Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 942 - Brendon Small on Dethklok’s 20th Anniversary and The AmonKlok Conquest Tour

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 942 - Brendon Small on Dethklok’s 20th Anniversary and The AmonKlok Conquest Tour · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  How do we celebrate the 20 year anniversary?
• 0:01
  And we thought, you know, this touring is like we've managed to
• 0:03
  build a business with this thing and it's kind of cool.
• 0:06
  And we thought maybe we can do is, you know, like a one off
• 0:08
  show. We can do something.
• 0:09
  And then the idea of a mana Martha came across the table.
• 0:12
  And I thought, well, this kind of perfectly coincides with what
• 0:16
  I think our live philosophy is, which is that let's do something
• 0:19
  that is worth leaving your house for worth, you know, parking
• 0:22
  your car, all the stuff that we have to do when we go to shows.
• 0:24
  What you're going to get is an evening of just crazy theatrical
• 0:28
  experience, animation live, five people in crazy outfits and
• 0:33
  bombastic set pieces and all that stuff.
• 0:35
  So that to me is like something I feel very confidently about
• 0:39
  coming out and saying, hey audience, this is going to be
• 0:41
  worth your time. What's up
• 0:50
  everybodyitskifi@ghostcultmag.com I am once again joined by
• 0:54
  Brendan Small of Deaf Clock. How are you doing, friend?
• 0:57
  Not bad. How you doing?
• 0:58
  I'm really good, man. I'm really good, you know, just
• 1:01
  find in solace and work and music.
• 1:03
  That's what I do these days. Umm, so much to unpack and talk
• 1:08
  about. The Amman clock tour is coming
• 1:11
  up soon. In April.
• 1:12
  We talked, uh, last about the baby clock tour and a few other
• 1:17
  things. And, and I remember at that time
• 1:19
  we were talking already kind of at the time post Pandemi Lovato
• 1:24
  pandemic that, you know, touring is such an expensive enterprise.
• 1:27
  And you had said like, oh, you know, if it stays lucrative,
• 1:29
  we'll keep going. So we're keeping going and I
• 1:32
  appreciate you and I appreciate this.
• 1:34
  And I think we're seeing that the bigger package tours are
• 1:37
  working and working well. I we attended 2 sold out shows
• 1:42
  on that tour and it was phenomenal.
• 1:44
  So I appreciate the value you bring.
• 1:47
  You bring in the music to the fans.
• 1:49
  Amana Marth always does a huge show and I'm very excited about
• 1:54
  the tour. I'm sure you are too.
• 1:55
  Absolutely, Yeah. Well, you know, we, we kind of
• 1:57
  like we were looking at the year 2020 knowing that our 2026,
• 2:01
  knowing that this is the 20 year anniversary of the premiere of
• 2:04
  Metal Auclipse. And you know, we thought, you
• 2:06
  know, we we we toured with BABYMETAL.
• 2:09
  We did like a a headline tour with Dragonforce and Necro
• 2:12
  Gobble Con. Then this past year, you know,
• 2:15
  all these kind of map in these waypoints kind of lit up around
• 2:19
  the globe where we went to Australia and we toured there
• 2:21
  and it was a really nice, we'd never been there before.
• 2:24
  So it was really nice to go and meet the Australians.
• 2:26
  We went to Europe and we did summer festivals where it was
• 2:29
  really cool to see the death clock was welcomed warmly to
• 2:32
  like go to like, you know, Denmark and to have people
• 2:34
  singing along with the songs was really, really cool to go to all
• 2:37
  these places. I travel a lot.
• 2:39
  I go to Europe often. So it was really cool to go
• 2:42
  there not as a tourist, but as a, you know, a working person.
• 2:46
  So it was really wonderful to see that.
• 2:48
  So the question for us was how do we how do we celebrate the 20
• 2:51
  year anniversary? And we thought, you know, this
• 2:52
  touring, like we've managed to build a business with this thing
• 2:55
  and it's kind of cool. And we thought maybe we can do
• 2:57
  is, you know, like a one off show, we can do something.
• 2:59
  And then the idea of a Mana Marth came across the table and
• 3:03
  I thought, well, this kind of perfectly coincides with what I
• 3:06
  think our live philosophy is, which is that let's do something
• 3:09
  that is worth leaving your house for worth, you know, parking
• 3:12
  your car, all the stuff that we have to do when we go to shows.
• 3:15
  And I wanted to put something together that kind of was like,
• 3:17
  you know, energy wise, it's always going to be different
• 3:19
  because each band brings such a different energy.
• 3:20
  But something theatrical, something very big and over the
• 3:23
  top and bombastic, like what we like to deliver, what baby metal
• 3:27
  delivered, what, you know, Necro Gobicon delivers and and of
• 3:31
  course, Amana Marth delivers that gigantically on such a huge
• 3:35
  scale. So we were like, fuck yeah.
• 3:37
  That's the coolest idea we've heard.
• 3:39
  And then the idea of Castle Rat showing up was like, this
• 3:42
  perfectly fits into this idea as well.
• 3:44
  So what you're going to get is an evening of just crazy
• 3:47
  theatrical, theatrical experience, animation, live,
• 3:51
  people in crazy outfits and bombastic set pieces and all
• 3:56
  that stuff. So that to me is like something
• 3:58
  I feel very confidently about coming out and saying, hey
• 4:01
  audience, this is going to be worth your time, DIO.
• 4:04
  Knew it. Dio knew what he was talking
• 4:05
  about when he was talking about swords and fire, you know, and
• 4:08
  Dragons. So.
• 4:10
  Yeah. I mean, I think the, I mean,
• 4:12
  this is something that keeps coming up.
