Brendon Small has spent the past few years rethinking both his guitar collection and the way he plays.
Some of that reflection was forced. In August 2022, a dozen of Small’s guitars were stolen from his home studio in Los Angeles.
Those included Gibson Les Paul ’57 and ’59 reissues, a Fender ’54 Custom Shop Stratocaster reissue, a Gibson Thunderhorse prototype and guitars that had been personal gifts from Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, as well as a rare Moog guitar that’s no longer in production.
“Our house was under construction, and I think it was workers who stole them,” Small recalls. “One day I was rehearsing for a Dethklok show and I had some guitars out, and I think they saw where they came from. That morning someone busted into my place and took everything I had out.”
I had to have a stoic take on it, because I’m also the boss of the Dethklok thing, so I can’t be gently weeping in front of my crew. It doesn’t look good.”
— Brendon Small
The guitars were also being used while he was working on Dethalbum IV, Dethklok’s fifth album.
“It was like, ‘Okay, 12 of my guitars are stolen and I have to fly to Philadelphia and do a show.’ I didn’t have any time to ruminate or feel bad about it. I just had to keep pushing forward.
“I had to have a stoic take on it, because I’m also the boss of the Dethklok thing, so I can’t be gently weeping in front of my crew. It doesn’t look good.”
Small — who also makes a guest appearance in the SatchVai Band video for its song “Dancing” — says he had “big plans” for the Satriani guitar that was stolen.
“It had this Sustaniac pickup, and I wanted to do some cool stuff with it.”
He wound up replacing it with a new model, but the original “was one Joe played that he gave me as a gift because I helped him on a project. And then the Vai guitar was a JEM Universe seven-string with just great tone that I used to record on Dethalbum III. So at least I got to play it on a recording.”
The Moog guitar, meanwhile, was equally unique.
“It had two kind of Sustaniac-style pickups,” Small says, “and you could create crescendos from nothing. It would go from silence to slowly buzzing the strings as each string starts vibrating. I was like, ‘Oh, this is a film score machine.’ I played it for a long time but never really got to record anything good with it, and then it disappeared.
“Maybe I’ll find another one at some point, for a reasonable price. But because they don’t make them anymore, they’re up there in price.”
Small has also made voluntary changes to his guitar collection. Last July, the creator of Dethklok and Adult Swim’s animated Metalocalypse — which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year — sold “a bunch of guitars,” he says.
“I just didn’t have room for them, and they weren’t getting played.
They all sold the first day — which makes me think I should’ve priced them higher. But what are you gonna do?”
— Brendon Small
“So I was like, ‘Am I gonna pay to store these? What am I doing? I need to get them to someone else who can play them.’”
The guitars included electrics he used on his first show, Home Movies, and on Dethklok’s 2009 tour with Mastodon, including a Gibson E2 Explorer that was his main guitar around 2010.
“But I just don’t play them enough,” he explains.
The sale was a success.
“They all sold the first day — which makes me think I should’ve priced them higher,” he says with a laugh. “But what are you gonna do?”
Small, who currently has Dethklok on the road for the Amonklok Conquest Tour with Sweden’s Amon Amarth, has also made some technique changes in recent years, owing to age and what he calls “accumulated bad habits” from decades of playing.
“Something happens naturally when you’re onstage,” he says. “You’re so kind of ‘electrocuted’ by nerves that you start digging in more. My whole thing now is, ‘How do I not dig in? How do I lighten up and stay in control?’”
Over the past year, that led him to study more deeply, including a lesson with Jason Richardson “to come over and basically, like a golf pro, watch my swing and tell me where I’m fucking everything up.”
“I realized I got into some bad habits with playing and posture. I realized, ‘Oh, that’s a nerve issue — but if I play a little more on point I can get rid of that, and I can get control of my hand back.’ I just kind of realigned everything this year.”
Steve was telling me about how he stands onstage — what muscles he tightens to keep his back and his arm available — all the basic stuff that doesn’t come secondhand.”
— Brendon Small
Small also began doing CrossFit exercises, including “pull-ups and all that stuff,” to make his hands “just kind of not nearly as sensitive as they were,” helping reverse the problem.
To that end, he also got some useful tips from Satriani and Vai.
“We were talking about the right hand — just the right hand — and keeping it in shape, and remembering how little I need to engage to have total control and great tone and be able to access everything from one place.
“Steve was telling me about how he stands onstage — what muscles he tightens to keep his back and his arm available — all the basic stuff that doesn’t come secondhand. It’s been like re-learning the guitar.
“Being mindful is the thing — just constantly sending messages to myself, like ‘Take it easy, lighten up. There’s a big solo coming up, but remember, it’s no big deal.’”
In some respects, he says, it’s simply business as usual.
“I realized playing guitar is never easy from day one. It’s always hard, even when you start getting good at it.
Those are terrifying, terrifying moments — but you know you have to do it.”
— Brendon Small
“I think about my favorite jazz players, like John Scofield — a guy like that has to get up and maintain being John Scofield every day. Pat Metheny’s got to be Pat Metheny and keep cultivating and sculpting. It’s a challenge.”
It’s also not lost on Small that he gets to talk about these matters with the likes of Satriani and Vai, whom he’s also had the opportunity to join onstage on various occasions.
“Those are terrifying, terrifying moments — but you know you have to do it,” he says with a laugh. “Usually I join them when they’re at a point in the show where they’re warmed up… and that’s a tricky place to be if you’re sitting there trading fours with people who inspired you to play guitar in the first place.
“Mentally it’s insane, but you do it anyway.”
Spending time with his heroes has also taught him that they deal with the same challenges in their playing as everyone else.
“Listening to them talk and complain about the same things I do — it’s like waking in a dream state,” he says. “How do I relax? How do I stay in my mind, in my body through the performance and deliver the best thing I can deliver? That’s the hard thing.
“They want that same sweet spot. It’s a dragon all of us will forever chase.
“Those are pinch-me moments.”
The Amonklok Conquest Tour runs through May 21 in Las Vegas, and Dethklok has four additional headlining dates afterward.
