Dethklok is both a fictional death metal band featured in the Adult Swim animated program Metalocalypse, created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha, and the virtual band created to perform the band's music in live shows. The band is sometimes cited as an example of "comedy rock" on par with bands such as GWAR, Tenacious D, Steel Panther and Spinal Tap. The first Dethklok album was released on September 25, 2007, entitled The Dethalbum. The music heard on Metalocalypse is performed by Brendon Small, with others as needed. Small and drummer Gene Hoglan performed on the album. The album debuted at #21 on the Billboard Top 200 list.^[1]

Fictional backgroundEdit

In the Metalocalypse series, Dethklok is depicted as an extremely popular and successful death metal band, described by their adversaries, the Tribunal, as the "world's greatest cultural force." The band's fan base includes billions of metal fanatics, who frequently endanger themselves to watch the band perform live.^[2][3] With their widespread commercial success and lucrative sponsorship contracts, Dethklok is ranked as the world's seventh largest economy in the series.^[4]

The members of Dethklok are often portrayed as incompetent at almost everything not related to their profession. The band struggles to perform everyday tasks, including shopping for groceries, preparing food, and maintaining proper social relationships. They are often assisted by their manager and lawyer, Charles Foster Ofdensen, who frequently attempts to prevent the band from making poor decisions. The band's actions and uncanny misfortune have caught the attention of an Illuminati-style council, known as The Tribunal. The Tribunal is portrayed as Dethklok's antagonist throughout the series, and secretly monitor their actions in almost every episode.

The band is shown to make more money than any other business in the world, with nearly the entire planet's population adoring Dethklok despite typically being maimed or killed by various gimmicks they use in their shows, such as in "The Curse of Dethklok", when coffee is poured onto fans to make the guitar solo literally face-melting, "Dethdoubles", when a dormant volcano that Dethklok is playing above erupts, killing and maiming most, if not all, of the audience, including Dethklok's doubles, or in "Tributeklok", when Dethklok (performing as tribute band Thunderhorse) plays at an ice-skating rink, and an ice skater trips over the cord linked to Murderface's bass and her shoe falls off and impales another skater, causing a large blood bath (although the skater who tripped over Murderface's cord survived). However, some Dethklok concerts have no gimmicks, and have no casualties, the shows in "Girlfriendklok" and "Dethlessons" being examples. Even if the people are horribly maimed, there are a few occurences where these same people defend Dethklok with their lives, such as in "Revengencers", when multiple maimed patients at a hospital Dethklok is playing at attack Edgar Jomfru, who is attempting to snipe Dethklok. The band lives altogether in a large fortress and have various machines from their five person motorcycle to their massive zeppelin which is armed with hundreds of artillery guns.

Despite their workplace being extremely dangerous, people continue to sign up to be Klokateers, knowing they have to deal with the bands insane requests. The same requests are heeded by even officials, as even though they fail a health inspection, the band is let go for being "metal". The reckless behavior of the band is also ignored by the populace and law enforcenment, showing that no matter what they do, the repercussions are often very small if anything at all.

It is hinted that Dethklok is in fact a supergroup, as four out the five founding members were in bands before Dethklok, and drummer Pickles had already gained fame by fronting Snakes N' Barrels, although it is unknown if Magnus Hammersmith, the original rhythm guitarist, was in any band before Dethklok.

History Edit

Not much is known about the beginning of Dethklok, except for that the original lineup was consisted of four of the current members and rhythm guitarist Magnus Hammersmith. Somehow, they found a man named Charles Foster Ofdensen to act as the band's manager, and eventually they signed a contract with Crystal Mountain Records, much to the dismay of Damien Cornickelson, the only son of Crystal Mountain Records CEO Roy Cornickelson.

During its years, Dethklok experienced a rapid increase in commercial success, and quickly became the biggest and most successful band of all time. Their wealth and power allowed them to have their own headquarters, Mordhaus, as well as an entire army of roadies, called Klokateers. Eventually, Dethklok's popularity gained the attention of a government agency called the Tribunal, who realized that there may be a connection between Dethklok and the apocalypse. Sometime early in this period, Magnus Hammersmith had a falling out with the other band members, and was eventually replaced by Toki Wartooth.

It is unknown about Dethklok's discography before Metalocalypse, but the first known Dethklok album is called Dethwater, which is an album intended for fish only. Anticipation following up to Dethwater caused massive amounts of deaths everywhere by eager Dethklok fans. However, Dethwater provoked much controversy, such as a Dethklok fan nearly drowning after listening to the song "Go into the Water" and literally going into the water, thinking he'll devolve into a fish, and afterwards Dethklok was sued by the fan's parents. Due to this, Dethklok decided not to play the album live for a long time, but when they did, they were attacked by the forces of General Crozier.