• 4:14
  Is that like, you know, Metalocalypse kind of like when
• 4:16
  I think about the audience, the audience was for me when I was
• 4:19
  14, discovering heavy metal, discovering guitar.
• 4:22
  And when I think about like what the stage show is, it's the same
• 4:25
  kind of audience I think of as me when I was 14.
• 4:28
  If I somebody took me one of these shows, I'd lose my mind.
• 4:31
  I would be so like when I saw even even like I would just buy
• 4:35
  VHS tapes of Iron Maiden Live just to see, you know, like what
• 4:39
  their stage show would be like when Eddie would come out.
• 4:41
  How they would, you know, entertain an audience in so many
• 4:44
  different ways. I mean, they could just stand
• 4:46
  out there in jeans and T-shirts and play the music and I'd be
• 4:48
  like, that's pretty cool. But they kept going and going
• 4:51
  and going and having a tour like this, everyone's bringing
• 4:54
  something to the table that gives one overall experience.
• 4:56
  I know the focus is not typically on the band itself
• 5:00
  during the performance, but maybe we can get you some
• 5:02
  spangly pants like Dickinson. I can have them, but you won't
• 5:07
  really see them. This is like, this is to me
• 5:09
  again, like, you know, I, I consider myself a writer who
• 5:12
  performs, you know, a writer who acts, who does voices, a writer
• 5:16
  who plays guitar, who writes the music and then plays the guitar.
• 5:19
  So I think for me and my personality, a guy who's kind of
• 5:22
  in the background to both be in the background and not be this,
• 5:25
  this focal point is ideal. I've crafted the perfect job for
• 5:29
  my personality so I can wear be pants.
• 5:32
  You just may not see them because the light will be on the
• 5:33
  screen. There it is, the the introverts
• 5:37
  specialty. There, the ultimate introvert.
• 5:39
  Let the music. Let the music do the.
• 5:41
  Talking and let the visuals do the talking.
• 5:43
  Have you seen a Monomark live or been at the same festival as
• 5:46
  them? We've never performed with them,
• 5:49
  but I have seen them live. I have seen them live and I met
• 5:52
  them briefly, you know, like years ago.
• 5:53
  But, but it's, it's been a while and I do know what their new
• 5:57
  show is and it's amazing. It's it's, it's cool to see what
• 6:01
  you can do with what they're doing.
• 6:02
  Right on, and the fans also keep getting creative rowing on the
• 6:06
  floor. Like that is like, it's so funny
• 6:08
  to see how far that has taken. It happens.
• 6:11
  And like I said, we were in Europe.
• 6:13
  You're in France and you see people sitting on the floor
• 6:16
  rowing. You're in Denmark, you're in
• 6:18
  Brussels, you're seeing like people do this everywhere.
• 6:21
  You're seeing it in Southern California, you see it
• 6:23
  everywhere. It's really crazy to see how far
• 6:26
  Amana Mars influence has gone. Right on.
• 6:29
  Metal is really the universal language.
• 6:31
  It's not just English perpetuating everywhere.
• 6:34
  It's metal, it's metal music and it's great.
• 6:36
  When you go to those European festivals, you see that that is
• 6:39
  like it is 90,000 people in the middle of nowhere all together
• 6:43
  celebrating a genre of music is it's big, it's so big, it's
• 6:47
  everywhere. It's it's, it really is global.
• 6:49
  Right on. I can't think of a better set
• 6:52
  list than the one I saw for the baby clock tour.
• 6:54
  It was so comprehensive and deep and fun and the fun little
• 6:57
  interludes and things that I'm sure gives you a minute to catch
• 7:00
  your breath, take a sip of water, you know, grab a guitar
• 7:03
  pick. But I love the pacing of the
• 7:05
  show. And I think people who haven't
• 7:07
  seen, I think the audience is still growing.
• 7:09
  And we talked about that before, but I just feel like I can't
• 7:12
  imagine a better set list. And now with the 20 years kind
• 7:15
  of framing this, is there anything special you're going to
• 7:19
  whip out for this set list of this tour?
• 7:21
  Some deep cuts. Yeah, well, I appreciate you
• 7:25
  saying that because that it's a very thoughtful, you know, it's
• 7:28
  something that like we, you know, between like the editors
• 7:31
  and compositors and animators that we work with.
• 7:33
  I'm also talking to Gene Hoagland all the time, who
• 7:35
  really does have a lot to say about not only album order, song
• 7:39
  list, but also, you know, what we do in our live show.
• 7:43
  Like we're like, also, how much can we actually do and how much
• 7:47
  we keep on challenging ourselves to kind of like squeeze the
• 7:49
  music in a little bit tighter, a little bit tighter, get it in,
• 7:52
  get it in before. Like as that last down beat is
• 7:54
  ringing out, how do we get our first down beat?
• 7:56
  So we just don't give an audience any rest.
• 7:58
  We're just coming at you. So what we want to do with this
• 8:01
  is, you know, keep the audience excited and engaged.
• 8:04
  We have some fun bells and whistles that you didn't see
• 8:07
  yet. Some things, some songs we've
• 8:08
  never played live before, never ever.
• 8:10
  Some songs that we played but a long time ago and some things
• 8:14
  that we think you need to hear that are just permanent fixtures
• 8:17
  in the set list that are just like this is represents what
• 8:20
  Death Clock does. So that's the idea.
• 8:22
  How do you take this this kind of roller coaster ride and make
• 8:26
  it feel just as energetic but still make it feel like it's
• 8:28
  brand new? Sometimes you ride a roller
• 8:30
  coaster, you don't need anything to change.
