Twenty years after Metalocalypse first aired on Adult Swim and introduced an entire generation to death metal through the lens of absurdist comedy, Brendon Small isn't slowing down. He's co-headlining arenas with Amon Amarth.
In a recent interview on Interview Under Fire, Small reflected on what keeps Dethklok going — and the answer is more grounded than the Klokateers mythology might suggest. It's the challenge. The sweat. Gene Hoglan raising the bar every night.
Talking to a 14-Year-Old Who Doesn't Know Metal Yet
Small's original pitch for Metalocalypse was deceptively simple: create a show for the kid who hadn't been shown heavy music yet. The one whose older sister was listening to pop, who needed that one friend to sit them down after junior high and play them something that changed everything.
"I had to luckily make friends with a guy who's still my good friend who showed me everything about heavy metal in one afternoon after junior high," Small said. "I thought that's such an important thing to a young person — to kind of sculpt out their personality through musical choices. If you're a 13-, 14-year-old kid, what do you have? You don't have a driver's license, you don't have any money. You've got nothing. All you have is the music you choose to listen to."
That philosophy drove the original construction of the show: enough episodes to build out a full record's worth of ideas, each song compressed into 30-second bursts of DNA, later expanded into full releases. The Metalocalypse animated catalog isn't a novelty product. It's actual death metal written by a serious musician, housed in a comedy shell designed to lower the drawbridge for people who might not otherwise walk through the gate.
The Live Problem — And How Dethklok Solved It
The challenge of taking Dethklok from animation to stage is not trivial. The Gorillaz had done the "band behind the scrim" thing, which Small studied carefully before deciding it wasn't the right approach. His conclusion: people need to see the musicians generating the sound. Even as shadows.
"I do not need to be acknowledged. In fact, my joke now is that I am bad for the brand," Small said. "You shouldn't be looking at me. You should be hearing me. We sound exactly like DETHKLOK. We don't look anything like them."
The solution was a massive screen behind the band — tight editing synchronized to drum hits, animation sliced like music programming — with the live musicians as a kind of shadow presence anchoring the sound to something real and physical. The show is a touring carnival. Every year, Small adds another element.
What anchors it technically is Gene Hoglan — one of the most decorated extreme metal drummers alive, with credits running through Death, Dark Angel, and Testament. The band plays to his standard, not the other way around.
"Working with Gene Hoglan, he doesn't tell anybody what to do, but he just raises the bar so hard because he's such a perfectionist musician," Small said. "So that to come anywhere near his level of musicianship is a great challenge. And that's why I'm still doing this — because I love the challenge of this thing."
The current live lineup also includes bassist Pete Griffin (Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, Zakk Wylde) and guitarist Nili Brosh (Danny Elfman). This is not a novelty band coasting on nostalgia for a TV show. The musicianship is legitimate.
The Amonklok Conquest Tour
The co-headline pairing with Amon Amarth makes a certain kind of sense. Both acts run theatrically dense live shows — Amon Amarth with their Viking set design and pyro, Dethklok with their animated universe projected large. The bill doesn't compete with itself. It compounds.
Small described the Dethklok side of the tour as "the best of all the worlds Metalocalypse" — TV show, records, and live show combining into something that's electric and immediate in a way the other two mediums can't replicate.
Castle Rat is in support.
The Amonklok Conquest runs April 15 through May 21, with additional Dethklok headline dates through the end of May. Tickets via Ticketmaster.
Amonklok Conquest Tour Dates:
- April 15 — Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre
- April 17 — San Antonio, TX @ Boeing Center at Tech Port
- April 18 — Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall
- April 20 — Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion
- April 21 — Kansas City, MO @ The Midland Theatre
- April 22 — Chesterfield, MO @ The Factory
- April 24 — Minneapolis, MN @ The Armory
- April 25 — Waukee, IA @ Vibrant Music Hall
- April 26 — Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
- April 28 — Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount
- April 29 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
- May 1 — Toronto, ON @ Great Canadian Casino Resort
- May 2 — Montreal, QC @ Centre Bell
- May 5 — National Harbor, MD @ The Theater at MGM National Harbor
- May 7 — Daytona Beach, FL @ Welcome to Rockville
- May 9 — Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy
- May 10 — Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle
- May 12 — Johnstown, PA @ 1st Summit Arena
- May 13 — Detroit, MI @ Fox Theatre
- May 14 — Bethlehem, PA @ Wind Creek Event Center
- May 16 — Milwaukee, WI @ Landmark Credit Union Live
- May 17 — Columbus, OH @ Sonic Temple Art + Music Festival
- May 19 — Denver, CO @ The JunkYard
- May 20 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center
- May 21 — Las Vegas, NV @ PH Live at Planet Hollywood
Dethklok Headline Dates:
- May 22 — Hollywood, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
- May 25 — Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
- May 26 — Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
- May 28 — San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park
Why It Still Matters
There's a cynical read of Dethklok: it's a joke band from a cartoon, and every sold-out venue is just Metalocalypse nostalgia wearing a death metal mask. Small would probably tell you that's exactly wrong. The cartoon was always the delivery vehicle. The music — genuinely technical, genuinely heavy — was always the point.
Twenty years in, with Hoglan behind the kit and an Amon Amarth co-headline, Dethklok in 2026 is operating at its highest level. The challenge is still the thing. It isn't going anywhere.
For more metal news and tour announcements, visit Metal Mantra.
