You go to a great show, and as you’re leaving you are still rockin’ out in your head. Walkin thru the parkin lot to your car, thinkin how much fun you just had, your mind wanders and you start daydreaming (is it still day dreaming if the sun’s not out and it’s nighttime?) about how cool it would be to rock for a living. You happen to see a couple of band members with a crowd around them, getting high fives, poundin the rock, and autographing a fantastic set of boobies. Lucky bastards, you think. Well stop wishing you had a band that kicks ass and do it. I know what you’re thinkin, “But Justus, I don’t even know where to start.” Well that’s what I’m here for. I’m gonna tell you how to make a metal band in 6 easy steps.

Step 1: You need a guitarist.  What kind of guitarist? One that plays faster. Faster than what? Faster than everything. Try to get the guy who holds the Guiness world record for most notes per minute. Then chain him in a basement somewhere and make him practice to be faster. Seems kinda cruel and unusual, but you wanna autograph boobies, remember? Ok, glad you see that it is a necessity now. He’ll need a really great distortion pedal; even tho his foot will never touch it - because everything gets played with distortion. You’ll also need to tune his E, A, and D strings (the lowest three, tone wise) down about seven steps. Really, as you restring his guitar, just don’t tighten the strings, and that’s probably just about the sound you want. Then take the highest two strings tone wise (B and E) and tune them up an octave or so. As for his G string….well, really, I don’t care how close you bro’s get, it’s never ok to play with your buddy’s G string. Just leave it alone.

Ok on to Step 2: bass guitar. Make your bassist get an eight string bass. If you can’t find one, build one. The lowest string tone wise should be about as big around as a baseball bat – the end you hit with. This guy needs to keep up with your world record holding guitarist, so you might as well buy two sets of chains when you go to Home Depot.

Step 3: Drums. This is probably the easiest. Get two huge bass drums – about ten foot in diameter. Then create a foot pedal that hits the drum twice instead of once. Make two of them. Now you can have a quadruple bass drum effect. In fact, get two more bass drums your drummer can play with his hands too. That’s it. This is all he’s gonna do thru the whole song every song, as quickly as possible. Also, start your drummer on a calf workout program. Ok, three sets of chains.

Step 4: Becoming the singer. There’s really only two options here. If you’ve had a testicle injury in the past (or you’d like to have one now) then you go high-pitched falsetto. With this option you have to be able to sing, and hold a note thru most of the song. If singing just isn’t your strong suit, and you still have both balls in good shape, then you gotta take plan B. Growl. Basically you wanna sound like a bear thru the whole set. Really, you might just wanna learn the drums and get a bear to be your lead growler (not really sure about the logistics of this – I mean a bear in a crowd of people at your first show might not work out too well. Course you could just keep him in a cage and put the microphone in there with him, but then those stupid PETA people will be all over you). Anyway, you gotta find a way to sound like a bear, monster, creature. It’s gotta be evil.

Step 5: And this one is super easy – naming your band. It’s gotta sound like something a monster truck announcer would say. Soul Killer. Good. Bone Crusher. Good. Neon Pink Fairy Boys. Not gonna work. The announcer guy would never say Neon Pink Fairy Boys. Trust me, he’s union, it’s in his contract. He would go in, see that, and walk off the job. If you’re at a loss, take the simple method and make it have either something to do with death, or something to do with god. Better yet, both. Death Angel. Hell’s Bible. As I Slay the Dying Corpse of Hell’s Demon’s. Anything along those lines will fit right in on the bill for any metal show.

Step 6: And we’re almost there. Writing songs. Ok, anything to do with death, dying, coming back from the dead to kill, vengeance, massacre, blowin shit up – all acceptable topics for songs. Unacceptable things to mention would be My Little Pony, any color other than black, grey or red, Hannah Montana, going to the club, rainbows, butterflies, or anything happy. These are just a few basic guidelines. Feel  free to growl about whatever deep, dark, evil you like. Probably a good idea to have a song about Thor, his hammer, or some other viking story on your first album. Seems to work well in this genre.

And that’s it folks, it’s that easy. After you’ve followed these steps, go out and start playing shows. Make sure all your show equipment goes to eleven, and that you bring an extra cowbell, just in case. You’ll be high fiving and signing boobies in no time. Lml

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