• 8:32
  I go to Space Mountain, I can't see where the tracks are.
• 8:34
  So it's amazing every time. Where are we going?
• 8:36
  I don't know. So I feel like it's, if you've
• 8:39
  seen the show already, it's going to feel new.
• 8:41
  If you haven't seen the show, you're going to get that energy
• 8:43
  that we delivered before. There are some songs that, you
• 8:45
  know, we deliberate for some songs we go, is this the
• 8:48
  ultimate live song? What does this do?
• 8:50
  How does this contradict the previous song and set up the
• 8:53
  next song? And so we go deep into it.
• 8:55
  You know, I go to live shows all the time.
• 8:56
  I'm constantly watching the audience.
• 8:58
  I'm trying to gauge where their engagement is.
• 9:01
  Where does it break? Will it stay there the whole
• 9:03
  time? When does a band need to get off
• 9:06
  the stage and preserve that beauty and not wear out their
• 9:09
  welcome? All that stuff.
• 9:10
  So I think about all that. That's all part of the, it's all
• 9:13
  part of the, I guess the cocktail of the live show.
• 9:15
  So I am currently and, and in in in order to do these shows, you
• 9:19
  know, we have to sit there and we have to think months in
• 9:21
  advance what our set list is, how we're going to achieve this.
• 9:25
  You know, how do we afford this, all that stuff?
• 9:28
  What are we deficit financing through all this?
• 9:31
  How can I do a lot with a little and keep the concept of the song
• 9:35
  alive and also keep the energy alive and keep it, you know,
• 9:38
  because seriously, we're sitting there editing the music is
• 9:41
  almost like programming to jeans drum kit.
• 9:44
  It's almost like drum visual drum programming in many
• 9:46
  different ways. So we need like a lot of a lot
• 9:50
  of time and and resources to build that stuff.
• 9:52
  So that's the answer. It's going to be that energy,
• 9:55
  but it's going to be a little different.
• 9:57
  So you tell us which one you liked better because I think we
• 10:00
  can play that. I mean, maybe we could play that
• 10:02
  same set list over and over again.
• 10:04
  But I think we want to engage people and energize them and
• 10:06
  also make them not know what's going to come next.
• 10:08
  Right on. Please don't be home everybody
• 10:11
  in 2026 watching on YouTube, please go to concerts and
• 10:14
  support bands since the only way to keep this moving forward.
• 10:17
  We know the music streaming doesn't really pay bands, even
• 10:20
  the most successful ones. And funny enough, we talked to
• 10:23
  Gene just a couple of months ago, right when the announcement
• 10:25
  came out and I was talking about something else.
• 10:28
  But he touched on the fact that he loves the outlet of having
• 10:31
  death Clock and he appreciates working with you and all these
• 10:34
  masterful musicians. And in a way, it kind of
• 10:37
  occurred to me, my favorite band ever is Pink Floyd, as much of A
• 10:39
  metal head as I am. And I remember Gilmore talking
• 10:42
  about like this 80s and 90s comeback of Pink Floyd live
• 10:46
  where they have to kind of plan out this set list well in
• 10:49
  advance so they can do the visual, you know, component
• 10:53
  accurately. And that's important to them.
• 10:55
  So I know how precise those things.
• 10:56
  It's the same along the same lines.
• 10:58
  I'm sure Mastodon goes through that.
• 11:00
  I'm sure it's. Bronze always dealing with like,
• 11:03
  he's so creative in so many different ways.
• 11:05
  Right on. Speaking of which, with these
• 11:08
  masterful musicians you play with, do we have a sense of what
• 11:11
  the lineup's going to be? I know that the the cast of
• 11:14
  characters that you work with are so in demand and so booked
• 11:18
  years in advance. Like Gene.
• 11:20
  Gene is back. Who's in the lineup for this
• 11:22
  live concert or do we can we announce that yet or is that OK?
• 11:26
  Yeah, I. Mean it's it's Neely brash on
• 11:28
  guitar who is on the Baby clock tour and you know, it's almost
• 11:31
  like, you know, and and Pete Griffin on bass.
• 11:34
  So these are like Pete did some subbing for Brian Beller in
• 11:38
  like, you know, even like death album 3, I think tour.
• 11:41
  And and the trick is, you know, with these guys who are like
• 11:44
  Mike Kennealy, who's just an ingenious guitar player, played
• 11:48
  with Frank Zappa and Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and Devin
• 11:51
  Townsend and all these great, great artists.
• 11:54
  And these guys are sometimes, you know, when I go, Hey, are
• 11:57
  you available for this one thing to go?
• 11:59
  God dammit, I have another tour or have another date right at
• 12:02
  the same time. And that's what happens when
• 12:04
  you're an ingenious, you know, musician is that you're in
• 12:07
  demand. You're pulled left and right.
• 12:08
  So So with this one, we kept the band intact from, I guess 2019
• 12:14
  on, pretty much. And they're, like I said, super
• 12:18
  musicians. They can do anything.
• 12:20
  They're they've definitely just got my back all the time, which
• 12:24
  is amazing, you know, rely on them.
• 12:27
  Yeah, they're fantastic. Yeah, right on.
• 12:29
  That's yeah. It's such a killer lineup.
• 12:30
  And obviously, you know, anybody who comes out with you, you
• 12:33
  know, now that we've you've made this music for 20 years, it
• 12:37
  demands a certain level and a certain level from you as the
• 12:40
  writer. So I'm sure you know, you also
• 12:42
  have to keep up your chops and and be ready.
