Members of Mastodon, Dethklok and Municipal Waste Join Two Minutes To Late Night In New Cover Of King Diamond’s “No Presents for Christmas”

Members of metal bands Mastodon, Dethklok and Municipal Waste joined Two Minutes To Late Night for a cover of King Diamond’s “No Presents for Christmas,” on Friday. The band members are the latest guests on the heavy metal talk show, which has recently featured guests including Kverlatak and Darkest Hour. 

Brann Dailor of Mastadon/Arcadea, Brendon Small of Dethklok, Dave Witte of Municipal Waste and Nick Cageao of Mutoid Man all performed the cover separately from their homes and created an eclectic video showing the performance, which at one point featured Santa Claus sipping from a cup of wine while playing the drums. The video was intermixed with clips of cartoons and some exorbitant video editing.

The band members’ performance of “No Presents for Christmas” was very faithful to the Danish rocker’s original track, but with some added vocals from Jordan Olds, who goes by Gwarsenio Hall on the show. The band members even wore face paint reminiscent of King Diamond’s signature black and white face paint. 

The song starts out with a guitar riff from “Jingle Bell Rock,” which quickly turns dark with a high pitched, evil laugh from the lead vocalist and a racing guitar line. It turns into a classic metal anthem, rife with lyrics such as “There’s no presents, not this Christmas / There’s no presents / Tom and Jerry, still drinking sherry / They don’t give a damn.”

Olds, along with Drew Kaufman — who goes by Kevin The Sound Guy on the show — created Two Minutes To Late Night in the summer of 2016. The comedy metal talkshow has recently featured artists including Baroness and Dylan Carlson. 

Two Minutes To Late Night have also released four cover EPs, all of which were only available on Bandcamp for 24 hours. All of the EP’s have been dropped on Bandcamp Friday, a day in which Bandcamp waives their share of revenue from the sales of songs so 100 percent of the proceeds go to artists as a form of COVID-19 relief. Two Minutes To Late Night’s first EP was released in June, the second in August, the third in September and the fourth earlier in October

The EPs have covered iconic songs, such as Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ In The Years,” Rush’s “Anthem,” Fleetwood Mac’s “You Make Loving Fun” and Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell.” Pete Griffin and Nili Brosh of Dethklok joined Two Minutes To Late Night earlier this month to cover Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party,” and Brann Dailor joined them to cover Ozzy Osbourne’s “Over The Mountain.

Featured image: Raymond Flotat

Maia Anderson: Writer, journalist and pianist with degrees in both music and journalism from Miami University. Currently based in Los Angeles, but I grew up in a military family moving all over the place. I love listening to everything from Biggie and 2pac to Snarky Puppy to Lady Gaga!
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