Malcolm Brickhouse certainly hasn’t had the typical teenage life. Before he begins his sophomore year of high school this fall, he can say that he’s performed on The Tonight Show, signed a $1.8 million record deal and opened for Guns ‘N Roses. It’s all because of Unlocking the Truth, the metal group which he begun with childhood friends Jarad Dawkins and Alec Atkins during elementary school. 

“We weren’t really serious because we wanted to be like wrestlers and all of that kid stuff,” explains Brickhouse to Myspace. “It was all fun and games at first. Around 2012 is when we started taking it serious.” 

Since, it’s been a whirlwind of ups and downs for the teenager rockers. After getting their initial break through viral YouTube videos of the group busking in Times Square, Unlocking the Truth caught the attention of Sony Music in 2014. The teenagers signed a deal with the major label — but then left Sony just months later because the label wanted to completely remake the band. 

Unlocking the Truth can now claim a full-length record to its name, though. After the release of Chaos last month, we spoke with Brickhouse about the group’s journey from kid rockers to performing with Marilyn Manson. 

When did you first start playing music?

I first started playing music when I was around seven years old. I started playing guitar because my mom, she was looking for things for me to do. She didn’t want me growing up not doing nothing and keeping me off the street. So she was making me do piano and guitar and everything. And guitar stuck with me.

How did you get into metal?

I got into metal from wrestling shows that my dad used to take me to and AMV. AMV is animated music videos, which is anime with [metal] music. Listening to that inspired me and Jarad to start playing metal. Since Jarad knew how to play the drums from church and I learned how to play guitar from my mother — she took me to classes — it just like went together.

How did you meet Jarad and Alec?

I met Alec in pre-K. I met Jarad at a birthday party when we were like four years old. So yeah, me and Jared started the band. Alec came when he was around 11 or 12. That’s because we were looking for a singer at the time. He tried out for the singer and that didn’t work but he tried out for the guitar and the bass. He plays bass because he’s better at that than guitar and singing.

Do you think that living in Brooklyn has influenced your sound?

I know that growing up in an African American household, metal’s not what you would hear in the household. I heard a lot of R&B and hip hop. That’s what I really grew up on before I was listening to metal. You could hear that in the melody and the rhythm, you could hear little influences around the board just because I don’t strictly listen to metal. Other influences are in our music naturally.

What else do you listen to?

I listen to rap a lot right now. Mainly rap and metal. 

Who are your favorite rappers?

Right now my favorite rapper is Lil Uzi Vert. When I listen to rap, I don’t really listen to the words. I really just like the melody in the songs. So rap has like good melody. I’m more into that than like the wordplay. 

Could you talk about writing and recording Chaos?

We made the songs a long time ago. The songs developed by us growing up and performing the songs a bunch of times… [Then, producer] Johnny K started helping us critique the songs and started making them more like full songs and not just like ideas. We have new songs on there – songs like “Numbing” and “A Tide.” Besides those two, everything else, they’re basically old songs. The oldest song, actually, was our first single “Take Control.” That song was first made around when we first started the band, around [age] 8 or 9. 

How did “Monster” come together?

I remember writing that song in my room, like the main riffs and everything, and writing it on my phone. At that time, I listened to Escape the Fate a lot and songs like “Gorgeous Nightmare” and “Alive.” Their melody and everything inspired me to write the song “Monster.” It’s basically about being in a relationship where the girl makes it look like I’m the bad person where in reality, they’re the ones who are like the bad ones in the relationship. They just try to put the blame on me.

You guys have gotten a lot of amazing opportunities like opening for Guns ‘N Roses and Queens of the Stone Age and performing on The Tonight Show. What was the most incredible experience?  

Being on TV is fun and everything, but my favorite experience was touring with Marilyn Manson. I think he’s one of the nicest and coolest people we ever met… Under all that makeup, he’s just a regular person. He’s just different. That’s what I really admire about him. He’s really different and he’s not scared to show it. [On our last tour date with him], he let us perform “Beautiful People” with him. Performing with him was my favorite.

It hasn’t all been perfect, though. What have you learned about the music industry over the last couple of years?

I’m not going to say [signing with Sony] was a bad experience for us because we were so young so we didn’t really understand everything that was happening. We just went along with the flow. I know the music industry is not the prettiest place. It’s not like roses or anything... it has its dark corners. Sometimes you get lucky in the music industry. It’s great when it’s good and it’s real bad when it’s bad. So that’s fine.

And then you also have to attend high school. What’s it like balancing being in a touring rock band and going to school?  

People think we’re the cool kids in school. But since we’re not doing rap or something like that, we’re not really the cool kids. They’re just ‘oh, we seen you on TV, blah, blah, blah.’ That’s the fun part about that. I wouldn’t say it’s hard as people think. I mean it’s school and the band. They make time for both. It’s not even us – when they plan stuff, they make time for both of those things. It hasn’t really been trouble so far to manage school and the band.