“It’s a hard question to answer: What exactly makes a cartoon ‘metal’? Is it the violence, the attitude, the ‘over the topness’ of it all? Or just the characters having a definite ‘metal’ point of view on life? All we know is that, to us, somehow these cartoons satisfy that same part of the brain that a savage Slayer riff does.”

1. Executioner
“This is the most metal cartoon ever. Mostly because we created it. Comedian Brian Posehn voices a medieval executioner who finds himself suddenly living in modern day Southern California and has to survive doing the only thing he knows: killing people. The theme song by Morgue Supplier makes it that much more metal! This’ll make you want to kill people (but in a fun way). Catch it on Rug Burn, starting April 16!”

2. Beavis & Butthead
“We think this is the second most metal show ever, mostly because we’re writers on the show. And because Mike Judge kicks ass.”

3. Metalocalypse
“No. 3 because our friends at Titmouse make the show–the same studio that animates Executioner. Hilarious and completely fucking metal.

4. Tex Avery cartoons
“No. 4 because that’s the number of joints we smoke while watching these. Old school over-the-top madness by the wildest cartoon director ever. A few standout classics include ‘Bad Luck Blackie,’ ‘Deputy Droopy,’ and ‘Little Rural Riding Hood.’”

5. Itchy & Scratchy
“No. 5 because that’s the average number of laughs in a Simpsons episode these days–all of them coming when you can catch the ultra-violent craziness of this show-within-the-show.”

6. South Park
“6, 6, 6, the number of the Beast, because episodes like ‘Woodland Critter Christmas’ and ‘Major Boobage’ are so metal you need to throw up the devil-horns salute while watching them.”

7. The hallucination sequence in the movie Beavis & Butthead Do America
“Beavis has the coolest, funniest trip-out scene ever, with music and character designs by Rob Zombie and animated by Chris Prynoski (owner of Titmouse Studios, who make Executioner).”

8. Paths Of Hate
“Unlike the rest of these, this one isn’t funny–it’s just a completely badass short about two fighter pilots that just fucking hate each other…so goddamn much.”

9. Celebrity Deathmatch
“Asshole celebrities beating each other to death for our amusement. How much more metal can you get?”

10. Korgoth of Barbaria
“Google it. Enjoy it.”

By Andrew Bansal

Dethklok and Metalocalypse mainman Brendon Small released a solo album last year under the project title Brendon Small’s Galaktikon.

What was supposedly a studio-only endeavor has become a massive undertaking as Small prepares for Galaktikon’s live debut at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, March 3. The show will be part of WesFest 8, an annual concert to benefit the Wes Wehmiller Endowed Scholarship at Berklee College of Music.

A few days ago, I caught up with Small to discuss this event in detail. Check out Galaktikon here. You can get tickets to the show here.

REVOLVER: What is Wesfest 8, and how did you get involved?

I got involved through Bryan Beller, my bass player, who has been putting on this festival for the past seven years. He plays bass with me in Dethklok, and he plays bass on this solo project that I did called Galaktikon. So I’ve been friends with him. We also went to the same music school, Berklee College of Music. He finished before I got there but I’ve been following him for years because he played with Dweezil Zappa, then he played with Mike Keneally and all these great guitar players.

He was definitely on my radar. He said, “Hey, this Galaktikon record is something you never thought about playing live, but if we got enough musicians on stage you could do it!” I said, “Well, if we have enough guitarists and vocalists, then yeah!” It’s a pretty big undertaking, but what these guys are playing is pretty amazing. This is a benefit for a bass player who died of cancer a long time ago, named Wes Wehmiller. I never knew him, but Bryan Beller was really good friends with him, and so this is a scholarship in his name for the same school we went to. So that’s where all the money is going, for all young bass players. And that’s the whole idea.

You graduated a long time ago. Have you returned for any guest lectures?

No, but I would because that’s something I’m totally interested in. I’ve only gone back there to walk around and reminisce. I was there with my girlfriend earlier this year, just walking past the building. I spent a very important part of my life at that school and in Boston between becoming a learned musician and becoming a comedian. That was an important part of my growing up.

I’m surprised that you didn’t go back for lectures,; I’ve seen you giving lectures at NAMM and things like that, and you’re really good at it.

