About

My name is Jon Langberg, composer and guitarist for ‘The Heavy Metal Orchestra’. Spoiler alert: there is no orchestra behind this production; hate to break it to you, but in normal orchestral performances, beams of light don’t shoot out of the conductor’s eyes inexplicably… It’s just me, my guitar, Logic Pro, and thousands of individually entered midi notes.

HMO (not to be confused with the type of insurance plan I carry) started as a joke when I was in high school; the thought of a head-banging orchestra was funny to me, so I wrote and produced a heavy metal song using only orchestral instruments. A few years later, I decided this half-baked head-banger needed a music video. My wife didn’t like the idea of spending $40,000 to hire an orchestra, so I sifted through hours of orchestral performances on YouTube and used clips that synced up with my song rhythmically. I uploaded the video and saw it was gaining traction a couple years later, so I decided to repurpose a few other songs I wrote in high school and put out a 4-song EP (2016).

HMO continued to get requests to add guitar, so, with my trusty homemade axe, I laid down some accompanying guitar parts to the original songs, remixed the crap out of it, and re-released the album under the name ‘Conductive Metal’ (2019), adding a few new songs as well. I spent a little more time on the new videos this time around, more carefully syncing the footage with my music and sprinkling in some shots of me on the drum kit to further add to the orchestral illusion.

The support and positive feedback I’ve received over the years has kept me going thus far… So stay connected for more stuff in the future! If you want to get in touch, shoot me an email: heavymetalorchestra@gmail.com