After the attack, Dethklok remained out of the public eye for a long time, until they finally came out of the shadows and performed a new song, "Laser Cannon Deth Sentence", while executing multiple prisoners. Soon after, scientists working for Dethklok developed a powerful analog recording system that recorded the tracks into water. However, some of Dethklok's enemies sought revenge on Dethklok, and banded together, calling themselves the Revengencers. Soon, the Revengencers began making attacks on Dethklok, first by assassinating the head of Dethklok Australia, then by bombing multiple stores of Duncan Hills Coffee, the world's largest coffee ocmpany whom Dethklok endorses. The Revengencers made their ultimate attack on Dethklok when they released their new album (presumably Dethalbum II), with casualties including Mordhaus, several Klokateers, and most importantly, Ofdensen.

After the Revengencers' attack, Dethklok again remained out of the public eye, having Mordhaus relocated up in the sky while reconstruction was underway in order to prevent any further attack. Now self-managed, Dethklok began experiencing a massive financial crisis, not just because of the recession at that time, but also because of Dethklok's inability to spend money smartly. Meanwhile, at Crystal Mountain Records, Damien Cornickelson took over as CEO, replacing his father, Roy, who is currently in a coma. Damien blocked off all money made by Dethklok from the band, causing their money to dwindle further. It wasn't until Ofdensen's reappearance when the financial crisis was solved. Dethklok celebrated the end of it by performing their largest, most brutal concert to date.

After accused of selling out, Dethklok disappeared from the public eye for a third time, and joined a tribute band called Thunderhorse in order to get back to their roots. However, after suffering from hunger and sleep issues, Dethklok abandoned Thunderhorse and went back to Dethklok. Dethklok was soon put in jeopardy twice: first during a death scare when drummer Pickles was reported to have been dying, and when lead guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf quit the band to find his father, although the death scare was proven to be false, and Skwisgaar accepted his role as a "god", putting his personal issues behind. Recently Dethklok almost put the entire world under WWIII when they accidently book two concerts for bitter state enemies Israel and Syria at the same time, without Ofdensen's knowledge. An angry Ofdensen blames Dethklok for almost causing global devastation and, emotionally hurt, the band members run away; unfortunately, on the day they were supposed to perform. However, Ofdensen reconciles with the band after he realizes his mistakes, and together he and Dethklok make Israel and Syria have peace with each other by doing a combined concert, averting yet another big disaster.

Having accomplished the impossible yet again and with Mordhaus finally rebuilt, Dethklok made their triumphant return to the Earth's surface where the band's antics continued. During that time, Nathan attempts to date one of his semi-monogamous fans, Murderface makes an attempt at plastic surgery,Toki releases a tell-all book exposing years of enduring mental and verbal abuse from Skwisgaar, and another Dethklok album is produced in its analog water form. However, Nathan also begins experiencing strange dreams during this time, dreams involving being spoken to by a whale about the prophesized Metalocalypse. These visions, along with large consumptions of alcohol (specifically tequilla) persuade Nathan that the new album is wrong and must be destroyed. Therefore, despite a valiant attempt by Pickles to stop him, Nathan takes an axe to the master record while, at the same time, a series of massive hurricanes sink all of the ships transporting the new Dethklok album.

With the loss of the new album, Dethklok tries to help the depressed world economy out any way they can, but a rift begins forming between Pickles and Nathan. While the two try to maintain their friendship, Toki goes off to RockARoonie Fantasy Camp to make friends and unintentionally bumps into Magnus Hammersmith, who is there as a guest councilor. Despite Magnus's tense expulsion from the band, he appears to bear Toki not a single grudge for taking his place and the rest of Dethklok soon reconcile with him in the same way. Meanwhile, the rift between Pickles and Nathan grows even more when Dick Knubbler is fired during the recording of another new album and is replaced by the beautiful yet no-nonsense ball buster, Abigail Remeltindrinc. Both Nathan and Pickles are infatuated with her beauty and fail to read the signs that she's declared herself off-limits in terms of their sexual prowess. These signs continue during the final stages of completing the new album in the Dethsub where the band is forbidden to jack-off due to symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. This elevated sexual tension spreads throughout the sub, even to Abigail when her vibrator's batteries run out and, during the final recordings for the new album, breaks her own rule by getting involved with Nathan. Pickles, obviously, is not cool with this and announces his intentions to quit Dethklok during a promotional dinner for the new album.