Oh yeah, I’m very comfortable speaking in front of people. I have fun doing it. Maybe I will do something of that sort at Berklee in the future. I would definitely love to do it. We just have to get our schedules together.

Obviously you work with Bryan Beller. Other than him, have you kept in touch with your fellow students?

Not necessarily. I’d love to know more about it, but I’ve been lucky enough to be working steadily since I graduated. In my last year at music school, I did something a lot of Berklee students didn’t do. I took classes at one of the sister schools, Emerson College, and they had a communication school. That’s where I started really taking seriously the idea of writing for television and becoming an actor and comedian.

So while I was taking classes on advanced jazz solo concepts, I would go over and write a bunch of stupid jokes in my other class, and I was very competitive. So even as a music student I wanted to be the funniest and best writer in the class. That was an important part. If I were to talk to any Berklee students, I would say don’t be afraid to go and learn other things, because music takes a long time to settle in. But to answer your question, I only have a few friends I’ve kept tabs on. I mostly hung out with kids who were actors and writers. I didn’t actually hang out with many musicians while I was there.

People who graduate from music schools often get into session work. What’s your take on that? Do you feel it doesn’t give the musician freedom? It’s just something they do for money, right?

That’s very true! Here’s what I did, actually. Before my last year at music school, I decided to go and get an internship. I didn’t know what I was going to do with music. I knew I loved guitar, I loved technique, I loved learning how to play and I loved metal. But it wasn’t really at the forefront. It hadn’t come back yet.

So I had all this technique and these guitar-playing skills, but I didn’t know what to do with it. But I really liked taking composition classes, and I liked writing music. I thought maybe I could become a film-scoring person, so I took a lot of classes for that. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could get into the jingle-writing business, to write music for commercials and stuff. So I interned in that summer for two different jingle houses in New York, and that’s where I really made a decision about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I saw people who were really talented musicians, but they were at the mercy of a 30-second spot for Advil or something. It was pretty limiting and the people that were directing a lot of these pieces really didn’t challenge themselves to learn musical terminology, or to be able to express themselves musically. You’d get a director who’s not necessarily musically intelligent, and it was just a cluster fuck. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be the guy writing the piece, and the guy directing and acting in the piece, and then I want to be the guy making the music. So I was going to create a gig at some point where I get to do all of that stuff, and I wasn’t going to wait for somebody to hire me. That was my goal, and I ended up doing that with my first TV show and then with Metalocalypse.

The Galaktikon live debut is a big undertaking, and it’s not something you wanted to do or expected to do. How much did you actually have to prepare and rehearse?

We prepare a lot because first of all, this is something pretty fun because we have four guitarists on stage, and each one of those are amazing guitarists. We have the amazing Mike Keneally, who has played with Frank Zappa. He’s such a good guitar player, but he’s such a jerk because he doesn’t even really consider himself a guitar player. He’s like, “I’m a piano player, that’s my forte.” But he can do anything on guitar. He plays piano with Satriani and he’s played guitar with Steve Vai’s band. He’s just a guy who can do anything.

And then there’s this guy named Rick Musallam. I don’t think everybody knows about Rick. He plays with Mike Keneally, and he mainly does session stuff, but he’s also a guy who can pretty much do anything. He’s able to match Keneally note-for-note on everything he does.

And then finally we have Jude Gold, who took care of the guitar department at Musicians Institute in Hollywood. He tours with tons of different people and he’s just a guy that’s incredibly humble. So all four of us sat down and worked on all these harmonies and were going over the material, to divide all the moments in the songs. It took me a really, really long time to learn how to play. They can do it in a second, and I’m like, “That’s not fair. It took me five years to be able to do that and you’re just doing it right now.”

And then they can do stuff I simply can’t do. They have amazing ability and rhythm, and I have a great time working with them. One of the most important things when I consider working with anybody is, they’ve got to have a really good attitude and they don’t take anything too seriously. They can show up and they can goof off and laugh a lot, and that’s really important. I wish there was a class on that at the music school. Whenever I put a project together, I consider the fact that I’m going to spend a lot of time with the person I’m hiring, so they’d better be really cool and fun, and I should get excited about working with them. All these guys I’m working with are that. So, we have a few different days of guitar rehearsals, and a few days of vocal rehearsals. I’m singing a lot and then for some of the singing I had to divide up the vocals because of the way I recorded this album.

