Welcome back to Milwaukee Metal Monthly, the column where I explore the metal scene of my hometown.
So it turns out that this city has a pretty great collection of metal tribute bands. And since tribute bands are a costume of sorts, I figured why not have them as the theme for the MMM installment nearest Halloween. Two quick examples: there’s Master Of Puppets, a Metallica tribute that only plays their ’80s material; and there’s Hangar 18, a Megadeth tribute that calls itself “Wisconsin’s ONLY Megadeth Tribute Band.”
And then there are the two bands up for discussion: Aces High – A Tribute to Iron Maiden and Beatallica. Let’s do ’em in order, shall we?
Aces High market themselves as “Wisconsin’s ONLY Iron Maiden tribute band!” (It’s not really a coincidence, by the way, that the wording matches that of Hangar 18. Those two bands share member Nick Smith.) I spoke with Aaron Lane, Aces High’s lead guitarist and booking manager. He was affable and enthusiastic throughout our 25-minute phone call, and it’s obvious that he cares deeply about heavy metal and helping combat veterans. Of the latter, Lane is the PR Officer for the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, Chapter 45-6.
“It’s an association for combat vets, non-combat vets, and everybody’s wives or significant others,” he explains. “It’s a place where we all come and we share the camaraderie of being in the military. When you get a buncha vets together, we all talk about the old days, and we can talk shit to each other and have a good time with it. It’s vets helping vets. We raise money to donate to other veteran resources. We also donate our time to other veteran resources.”
Given that Lane’s a guitarist, when I ask him mid-way through our conversation which Iron Maiden member he plays on stage, Adrian Smith or Dave Murray, it’s both. “When people ask the question, I’m Adrian Murray, and Tom [Williams, Aces High’s other guitarist] plays Dave Smith. I do a good mix of Adrian and Dave solos, and Tom does a good mix of Adrian and Dave solos. We go back ’n forth. We each get a piece of the lead pie.” (Just to head off any “uh, akshully” comments, I’m aware Janick Gers is Maiden’s third guitarist, and that he was initially hired to replace Murray and then stayed after Murray returned. That wasn’t the point of my question.)
One of the more obvious band-related questions I had—which I suggested might be a dumb one—was whether “Aces High” is Lane’s favorite Iron Maiden song. “So,” he begins with a laugh, “Aces High came to be because of the fact that when I started sitting down and learning Maiden tunes outside of what I already knew, ‘Aces High’ was one of the first songs that I started to learn. If you look at any classic Maiden set from [their live album] Live After Death, that’s a cornerstone for Aces High. That setlist is pretty much time and time again proven. ‘Aces High,’ ‘Two Minutes To Midnight’—that’s how we kick the show off.”
But there’s more to the explanation. “So it was kind of a presumption—let’s play it like this,” he continues. “This is how Iron Maiden does it, so we gotta do it just like they do. So ‘Aces High’ was one of the first things I learned. And it was such a frustrating experience for me that I almost put a stop to this project. It took me a good week to really get down the main riffing of the song. Not even the solos, just how to riff the song. Videos, tutorials, everything. I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’ That was when I really came into question with it. And after I got so frustrated with it, the next practice I was like, ‘Ya know, guys, we’re gonna fuckin’ name this band Aces High – A Tribute to Iron Maiden.’ That was the hardest song that I had to learn, with all the riffing. So I was like, ‘This is what we’re gonna name the band.’”
As for the band’s formation—well, it’s kind of a long and winding story, so here’s (hopefully?) a streamlined version. Initially, Lane was into punk. “I was listening to the Misfits, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and all that stuff,” he recalls. “And then I started discovering Green Day a little bit. Early Green Day—like 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours and Kerplunk.”
But it was a pair of chance encounters that changed his musical taste. “One day I was walking home from school, and I was with some friends, and a neighbor of ours was throwing away boxes of magazines. And as teenagers, we started rummaging through these boxes looking for—obviously—Playboys, and we came across the October 1991 Guitar World with Metallica on the cover. And so I thought it was an interesting magazine. I grabbed it, and I took it home and I was flipping through it. Just reading the articles really opened my eyes to Metallica. I had no idea who they were.”
