‘All Things Metal’ Doc: Three Brothers Who Forge Metal and Play Heavy Metal Together

The Brothers Patterson — Dan, 48, Joel, 45, and Andy, 43 — all work together making doors, tables, hearths, and other works of art out of metal and spend their spare time playing heavy metal music together. It’s early on a Wednesday and there’s plenty of work to do (Andy already has his coveralls on and protective eye gear resting on his head), but today they’ve gathered in a small office of their shop, Santa Barbara Forge, for a Zoom call to reflect on All Things Metal, a new short film streaming now about their brotherhood and how nearly everything they do revolves around some form of metal. As they speak, they all seem to have the same mannerisms, a shared sense of humor, and laser focus, likely from being together so much of the time.

Since childhood, the brothers have used music and other creative outlets as their own bespoke therapy for Tourette syndrome, which the Tourette Association of America defines as “characterized by sudden, involuntary movements and/or sounds called tics.” All three brothers have Tourette’s but none of them show any tics during the interview.

For Dan, who plays drums, Tourette’s feels like “this knot that’s getting tighter and tighter.” Over time, he and his brothers have discovered a way to slacken the knot: playing music. “When you let yourself communicate on the drums or another instrument, it’s like this exhalation that sort of loosens everything,” says Dan. “It’s hugely therapeutic.”

“Playing music puts me in a peaceful space,” concurs bassist Joel, who’s wearing a Santa Barbara Forge T-shirt and sipping coffee. “I think being able to check out and do something physical has helped my Tourette’s.”

“The reason I like playing metal is because it’s extremely physical with both the left and right hand on the guitar,” Andy says.

All Things Metal, a 17-minute short by director Motoki Otsuka, shows how creativity has secured a bond between the brothers who work together at Santa Barbara Forge and make music videos for their metal songs on their YouTube page. It gives a history of the brothers, explaining how the Pattersons became a tight-knit family as their Presbyterian pastor father moved them around the country, forcing the brothers to rely on each other. When they were each diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, their mother encouraged them to make silly videos and play music as an escapist outlet.

Now the Pattersons write songs and make videos on their lunch breaks. They classify the songs as “Christmas metal,” “emo fantasy,” “workout metal,” or any other subgenre they can dream up. Whatever they call it, though, working together has helped them. “Tourette’s makes you feel different, and if you feel different, you have to reconcile that,” Andy explains in the film. “And I know that I felt, and my brothers felt, ostracized for lengths of time, but it brought us together in huge ways.” In the movie, those links include a quirky sense of humor, their love of metallurgy, and of course music.
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The brothers see their often outrageous songs as “a friendly troll of the world.” They perform only at special events like the Fourth of July parade or to make videos at a skate park. “Our last gig at a local brewery, they were like, ‘What band name should I put on the bill?'” Joel says. “I’m like, ‘Ah, whatever you want.'”

“My goal when we play live is to do an arena show level performance in a driveway,” Dan says.

The short, which Rolling Stone Films produced and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, is available to view now on the streaming platform Documentary+ and here on RollingStone.com. The film, which Otsuka’s partner Lucy Sexton produced, is one of five docs part of Rolling Stone Films’ partnership with Documentary+.
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Dee Snider, former Twisted Sister frontman and one of the film’s executive producers, felt a special connection to the brothers when he first saw the film. “When I watched the doc, I saw that the Patterson brothers did pretty much everything I do but took it to the next level by fabricating heavy metal!” he tells Rolling Stone via email. “We are kindred spirits.”

Snider’s involvement in the picture is especially exciting for Dan, since the first song he learned on drums was Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” “When we did a Zoom with Dee about the film, he was like, ‘Look, I wouldn’t be sitting here on a phone call with you if y’all weren’t excellent players,'” Dan says. “I was like, ‘Yes: validation, validation.'”

“Their music is incredibly good,” Snider says. “We watch the doc and love the entire package, but if you separate the music out from the rest, it stands well on its own. Good songs, good playing, and passion to rock!”