When I do a Dethklok record, I consider how I’m going to perform it live. With Galaktikon, I just thought it should sound what I wanted it to sound like. I wasn’t concerned about whether I could perform it live. So there are moments when I need to hit a high note and I have to rest all day and hit that high note. After that, there’s another high note. So my voice can start suffering very easily.

I thought if I have a few other vocalists with me on stage, I’m going to be able to divide that stuff up and everyone will get to have a moment to shine and it will be really fun. So that’s that, and next week we’re going through all the stuff with the rest of the band. We’re going to have five vocalists on stage, four guitarists, Tim Yeung who’s an amazing drummer, and Bryan Beller on bass. Musically, there’s going to be a lot of talent on stage, excluding myself.

This lineup, other than the guys playing with you in Dethklok, of course, was it handpicked or a case of whoever was available?

No, Jude Gold I had already thought of, because I’m also busy working on Metalocalypse stuff right now, so I’m not going to be able to be the musical director for this show and I need someone who’s a monster player, who’s completely organized and easy going, and the one guy I could think of was Jude Gold. So I hand-selected him. And then my first thought for drums was to get Gene Hoglan, but he’s playing with Testament right now.

He wished he could have done it, but then I heard about this guy Tim Yeung and I saw his videos of YouTube. I thought, “Oh my god, this guy has serious technique!” I’m excited to rehearse with him. I know Jude is good friends with him. So next week it’s going to be three days of rehearsal and then we’re going to do this thing once and who knows, may be we’ll do it again and more often if it goes well. But it’s definitely a good-sized undertaking.

How did you decide that you need exactly four guitarists?

I could have probably gotten away with fewer because I overdub a lot of guitars. I really like strong, big harmonies ala Brian May. I love Queen and all that stuff, so I recorded in that style. I do a lot of voice-leading traditional style of harmonies. On any big moment of a song, let’s say for the song called “You Can’t Run Away” in which there’s a break with a six-part guitar harmony, which is a triad.

I could technically put two more guitars on stage, but that may be too crazy. I thought it would be nice to have two guys covering rhythm guitar. I put some melodies on top of the guitar, and there will be parts where I can’t play and sing at the same time. I think if we do put four guitar players on stage, for the most part each person will have something to do and we can arrange these harmonies. For Dethklok it’s always two guitars, but sometimes it’s Mike Keneally coming up with a six-part guitar harmony-type thing.

Between he and myself, we have to make that sound really big with just two guitars. So he plays double stock necks and I play the melody on top of that. But it would never sound as cool as single notes on guitars. That’s why I wanted to do this. There are so many guitar parts in these songs, but I kept on overdubbing and putting on these little moments on them. I wasn’t worried about recreating it on stage, obviously. But here we are [futureusgallerylaughs].

When you play this material live, how much is the setup going to differ as compared to what you did in the studio?

It’s going to be pretty similar. For every sound we have on the record, we’re trying to recreate it with what we’ve got. I don’t think we’re going to deviate too much. The idea is to see how close we can come to the keyboard patches, the guitar harmonies, to how many vocals I overdubbed in one particular section, so the idea is to be pretty faithful to the record and to play it identically. It’s funny the way we approached this too, because between myself, Mike Keneally and Rick Musallam, we did a really fun thing about a year-and-a-half ago. We did a 20-year anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s death at the Roxy, where we had three guitars and six vocalists doing Queen songs. We did about two hours of Queen, and it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had on stage. Compared to anything to do, it’s always easier to do other things than it is to do Dethklok because I’ve got to sing, play guitar and all the other stuff. But this is so much fun to just play guitar or just to sing. I figured this is all going to be possible, after doing that Queen tribute show.

You wrote this as a studio-only project, so did you end up rediscovering your own compositions through these rehearsals because this is something new for you as well?