• 12:45
  For that's it's funny because I have like, you know, I've always
• 12:49
  been like, you know, I can play my guitar and over time, you
• 12:55
  know, sometimes, sometimes I'm singing like mental logic and
• 13:00
  I'm not. And then I'm de escalating the
• 13:03
  intensity of my of my picking or something.
• 13:05
  This past year has been me kind of pulling the engine apart and
• 13:09
  cleaning it and putting it back together.
• 13:10
  So this time last year I took a lesson from Jason Richardson,
• 13:15
  who is on the Baby clock tour, who is just like one of the
• 13:17
  ultimate, like just make no mistake, shredders like out
• 13:20
  there and a really good teacher as well.
• 13:22
  So he came over and I was like, you know, watch my golf swing
• 13:26
  and tell me where I'm fucking up.
• 13:27
  And he did such a great job that like this whole year has been
• 13:30
  like gaining total control or not total control, as much
• 13:33
  control as I can. And it's all been a really good
• 13:35
  process just to to because these shows are pretty treacherous.
• 13:39
  I mean, we can do like some songs where I'm like my arm is
• 13:42
  throbbing after we do death support and because that's just
• 13:45
  down stroke city and it's all in odd time.
• 13:46
  It's all in five and it's just it's and there's a solo right in
• 13:51
  the middle and I got to go right back into the, you know,
• 13:53
  downbeat of the as I'm holding my note, downbeat of the vocal.
• 13:56
  So it's a really, really, really good physical challenge.
• 14:00
  And so so I think all year that like when I'm not, if I'm not
• 14:03
  playing guitar, I've got to be in pretty good shape.
• 14:05
  I sat and talked to Satriani and Vai about all this stuff about
• 14:08
  keeping your hands shape. What do you do?
• 14:10
  What are your tricks? Talk to me about it.
• 14:12
  Right on. I know some football players
• 14:14
  will like receivers will dip their hands in paraffin wax and
• 14:19
  then peel it off and it keeps their hands like tough and
• 14:21
  supple. It's wild.
• 14:24
  There's crazy stuff you can do in exercises and physical
• 14:26
  therapy. And I mean, I know that like
• 14:28
  your reputation before Metalocalypse, before animation,
• 14:33
  before all these things, you are a Berkeley guy.
• 14:35
  But also like, I don't think enough people recognize that you
• 14:38
  also went to Emerson and had comedy and and writing as a
• 14:42
  background. So it's so interesting that you
• 14:44
  had these two loves of yours kind of form and you know, to
• 14:49
  your to your earliest work and really meta lockups was like
• 14:52
  your second or third life in entertainment because of how
• 14:55
  movies. My girlfriend was talking about
• 14:57
  her love of and appreciation of home movies.
• 14:59
  And I went down a rabbit hole last night.
• 15:00
  I was like, I forgot how great this was.
• 15:02
  And you did the music for that also like the incidental music,
• 15:04
  right? So like, just wild that you were
• 15:07
  able to like put these twin worlds together and you know.
• 15:13
  Make it work. That was like, again, I think
• 15:16
  art is about selfishness. It's about satisfying some part
• 15:20
  of you as from when you got excited about art as a child or
• 15:25
  whatever it was, whatever it is that whatever my cocktail brain
• 15:29
  makeup was about trying to satisfy all those ideas.
• 15:32
  And then I knew like through music and through getting kind
• 15:35
  of understanding script writing and understanding character
• 15:37
  writing. I knew at some point I'm going
• 15:39
  to try to do something that's very musically driven and it's
• 15:42
  going to be a lot of work. But if somebody can, if I can
• 15:45
  talk somebody into letting me do it, then I will do all the work.
• 15:49
  I'll stay up late at night and I'll do whatever I can to to
• 15:52
  make it happen. And that's, that was
• 15:54
  Metalocalypse. And I thought that's that's, you
• 15:56
  know, selfishly, that's the ultimate job I could possibly
• 15:59
  create, which is that I get to, you know, explore comedy,
• 16:02
  character, world building, which is like something that was
• 16:04
  weight because home movies was such a small little world.
• 16:06
  I was like, let's really now jump off the edge and see how
• 16:10
  far we can go with world building again, like we would
• 16:12
  have a, a globe in our office and we'd point it, we'd spin it
• 16:16
  and point at and go Reykjavik, Iceland.
• 16:18
  I don't know anything about Reykjavik.
• 16:19
  I've never been there. Let's and then kind of
• 16:22
  understanding, you know, writing about we had Europeans on this
• 16:25
  on the, on the, on the staff. We would just kind of start
• 16:28
  exploring things just a little bit outside of our world because
• 16:31
  heavy metal was so much outside of our world.
• 16:32
  There's so much of it in Europe. There's so much of it in
• 16:34
  Scandinavia and Eastern Europe and, you know, South America and
• 16:39
  everywhere, you know, so, so this is, this was a really fun,
• 16:44
  exciting thing for my brain to get to get all that stuff
• 16:48
  happening at the same time. It's the ultimate job.
• 16:50
  Right on. Speaking of the 20 years factor,
• 16:53
  it's kind of odd because you know, Gen.
• 16:55
  Z and millennials don't have a lot to be nostalgic about.
• 16:58
  It's our generation that's much more nostalgic about things.
• 17:01
  And again, I keep having this like whiplash, Deja vu, like is
• 17:05
  1996 thirty years ago? Oh my God, like that's 30 years
• 17:11
  is close is close is like further away than 20 years.
• 17:15
  You know, obviously like math has the math, but like I think
• 17:18
  about the 20 years aspect for you.
