Veteran comedian Bill Bailey has spoken to Metal Hammer about his dream heavy metal collaborators, and recalled play-fighting with Mastodon’s Brent Hinds at an awards show.
In an exclusive interview, the 61-year-old – known for his appearances on UK TV shows QI, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Have I Got News For You – reveals that he’d love to make music with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Mikael Åkerfeldt of Swedish progressive metal masters Opeth.
“I guess it would be someone like Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails, because he’s such a brilliant arranger of music,” Bailey explains. “He crosses a lot of genres. He plays music, writes music, film music, soundtrack music, all that kind of stuff. That’s the kind of person.”
He continues: “But actually, in that regard, I’d say it would be Mikael from Opeth, because he does a lot of that as well. And every time I go to Sweden, him and the whole band come to my show.
“And he’s started to do more of that kind of thing – soundtrack stuff,” Bailey adds, referencing Åkerfeldt’s work as the composer on 2022 Netflix thriller series Clark. “Because a lot of Opeth stuff is really quite cinematic, it sounds quite soundtrack-like, and I think it has been.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Bailey recalls one of his fondest memories with Mastodon, the US metal band of whom he’s been a longtime fan. He remembers getting into a play-fight with ex-guitarist Hinds – who died in a motorcycle accident last August, six months after parting ways with the band – at an awards show.
“I love the band, I love their songs, I’ve got all their albums,” Bailey says of Mastodon. “I love their playing and everything about them. And then I got to meet them [at the 2012 Metal Hammer Golden God Awards], and we had such a laugh. Actually, it’s quite sad now, because Brent, he got me in a headlock, and then I got him in a headlock, and we had a pretend fight. And we had a right old laugh! I treasure those memories, very much.”
Bailey, who’s widely regarded as one of the UK’s greatest stand-up comics, has a long history with heavy metal. He performed at UK metal fest in Sonisphere in 2011, and later that year released the comedy/metal album In Metal. Talking to Hammer in 2023, he revealed that he wants to make a sequel.
“When that album was made, it was very much a response to Sonisphere,” he said, “and in my head there could be another metal one, or another style completely. There might be a rock one, or blues, but there’s definitely some more metal versions of songs, so when I accumulate enough of them I think there may well be another In Metal release. I’d love to do a follow-up.”
Bailey is currently playing across Australia as part of his worldwide Vaudevillean tour. He performs at the Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide tonight (October 7) and will be at the Riverside Theatre in Perth on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. A UK and Ireland leg will follow in November and December.
Meanwhile, Nine Inch Nails recently released the album Nine Inch Noize, a collaboration with German electronic musician Boys Noize. Opeth are preparing for a tour of South and Central America in November and Mastodon are touring North America following the release of their Marrow Deep album in August. It was the band’s first album without Hinds.