It’s true! Very often when I’m recording and writing in the studio, sometimes they are the same thing because when I open up a Pro-Tools session I consider it just a big sketchbook. It’s not detrimental to record a small idea and then to harmonize it and use it later on or interpolate it or invert it. Very often, I forget what I did in the moment, so I don’t remember anything that I ever do on guitar [futureusgallerylaughs]. There’s this big instrumental song called “Dangertits” on the Galaktikon record, and it was tricky. It’s got a lot of notes and tiny parts. It’s not something I can’t do, but keeping it all flowing nicely is just something that I’ve been making sure of, and I practice a lot. But yeah, it’s fun to rediscover and to see how accurate we can get. There are also moments where we’re like, “There are four guitarists but that part requires six, so let’s just keep the most important notes.”

Anything else you want to mention?

We’re giving away an Epiphone Thunderhorse guitar, which isn’t available yet. I think the guitar will be available in the spring. Whoever shows up at the gig enters to win one of those. It’s a really good guitar. We did a soft launch of that at Winter NAMM. So that’s very cool.

Andrew Bansal is a writer who has been running his own website, Metal Assault, since early 2010, and has been prolific in covering the hard rock and heavy metal scene by posting interviews, news, reviews and pictures on his website — with the help of a small group of people. Up till February 2012 he was based in Los Angeles. After that, he had to move to India, but is still carrying on his heavy metal endeavors with the same intensity.

In the meantime, we’re asking you to choose 2012′s Song of the Year. We’ve put together a list of the biggest and baddest songs in hard rock and heavy metal below; all you have to do is pick the best. And feel free to vote as many times as you want–until the poll ends on January 1.

UPDATE: The poll is closed. For the results, click right here.

UPDATE: The poll is closed. You can see the result right here.

12. Machine Head, “Darkness Within”
Blood, worms, tight claustrophobic spaces, and perhaps most frightening of all, considering Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe’s legal problems there, the city of Prague, Czech Republic, all feature largely in this dark, disturbing clip for the standout centerpiece song off Machine Head’s Unto the Locust.

11. Asking Alexandria, “Through Sin and Self-Destruction”
No one music video could capture the nonstop sin and insanity that is a day in the life of Asking Alexandria. So the band released three videos this year, making for the epic “Through Sin and Self-Destruction” trilogy, a cinematic roller-coaster ride full of sex, drugs, violence, rock and roll, and more drugs.

10. Lamb of God, “Ghost Walking”
Saying that Lamb of God had quite the year (in both good and bad terms) would be an understatement–from the release their great album Resolution to the arrest of vocalist Randy Blythe in the Czech Republic. A highlight from LOG’s 2012, the band’s video for the single “Ghost Walking” uses first-class animation as it follows a shady-looking character as he seeks to protect top-secret information.

9. Slash, “Bad Rain”
This single from Slash’s second solo album Apocalyptic Love, features the rock god’s top hat and all in an animated video of a strip-tease show gone horribly wrong.

8. In This Moment, “Blood”
The title track of In This Moment’s record features a video that ties together all the spooky and fairy tale-esque imagery of the album’s art. Vocalist Maria Brink isn’t shy about her own sexuality and she just doesn’t care what you think anymore.

7. Black Veil Brides, “Coffin”
Though this song comes of the band’s 2011 EP, Rebels, this candlelit video was released this year. The Black Veil Brides’ glam-metal-tinged hard rock goes grim as they play with fire and snakes.

6. Down, “Witchtripper”
It’s been a while since we heard from Down and even though the Down IV Part I- The Purple EP isn’t a full-length, it packs more high-quality sludge then most bands do in their careers. The video for “Witchtripper” features one of the more bizarre storylines of the Top 10 chosen videos–but what else would we expect from vocalist Phil Anselmo anyway? After some eyeball stew and satanic ceremonies, Down teaches us that metal actually is the devil’s music.

5. Pig Destroyer, “The Diplomat”
This is the first of two videos on this list directed by Phil Mucci (see also No. 1), whose work seems to have distinct editing choices and layers of vibrant colors. After a five-year break between albums, Pig Destroyer dropped this new video that delivers a surefire message: When a jittery diplomat gives AK-47s to monkeys on an alternate planet, it can only lead to a smattering of green guts.

