Brian Posehn's Comedy-Metal Album "Grandpa Metal" Out Feb. 14

This Valentine’s Day give your special metalhead the gift of metal served up with a healthy dose of humor. Brian Posehn’s fantastic new genre-creating comedy-metal album, “Grandpa Metal,” is out Friday, Feb. 14. Released under the name Posehn, “Grandpa Metal” features the writer/actor/stand-up comic’s hilarious, good-natured takes on Norse Viking metal, hair bands, aging thrashers and a couple of metalized pop covers.

The music on “Grandpa Metal” is pure metal, as powerful and precise as Posehn’s spot-on, humorous lyrics. The album is stacked with appearances by Posehn’s extremely talented metal buddies, including Scott Ian and Jonathan Donais (Anthrax), Gary Holt (Slayer/Exodus), Chuck Billy and Alex Skolnick (Testament), Steve “Zetro” Souza (Exodus), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Brendon Small (Metalocalypse, Dethklok), Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) , Rob and Aiden Cavestany (Death Angel), Jeff Pilson (Dokken), Joe Trohman (Fall Out Boy, The Damned Things), Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy), the late Jill Janus (Huntress), Johan Hegg (Amon Amarth), Phil Demmel (Vio-Lence, ex-Machine Head), Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (Sons of Apollo, Asia, ex-Guns N’ Roses), Michael Starr (Steel Panther), Pearl Aday, Jacob Bunson (Mars Electric) and even Weird Al Yankovic.

Opening track “Satan’s Kind of a Dick” is a comic twist wake-up call for those headbangers who think the Devil himself must be a Slayer and King Diamond fan and that metal classics blast away in hell 24/7. “One Quarter Viking ...” takes aim at those who aren’t that tough behind their shields (“I’ve never swung a sword/Or a battle axe in my life/But I sure as hell/have gotten a mani-pedi with my wife”).

“Big Fat Rock” is a riotous send-up of hair metal featuring, appropriately, Jeff Pilson, of genre front-runners Dokken, while Posehn mocks his good friend Scott Ian on the laugh-out-loud title track. The cover of Ah-Ha’s classic 80s tune “Take On Me” works to perfection thanks to vocalists Billy, Souza and Janus. Posehn also takes on a more recent cover, “The Fox, What the Fox Say,” a 2013 hit by Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis. Throughout the album there are amusing interludes, including a misguided request by Posehn to cover a Weird Al song.

When he’s not purveying comedy-metal, Posehn keeps an insanely busy schedule. He’s been on the acclaimed Netflix show, “Lady Dynamite,” FX’s “You’re the Worst,” has had recurring roles on several television hits, including “The Big Bang Theory,” was a writer and performer on HBO’s “Mr. Show,” writes sketch comedy and stand-up, does voiceovers, and hosts a popular podcast, “Nerd Poker.” Oh yeah, he’s also co-written dozens of issues of the best-selling Marvel comic series, “Deadpool.” In 2018 he released his book, “Forever Nerdy.”

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Brian Posehn.

How long have you been a metalhead?

My first band was Kiss, which metal doesn't always claim, and from there it got heavier and heavier. At the end of the 70s I was young but the bands that I was into were Van Halen, UFO and AC/DC. Then 1980 rolled around and I heard Iron Maiden and I think that’s officially when I became a metalhead and became obsessed with faster, harder, heavier music. I grew up in the sweet spot. It was such a great time to grow up because music just got as heavy as you wanted it to be with all these bands coming up.

How did the idea for “Grandpa Metal” come about?
On my stand-up records for Relapse Records I always did a couple of songs and that goes back to the beginning of my friendship with Scott Ian. He’s a guy that I grew up as a fan of and then we became friends at the end of the 90s. I was working on a “Mr. Show" movie and we did the song “Ass-Kicking Fat Kid.” We had so much fun and then I wrote “Metal By Numbers” and “More Metal Than You” with him.

There was always the idea of let’s do a full record at some point. Six years later we signed with Megaforce and it took almost another six years to finish the record. I’ve been calling it the “Chinese Democracy” of comedy-metal records. Scheduling was part of the problem. The first seven songs were pretty slow going. Last year I realized we needed to wrap the record up.

There’s such a plethora a great guest musicians on “Grandpa Metal.” Do you know most of them personally?
With one or two exceptions I asked everybody personally to be on the record. They’re all friends and they all did favors. The last addition was Bumblefoot. I had just met him and said, ‘hey man, I’m probably going to ask you to be on the record.’ I asked him two weeks later and he recorded the next day. He’s the newest friend on the record. And Jeff Pilson just came about. Joey Vera did most of our bass. (Producer) Jay Ruston approached Jeff to play on “Big Fat Rock” which is perfect since it’s an 80s song and he’s in Dokken.

It seems metal is an easy target for comedy, in part because some, though certainly not all, bands and fans take their metal so seriously.
The thing about doing a comedy metal record is when I was younger I didn't really have a sense of humor about metal. I hated anything that made fun of it. Now I can get away with it so much more, but it’s done with love. It’s a comedy album but the love is there.

There are two covers on “Grandpa Metal.” How did you decide to do “Take On Me” and “The Fox, What the Fox Say?”
They’re both Euro-pop, one from when I grew up and one more recent. I’ve always said that any song would be better if it was heavy metal and it was about proving that I could make a version of those songs that would be more palatable to my ears. It was funny with Chuck. I asked Chuck if he wanted to do a song and he said sure. I told him it was “Take On Me” and he’s like, “Really??? Well what do you want me to do?” I said, just be yourself, do a Testament thing.

Given logistics with your incredibly busy schedule as well as that of recording and touring musicians, are there any plans to take “Grandpa Metal” on the road?
We’re not doing a full tour but the idea is in the next year for Scott (Ian) and I to go out and do a two-person show. We did a version of it on the MegaCruise in October. He does about a half-hour of spoken word and stories, then I do a half-hour and then he comes back onstage and we do a couple songs.

What do you hope your fans take from listening to “Grandpa Metal?”
I hope they have a good time listening to it. I think a lot of my comedy fans, not all of them, but a lot are metal fans. I also hope it appeals to people who don’t know what I do, but I think you kind of have to be a metalhead to love this record. It’s for the fans. I hope it does well and I get to do another one.