At the average Dethklok show, heads fly, blood spatters and ears explode. When they come to Ryan Auditorium later this month, at least expect the latter.
Dethklok is the animated death metal band from Metalocalypse, a 15-minute animated series on Adult Swim that follows the lives and times of the heaviest and most popular band in the world. Described in the show as “the world’s greatest cultural force,” Dethklok commands a massive array of fanatics that would willingly risk their lives to hear the band play even one song. Many die in the process.
The show’s band is composed of lead singer Nathan Explosion, the lyrical visionary of Dethklok, Skwisgaar Skwigelf, the fastest guitarist alive, Toki Wartooth, the second fastest guitarist alive, William Murderface, the raging bassist and Pickles the Drummer, hailing from his native Minnesota.
Metalocalypse was created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha, and is now in the beginning of its second season. Small and Blacha also voice the band, with Small voicing Explosion, Skwigelf, and Pickles, and Blacha voicing Wartooth and Murderface.
Small, who writes all the lyrics and music for the show, says he had always planned to expand Dethklok beyond the television show.
“I want it to be able to exist completely in audio form,” he says. “That should be just as exciting if not more so than the TV show.”
At the end of September, he fulfilled this wish with the release of Dethklok’s first studio album, The Dethalbum, which featured both extended versions of songs featured in the show as well as entirely new content. The album debuted at No. 21 on The Billboard 200 with first-week sales of nearly 34,000, making it the highest charting death metal album of all time.
“Some people get turned on to metal because of the music in the show, and some people that have never bought a metal record before are buying this one,” Small says, also noting metal fans’ loyal support “even if it’s a band that doesn’t exist.”
Now that Dethklok is on tour, for the first time the music will truly have to come to life. To compromise a fictional band and a live performance, the entire concert is set to animation, presented on a large screen over the band. With the video as the primary visual focus, the live band can perform without undermining the fictional band.
“If there were a tour you could do a Gorillaz-kind of thing, but make it funnier and make it more dynamic if you wanted it to, and that’s what the tour is,” Small says. “We’re not the show, the show’s up above us, we’re just making the sounds of Dethklok, we’re not supposed to be Dethklok.”
The band is opening for …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. The tour stops at 12 college campuses across the United States, ending with Northwestern on Nov. 18. Touring live with Small are guitarist Mike Keneally, bassist Bryan Beller and drummer Gene Hoglan, who performed drums on The Dethalbum. Even though the music is metal, Small advises that the whole experience is enjoyable for anyone.
“The show itself should feel like a big stupid Universal Studios or Disneyland Ride, but with murdering in it,” he says.
Medill sophomore Steven Berger is a PLAY writer. He can be reached at [email protected].
