DETHKLOK Co-Creator Reveals Cover Art For 'Galaktikon' Solo Album

February 15, 2012

Brendon Small, co-creator of "Metalocalypse", the smash hit animated series on Adult Swim featuring the fictitious metal band DETHKLOK, will release his first "solo" album, "Brendon Small's Galaktikon", later this year. The cover art for the CD, which was designed by Antonio Canobbio, can be seen below.

In a July 2011 interview with Revolver magazine, Small was asked at what point he decided it was time to make a solo record. "There was a time when I didn't know if I was going to do the second DETHKLOK album," he said. "I had the studio lined up, and the players lined up, and the engineer and co-producer, and all that shit, and unfortunately, the guy we were negotiating with went on vacation and left things kind of dead. So I said, 'OK, fuck this — I'm going to spend my own money and get these guys doing something.'

"I love melody and I love melodic vocals in metal, not just the guttural stuff — though obviously it works with DETHKLOK, and I wouldn't want to change a thing. I long for melody in the vocal.

"When I was developing the DETHKLOK sound, some of the things I was writing weren't heavy enough for DETHKLOK, but I still liked them. So I was like, I'm going to make this into something, so I'm going to get Gene [Hoglan] and I'm going to get Bryan Beller, and we're going to make this project, and I'm going to figure out what it is. Then the negotiations got all cleared up, and we went right back into the same studio and did the second DETHKLOK album."

Regarding whether those non-DETHKLOK songs eventually became the basis for "Brendon Small's Galaktikon", Small said, Yeah. I had all these songs where there were elements of QUEEN, but also elements of FOO FIGHTERS and SMASHING PUMPKINS, with some DIO elements as well. My kind of rule for the record was, it's going to be whatever it ends up being, and I'm going to tell a story through the whole thing. Once I started putting the pieces together, I found the story, and I realized that, OK, this is a high-stakes, intergalactic, extreme rock album. And if I do this right, it's going to be like an audio comic book. It's turned out to be something that I'm really happy to have done because I flexed a different muscles while making it — but if you're one of the kids who liked DETHKLOK, you're going to be able to tell that it's the same dude playing guitar, and Gene Hoglan on drums and Bryan Beller on bass. DETHKLOK has to be a certain kind of sound, but this other thing is whatever it needs to be. I got to pull out a vocoder and do ELO-style things here and there, and there's an instrumental on there that's a total tribute to Vai and Satriani and Yngwie and Steve Morse.

Find more on
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).