4. Motionless In White, “Devil’s Night”
Fight scenes are pretty much always memorable, and terror scenes are even harder to forget. Motionless In White deliver both here, constantly increasing the numbers of their gang with the use of a straight razor in this twisted West Side Story-like video directed by Cody Blue Snider, son of Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider.

3. Dethklok, “I Ejaculate Fire”
As with most things Dethklok-related, the band’s mere presence brings about a disaster. Is that a Spinx ejaculating fire? Yes. Is this video NSFW? Yes. Is it absurd yet totally funny? Absolutely.

2. Revocation, “The Grip Tightens”
The tech-thrash band comes out of “retirement” to play for the senior-citizen crowd in this hilarious video. Forget about age, they still partake in rock-and-roll debauchery–grandma panties and all.

1. High on Fire, “Fertile Green”
The plot of this visually stunning video may be about as complicated to understand as the concept behind High on Fire’s most recent album, De Vermis Mysteriis. But we’re guessing that if you watch the clip after puffing on a bong a few times, it makes perfect sense. We’re guessing.

Vote for your favorite video on this list in our poll right here.

Check out this photo gallery from a rocking November 27 Hollywood Palladium show featuring Dethklok, Machine Head, All That Remains and The Black Dahlia Murder.

All the photos — and there a lot of them — are courtesy of Revolver photographer Stephanie Cabral, who was on hand to capture the mayhem as it went down.

Narrowly edging out the second-place finishers, the winner of our Album of the Week poll are Stolen Babies, with their second record Naught. Check out the top five vote-getters below:

1. Stolen Babies – Naught
2. Dethklok – Dethalbum III
3. Anberlin – Vital
4. In Fear and Faith – In Fear and Faith
5. My Dying Bride – A Map of All Our Failures

Stay tuned for this week’s poll, which will be live on RevolverMag.com Wednesday, October 24. Until then, you can check out Stolen Babies’ “Second Sleep” off Naught below:

By Andrew Bansal

Dethklok — who are widely popular in animated form on the Adult Swim TV series Metalocalypse, as well as in the flesh — released their third studio album, Dethalbum III, October 16 via Williams Street Records.

The band will support the album, which shows off a more dynamic musical palette than their previous releases, with a U.S. tour that kicks off October 24 and runs through December 8. Support bands will include Machine Head, All That Remains and The Black Dahlia Murder.

I recently caught up with Dethklok creator and mainman Brendon Small to discuss the new release, the recording lineup, touring and a lot more. Visit metalocalypse.tv for more about the new album.

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REVOLVER: I can’t help but consider Dethalbum III your best release so far. Would you say more work went into it?

Thank you for saying that, but I don’t know what the difference is. I’m too close to all these things, so I can’t tell. I think I get more bored with music the more I keep doing it, so I just try to make it a bit more exciting to myself, and it’s a really strange process. I’d start writing a song, like, three years ago and then finish it three years afterwards, so I kind of get a lot of time to evaluate some of these bits and pieces of songs from the TV shows. This is the fastest record I wrote and recorded, compared to the other ones, and maybe that has something to do with it.

There’s something more melodic, particularly in terms of the guitar parts. Did you approach the guitar differently for this album?

Oh, yeah. I’ve just been working on some different stuff on guitar, a few different kinds of techniques. I was more into legato stuff over the past couple of years, so I just kept challenging myself to do some stuff that was outside of what’s comfortable. Plus I think at some point you just run out of licks, so you have to create melodies, and hopefully that makes it more exciting to listen to in either the rhythm guitar parts or the lead guitar parts, or just an overlay somewhere in the song.

But yeah, my natural tendencies are to write more melodic stuff than death metal, in general. In between the last Dethklok record and this one, I put out a solo record that was a lot more melodic than any of the Dethklok stuff that not everybody knows about. So that was just me experimenting with melody and probably still making it as metal as I possibly could. That’s the Galaktikon record.

With Dethklok, there’s so much importance placed on the visual aspect. Do you find it hard to focus on the music part of it, or are you used to it by now?

I think I’m pretty used to it. The writing-music part of it is always the fun break I get from making the show. Running the show, writing it and day-to-day production can be pretty tiresome, and it just takes tons and tons of hours. You just have to sit and wait for people to finish work, and wait for people to finish animating, and then you’re constantly on top of every single project.