What happened next sounds a bit like kismet. “And then probably about two weeks after I found this magazine, my cousin had come over with a recorded tape of The Black Album,” recalls Lane. “I’d never heard Metallica up until this point. We put in The Black Album, and that was all she wrote. From there I was hooked on metal.”
Naturally, he got a job so he could buy everything Metallica had released. “And I sat at home listening, just raging out to Metallica. They’d become my new favorite band.”
Learning guitar and forming cover bands with his friends was the next logical step. “The first show we ever played as a group of musicians together was this basement party—I think we were 15 or 16—and all we could play was [Deep Purple’s] ‘Smoke On The Water.’ Not even the full song, just the opening riff. So we did that for, like, 13 minutes, and then that was it.”
And so we (finally?) arrive at the iconic NWOBHM band in question. “Iron Maiden was on my radar back then because of the fact that we heard it in video games like Grand Theft Auto,” Lane says. “A friend of mine who’s a bass player was really into Maiden. He had the Best Of The Beast album. Which was weird because his dad was really into, like, classic ’70s rock like Uriah Heep. And [the friend] wasn’t; he was totally into heavy metal. So I started really listening to Maiden.”
Lane then joined the US Navy and played in cover bands while serving. “And then when I got outta the military and I moved here to Wisconsin, I formed cover bands and never once thought of ever starting a tribute band.” (Lane later clarifies via email that “I’m originally from Massachusetts, but I officially identify as a Wisconsinite.”)
In 2014 while living in the Milwaukee area, Lane created a Craigslist ad looking for a bass player for his cover band. Ralph Cybela, the band’s original bassist, emailed back asking if Lane wanted to start an Iron Maiden tribute band. “At the time, I was kinda on the fence about it because of the fact that I was an OK guitar player,” Lane says. “I wasn’t anything special. I didn’t really wanna play Iron Maiden because of the fact that I didn’t think I was good enough to play Iron Maiden. You gotta be more of an upper-level guitar player to do it justice. So I was kinda on the fence about it. I said, ‘You know what? Let’s give it a shot. We’ll bring the guy over.’ I knew a couple Maiden tunes because of playing in cover bands over the years.”
So they brought in Cybela. “I told [the band], ‘Hey, we’re gonna try something new. This guy wants to start an Iron Maiden tribute band,’” Lane remembers. “And everybody was kinda geeked about it. So [Cybela] comes down to the basement, and we just fired away and it was magical. We all blended together real well. And it was just like, ‘OK, this is what we’re gonna do. This is the direction we’re gonna go.’ So I had a come-to-Jesus with myself about this. ‘Now you’re gonna sit down and you’re gonna learn this stuff. You’re gonna learn it well, and you’re gonna do this. There’s no going back. Balls to the wall. Let’s go. Let’s make this band happen.’ And here we are, what, going on 13 years coming up.”
And in case you’re wondering, Lane has indeed seen the real thing. “I’ve seen Iron Maiden on the past three tours,” he says. “I saw ’em twice on the Legacy Of The Beast [World] Tour, once on The Future Past [World] Tour, and then once on the [Run For Your Lives World Tour]. I got to see ’em with Nicko [McBrain, their longtime drummer] before he retired [from touring].”
Notably, the most recent show he attended for Run For Your Lives at Tinley Park is apparently the one to see. “If there was a show and a setlist to see Iron Maiden, this is the tour to see them. The setlist was timeless. And they brought this stage presence and energy. It was amazing. Absolutely fantastic. Probably the best show I’ve seen from Iron Maiden. And I hope they don’t retire ’cause I wanna see this show again.”
But since the dates Iron Maiden have announced for 2027 ain’t around here, you can catch the next-best thing when Aces High plays Schmidty’s Bar & Grill in Brookfield on November 27. (There are also plans for shows early next year, but nothing’s finalized as of this writing.) “With members in multiple bands, I have to stay on top of booking our band,” Lane says. “Me and the other guitar player, Tom, we don’t have other bands. This is our only source of enjoyment here. So we have to get out and play when we can. Otherwise we’re stuck in the basement just twiddling our thumbs while everybody else is out playing. And that’s no fun.”
