandinavian or whatever. So I figured one of them would be from Sweden, and the others from Norway. The Swede would be blond and the other had to have brown hair just to balance out the look of the band. Then I spent about four months just writing and recording riffs and programming drums and kept making it heavier and tuning lower and singing in the death metal voice and whatever happened at the end of the four months would pretty much be Dethklok, more or less.

CP: Not to sound too naïve, but who are the broad-shouldered Nathan Explosion, the slightly leaner Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Pickles to you? Was the whole point to make characters that were immortal drinker violent rockers who seem like boys next door?

BS: Seriously, I didn't know them until our own development process. Basically developing the voices was a simple process because we [Small and co-creator Tommy Blacha] decided to do all the band guy voices ourselves because we couldn't afford to bring in five actors constantly. I knew I'd be three of them and just wanted to find three voices that didn't sound alike. So I had Pickles in the higher register, Skwisgaar in the middle and Nathan in the lower — Nathan's the quarterback, Skwisgaar is the cocky perfectionist guitarist and Pickles is whatever Pickles is — a brain surgeon? But the more you improvise with them the more they start to have distinct voice characters. I mean seriously, Metalocalypse is a family show — meaning it's about a family. This family just happens to be a death metal band.

CP: What's up with these smaller events like the Black Lodge thing, the intimate scholarly events, before the more massive Troc show?

BS: Why am I doing smaller events? I guess with the Dethklok tour we're used to doing some pretty big venues, but this all seems very appropriate for this whole tour. I mean the way I look at this whole thing is that I'm a huge fan of Paul Green and what he's done with the School of Rock. And it's an honor to be asked to do it! But when I look back and think about developing comedy chops and writing, I think the only reason I have the tools to ring-lead a production and make shows consistently is because of the discipline I learned from music as a teenager. Because I certainly was a horrible student. High school sucked. Hated it. I still have nightmares. But I really did care about becoming a better musician and nobody told me to go out and learn music theory and all that stuff. I just wanted to do it for me. And as an awkward teenager, I didn't know it at the time but I was developing my personality and developing confidence, and ultimately developing a way to make over $100,000 a year.

CP: What do you think of this new generation of metal-hungry kids like Misstallica?

BS: I haven't gotten to hear them yet but I think the whole idea is really great. Paul Green told me all about them. I'm seriously excited to see them. And metal isn't going anywhere. If you're gonna start playing guitar, you're gonna cross paths with metal eventually and you better make friends with it or it will hurt and humiliate you at some point.

CP: You never weren't serious about Dethklok as a band. But what made you step it up a la Dethalbum and working with Death Angel's Gene Hoglan?

BS: Wasn't I not? You don't not tell me what I am or aren't not serious about. Gene is a super badass and I'm so incredibly lucky to have him and his support with all the record and touring stuff. I'm a big Strapping Young Lad fan and went through their label [Century Media Records] and got in touch with him and he was familiar with the show and said yes. I was really happy to find out how easy he was to work with. He's also a very smart and funny dude. I really lucked out — and his playing is badass on the record.

And I figured, "Hey, this will probably be my only chance to seriously record an album so why not do it right and make it actually sound good, right?"

CP: So now that you do Q&As and live metal showcases, what audience do you get more of — metal dudes or cartoon dudes?

BS: During the Dethtour last summer it was a pretty even split. I would be on the bus watching the line wrap around the block and see dudes wearing Slayer shirts, or Cannibal Corpse shirts and then I'd see a South Park shirt or a Simpsons T. I'm pretty sure that Dethklok was a lot of these guys' first metal show. The thing I didn't expect was a huge girl turnout. For a show about death metal we get pretty good female numbers.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Brendon Small With the School of Rock All-Stars, performing the music of Dethklok, followed by a Q&A session with Tragedy, Queen Diamond and Misstallica, Sun., April 5, 6:30 p.m., $13-$15, Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-5483, thetroc.com