• 17:19
  And so like a lot of people have, you know, obviously grown
• 17:23
  and grown up with this show. And so I'm always fascinated by
• 17:28
  like, you know, all the different directions you went in
• 17:30
  here. Do you have like some, you know,
• 17:32
  aside from the core characters? Do you have some like one
• 17:35
  officers guest star, special characters that particularly you
• 17:39
  love and would love to see come back someday in the form of a a
• 17:43
  song or a character or you know some future?
• 17:45
  That's interesting. You know, some people talk about
• 17:48
  their love of characters and in the home movies they definitely
• 17:50
  had like love and you know, of the characters.
• 17:53
  But I also think there's another philosophy where your characters
• 17:55
  are in comedy. It's important to think of them
• 17:58
  as idiots, I think, and to think of them just like just as these
• 18:02
  roaming dip shits. And then and the writer is the
• 18:05
  God and he has to like, mix up the world and push him out there
• 18:08
  and throw them off, you know, throw them in trees and throw it
• 18:11
  rocks at him and set him on fire.
• 18:13
  And like, you have to like, kind of treat them like a bunch of
• 18:15
  rag dolls. And that's kind of like my role.
• 18:18
  So I always thought these guys like, as I was making the show,
• 18:21
  I thought this is a show about celebrity.
• 18:23
  This is a show about masculinity.
• 18:24
  It's a show about ego and it's a show about selfishness.
• 18:27
  And at some point, I'm going to, you know, the final episode will
• 18:31
  be having these guys look at their own selfishness and maybe
• 18:34
  transcend that and go on to another plane because that's how
• 18:37
  TV works. You go through all this stuff.
• 18:39
  The, the British office, I think is a really good example of this
• 18:42
  guy's wrong. Everybody's wrong.
• 18:43
  This guy's lying to himself until the last second.
• 18:45
  He says one honest thing about himself and, and then his world
• 18:48
  opens up and there's a beautiful woman looking at him across the
• 18:51
  room. And now he can, he's a, he's, he
• 18:54
  can transcend and move on to the next level of, of life, of love
• 18:58
  and all that stuff. So I think of these characters
• 19:01
  as being greedy idiots who I punish and and I don't
• 19:05
  necessarily want to hang out with them.
• 19:07
  And that's how I felt the entire time.
• 19:09
  And I know they're like all these ships and stuff going,
• 19:11
  that stuff crosses my timeline where I see people like falling
• 19:16
  in love with these characters and stuff.
• 19:18
  And I go, they're not, I mean, only after the last.
• 19:20
  But you know, I didn't see that until really until the movie
• 19:23
  finished where it kind of got to correct all the wrong parts,
• 19:25
  where they got to forgive themselves and move forward and
• 19:27
  stuff, which again is not, but it was necessary.
• 19:30
  I knew from the first episode I can't do this show unless I know
• 19:33
  that that's in the sight because these guys are such assholes
• 19:36
  character I would ever want to go back to and the stuff I think
• 19:38
  they're all fun to play with, just like rag dolls that I can
• 19:41
  set on fire and throw in trees and run my car over.
• 19:44
  Like that's always fun. Seriously, it is a it is a
• 19:47
  brutal relationship I think the writer has with their own
• 19:50
  creators. And it has to be that way
• 19:51
  because if I start, if I start like just kind of just loving
• 19:55
  them too much, I think I don't have the ability to put come
• 19:59
  through the the trash and the trials and the tribulations,
• 20:02
  because that's, that's what the characters are there for.
• 20:04
  They're there to be like in Clash of the Titans, you know,
• 20:07
  he takes Perseus out of one place and he puts him somewhere.
• 20:09
  He's like, sorry, you're fucked, you're over here now.
• 20:12
  Make, you know, figure a way out of there.
• 20:14
  And that's what that's what writing is.
• 20:15
  Right on the the heroes journey. What I do think I would do, and
• 20:20
  and if you saw the promo where we are kind of engaging with
• 20:23
  with or Metalocalypse Death Clock is engaging with Johann
• 20:27
  from Amana Marth, you see that there's like something relaxed
• 20:31
  and stupid and slow and funny about just them hanging out.
• 20:34
  I like that. I would love to be able to do
• 20:36
  that again with the show now that I've gotten all that crazy
• 20:38
  storytelling out of the way. It would be really fun just to
• 20:40
  have just like go back to the mundane parts.
• 20:43
  I mean, you built this gigantic infrastructure so you can have
• 20:46
  these arguments about food and about like who, you know,
• 20:48
  turning off the lights or something like that.
• 20:50
  Right on. I know you know, Kerouac said.
• 20:52
  Kill Your Darlings so you have to be able to kill them but also
• 20:55
  like. I mean, you have to build a
• 20:56
  bunch of shit before you get to the thing.
• 20:57
  So you have to like, you have to throw a lot.
• 20:59
  And by the way, that's a very empowering feeling to take a
• 21:02
  piece of paper and go, fuck you, see you later.
• 21:04
  I don't need you anymore. Right on.
• 21:06
  And interestingly enough, I think unlikable and malicious
• 21:10
  and evil characters with no self-awareness are always the
• 21:13
  best. That's why villains are so
• 21:15
  loved. That's why you know, Larry David
• 21:18
  and Costanza work inside, you know, and that stuff because
• 21:21
  they're unlikable by nature. You're supposed to not like them
• 21:24
  but appreciate them. And also, who is less self aware
• 21:28
  than death metal people, death metal fans, death metal and
• 21:31
  black metal musicians, the most unself aware people.
• 21:34
  Not great, not great. I'll.
• 21:36
  Tell you, I mean some people can be very self aware and some
• 21:38
  people can be not self aware and I wouldn't use a genre to it to
• 21:41
  as a demarcation point but one of the things we were thinking
• 21:44
  about early on was that these guys are nihilists like they
• 21:47
  don't believe in anything and then I realized I can't write
• 21:49
  for a person that doesn't believe in anything.
