Greg Koch has gone full metal. He was always this way. Launching a global craft beer brand that regularly jammed its horns in the you-know-where of mainstream beer just kind of got in the way. Now, the success of that beer has allowed him to resume metalling.
And, true to everything Greg, he did not go small.
He partnered with Keri Kelli, the guitarist for ’80s stadium-rock icons Night Ranger (set your Spotify to “Sister Christian”) and graphic novelist Ben Fellowes. The result is a scorching, wild, violent heavy metal album that uses sci-fi illustration and animated video to create an intergalactic metaverse of metal.
He’s unveiling it today, ahead of Comic-Con, here in San Diego where he launched Arrogant Bastard so long ago.
Metal Warrior chronicles a fabled heavy metal band shredding across the universe, brought to life through songs by Koch and Kelli and Fellowes’ graphic novel illustrations. They launched anonymously in October 2023. Koch and his creative partners kept their involvement top-secret, not wanting their story to muck up the narrative.
The Warriors are the true heroes (and if you talk to Koch, you get the sense that these ravenous, torn-shirted asteroid metallers have real skin and teeth and boiling blood). Koch and his creative partners are mere human conduits for a story that’s been thousands of years in the making, serving as dutiful historical documenters of the mega-influential band.
“The band has tapped me and my friend Keri Kelli, the musician, and Ben Fellowes, the illustrator, to represent their stories to the good peoples of earth,” Koch says. “I’m just a humble channel.”
Metal Warrior band is composed of four members: the anti-hero leader and frontman Pskydin, the sweet yet sadistic guitarist Queen Va, the four-armed Velutian White Ape drummer Torq, and the mysterious bass player/time-travel sorcerer Quanndamm.
The quartet comes from the celestial Five Galaxies, which exist under the despotic rule of Oknjar Khamoon. Together, Metal Warrior share a responsibility to protect the Five Galaxies and adventure through the Time Space and Dimension Construct (TSDC).
Where Metal Warrior differs from previous alliances of music and comics is that the band’s sound is a crucial part of the overall narrative. Plus, Koch’s rock n’ roll mindset means taking any passion project, whether it be art or business, above and beyond.
“It’s … that kind of mentality that I like to try to bring to what I do, to kind of overachieve on each element,” Koch says. “So it’s one thing to do music, and it’s one thing to do graphic novels, but to bring them together and really work hard and with people who are extraordinarily talented brings it to the next level.”
With such a high-stakes story, it’d be easy to think that the “how we got here” explanation would be a lot to get into… and you’d be right. The lore begins as follows: The greatest heavy metal band that Earth has ever seen has finally returned after a long, long time.
Roughly 33 years ago, the members of Metal Warrior got embroiled in a thousand-year war within the Five Galaxies. Now that they’re back, courtesy of the TSDC, earthlings no longer remember the band or barely recall them—they’re existing, as Koch says, “on the edge of consciousness.”
So now the band has a new mission: re-establishing themselves as the heavy metal authority on the planet.
As for their music, Metal Warrior’s songs are solar system–shattering records. Tracks with enough intensity to enliven a coliseum-sized audience. Brandishing battle cry-esque chants and thunderously righteous riffs, Metal Warrior belongs at the top of any pump-up soundtrack.
Though the specific details of the band’s genesis are put to page in comic form, the music serves as a heavy and dark introduction (or potentially re-introduction) to their brand of hard-rocking.
On the band’s three officially released songs, Koch takes much of the vocal lead, whether it’s delivering Pskydin’s growling intro on “The Battle Will Be Won,” or belting a chaos-inducing ballad like “Serenity.” On the venomous “Scream Love,” Koch’s wife Sarah voices Queen Va, reaching into the darkness for a monumental character introduction.
“The Battle Will Be Won,” in particular, is the true ethos of Metal Warrior, as it’s an inspiring fight song that prepares listeners for any type of battle they must undertake.
To produce Metal Warrior, Koch took, admittedly, a very DIY approach. A Kickstarter campaign for the project raised more than $10,000, and Metal Warrior has gotten lots of grassroots hype for their music videos, with several hundred thousand views on YouTube.
The creation of Metal Warrior also required one very special reunion. Koch and Kelli originally met in Los Angeles during the 1980s, when Kelli was an early tenant of Koch’s musical rehearsal facilities—which is where Koch also met his fellow Stone Brewing co-founder Steve Wagner.
Koch and Kelli reconnected in the mid-to-late 2000s and, though they became friends, Koch “never even thought about making music with him” prior to this project. However, at this stage of his career, Koch is grateful and excited to pursue new creative avenues and have lots of fun along the way.
“I am afforded now the opportunity to sort of rediscover and invigorate other passions, music being primary among that,” Koch says. “It’s super rewarding to be able to do that and to not have to take it too seriously.”
Comic-Con will mark the pre-release of book one of the nine-part Metal Warriors Origins series on Pskydin and the rest of the band’s extensive genesis story.
Book zero of the story, Getting the Band Back Together, will also be available, detailing the band’s reunion and return to Earth. Following Comic-Con, new editions of the Metal Warrior saga will be released two months apart.
The purchase of each graphic novel will include a custom double-sided 7” vinyl single embedded in the book. Metal Warrior is the first original graphic novel series from publisher Z2 Comics to have music singles intrinsically attached.
The first full-length Metal Warrior record, a massive 16-track double album dubbed The Crushed Souls of Our Enemies, will be released in October. The album is a joint venture between the group’s label TSDC Recordings and Flatiron Records, who will handle the manufacturing and distribution.
To learn more about Metal Warrior, check out their discography on Spotify or swing by Z2 Comics Booth #1529 at San Diego Comic-Con.