STACK 132 October Issue

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musical piece. I obviously love music, but I
also love musicals and rock operas. It seemed
natural because this is a one off, it’s all that the
studio could afford at the time. So it was also
kind of selfish because I felt like I may never
get another chance to make a rock opera. But
I’ve approached everything with that thought.
The Adult Swim budgets were getting smaller
and smaller, so I always felt as though it was
my last chance to do anything.
Did you draw inspiration from
anywhere in particular for this
feature?
Absolutely! There’s one
piece in particular where
there’s a dispute about
the direction of the band
(Dethklok), which was
inspired by a track in Jesus
Christ Superstar. While
Koki’s dream sequence,
‘I believe’ was inspired by
‘I think I’m gonna like it here’
from Annie, where
Annie first arrives at Daddy
Warbucks' place. So many tracks
link back to something, or at least
have a tonal link to something.
How did you find working with
an orchestra?
I did the smartest thing I
could possibly do and hired
ear McCreary, who has
worked on The Walking
Dead and Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D, to help
uide and arrange the
visit Q&A DVD&BD
048 OCTOBER 2015
On the eve of the release of Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem,
series creator, producer and performer Brendon Small gives STACK’s
Ryan Huff an insight into the inception, creation and release of this
much anticipated animated rock opera.
First of all, what can you tell us about
Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem?
It’s a project that I thought would be an
interesting way to continue on where the last
season of Metalocalypse left off, with a 50-
piece orchestra. I haven’t seen it done before,
not to tell a rescue story like this, and I really
wanted it to have some really extreme music
and some not so extreme.
As well as the DVD and Blu-ray release,
there’s a special edition with the soundtrack
included?
Yeah! It’s really fun because you get the full
orchestral rock opera soundtrack, but you also
get ‘Blazing Star’, which was released as a
single and doesn’t actually feature on the show.
So why a rock opera as opposed to the usual
narrative-driven story?
The series has always been so musically
driven, and I experienced a moment in Season
3 where I felt that the only way for this
particular scene to work would be through a
orchestra. I wrote the whole thing using a
keyboard and he came in and helped with the
arrangement and conducting. We would have
everyone there – a 50-piece orchestra with Bear
conducting, and my input would be “this needs
to be 1000 per cent louder to be heard over the
death metal band”. So I did write and produce
but I hired a real guy to do the conducting.
You still voice a whole bunch of the
characters yourself, but the series has some
heavy hitters on board, too.
Yeah! I mean, I don’t think
people realise that we’ve had
Luke Skywalker in pretty
much every episode. We’ve
got Mark Hamill, Malcolm
McDowell, and now Jack
Black. Since working on
this, Jack and I become pals
and worked on a few things
together, but when we first
started out I gave him a short
clip just to learn the song that
he sings, but also the full hour-long
thing, which to my surprise he listened
to. He was really excited and went above and
beyond; he also has a really great classic rock
voice.
What’s the future of Metalocalypse?
That’s the question! I’ve spoken to the
studio and told them how I want to end it all
but they’ve said that they just don’t have the
money. The thing is, we have a really great
audience, I mean, we’ve sold a million albums!
If for some reason the funding turns up, I have
an ending worked out which I think fans of the
series will appreciate. It will wrap it all up.
A
KLOK
OPERA
We’ve got Mark
Hamill, Malcolm
McDowell, and
now Jack Black