• 21:51
  The truth is that they care. This is like, and I think this
• 21:54
  is the core of nihilism is I care so much.
• 21:56
  I'm so sensitive. I get my feelings hurt so easily
• 22:00
  that I need to make people believe I don't care anything
• 22:02
  about anything because I care so God damn much about anything
• 22:06
  about everything because I'm alive and I'm sensitive and I'm
• 22:09
  actually, you know, there's blood pumping through my nervous
• 22:12
  system and all that shit. So I think what we, what we did
• 22:15
  was like when we think of a character like murder face, we
• 22:17
  go, here's a guy who thinks he's a nihilist, but truthfully, he's
• 22:21
  the most sensitive guy in the room and he can get his feelings
• 22:24
  hurt so easily and so quickly. And that's just all of us.
• 22:27
  That's everybody in the world, that's everyone, everyone.
• 22:30
  So thinking in those terms, like just, but just to think like
• 22:33
  what their goals are and what their lives are and what they,
• 22:35
  how little they care about what they're kind of their, their
• 22:38
  imprints means to people. I think, is that something I can
• 22:41
  play with? Because that's part of
• 22:42
  celebrity. That was part of the other thing
• 22:44
  we were lambasting because reality shows were coming into
• 22:47
  the zeitgeist at the time of Metalocalypse.
• 22:49
  And I was pissed off personally, as a writer because you didn't
• 22:52
  need writers anymore to make that stuff.
• 22:54
  You could just turn a camera on someone.
• 22:56
  And of course, it's interesting to watch an absolute celebrity
• 23:00
  miss appointments, not know how to get out of a room, not know
• 23:02
  what day it is, you know, don't not necessarily know how much
• 23:05
  bread costs and, well, people are dying in the streets.
• 23:08
  So fair. Just to change gears for a quick
• 23:10
  second, I just have a few more questions for you.
• 23:13
  I've got nothings right now so I.
• 23:14
  Appreciate you man. You're the best.
• 23:16
  You've always very generous with your time and and support of us
• 23:19
  and I'm so thankful. I'm thinking a lot lately about
• 23:22
  AI and you've now worked in entertainment for 30 years and
• 23:26
  music, writing, animation, comedy, all these things are,
• 23:29
  you know, we're reliant on technology, but I'm a little
• 23:32
  concerned about the overhype and over alliance of AI.
• 23:35
  Do you have like a feeling either way about AI, music or
• 23:38
  art and where it's place is in the landscape now or going
• 23:42
  forward? That's a good question.
• 23:44
  I don't really know exactly how I feel about it all.
• 23:46
  I don't. I'm not necessarily terrified of
• 23:48
  it. I know it's going to get to a
• 23:50
  place where it's going to be indistinguishable.
• 23:53
  I don't know if we're there yet. I think there's going to be a
• 23:55
  lot of really great stuff that happens, hopefully in the
• 23:58
  medical industry, diagnosing people earlier, keeping them
• 24:01
  alive longer, letting them live on Earth longer and experience
• 24:05
  life longer. All that stuff is really cool.
• 24:08
  As far as music, I am bewildered by some of the AI stuff I've
• 24:12
  heard. I don't know, I heard like one
• 24:13
  of those. Somebody played me like it was
• 24:15
  like a mega day. It was like holy wars or
• 24:16
  something that with like a big huge, like a Sly in the Family
• 24:19
  Stone did it or something. And I was, I was, I was like,
• 24:23
  oh, that's so fucking good. Oh my God.
• 24:27
  And I and I talked to my musician friends who sent me the
• 24:29
  link and I go, what the fuck are we going to do with this?
• 24:31
  Like, what is this? It's so amazingly art.
• 24:34
  Can you believe that? Like somebody just prompted this
• 24:37
  and it happened and all this horn section it.
• 24:39
  And also it's a a great song that really lent itself to this
• 24:42
  kind of like, you know, 70s funk, you know, just power tune.
• 24:47
  And I just didn't know. I mean, I was kind of like
• 24:48
  excited to hear that it existed. I was fascinated with sloppy AI
• 24:53
  shit with like 6 finger stuff where they were kind of
• 24:55
  inventing worlds that didn't exist, like movies that didn't
• 24:58
  exist. Fascinated by all that stuff.
• 25:00
  As far as incorporating it. I mean, the crazy thing about I
• 25:03
  think all of America and corporate America has gotten to
• 25:08
  a tipping point of we can't afford to keep on living the way
• 25:11
  that we're living because it's all about growth.
• 25:13
  And if growth doesn't continue, then the infrastructure starts
• 25:16
  crumbling upon itself. Same within show business.
• 25:19
  We're watching that happen. So all these companies are
• 25:22
  conglomerating together. I mean, I know what that was
• 25:24
  like. There were only three networks
• 25:25
  when I grew up, you know, and a couple cable networks that you
• 25:28
  could pay for. So I don't know, I still think
• 25:31
  the most interesting thing is going to be an artist selfishly
• 25:35
  trying to reconcile something that's confounding them.
• 25:39
  Beyond that, I'm probably not going to be interested.
• 25:41
  I saw Darren Aronofsky just released a trailer for an all AI
• 25:45
  kind of historical animated thing, and I'm watching people
• 25:49
  just trash that online like crazy, Like no, thank you, will
• 25:51
  not watch. Sorry, you A to brute a like all
• 25:54
  that shit, you know, and I think Darren Aronofsky is incredibly
• 25:56
  talented, incredibly talented from π to the wrestler, ETC.
