Dethklok Creator Brendon Small Readying Solo Record

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Jul 15, 2011

Headbangers recognize Brendon Small best as the creator of animated Metalocalypse and its fictional band Dethklok . On top of that, he's the voice behind many of the characters in the band and also writes all of the group's heavy-shredding material. There's more to Small's musical skills than we might imagine, though, which explains his upcoming solo album.

Armed with a handful of songs that don't fit with Dethklok's humour-laced death metal vibe, Small is readying a solo project called Brendon Small's Galaktikon. Interestingly, a recent interview reveals he's been sitting on some of these songs since the recording of 2009's Dethalbum II.

"There was a time when I didn't know if I was going to do the second Dethklok album," he told Revolver [via Blabbermouth]. "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, 'Okay, fuck this -- I'm going to spend my own money and get these guys doing something.'"

The artist admitted that even though the songs stray from his usual formula -- "I love melody and I love melodic vocals in metal, not just the guttural stuff" -- you will still be able to recognize his writing style. And his regular collaborators, drummer Gene Hoglan and bassist Bryan Beller, are also along for the ride. That being said, everything will be much smoother than the usual grunt and chug of Dethklok classics like "Thunderhorse" and "Awaken."

"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," Small said. "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."

While neither a tracklisting nor a release date has been set for Small's solo set, it is expected to drop sometime this summer.

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