STACK New Zealand October Issue 67

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METALOCALYPSE:THE DOOMSTAR REQUIEM
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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 Bear McCreary, who
has worked on The Walking Dead and
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 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
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, to help guide and
arrange the 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.
:
We’ve got Mark
Hamill, Malcolm
McDowell, and
now Jack Black