• 26:02
  But yeah, I don't know if the world's ready for it.
• 26:05
  I know there are things that need to cost less in the
• 26:07
  industry. But, you know, I also know that
• 26:10
  the animation workforce is like a high percentage percentage of
• 26:14
  them are unemployed because I think the industry is currently
• 26:17
  waiting to see how this whole thing pans out.
• 26:19
  So they're not buying as much as they used to.
• 26:21
  And, and I think we're in an era of totally disposable content
• 26:26
  where it may as well be written by AI.
• 26:28
  What's the difference between some of these like IP projects
• 26:31
  and what AI would do with them? What is the difference other
• 26:34
  than cost? The conceit is somewhat similar
• 26:37
  as it is, right? So I'm more interested in
• 26:40
  someone who will live and die over their own projects.
• 26:44
  And it's as usual, you know, and hopefully we can and also one
• 26:48
  other problem again, as long as we're going over the whole kind
• 26:51
  of Uber of AI and what it does or doesn't do.
• 26:54
  Like I don't think it's changing content too much because I
• 26:57
  because I think we're in a place where they're trying to make
• 26:58
  stuff quickly. But one of the thought is broad
• 27:02
  appeal is the main thing. I mean, I realized broad appeal
• 27:06
  gave me Star Wars, broad appeal gave me Seinfeld gave me so many
• 27:10
  different things that everybody kind of agreed this is pretty
• 27:13
  good. It doesn't happen all the time.
• 27:15
  It's sometimes it's once generation, but everyone's going
• 27:18
  for broad appeal. Broad appeal.
• 27:20
  Metalocalypse is not for broad appeal.
• 27:22
  So the fact that I gave, you know, like that I that I wanted
• 27:25
  to spend all like a huge chunk of my life trying to do
• 27:29
  something I think is entertaining to not everybody is
• 27:31
  something that I think has also kind of helped me not have
• 27:35
  something disposable with the music, with the characters, with
• 27:38
  the show. I've got something that is still
• 27:39
  alive 20 years later when I think some bigger expensive
• 27:42
  projects probably came and went very quickly because there was
• 27:45
  no there was no seed inside of it that kept you remembering it.
• 27:49
  So I don't know. I've just unload unleashed a
• 27:51
  bunch of stuff that I think was kind of on my mind.
• 27:53
  But also, you know, I like working with people.
• 27:56
  I like working with groups. I like the collaborative nature
• 27:59
  of prompting a human and going through their whole lifespan to
• 28:03
  get to that little piece of art that we worked on because they
• 28:06
  grew up here. They knew a person there, and
• 28:08
  that reminds them of something else.
• 28:10
  That's what a writers room is like too.
• 28:11
  Hey, what was your experience with your stepfather?
• 28:14
  Talk to me about that. A writer starts talking about
• 28:16
  it. Let's use this as part of our
• 28:18
  story. You know what it felt like to do
• 28:20
  this. You know what it felt like.
• 28:21
  This is prompting writers. This is also getting, you know,
• 28:24
  inner stories out so that to me is always going to be more
• 28:27
  exciting. And I also like I have flirted
• 28:29
  with like organizing some writing projects with chat CPT
• 28:32
  It's way too complimentary. I don't trust it.
• 28:35
  I want you to like a real writer that I love to like.
• 28:38
  I can think of a few writers that I love to work with where I
• 28:40
  pitch them an idea and it looks like Mount Rushmore and I'm
• 28:42
  like, OK, I got my work cut out for me.
• 28:44
  I need to get them excited about this thing or I've missed a
• 28:47
  couple steps along the way. Don't tell me, don't tell me.
• 28:49
  Hey, great idea. Like AI does make me work for
• 28:52
  it. You're brilliant.
• 28:54
  We love you. I think context is the yeah,
• 28:56
  context is the thing that the human experience can only the
• 28:59
  human experience can give you. And I don't think it can come
• 29:02
  from anywhere else so far. So who knows?
• 29:05
  I mean, so far, I don't know if I can get what I just described
• 29:08
  currently out of ChatGPT. I would rather get with people
• 29:11
  that I also have long term relationships with.
• 29:14
  And and they're thoughtful people who sit there and stroke
• 29:17
  their chin, don't speak that much and think they go, what if
• 29:20
  like at the end of the meeting, I go, oh, you saved the project.
• 29:23
  Thank you. Right on.
• 29:23
  I appreciate all that. Thank you for breaking it all
• 29:25
  fall down and again, it's on my mind also and at every level.
• 29:30
  The future is unwritten and scary, but also interesting.
• 29:33
  Absolutely. It's totally terrifying and
• 29:35
  fascinating. All we've got basically is heavy
• 29:37
  metal. That's what I think.
• 29:39
  I love that that's a quote. That's a hashtag.
• 29:42
  Heavy metal, I think in the Scandinavian term, when I talk
• 29:45
  about it's therapeutic, there's a common side of the storm.
• 29:48
  I like that too, really quick. I don't think I've ever asked
• 29:52
  you this. I was in these with a wild card
• 29:54
  question. What was your favorite comic
• 29:56
  book as a child? Did you have one and what was
• 29:58
  it? I was not, and this is going to
• 30:00
  sound strange, I'm not a huge comic book guy.
• 30:03
  I never was. I grew up on, you know, like
• 30:06
  before I discovered guitar. It was I had an interest in
• 30:10
  comedy. I had an interest in like stuff
• 30:12
  that kids that 11 year olds were not interested in, like Albert
• 30:15
  Brooks and Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers because my parents
• 30:18
  played that stuff in my house. And so I was fascinated with
• 30:21
  quirky comedies and strange, odd actors like Charles Grodin, who
• 30:25
  was like just seemed like he was irritated and grumpy all the
• 30:27
  time. I was interested in all that
• 30:29
  stuff. I tried to get in this.
