Interview Brendon Small Dethklok

9/06/07 Interviewer: Karma E. Omowale Questions: Erika Kristen Watt & Josh Thorne

Brendon Small

 “I wanted it to be something cool that I cared about, so ended up being metal.”

Brandon Small is one of Us; he believes in all that is METAL. So much so, he and fellow co-creator/writer Tommy Blancha hatched a cartoon equivalent to Spinal Tap named Dethklok, chronicling the band-life of the world’s the most brutal 5 piece metal icons alive! Now, the world is all a rage with a new season of Dethklok on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Every week for 15 minutes, we get a glimpse inside Mordland’s homeboys with their familiar inside industry jokes not to mention subliminal visual extras. With guest star musicians galore (FourteenG faves Dimmu Borgir’s Silenoz, Arch Enemy’s Michael Amott to name a few) each week is a true treat. Brendon was kind enough to banter with FourteenG on his writing success story, the release of The Dethalbum, as well as being most willing to offer his wit in our exclusive web interview with Dethklok. With that, Dethklok is upon us...

Karma: I cannot tell you how you how much of a fan FourteenG is of Dethklok!

Brendon: Oh, awesome!

Karma: Did you have any idea what kind of a runaway hit you had on your hands when Dethklok was first brought into existence?

Brendon: Umm…I don’t know…when you’re working with those kind of feelings, even if the show is a hit, you still sit down and work all day. So if it is a hit, I don’t even know if it is.

Karma: Oh it is! [It has turned into a cult classic]

Brendon: Well I’m glad you think that; it means we’re doing things right. But honestly, all it is, is honestly an excuse to write stupid jokes and play guitar. That’s the reason I got into it and am very excited to be a part of it, you know.

Karma: Having said that, did you want to be a metal star yourself and is thereby living vicariously through your characters?

Brendon: I know, it’s kind of fun to get all glory, I do all the work! [Laughs] No, it is great, I’ve been playing guitar for years, I went to music school [Berklee College of Music] and stuff in Boston. It’s really fun for me to write this stuff and again, anytime I have an excuse where I can make it my job to have fun and do lead guitar stuff, then I’m a happy person!

Karma: No matter what you will be able to maintain your anonymity, for the most part.

Brendon: Right, exactly! That was the thing with I also knew that I could write comedy stuff and write music too.

Karma: What made you create such a wacky cartoon? How long did it take you from concept to Adult Swim?

Brendon: It’s a pretty simple thing actually; it was like an overnight kind of thing. I had done a show with them before [Home Movies]; it was a completely different tone and vibe a very low-key comedy show based off of mannerism base stuff and I did that on Adult Swim for years then that show was done. When that show was done, and then they said, “Whenever you have a show, let us know.” And me and my buddy Tommy [Blancha] we used to go to these metal shows all the time and we couldn’t believe that we hadn’t thought about it for a show, yet. So I called up the head of the network and I said, “I think I have a show idea about an extreme metal band, and there’s going to be a lot of murder and you won’t be able to understand anything anyone’s saying. I think that’s the show!” And to the head of Adult Swim’s credit, he said, “That’s a green light!”

Karma: Wow…

Brendon: …it really was that simple! And he said, “Write it up.” And I go, “I don’t want to write it up!” And I said, “I tell you what, I’ll write up the theme song and that will pretty much encapsulate the energy and the silliness and the seriousness and all that stuff in one room, and that ended up being the Dethklok theme song. A bunch of nonsense lyrics and a bunch of fast guitars and energy and stuff.”

Whatever my next pitch was, they wanted it to be a music driven one and I agreed; I didn’t want to waste it on something stupid. I wanted it to be something cool that I cared about, so ended up being metal. So for me, it’s like being a kid in a candy store.

Karma: That’s an awesome story!

Brendon: But as far as the concept, me and Tommy, the co-creator, we sat down and said, “what should we name these characters?” We sat down and had the names in about twenty-minutes and that first episode worked out in a very short amount of time. We kind of understood the world and the kind of government. But we have a short show, we have to get as much exposition devices out there. We have to get a lot of people; we have to give the news on what’s happening out there. We have to make the band seem very visually active…we have this government group who kind of do an expositional thing on them too… and everything just kind of worked out; it just makes sense. Adult Swim was like, “All right, let’s do a five-week episode.” We didn’t want to do five-weeks, we wanted to do twenty episodes because we thought we had a fun idea that can last a long time. In the end, Adult Swim is really cool! They don’t tell us what to do, they like the show and they’re happy so…

Karma: Speaking of working with a short amount of time, do you ever think the show itself will expand from fifteen-minutes to let’s say thirty, etc?

