There are some weirdly specific tribute bands out there. In years gone by we had Austrian Death Machine, the fever dream thrash metal one man band of As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis, who put out several albums in the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger. There’s also the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, who only play bagpipe covers of Red Hot Chilli Peppers songs. And even just the other month we were all uh… terrified by a band who played Ned Flanders-inspired metal.
Well, with Halloween just around the corner, who doesn’t want to be scared beyond shitless? In that regard, turn your gaze to the night terror-inducing Mac Sabbath:
Good lord, it’s like if Beavis and Butthead were tripping on peyote in their local Mickey D’s instead of the desert in Arizona. If you’ve ever ordered a Happy Meal and found yourself wishing it contained approximately 300% more heavy metal (and also horror, so much horror) then this is the tribute band you’ve been longing for. That’s right, they take a whole bunch of songs from the very, very extensive back catalogue of Black Sabbath and give them an upsizing on theatrics, the original titles re-imagined as some of the dad-jokiest of puns possible and the lyrics have all been altered to be McDonalds-themed.
For instance, Iron Man is now Frying Pan, immortal proto-punk standard Paranoid is now Pair-a-buns, Sweet Leaf is Sweet Beef and…
Ok fine, we’ll stop.
The band costume themselves as McDonaldland characters had they been run through a dryer full of dank and methamphetamines, with frontman Ronald Osbourne and his backing band of Grimace, Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar all in varying states of horrifying. They describe their live experience as ‘a multimedia show with video, theatrics, audience participation and sing-alongs’.
Though they neglect to mention ‘all of the screaming’
All jokes aside, it’s not even nearly as terrible as Born Again was. In fact, the whole thing looks like a bunch of fun. I’d really like to know just how in the hell Terror Grimace and Probable Murderer Mayor McCheese manage to competently play their guitars wearing those huge costumes at all, that is some underrated talent on their part. They gig pretty regularly just in checking out their Twitter, no word on if you can book them out for the birthday party of a small child you hate profoundly but I imagine they’d be amenable.
There’s sure to be more than a few ‘cease-and-desists’ from the real-life supervillain corporate McDonalds that have landed in their in-tray, but I imagine the only thing stopping this band at this point is a crucifix and an extra-large holy water.
Check out the original, non-McDonalds affiliated Black Sabbath when they’re here on their The End farewell tour in April.