Let’s move on to Beatallica. They’re a band that pays tribute to the Beatles and Metallica in the form of mash-ups. They’re also far and away the most famous band I’ve spoken to for this column, complete with their own Wikipedia entry. Furthermore, Metallica members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich endorse the band, and Beatallica’s throwback official site has quotes from both on the landing page. Neither of the surviving Beatles, however, has shared any opinion publicly regarding Beatallica, despite being aware of the band.
As for Beatallica’s backstory, there’s plenty of coverage out there already. A good starting point—probably the best one—is a mini-documentary called The Story of Beatallica. There’s also this October 2004 interview with Ear Candy. The former is more for those wanting the band’s whole story, while the latter offers some details about Metallica’s thoughts on Beatallica.
If you’re looking for a quick summation of what Beatallica does musically, I’d go with “Blackened The U.S.S.R.” It’s a combination of Metallica’s “Blackened” and The Beatles’ “Back In The U.S.S.R.” that replaces the original opening “Flew in from Miami Beach” line for the local shoutout “Flew in from Milwaukee,” and features tongue-in-cheek, meat-head lyricism like “Decadence remains, there is no doubt / We’ll cause your hearing harm / Let me hear the Flying Vs ringing out / Oh no, my beer is warm.” What really makes it work is the excellent musicianship and the spot-on Hetfield impression. Hell, it’s hard not to at least grin at the song.
So, to understand—or, perhaps, try to—the gleeful and skillful absurdity of it all, I spoke to Betallica’s singer and rhythm guitarist Jaymz Lennfield (real name Michael Tierney) for about a half hour on the phone. (Beatallica use stage names that are themselves mash-ups of a Metallica member and a Beatles member.) Coincidentally, the day we spoke, October 1, was the first day of Metallica’s residency at The Sphere. It was also, sadly, the day we found out that Cronos, frontman and bassist for Venom, had died.
“They were a huge influence on me,” says Lennfield early on. “I remember going to Rushmore Records back in the day, and that’s who had all that stuff—Mercyful Fate and Venom and Exciter and Destruction. That’s where I learned about a lotta that stuff. Picking up the Black Metal album [Venom’s sophomore LP] there, and it was the green vinyl. Crazy-good stuff.”
It’s probably obvious, then, that our conversation was a joy and a thrill throughout, and is certainly one of the cooler interviews I’ve scored for this column. It helps that Lennfield is a hearty laugher and does so often. He’s a thoughtful dude, too, and talks in a professorial manner: slow, patient speech in an organized fashion. And he’s got plenty of gems to toss out, as when he declares, “I think my Lars Ulrich impression is just as good as my James Hetfield. Lars doesn’t sing, but I can talk like Lars Ulrich. And I’ve talked as Lars Ulrich in front of Lars Ulrich, actually. Which was hilarious.”
While that’s a silly anecdote, it should be noted that Lennfield is philosophical about comedy and musicianship. Here’s an example: Beatallica have a song called “All You Need Is Blood.” Basically, it’s a thrashy take on the Beatles song “All You Need Is Love” with lyrics about metal. Originally in English, the band reached out to fans “literally all over the world” to send in translations of the lyrics, and then recorded versions of the song in different languages. Obviously, some were harder than others.
“The Hebrew one was one of the more difficult ones, not just because of the pronunciation of the language, but because of the way the syllabic content fell within the music,” says Lennfield. “So if you listen to the chorus on the Hebrew one, there’s actually more beats that end up in the chorus versus other versions of the song because of the words that were chosen. And so trying to figure out how to do that and hang onto this one part for three beats longer had our producers cracking up.” (To be clear: the multi-lingual project is purely for fun. “I wanna stress that it’s not meant to be a rip on someone’s ethnicity or language or anything,” emphasizes Lennfield. “I butcher the English language sometimes.”)
Speaking of figuring things out, parsing what’s true and not about the band means there are some entertaining rumors floating around on the Internet. One of them involves Beatallica’s former bass player who’s also in the Milwaukee thrash band Realm. (Neat discovery I made while researching: Realm have an over-the-top thrash cover of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” and it’s gleefully batshit insane in the best way.)