So any time I get to go and do something I can just finish by myself, it’s a really exciting part of being creative, where I can just go away and come back with songs. From the songs on the show to the score and all that, I walk away from those parts feeling the most satisfied because I just go into a little room and come back with finished stuff.

Do you think people still view the Dethalbums as soundtracks rather than standalone albums? Maybe that takes the heat off you, to some extent.

That’s kind of true! It does take the heat off of you, because people are aware of these fragments of your songs that exist. The way I look at it is, the TV show is kind of like doing demos for a record. Some of them will make the final cut, some of them won’t. But I don’t know how people perceive it. I think that’s the only answer, I don’t really know how people really take this stuff. When we do the TV show, we try to write jokes and make it funny, but we try to take every art aspect as seriously as possible. And when we make a record, we take every line of the lyric and every note of the music as seriously as possible, and try to make it sound as good as a band would want it to sound. And we take it really seriously, so people don’t know whether we’re kidding or not [futureusgallerylaughs].

The album does sound a bit more serious, even though it still has the humor aspect.

Maybe it does, but I think that more about the second record than this one. On this one, I was like, “OK, I don’t have any time, let’s just do this quickly. Go!” For the second one, I was trying to make it darker than the first one, and I think I was more conscious of that. For this one I was conscious of nothing. I just wanted to make sure the whole thing functioned as an album, the order of the songs and all that stuff made sense on their own logic, and if you took them away from the TV show, it would hopefully be something worth a listen, even if you didn’t know that the cartoon existed. And that’s always the goal.

On the albums, and also in your live shows, you’ve always had Gene Hoglan as your drummer. It’s unbelievable you’ve had him for so long, because he’s involved in an endless number of bands. Did you consider that before he joined you?

I didn’t, because I didn’t know if I was going to make one album, four albums or 20 albums. All I knew was I got this great guy in the studio with me right now, and I’m just going to take advantage of it. Luckily, we get along really well, we work together really well, and he collaborates in the arrangements all the time. He’s one of the best drummers alive, especially in this style of music, but even outside of this style because he can do anything.

So I got lucky with that, but it was really tricky to take the band out for tours. I wanted to make sure I’m playing with the same guys each time because I really like them a lot, personally, and I also think they are some of the best living musicians. Between Gene Hoglan, Mike Keneally and Bryan Beller, they are powerhouses. They made me a better musician just by hanging out with me.

What’s the deal with the clean version of the new album?

They made a clean version? I didn’t even know that. Maybe the label thinks they’d sell more records that way. I think some of the times when you say “fuck” loud enough, it really is part of the song [futureusgallerylaughs], and it makes the song so much angrier. I would leave them in, but I don’t know why it’s edited out. None of this stuff is going to get on mainstream radio anyway, so why would you do that? Who knows? I don’t know.

There’s also going to be a deluxe CD+DVD package. The DVD features a film about the making of the album, which is something new for fans.

Yeah! It’s got a “making of,” which we’ve never done before. We’re kind of letting everybody in on the process, and I think you’ll get a sense of what it’s like for three guys in a very small room trying to make sense of the music. You’ll get to see what the other guys add to the project, and how boring we actually are [futureusgallerylaughs]. We certainly are not a cartoon death metal band. We’re people trying to take this job seriously enough to a degree of, “Hey, let’s not make any stupid mistakes, and let’s get the best recording in the amount of time given to us.”

But for some of my own recording, I didn’t let anybody in and see what I do once we finish the songs, which is just very personal and I didn’t want any cameras in here for that. Like doing the lead guitar stuff and the vocals. I just do that by myself and don’t let anybody see that, because it’s very sporadic the way I work. I don’t like people watching me [futureusgallerylaughs]. But yeah, I think you’ll get a good sense of what goes into our process of making Dethklok songs.

As you said, this is the first time you’re giving people an insight into the real band, not just the cartoon band.

Yeah! And I’ve been very careful to not show anything about the real band or even the making of the show or anything like that, because I’d rather have people wonder about that than let them see it. But in this case, we’ve done three records so we may as well show you. But still, I keep the process of the TV show pretty guarded. But on this DVD you’ll see a little bit of that too, actually, because when we were making animations for the new tour, which is coming soon, we were making the record at the exact same time, so you can get a sense of how much shit I had to go through each day, leaving the recording to go work on animatics for videos, taking meetings and all that crazy boring shit.