Brendon: I don’t know, it’s like it’s funny we’re still doing the fifteen minute thing for Season 2 also but we’ll see what happens. I don’t know, if I’m gonna go bigger, I’d rather just go to a movie, you know.

Karma: Gotcha! What did you have to go through, as far as negotiations go, to get all of the special guests on your show like Arch Enemy, King Diamond, Corpsegrinder, Metallica, and Nevermore…?

Brendon: Actually, they’re all friends of people like I’d go up and introduce myself to people. I went to a Cannibal Corpse show and I introduced myself to Corpsegrinder and I said [that] I was a huge fan and “would you have any interest in doing something like this.” It’s funny, they all love comedy, they all have great senses of humor and they all want to do something that’s kind of different and fun, you know. 

King Diamond I met through Metallica’s management so they introduced me to King Diamond. I was talking Metallica’s management before as we got [the band] to do voices. And I just said, “Hey, let me ask you guys a stupid question, [intonation fills with trepidation] you don’t know King Diamond, do you?” [We both laugh] “Actually, Lars is a really good friend of King Diamond and I can give you his number!” So he gave me his number and I called him. He was the perfect gentleman and an amazingly nice guy. You know, clearly a natural! It’s like listening to his records and it’s totally something he can do with his eyes close. He does voices and he’s great.

Karma: Talk about cool…

Brendon: …Michael Amott, we met through a buddy of ours. Yeah, everyone knows everybody. So we have actual real endorsement deals with amp companies, you know, Gibson Guitar and stuff. We were introduced through the amp company to Michael Amott. He’s a cool guy and we hit it off and you know had a lot of stuff in common. He’s a nice guy; he did a great job and has a great voice. You know they all understand acting; they’re very directable and stuff. It’s so weird that we’ve done so many stunt casting with the metal heroes and they’ve all been good! That’s been the most amazing part.

Karma: Are there any cons to endorsements for you?

Brendon: No, not for me, no. When you’re putting together a TV show, and get guitars and amps and pedals and stuff and we get to use them and record with them. For me, again, it’s a kid in a candy store; I couldn’t design a better job. It’s like a fantasy job.

Karma: Has the feedback been amazing from the artists once they saw the finished product?

Brendon: They love it…you know I go and do a lot of voiceovers on other shows and it’s always fun; it’s a blast! You usually just sit there and make other people laugh, you goof around, you blow off a lot of steam and pure adrenaline from the screaming and doing weird stuff…and then you get paid.

Karma: There’s nothing better!

Brendon: Yeah…and there are unions out there, you have to get paid and then you get to see yourself animated on TV...and yeah, there’s nothing…yeah, everyone’s pretty excited. I just wish we had more parts, we could everybody like a million times.

Karma: Were there any artists that you wanted for the show that you could not get?

Brendon: There were a few people; we’ll get them at some point, we talked to their management. We’re still doing the show right now so now basically our problem with Season 2 is that we’re trying to find parts for all these people that we’re meeting. In Season 1 we were like, “Oh, it would be fun to do a little stunt casting,” Season 2 it’s like, “Dude, I don’t have enough parts for all these people who would like to be a part of it.” We’re trying to find places for a bunch of our metal heroes. Our whole thing from the get go was to make sure the story made sense first and that the parts that are written will make sense, just not to shoehorn in people.

Karma: Gotcha.

Brendon: I’ve seen stunt casting before in other cartoons where they make it very apparent it’s like, “Hey, there’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers,” and it never refers to the story or anything. But I’d rather make sure it is a part of the story so we’re not just doing stuff to blatantly just hear someone’s voice because it’s fun and it makes with the storyline!

Karma: Understood. Now were any of the characters based off any real life musicians?

Brendon: The only one we actively kinda said, “Hey, that guy right there…” take a look at fucking Cannibal Corpse and look at how he moves and all that stuff. It’s not about his face so much but his hair and how he moved on stage; it’s totally Corpsegrinder.