Blighted by this sudden chain of events, the other members of Dethklok also decide that their paths have seemingly drifted apart from one another and they announce their intension to disband, which results in world wide panic among fans and mass public vandalism and destruction. Each member tries to go their own way; Murderface running for Senator from New Jersey (with Toki as his unpaid intern), Pickles opening his own winery, and Skwisgaar and Nathan starting their own soft jazz side project. All of these new career options fail one after another though and Pickles announces his willingness to rejoin the band if Nathan would apologize to him. During their farewell concert in Reykjavik, Iceland, both Nathan and Pickles struggle to find the will to apologize to one another when the band and their audience is suddenly attacked by the leader of the Tribunal, Mr. Selacia (A.K.A. the Half Man). The band is saved by Roy Cornickelson, who sacrifices himself in order to let the band escape to the Dethsub.

Despite ever present strain and stress between them all, Dethklok stays together for their own safety and is escorted by Charles Ofdenson to the meeting place of the Church of the Black Klok, where he was originally brought back to heal after the raid on Mordhaus. There, the band is introduced to Ishnifus Meaddle, High Priest of the church and they learn that they have yet more to do with the outcome of the Metalocalypse, which includes making a new album to atone for the one Nathan destroyed. Reluctance keeps the band from reforming until the funeral of Roy Cornickelson where Nathan has been asked to give the eulogy. During his speech and despite doing internal damage to himself, Nathan overcomes his pride and apologizes to Pickles for everything. The band's reconciliation is short lived though when the funeral is ambushed by the Revengencers led by the mysterious Metal Masked Assassin. The massacre comes to a bloody conclusion, but not before Magnus betrays Toki by stabbing him through the back while another terrorist seemingly kills Abigail. Back on board the Dethsub once again, Ishnifus Meaddle suggests that Toki and Abigail are still alive but in the hands of their enemy.

The story of Dethklok continues...

Fictional members of the bandEdit

CurrentEdit

• Nathan Explosion - lead vocals
• Skwisgaar Skwigelf - lead/rhythm guitar, keyboards
• Toki Wartooth - rhythm guitar, keyboards
• William Murderface - bass guitar
• Pickles- drums, percussion, vocals

FormerEdit

• Magnus Hammersmith - rhythm guitar
• X2P-1158 - Pickles' replacement from "Rehabklok"

Actual bandEdit

Studio membersEdit

• Brendon Small — vocals, guitars, bass guitars, keyboards, drum machine
• Gene Hoglan — drums (2007-present)
• Bryan Beller - bass, backing vocals (2012-present)

Live membersEdit

• Brendon Small — lead vocals, guitar
• Mike Keneally — guitar, backing vocals (2007-present)
• Bryan Beller — bass, backing vocals (2007-present)
• Gene Hoglan — drums (2007-present)

TourEdit

On September 18, 2007, it was announced that …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead are going to support Dethklok on a tour of twelve college campuses to promote Adult Swim.^[5] A post on Dethklok's myspace blog states that the tour will be for students only except for 50 tickets set aside for the UCLA show in the Los Angeles area. In the same post Charles Offdenson states that this is a "short tour" and that their goal is to do a big tour very soon with other metal heads. According to an e-mail newsletter, the band will feature Brendon Small, guitarist Mike Keneally, bassist Bryan Beller and drummer Gene Hoglan. On October 15, the [adult swim] website had put up the tour dates on their http://www.adultswimpresents.com page.^[6] In an interview with Ultimate Guitar, Brendon Small revealed that the Dethklok tour will "be like Gorillaz, with the animated characters" with Small's ensemble of musicians performing visibly.^[7]

During a February 10, 2008 interview on California radio station Indie 103.1 with Full Metal Jackie, plans for a summer 2008 tour were announced. Brendon Small described the tour as being like "a Disney ride but with murder." Dethklok toured the U.S. in June and early July with Chimaira and Soilent Green. 27 dates were released on April 11, 2008.^[8]

During the June 5th show at the Fillmore in San Francisco, CA, an electrical fire broke out during Soilent Green's set. The concert was immediately halted and the building was evacuated. Many of the fans resisted leaving the club, thinking it was a hoax which created a potentially dangerous and deadly situation should the fire have spread. After the fire department came it was made official that due to fire damage to the buildings electrical systems that the club was to be closed. The concert goers were not allowed back into the building and the show was rescheduled for the following Monday, June 9th, minus the opening band.

DiscographyEdit

• 2007: The Dethalbum: the first real studio release by Dethklok.
• 2009: Dethalbum II: the second real studio release by Dethklok.
• 2012: Dethalbum III: the third real studio release by Dethklok.
• Dethwater: this album is fictional and in the show only. Some of its songs are included in The Dethalbum and Dethalbum II.
• An unnamed album featuring the band members shirtless and edited to give all of them a ripped physique. This album is fictional and in the show only.
• Seething Vortex: the fictional album in the show that is destroyed by Nathan Explosion in Season 4.