In terms of the animation, is it new on every tour, even if you play the same songs again?

Well, we’ve got four new songs from the record and a bunch of the new sketches. All the comedy is new. Since we’re folding in new stuff with old stuff, we have to play some of the bigger songs, or the “hits” Dethklok has done. But you’re going to see some of the old favorite songs with new animation and new comedy. There’s a bit with Dr. Rockzo that’s really fucking funny and stupid [futureusgallerylaughs], so we had to bring that into the live show in some way.

You originally were supposed to tour with Lamb of God and Gojira in the summer, but Randy Blythe of Lamb of God got arrested the in Czech Republic. How did you react when you found out?

When you see the documentary on the DVD, you’ll see how much work I was doing up until that day we were supposed to go out on tour. There was a part of me that was really ready for a vacation. So that part of me was very satisfied, but the part of me that was worried about the people employed for this tour was very distraught. I was not happy to see that people lost their jobs because of that thing. There were a bunch of guitar techs, and all the people that go into making our show, and they all lost their jobs. But luckily, we put together a new tour, and that’s going to happen soon. So I’m happy for that, and I’m happy we got the same crew. We are very lucky with these guys, because these are some of the best people in live music working together and it’s hard to get them all at the same time. So, fortunately we got them.

That tour was going to be a co-headliner with Lamb of God; this one is your own headline tour with support from Machine Head, All That Remains and The Black Dahlia Murder. Does that mean you’re playing a longer set?

Not necessarily! We may add a song or two that we hadn’t planned on, but I’ll tell you, I don’t think quality is in length, but quality is in what you do in any given time. Plus, as an audience member, I’ve gone to so many shows and I’ve seen so many bands wear out their welcome on stage. My main goal from a performer to a comedian to a live musician is to give a good amount of show to the audience, and I don’t think that means more. I think when people go out on stage and play for more then three hours, the audience wants to fucking go home, but they want to miss anything either! So I’ve seen people do two-and-a-half-hour shows, and I think you’re punishing the audience at some point during that show.

What I think the best show is, give them just enough, and then stop, and leave them wanting more. That’s always the best thing you can do in show business. Leave them wanting more, make them wish you had played one more song, and don’t wear out your welcome because if you play one song too many, you’d feel like you lost them. You’d be like, “They’re tired. They’ve got to go to work tomorrow. These guys have jobs.”

That’s my own personal philosophy, and I think metal has done a good job at not overstaying the welcome. If you’re going to do festival tours, most of them play the perfect amount. Even Megadeth, when they are playing Rust In Peace, that’s a 45-minute record, and then a couple of encores. So that’s the perfect length of a show.

Because that tour was supposed to take place in the summer, I guess you’ve already rehearsed and don’t have to stress out about the upcoming tour. You must be relaxed right now!

Well, yeah! We actually did a lot of rehearsal for that tour. We did a one-off show at Comic Con for Adult Swim where we got to try out the new show and the new songs. We did tons of rehearsing, so we got everything up on a seat. But we’re going to have some rehearsals beforehand for the rescheduled tour, of course, just to make sure we got everything completely in place. The gap did give me a great opportunity to break in a new pedal board, try out some different amps live and all of that stuff. So it’s been great to experiment with that, but yeah, it’s a more relaxing place.

I’m not going crazy working on the whole live tour and the record at the same time, so that’s really nice. Plus, I think it’s better to tour with the record out than do it before, because if you have super-fans in the audience, your merch is just going to be the two records. This is going to be more exciting for people who haven’t bought the record yet or are about to buy it. They can may be meet us backstage and find something that has more value.

Andrew Bansal is a Los Angeles-based writer who has been running his own website, Metal Assault, since early 2010, and has been prolific in covering the hard rock and heavy metal scene by posting interviews, reviews and pictures on his website — with the help of a small group of people. Besides being hugely passionate about heavy metal, he is an avid follower of jazz music and recently started a blog called Jazz Explorer to pursue that interest.

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