“These two guys were going back ’n forth on social media,” says Lennfield. “Just like ‘Yeah, there’s this band called Betallica.’ ‘Oh really? What is this thing?’ And then this guy’s like, ‘Well, OK, so this band called Realm. And then when Realm broke up, they formed Betallica.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s so incorrect.’ Our bass player Doctor Robert [Stujillo, real name Steve Post]—yes, he played bass in Realm. And at one point in time, we had a guitar player Takis [Kinis] from Realm. He played with us for a while. But in no way, shape, or form did Realm break up and form Beatallica. The timeline doesn’t match up at all. Personnel-wise it doesn’t match up at all.”
Naturally, there’s a rumor involving Metallica, and there’s one involving a massive pop star. “And the whole point-blank ‘Metallica sued Betallica.’ No, that’s incorrect,” asserts Lennfield. “They actually helped us [with a legal matter]. ‘Michael Jackson sued Beatallica.’ No, that’s incorrect. It’s like that with everything. If something’s around long enough, there’s gonna be things that are misinterpreted. Woefully misinterpreted.” I reply that he seems to have dealt with it in a fairly healthy fashion, and that says something good about him as a person. “I guess,” he responds with a laugh. “I can’t think of anything that’s been put out there that’s made me mad. I just listen to [the rumors] and I’m just like, ‘Oh god. That’s totally not true.’ But what are ya gonna do, ya know?”
The band’s also struggled with how seriously they’re meant (or not meant) to be taken. “That’s always been a fight,” says Lennfield with a chuckle. “Because people look at it like, ‘No, this doesn’t actually happen, does it?’ And people see some of the goofy things we do. If you listen to the first mp3s, and you see how some of that stuff was laid out, sure, it was supposed to be taken as a ‘ha-ha’-sorta thing. But if you really start to listen to the playing on the album, and the way that the mash-ups are created, it’s not just slamming two pieces of bread together and calling it a sandwich. There’s a lotta little idiosyncrasies and things that flow in ’n out. It’s a very different idea behind what some people consider to be mash-up. There is a seamless effort between two, or sometimes three, songs that go into the mash-up, and if you aren’t familiar with the entirety of whatever band’s catalog, you’re not really gonna understand. So we’ve been fighting that a long time. People tried to take this either less serious than what it actually is, or take it for granted.”
At this point, I s’pose I should mention that if Beatallica intrigues you, they’re playing The Argo on November 28, and it’s the band’s only show this year. (They are “working on dates” for next year, Lennfield later adds via email.) “We’re playing stuff from every album,” Lennfield says. “That being said, there’s Metallica material through their whole catalog that appears on our records. Are you doing a Kill ’Em All-sorta song or are you doing ReLoad? That’s a whole different vibe. So we’re gonna be doing stuff off of every album. Different costumes that reflect the albums. It’s gonna run the gamut. It’s gonna be the whole catalog. That’s all cool, good stuff.”
Part of the reason there’s only one Betallica show this year is because the individual members are, let’s say, industrious. “All four of us play in other projects,” Lennfield says. “I’m in five projects, and I’m the managing member of all of them. And they’re all very different.” (Three of them are Reilley, The Tinker Boys, and Blackwillow Starling. Lennfield also runs Milwaukee’s Spoof Fest.) “But these projects that I’m in, they tour. And so I’m gone quite a bit with other bands that aren’t Beatallica. And our guitar player, he’s a road dog and a guitar tech. He works with Zach Bryan. He’s gone a lotta the time. And it’s not like we even live in the same city. Our bass player lives up in the Twin Cities, and he has for a long time, and plays with other bands up there. Our drummer is in three bands, and they do a lotta work. So when Beatallica get together, we’re in it to mean it.”
“So if Beatallica didn’t exist,” summarizes Lennfield with a knowing chuckle, “my life would be just as busy. But it makes it a challenge doing the projects in the way you wanna do ’em, and doing ’em the right way. Which is our goal. That’s our intent. So if we book a show and it’s happening, it’s going to be done in the right way. We wouldn’t book it if we didn’t have the capacity to do that. It’s our one show of the year, so we encourage you to come out.”
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