With everybody else, we just had basic ideas. At first, we had notions of who we wanted and then we named them and kind of decided that one of them is from Sweden, the other one’s from Norway and that’s kind of tying it down. That guy’s blonde and the other one’s got brown hair. And I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Oh, Geezer Butler and Alexi [Laiho]!” and stuff like that but they all came from Jon Schnepp who is the guy who created the actual look of the characters.

Pickles went through a whole different group of hairstyles. He just looked too handsome at first and then we kind of took his hair away and he looked exactly like Devin Townsend. So we wanted to make him look a little different, so we gave him a dred-over and yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Karma: Will the basis of The Tribunal ever be revealed and how this evil conglomeration ever came to pass in the first place?

Brendon: That’s a long story that we’re going to slowly, slowly tell and it’s going to be an interesting and fun story and that’s kind of a bigger story. We have several bigger stories that we’re telling in Season 2 and The Tribunal is one of them. So we’re gonna give you a taste of what’s going on behind that and what the people that work there are learning about, and who they work for.

Karma: Oh, I can’t wait to see how it all unfurls!! What’s your next move as a writing team, any other projects in the works?

Brendon: Me? Umm…I’m so busy doing this thing and it’s funny because I’ve been offered more work while doing this and I have to turn it down because this is the main project right now and it’s a lot of hands on work… It’s pretty much this right now because if I’m going to do the music and the voices and the writing for this, you know… I can’t… You just want to process the experience. Personally, you just don’t want to hand it off to somebody to do it wrong, so… I’m busy doing Detklok for a while unfortunately!

Karma: Or fortunately…

Brendon: [Laughs] Yeah, and fortunately. I would like to take a break and sleep…for a week!

Karma: Oh Brendon, there’s no rest for the wicked!!

Brendon: I know!

Karma: Aside from your CD, what are some of your favorite metal CDs of the year?

Brendon: I just got to hear the new Exodus CD.

Karma: Really? So what did you think of it?

Brendon: I really like it a lot! I love those guys!! I like love how fucking, how they’re keep thrash happening in a really aggressive way.

Karma: Absolutely!

Brendon: And I love the production and I just… I’m just really happy to see those guys fucking kicking ass. Those guys are awesome. I got a chance to hear a couple of hmmm…tracks off the new Arch Enemy album.

Karma: Oh…

Brendon: …that’s got me very excited, so that I’m looking forward to… What else? I just got the soundtrack to 3:10 to Yuma. It’s very film score sounding kind of stuff; I dunno, I like that sort of stuff. You’ve got to cleanse the palate every once in a while, you know!

Karma: Absolutely, you really do.

Brendon: Let’s see what else have I been listening to…  What else came out? What was a big record this year?

Karma: Hmmm…

Brendon: You tell me!

Karma: …[laughs] I should tell you…right!

Brendon: [Chuckles] Yeah.

Karma: Well what do think of King Diamond’s new one?

Brendon: Oh, you know what, that’s supposed to be delivered here soon, so I haven’t even gotten to hear it yet.

Karma: Wow, I won’t spoil it for you but…

Brendon: [intonation fills with excitement] …no, you won’t spoil it for me, he told me all about it but fuck yeah… it’s suppose to be here in a couple of days!

Karma: Well it’s an amazing album!

Brendon: Okay, I really have to get that, well I have to check on that! It should be here right now. I’m looking forward to it; there not a whole lot of records that I’m looking forward to. I’m trying to think of what else but I’m a guitar geek too so there are a lot of instrumental guitarists too.

Karma: Ohhhh, so who are you in to?

Brendon: Oh shit, all the super shredder dudes, all the super guitar hero gods; I’m a big Paul Gilbert fan or Steve Morris… Vai or Satriani, all of those guys. Yeah,… [pauses] Yngwie’s doing something on the guitar that’s creative.

Karma: Well thanks Brendon! Again, this is coming from some huge fans…

Brendon: Well I’m glad you like it. That’s cool, I’m excited, Season 2 came out cool so I hope you guys like it!

Karma: I know we will!

Thanks again to Brendon and to all who made this interview a possibility! 

Click here for interview with the guys from Dethklok!