Brendon Small, ‘Metalocalypse’ Creator, Reveals He Was Robbed

Brendon Small, the creator of Adult Swim series Metalocalypse, has revealed that he was recently robbed. Taking to Twitter, Small shared that his Los Angeles recording studio was broken into and many of his guitars and equipment were stolen. The list of guitars includes: Les Paul Goldtop 57 reissue, Ibanez JS24 Orange, Ibanez Jem Universe, MOOG guitar black, Gibson Thunderhose prototype, Gibson SG tobacco burst 12 string, and Gibson SG Standard black. The complete list can be seen below in Smalls’ tweets, which are embedded here.

Unfortunately, Small is not the only musician dealing with this lately, as famed guitarist Buckethead — who was a member of Guns N’ Roses from 2000 to 2004 — also recently shared that he too was robbed, and some of the items were irreplaceable. “Ten of the most important guitars of life were stolen,” Buckethead wrote on his official website, as reported by Loudwire. “It’s a tremendous loss. I’ll never really be able to replace them but I’m looking for anybody who knows of any instruments that come close to these. Hopefully somebody can help out. I’m trying to get 2 Studio Gibson Les Pauls. Please contact service@bucketheadpikes.com. Thank you.”

– Gibson Les Paul 59 Tobacco burst reissue
– Gibson Buckethead Studio Les Paul
– Kramer 1984
– unfinished Warmoth strat (maple top)
– Fender 54 Custom shop strat reissue

— Brendon Small (@brendonsmall) August 5, 2022

Small created Metalocalypse back in the mid-00s, with the animated series debuting on Adult Swim in 2006. The show follows the career of fictional death metal, Dethklok, and is a parody of heavy metal culture. Metalocalypse has gone on to spawn multiple music albums, arranged and performed by Small himself, along with heavy metal and rock musicians such as Gene Hoglan (Fear Factory, Testament) and Bryan Beller (Joe Satriani, Steve Vai), as well as others. 

In addition to Metalocalypse and Dethklok, Small has a solo music project, Brendon Small’s Galaktikon, which also features Hoglan and Beller. The music of Galaktikon is less metal, but not dissimilar to the structure of what Small created with Dethklok.

Back in 2016, he discussed the various music projects, with Metal Insider, and offered some insight into what he learned by self-releasing projects as opposed to doing it through Adult Swim for the first three Metalocalypse albums. “What I knew was that Dethklok has really big releases, with really big distributors. I figuredif they want this stuff, they could come and ask for it, but I would rather just set up a little home shop,” he said. “First of all, you can buy all the music on iTunes or Amazon, which is how I basically buy all my music. I just put it on my phone, unless I’m buying nerdy vinyl stuff.”

Small added, “The one thing I’m interested in is just getting awareness of it out there, that if people like the music I’ve written and they don’t know Galaktikon, that’s the hurdle I have to jump. But the thing I learned is that people will find it. They may not find it on a gigantic scale, because people know the show, they don’t necessarily know me.” Small concluded, “We’ve sold so many of the Dethalbum I and II, and even III, but I don’t know that they know that a guy made that, I think they think a cartoon made it.”