In the world of obscure subgenres of rock music, there’s likely only one act that can be described as “Drive-Thru Metal.” And that band is the grotesquely unique Mac Sabbath, the hard-rocking quartet of mutated fast food mascots composed of Ronald Osbourne, Slayer MacCheeze, Grimalice, and the Catburglar.
As the name might suggest, Mac Sabbath is a fusion of heavy metal songs (particularly Black Sabbath tunes, but they don’t rule out some of the other greats) redone with lyrics about food (particularly of the fast and cheap variety). It’s hilariously wild, heavily costumed, impressively entertaining, and walks a very strange, greasy line between performance art and hard rock in ways that rival the biggest four-letter names in that space (like KISS and GWAR, for instance).
On one hand, that combination is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds, but at the same time, simply referring to Mac Sabbath as a “parody” band almost doesn’t do them justice. The four mutants can rock as well as any non-fast-food-themed band out there, and arguably find ways to do some of the classic songs just as well, if not better than their original versions — just with ridiculous food-based lyrics.
Of course, seeing as they’re time-traveling mutants from another dimension (or something along those lines), they’re not exactly the easiest bunch to land an interview with. Thankfully, Hit Parader caught up with Mac Sabbath’s “manager,” Mike Odd (who’s definitely not also in the band) backstage for an entirely accurate interview (which is totally not full of in-universe jokes and stories, as per usual) about the band’s mysterious origins, their musical stylings, and much more.
Hit Parader: How did you get involved managing Mac Sabbath?
Mike Odd: Well, I got roped into it. I had an oddities museum in East Hollywood called the Rosemary’s Billygoat Odditorium, and they called me Mike Odd, because I’m a freaking weirdo. When you have a place like that, you put yourself into the world of strange, and you get all these calls. It’s always like ‘Oh, come out and see my two-headed otter skeleton in my shed’ and blah blah blah. So I get this call to come out to this burger place, and I’m like ‘Oh, it’s going to be a Virgin Mary toasted on a hamburger bun or something, and they’ll do an auction.’ Then I go out there, and they’re having this fight club in the middle of the night in the basement of this really large hamburger chain that the upper management does not know about.
HP: Wait, what happened that evening at the basement fight club?
MO: Well, it was a lot of stuff I can’t talk about, but I’m there in the basement, and there’s this band playing these Black Sabbath riffs and screaming about Monsanto and GMOs — and the band is all these mutated fast food mascots. It’s just chaos. Then the band came up to me like ‘We want to be a real band and have you bring us above ground as our manager, because we saw that you had your own monster band [Rosemary’s Billygoat].’ They knew that I knew a couple of places in LA that I could put them, and they’re all talking about being time-travelers and crap. So I booked them this thing and shot a video of them as a goof, and then all of a sudden MTV picked it up, Black Sabbath posted it, and we went to England to play Download Festival with Kiss and Slipknot and Motley Crue. That was when I was like ‘I guess I have a new job that pays a little better than selling oddities.’
HP: Mac Sabbath feels like something that could only come to be among the weirdos of Los Angeles, and yet now it’s spread all over the world.
MO: Well, that’s where it got birthed, but they quickly shipped us off to England, which was very shocking to me. The word is getting out now, so the [non-weirdo] jerks will be there soon I guess. Already, we play some festivals that are way too big to be all weirdos. If there’s a big festival or we’re in a big city, there’s going to be a certain percentage of jerks even at Mac Sabbath shows. Sometimes we go places and I can’t believe how few jerks there are. The band will play to many thousands of people and seem very well-received — even if the stage is much further away from the weirdos than usual. I think we keep the jerks at bay.
HP: How difficult is it for Mac Sabbath to come up with all of these various food — and particularly fast food — references, while still fitting them into Black Sabbath and metal songs?
MO: That’s one of the things I’m always amazed by, because the original Black Sabbath only lasted like 10 years, and here we are in our 11th year. I just don’t even know how to feel about that, but it just keeps happening. They just come up to me like ‘This is our new song. It’s an Iron Mai-Denny’s song, and it’s about a fish sandwich.’ Then they told me it was called ‘The Grouper’ and I’m just like ‘How does this keep going? How much longer can this happen?’ It seems like they’re going to run out of foods sooner or later.
HP: With so much going on and the state of the world right now, it seems more important than ever for acts like Mac Sabbath to give some of the weirdos a little absurdity and levity. Is that something that goes into consideration for the band?
MO: I think it absolutely always has been 100% about that. It’s not all just jokes and good times though, because there’s a moment at the finale of the set where they actually close with a Black Sabbath song as a tribute to Ozzy. Things get a little serious at the end there, which freaks me out, because I’ve never seen that side of the band before.