• 30:31
  I didn't like, I wasn't I didn't have any friends that really
• 30:34
  knew like how to even like wait a minute, if I go and get a
• 30:37
  Spider Man comic book, how long has this story been going on and
• 30:40
  do I need where do I begin? So I didn't know how to do any
• 30:42
  of that stuff. My brother who was three-year, 3
• 30:44
  1/2 years younger than me still is.
• 30:47
  And he was interested in more comic book stuff, but I was kind
• 30:50
  of out of the house by then where he was getting into the
• 30:53
  X-Men and getting into all that stuff.
• 30:54
  So I didn't really get into graphic novels.
• 30:57
  Later on, I'd get into the Preacher in the 90s, which I was
• 31:01
  really interested in. And I got into like The Dark
• 31:06
  Knight and all that stuff, like in Watchmen.
• 31:08
  And I thought that was all just fascinating novels, you know,
• 31:12
  basically like just really. Watchmen was such a cool
• 31:15
  postmodern tape. I can't believe it came out when
• 31:17
  it did. It was so far ahead of the
• 31:18
  curve. So that stuff I was fascinated
• 31:20
  with. I am interested in superheroes
• 31:23
  when they are, you know, as long as they keep it interesting.
• 31:27
  That's why I like doing Chris Christopher Nolan's Batman came
• 31:30
  out somewhere around the time I think Death Clock was.
• 31:32
  We were carving out Death Clock. And in fact, I think the first
• 31:35
  description I used was that Mordhaus would look like Wayne
• 31:38
  manner in some way. So there's like, you know, death
• 31:41
  phone, bat phone, you know, like same bat time, same bat this.
• 31:44
  There was a lot of Batman in death clock, same death it's
• 31:48
  clock this or death that or something like that.
• 31:50
  So I thought about all the Batman and stuff that you could
• 31:52
  use to kind of get all the stuff inside of peoples heads and
• 31:55
  create that connect to all the dots and keep all the everything
• 31:58
  going. Batman was important for that.
• 32:00
  So I'd say that that is cool. I think that's so that's, that's
• 32:04
  what I, I mean, I was also really interested, but I was
• 32:06
  interested in big things. So I was interested in Dune.
• 32:09
  I was interested in like in David Lynch's Dune and I was
• 32:11
  like fascinated with that movie. Everyone's like this is the
• 32:14
  worst movie in the world. In fact, my mom, I think when I
• 32:16
  was 10, she dropped like, the Frank Herbert book on my desk
• 32:19
  and said, everyone says they don't understand this movie.
• 32:21
  You read this, I'll take you to the movie theater.
• 32:22
  And I was like, OK, let's read it.
• 32:23
  And I was like, huh, I'm too stupid.
• 32:25
  I can't understand this stuff. So I went and chased down as
• 32:29
  much as I could about like Dune. And there was like a book out
• 32:33
  there at my 711 that if I could walk, you know, 2 miles to, I
• 32:35
  could go get this book and learn everything about like the Penny
• 32:39
  Jesuits and learn about like the, the, you know, Oh, Fayed
• 32:42
  was supposed to, she was supposed to bear a daughter to,
• 32:44
  to marry, you know, and sealed the breach between the
• 32:46
  Harkonnen's and all that stuff. So that was my, I guess that was
• 32:50
  my comic book world was trying to understand David Lynch's
• 32:52
  Dune. And I, I loved every bit of it.
• 32:54
  And it's still my favorite Dune, though.
• 32:55
  I really like the new ones and I love David Lynch what he did.
• 33:01
  I think like when people ask me my favorite David Lynch Dune is
• 33:03
  #1 it's such a dark nightmare of a movie.
• 33:06
  I love it. I love Lynch in general.
• 33:08
  I love I've been fixated on that meme recently.
• 33:11
  It's like the world's in a bad place and it's not going to get
• 33:15
  better today. Like that's some kind of my
• 33:18
  mentality lately, I mean. The creative mind is that
• 33:21
  there's a whole world outside you can't control.
• 33:24
  What can I control? Well, I can control what notes I
• 33:27
  play on the guitar, and I can control what character
• 33:30
  background and the things in front of me.
• 33:33
  That's what I can't control. And hopefully, hopefully I can
• 33:36
  entertain people while the world is completely spinning out of
• 33:39
  control. Absolutely Well, you've been
• 33:41
  doing that for more than 20 years, 30 years almost.
• 33:43
  And Brendan Small once again, it's always a pleasure to chop
• 33:47
  it up with you, man. Congrats on 20 years of death
• 33:50
  clock. Congrats on the Amman clock
• 33:52
  tour. Go to ammanclock.com, which is
• 33:55
  an amazing little I'm I love these websites are popping up
• 33:58
  again just for a tour. Buy your tickets there.
• 34:01
  Go support live metal music. It's the only way to keep the
• 34:04
  genre vibrant and going. Always a pleasure to hang out
• 34:07
  with you, man. Thanks for hanging with Ghost
• 34:09
  Call today. Thank you.
• 34:10
  My pleasure too, and thanks for taking an interest in this whole
• 34:12
  thing. Always, man, I'm a huge fan and
• 34:14
  I'm just grateful to chop it up with you.
• 34:16
  It seems like once a year one of us it goes called gets to talk
• 34:19
  to you. So I feel very lucky.
• 34:20
  Thank you. Thank you very much.
• 34:21
  I really appreciate it.