Another person who felt an instant kinship to the Pattersons is Santa Barbara–based filmmaker Otsuka, 33, whose day job is making car commercials. When Covid lockdown restrictions ended, he decided to make his own gym in his backyard. He needed some metal bars cut down, so he Googled “metal shop” and the closest result was Santa Barbara Forge.

“As I’m walking in, their garage bays are open and I just hear metal, maybe Pantera, blasting very loudly,” Otsuka says. “I peek in and there’s all these metal-band posters and demonic art that they created in their past in their downtime. So I was just immediately completely smitten by the place.”

The brothers offered to help him with his gym for a pack of beer. When he returned to pick up his gear, the filmmaker, who previously played drums in a math-metal ensemble, wore a Tool shirt as a message to the Pattersons: “Then you’ll know I’m cool.” Dan was practicing drums that day. “I just really wanted to be friends with them at that point and just talk to them about music,” Otsuka says. “Once I found out their incredible family history, and all that they do besides just their metal work, I thought this could be a really fun short to make.” When he learned about the Pattersons’ vast archive of home movies, he knew he had to make the movie.

“He just seemed like a local guy,” Joel says. “He’s got a surfboard in the back of his car. I was like, ‘Really, you want to explore a story about us making dorky metal videos on our lunch hour?'”

Otsuka says the more he learned about the Pattersons, the more fascinated he became. “My driving question in making this film is why these guys do the things they do,” he says. “It’s so rare to see middle-aged men get into costume, and spend so much time and effort, that none of them really have, to create these videos.

“Kids have that,” he continues. “When we were young, we all used to do it, but then it just dies off as we grow up. But they were able to keep it. I think part of the answer was this generational story they had where their parents used creativity not as a coping mechanism, but as something for them to get through the difficulties that they had in their life.”

Although neither of the Pattersons’ parents have roots in metallurgy, the brothers are proud to call Santa Barbara Forge a family business. Dan founded it after majoring in art with a sculpture minor and falling in love with metal work. The company was supposed to keep him going while he taught at a university, but then it took off. Andy was the next to join after trying life as “an aspiring poet in the wilderness,” to use Dan’s words (“We all make mistakes,” Andy says for himself) and Dan and his wife took him in under their roof and in the shop. Joel joined the brothers next, and before long, each Patterson had his own specialty at the company.

“I’d be hard pressed to find guys better at what they do than these two,” says Joel, who has traded his coffee cup for a neon green thermos.

“I love coming in every day and being able to see them,” Dan says. “And we joke around, we laugh, we share ideas, and then we go and work.”

“I’ve always seen the music component as a way to exercise a friendship muscle outside of the day-to-day work,” Andy says. “And it’s a way we connect that’s not work exactly.”

The Pattersons’ family ties are what impressed Otsuka most when making All Things Metal. “They’re constantly supporting each other, with work, art, and family,” he says. “In some of the archival videos, there’s just big circles of Pattersons playing a bunch of instruments together. It’s not just these three brothers, it’s the whole extended family that does have this unique relationship with each other.

“I’ve never come across people like that,” he says. “I’ve lived in Japan, London, and the U.S., and that kind of genuine intertwined-ness — just being part of each other’s life — was just so rare to me.”

Otsuka also hopes All Things Metal inspires viewers to get back in touch with a creative muse they might have lost when they were younger. “I think the way that they’ve dealt with their Tourette’s and their struggles individually, through their creative outlet, can apply to anyone really,” he says. “It’s never too late to just make art for art’s sake.”

So are the Pattersons ready for the world to discover their home-movie music videos, thanks to All Things Metal? “Honestly, I don’t care,” Joel says. “We never did this for that.”

“Making music was purely for the creative exercise, and for the joy of it,” Dan says.

“I just want to keep doing what we’re doing,” Andy says.
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All Things Metal credits:

Director: Motoki Otsuka
Producer: Lucy Sexton
Executive Producers: Jenna Kelly, Beth Aala, Dee Snider, Karen Jorgensen, Justin Lacob, Bryn Mooser, Jason Fine, Gus Wenner, Alexandra Dale
Production Company: KScope Films, Optimist