Grandpa Metal

Comedian Brian Posehn has never been shy about his love of heavy metal. He peppers his stand-up with references to his favorite genre, and has co-written songs like “Metal by Numbers” and “More Metal Than You” with Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian. Posehn reunites with Ian—and joins forces with Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman—for Grandpa Metal, a full-on metal album with a specific theme. “The premise of the title—and the song—came from making fun of Scott and myself and any older dude that’s been listening to metal their whole lives and has old-man opinions about it,” Posehn tells Apple Music. This star-studded extravaganza includes guest appearances from members of Testament and Slipknot alongside the late Huntress vocalist Jill Janus, among many others. “That’s part of why the album took six years to finish—there were so many moving parts,” Posehn explains. “Finally being able to talk about it is such a relief, because for a while it was like, ‘When is this thing ever gonna be done?’”

Intro to Satan
“I wanted this album to feel like the metal records I grew up with—or even the hip-hop records I grew up with—like De La Soul Is Dead, where it’s a cohesive thing that you can listen to from beginning to end. So this intro is kinda close to how Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil opens. Any metalhead who grew up with that record will get that feeling. That was what I was going for, and I'm super happy with it.”

Satan’s Kind of a Dick
“This is the first song I wrote for the record, and the idea kinda came from other songs like ‘More Metal Than You’ and ‘Metal by Numbers,’ where I’m going after a metal trope. The idea that Satan is awesome or that hell would be fun in any way—I thought that was a premise that would be good to go after. The joke I make about the fact that they don’t play Slayer in hell is probably true, and I think a lot of Slayer fans would be really disappointed. And then to get Gary Holt from Slayer and Exodus to do the guitar solo, it maybe feels like a Slayer song that they’d never do.”

Scary Nightmare
“I feel like this maybe came from my writing experiences on Mr. Show, where I’m linking the songs together with a little skit. So I come out of the Satan song and the idea is that I’m having a nightmare, with the setup being that I’m kind of a wuss. Then my Swedish grandma—and it’s me playing my grandma, not that anyone would be fooled—tells me I’m not Swedish enough to be a real man in her eyes. Which sets up the next song, ‘One Quarter Viking, Three Quarters Pussy.’”

One Quarter Viking, Three Quarters Pussy
“This song has Johan [Hegg] from Amon Amarth, and I wanted it to feel—again—like an Amon Amarth song that they wouldn’t do. I wanted the feel of a Viking metal song, with the big chorus and the big chants. And Johan just crushes this. I love Amon Amarth—they’re one of my favorite modern metal bands. Then you’ve got Alex Skolnick from Testament doing the solo. Of all the metal players of the ’80s, I feel like he was doing the most ambitious and creative soloing. He’s like Steve Vai in a thrash band, and he’s so good on this.”

Big Fat Rock
“The idea behind this came from songs like Aerosmith’s ‘Big Ten Inch Record’ or ‘Big Balls’ by AC/DC or like half of Kiss’ songs, where they have all this innuendo and double entendre. I wanted to do that, but with no subtlety. So I wrote this with my buddy Joe Trohman from Fall Out Boy, and we were just trying to make each other laugh. It felt like writing a sketch for a TV show, like, ‘Let’s just go for every dumb joke we can think of.’ I wanted to outdo Steel Panther. I love those guys—they’re my pals—but I wanted to make something dumber than a Steel Panther song. And then I got [Vio-Lence guitarist] Phil Demmel to do the solo. He’s such a badass and comes from the same music I love, so I knew he’d strap on his flying V and rip it—and he did.”

My Phone Call With Weird Al
“Weird Al has been a friend for a while, and obviously when you hear this record you know that I grew up listening to him. I’m not doing parodies, but I don’t think this record would have happened if I’d never heard him. He’s informed my comedy so much—more than he could ever know. I wanted to get him on the record, but he’s not a metal guy, so I decided to write a sketch where I call him up asking to do one of his songs, but I don’t understand that ‘Gump’ is a parody of the song ‘Lump’ by The Presidents of the United States of America. And then Weird Al is mean to me and turns me down.”

Take on Me
“I’ve been wanting to do this cover for a while, and I didn’t add any jokes to it because I didn’t think I needed to. To me, it’s one of those earworms—everyone knows the a-ha song. But I thought having Brendon Small from Dethklok taking that riff and making it metal would be killer. Then we added Rob Cavestany from Death Angel on guitar. For the vocals, you’ve got Chuck Billy from Testament, Zetro from Exodus, and Jill Janus. She’s not with us anymore, and this is some of the last music she recorded. She did it exactly how I pictured—beyond, even. She was so talented and such a star. I crank this all the time when I’m driving around in my car, and it’s my record.”

Grandpa Metal
“This song came from the premise of the record that we were talking about earlier, so I just wanted to fill it with as many old-guy jokes that I could. In the intro, I ask Scott if he’s ever heard of a band called Hot Coffin, and I just found out about two weeks ago that there actually is a band called Hot Coffin, which is delightful to me. For the solo, we got Kim Thayil from Soundgarden, who just lends so much class to the record. He could not be a cooler dude, and he’s on my record forever now. It’s pretty surreal because I was working at Tower Records in the ’80s when ‘Full On Kevin’s Mom’ came out. I loved Soundgarden from the second I heard them.”

New Music Sucks
“This came from my wife and I realizing that we can’t watch the MTV Music Awards anymore. One of the last times we did, maybe six or eight years ago, we just looked at each other and went, ‘I don’t know who any of these people are, and I don’t like any of this.’ I don’t really think that all new music sucks, but it was an easy target. Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy sings this part where he calls out all these bands, and he threw his own band in there. I couldn’t believe it the first time I heard it. It’s perfect.”

New Music Sucks Reprise
“Because this record took so long to make, my references in ‘New Music Sucks’ are kinda old. Joe Trohman was going, ‘Hey, man—you missed quite a few targets.’ So he turned me on to some terrible music and we did some updating for this reprise.”

Goblin Love
“This song wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t heard ‘Muskrat Love’ by Captain & Tennille. It’s me doing a black metal twist on a love song, and it’s a duet where two goblins are basically singing to each other, but it’s through a dating app where they’re texting the lyrics to each other. Then they find true love and she murders him—spoiler! It’s me and Jill Janus as the goblins, which was awesome. I really wanted to do a video for this—to have her and I put on like three hours of goblin makeup and run around chasing each other would’ve been hilarious. But doing it without her just feels wrong.”

Monster Mosh
“Joe and I wrote this one, and it’s like a Rob Zombie or Marilyn Manson arena rock song about monsters. I could see putting it on a Halloween mix or something. So we threw in all these horror references, which my ten-year-old son helped me with. We’ve got Pearl Aday on there to help make it sound like a Rob Zombie song—she’s doing all the Sheri Moon Zombie parts. And then Bumblefoot did a killer John 5 type of solo thing.”

The Fox (What Does the Fox Say)
“This is a cover of a song that went viral a few years ago. I think it’s from a sketch show in Norway. The group is called Ylvis, and they did this goofy song that was like ‘Macarena’ huge. I was annoyed by it when it came out, but I also thought there was something catchy about it. So we did it metal-style and got [Slipknot’s] Corey Taylor and Michael Starr from Steel Panther singing on it. Then Scott Ian and I did the gang vocal parts. I did it for my kid, so I didn’t add any curse words. And he loved it.”

Super Secret Track
“I hope no one actually pays money for this track. It isn’t even worth listening to. Avoid.”