As Seen on TV: Dethklok

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A LETHAL DIAMOND-ENCRUSTED, titanium-based codpiece. Blistering opuses titled "Bloodrocuted" and "Castratikron." The world's fastest guitarist, Skwisgaar Skwigelf, who registers disapproval of all things unshreddable by Swedishly sneering, "That is dildos."

A pudgy, lisping bassist with a Sphinx-head afro who tools around in JFK's death car, pimped out with the chair Lincoln got shot in. And in every episode, Guignol so Grand that the animation team probably has a maggot specialist.

And yet, according to co-creator Brendon Small, the Adult Swim cult hit "Metalocalypse" is not making fun of metal. "Our show makes fun of celebrityism, and it gets to be about metal."

The guys in Dethklok, "the 12th largest economy in the world and climbing," are, according to Small, "new money. They don't know how to spend it. They're very naïve when it comes to a lot of things, but they may be super-geniuses when it comes to negotiating contracts." Fair enough — when Dethklok attempted to sell their souls to the devil, it was Ol' Scratch who nixed the deal.

Small's a savvy negotiator himself. He sold his bosses at Cartoon Network on ponying up around a quarter of a million dollars so he could do justice to a Dethklok live show. First, there's top-drawer talent. The Berklee-educated Small plays guitar and supplies the ravings of frontman Nathan Explosion.

Metal legend Gene "The Atomic Clock" Hoglan mans the double-kick pedals in lieu of his cartoon counterpart, the well-preserved Pickles the Drummer. Zappa experts Mike Keneally (guitar) and Bryan Beller (bass) have both played with Steve Vai, meaning they can handle basically anything, from the bass lines William Murderface slaps out to the riffs laid down by the unassuming Toki Wartooth, destined never to be more than the second fastest guitarist in the world.

"We're supposed to sound like Dethklok, and we're not supposed to look like Dethklok," Small says. "In other words, we're also like a pit band to a Broadway musical or an orchestra to a ballet."

The band plays below a giant screen on which brand-new cartoon footage tells stories that haven't yet been seen on TV.

"We're backlit," Small explains. "There's a lot of smoke and lights and stuff, and just a lot of accentuation onstage, but never on our faces. It's simply not about us — it's about Dethklok."

And about the audience, which screams out every line of "The Dethalbum."

"It should feel fun, it should feel silly, and it should feel brutal," Small says.

Specific brutalities will be addressed — why, for example, the track "Murmaider" has attracted no outcry from the mermaid-American community.

"I think that song empowers mermaids," Small says. "If you come out to our live show, you will see that the song is not about people murdering mermaids; it's about mermaids murdering mermaids who murdered their friends that are mermaids.

"It's all mermaid-on-mermaid violence."

» Rams Head Live, 20 Market Place, Baltimore, Md.; with Chimaira, Soilent Green, Thu., 7 p.m. (doors), $22.50 (advance), $24 (day of show); 410-244-1131.

Written by Express contributor Glenn Dixon

» Read our previous interview with Brendon Small
» 10 Brutalist Metalocalypse Moments

Images courtesy Adult Swim