Comedian/Actor Bill Burr Loves Meshuggah and The Mars Volta

Fans of metal often turn up in the most unlikely of places. That guy in a suit you see getting coffee every morning? The old woman sitting across from you on the train? You never know!

So it is with comedian Bill Burr, also know for his acting work (he plays one of Saul Goodman’s henchmen in the later seasons of Breaking Bad, for example), who revealed in a recent episode of his own The Monday Morning Podcast that he’s a fan of both The Mars Volta and Meshuggah. As a drummer, it makes sense why he’d glom onto those two bands in particular, explaining:

Dude I know I’m like fucking over ten years late on this thing—but I am an old guy. I’ve just been listening to the first two The Mars Volta albums and I gotta tell you, Jon Theodore is a fucking genius drummer. …’Viscera Eyes‘… Any drummers out there, you gotta listen to that fucking song and you gotta learn how to play it.

You can’t be a drummer, listen to that, and not wanna… At least that opening drum groove. I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing on the breakdown in the end but it’s one of the sickest fucking drum grooves I’ve ever heard in my life.

And you listen to what the guitar is doing—Most people would have just played with the guitar, and the way he fucking plays around it; And one of my favorite things, it does not have the snare on 2/4 and it still just fucking—not only fucking rocks—it propels this fucking song.

I think I’ve listened to that song 200 times in the last fucking week and it’s still giving me chills. It’s fucking unreal.

And my drum teacher a long time ago told me to get into this band Meshuggah and I listened to it and it was too advanced, I couldn’t hear what was… It was just too much shit to be listened to.

But because I’ve been listening to Mars Volta and their crazy shit I actually went back because I was scrolling through looking for Mars Volta and I had this Meshuggah album for the longest time and I went back and listened to it and I think I’m finally starting to like… I always knew it was amazing but now I am actually fucking into it. I keep listening to that first song—I’m babystepping my way into it, this music is way advanced for my limited musical abilities. But that first song “Stengah“…—the drumming on that, the whole fucking thing is unbelievable.

Quick, someone tell him the first Mars Volta album is the only good one!

I kid; it’s always awesome to find fans of metal in the general populace, and especially in celebrities. I dig that he’s not ashamed to admit he didn’t “get” Meshuggah at first, growing into it as he started to understand more about music in general. I had the same experience, and I’ll bet many of you did, too.

Check out both tracks he’s talking about below, as well as the podcast episode.

[via The PRP]