The EM Poll

Metalocalypse Now

Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Gino Robair

           

Metalocalypse co-creator Brendon Small creates all of the music of the fictional band Dethklok in his home studio. In this interview, he talks about scoring the show.

Read the online-only supplement to this Brendon Small article here.

WEB CLIPS
Extended interview: learn about Small's inspiration for music, character voices, underscoring, and more

FIG. 2: Small in his personal studio demonstrating how the Gibson HD.6X-Pro Digital Les Paul utilizes the breakout box with the six outputs. Also visible is the Universal Audio 6176, the M-Audio 02, and the Digidesign Digi 003.

Did you have to relearn what you liked?

I kind of did. That's why I was in comedy: I said “See you later” to music for a couple of years. “I'm going to try to get good at doing stand-up and performing and acting and writing. I'll leave the music where it is for now. When I need it, I'll come back to it and hopefully I'll find something good to do with it.”

Did you incorporate music into your comedy?

Actually, I tried not to do that. There were tons of people that would bring an acoustic guitar onstage and do parody songs. I wrote a couple of experimental rock operas that were very short and condensed and would tell a big story and would be more arranged. But they needed work [laughs].

It started to make a little more sense on the show Home Movies, where I went from being a perfectionist — the kind of a Berklee point of view which I used to have — to a sloppy musician who would give myself an hour and a half to write and record something, and whenever it was done, that's it. And that would air on TV, and I'd be stuck with it. So I'd just try to boil it down to instincts, which seemed to be the best thing for me.

When I'm thinking of chords, it's instinctual. I try not to think too often of theory. If I paint myself into a corner, then I'll think that way: “I can go here, here, here, or here.” Whether it's comedy or music, writing is about making decisions: you have tons of options and you just go with one of them. The best thing, for me, is to know what the options are.

What was your first personal studio like?

I had an iMac with Pro Tools Free. I plugged my guitar into the Line 6 POD and, using a ¼-inch-to-⅛-inch adapter, into the microphone input of the computer. I recorded stuff that was broadcast on TV. It was just really solid guitar tone.

I used that setup for the guitar contest episode of Home Movies. But it was super-lo-fi. That's where I come from: home Fostex recording.

Did you have a multitrack cassette player at some point?

I did, but I kept trying to graduate. In music school they were teaching us [Opcode Systems] Studio Vision at the time, and I was just getting my feet wet. At the same time, around '96 or so, I was interning at jingle houses and everyone was switching over from analog to digital. The main thing I wanted to learn was how to record-enable a track. Everything else was shortcuts.

What did you take away from working in a jingle house?

That I wasn't very interested in working on jingles. The main life lesson I learned is that I'm too much of a control freak to be very far back in postproduction. And if I'm going to be in postproduction, then I at least want to be the guy who's giving myself the orders in preproduction. Luckily I've gotten a job where I get to decide what the musician does, and I happen to be the musician on the show.

It's interesting that an early Metalocalypse episode included a coffee jingle.

I think jingles are hilarious. The other important thing I learned was to have a bag of tricks. When somebody needs something, you can think stylistically for a while, but you need to have a batch of chords that you can go to in a lot of different styles. I have a limited bag of tricks, but I do have one if somebody needs something on the spot.

Those jingle guys were amazing musicians: they would have to write a demo in under an hour and a half. You don't really have time to do anything other than find out what style the client wants, listen to a CD reference, and figure out the instrumentation. The chords can be anything, as long as it's in that style. They would do it immediately, even if they weren't familiar with hip-hop or whatever. That was the part that was exciting to me. And sometimes it ends up being better when you're not constantly overthinking stuff.

The spontaneity and the immediacy translate.

This whole record, except for the guitar solos and the vocals, was incredibly spontaneous. I had to actually get my fingers in shape for the guitar solos. And I'd spend a day on the vocals for each piece. I'd spend the first half of the day writing ridiculously stupid lyrics, and then record them in a Louis Armstrong voice [laughs].

When you record the vocals at home, are they temporary or the final vocals?

I did all the final vocals for the record right here with the Audio-Technica mic plugged right into the 6176.

Do you get song ideas while you're writing an episode, or do you just write the songs and get the ideas later on?

In the first season, we had a little bit more time to get things together. So we'd come up with song titles like “Briefcase Full of Guts,” about a guy who's going door-to-door and murdering his clients. But it's all sales metaphors about how work sucks. We used “ABK” for “always be killing” instead of “always be closing,” like in Glengarry Glen Ross. We're making David Mamet references in metal.

Tommy came up with the intro to “Birthday Dethday”: “Many years ago, something grew inside of your mother. That thing was you.” That was the lyric, and it's just a ridiculous song. Then I'll take it from there. But most of the time, we don't have time and I'll just write everything myself. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I just do it here at home.

After the show has been scripted?

The animators need something to animate to, so I'll at least have a click track and a guitar riff. And I'll commit to a tempo: I'm not committing to anything else. Then at some point they say, “We need lyrics now, because we have to start animating.” “How much time do I have?” “An hour.” “Okay, I'll be back.” I just do everything fast and try to make it funny. And nine times out of ten, it'll just be a speed thing. It's the same with writing riffs.

If I have more time, I'll use that time doing nothing. My whole theory about writing is that 90 percent of writing anything is not writing, is doing anything but writing. Like watching TV or walking around the block. When I'm about to get in trouble, that's when I start writing [laughs].