Curtis Clark is the bassist of Atlanta's heavy metal karaoke band, Metalsome. The group, whose motto is "Everyone's a rock star ... no apologies," performs behind brave-hearted karaoke enthusiasts every Monday, Friday and Saturday at the 10 High in Virginia-Highland.

Tell me about how and when Metalsome came about.

Metalsome started in 2003. A friend of the woman who used to book the club had gone to New York, and on a Monday night went through a club called Arlene's Grocery. They were doing a thing called Punk Rock Karaoke. She approached me with the idea and said, "Well, what do you think about this?" I said, "Well, I think it's cool."

We started doing it in May of 2003, on Monday nights only. I think the first night we did it, there were roughly 30 people and we had about 20-something songs. It wasn't long after that that we made contact with the people in New York, and talked to them and realized we were so much like them. It was really pretty strange. Now, every major city in the United States has a live band karaoke thing going.

How did you start in music in general?

You start like everybody else starts. It's a hobby, and it's a passion. It's just a bad habit that you don't fall out of. I had a friend who in '76 got his first guitar, and I started playing it because he didn't play it. I sort of inherited it. Playing music is something that for some bizarre reason I've never quit doing. I'm into my forties now and still making a living, playing bass guitar. You see KISS and it inspires you. That's what happened to me, and most of the guys in my band are the same way.

How are they songs picked?

When we first started doing it, we just said, "What songs do you know?" It was such a novelty that we didn't expect it would last such a long time. As time has gone on, six years of two or three nights a week playing — plus traveling gigs — you start to kind of hone in on the types of songs that are going to work better for the crowds that we play to.

We look for songs that are sing along choruses. You try to find songs that a lot of people have a general love for. A lot of Led Zeppelin songs don't work very good because they're not sing-a-long-y. They don't have the big chorus that Motley Crew songs might have, or Guns 'N' Roses. We do a few Zep' songs, but for the most part, you look for that song that's going to get that reaction out of people. There are certain songs we've stayed away from. There are just a few really dumb songs that we refuse to play, even though they would probably get a great crowd reaction. Like that song by Rage Against the Machine, you know, that, "Fuck you, I won't do what you told me" — we just don't want to see a bunch of idiot dudes jumping up and down and stuff. We try to play more to girls than guys anyway.

Describe a typical night.

The nights generally start pretty, I wouldn't say they start out mellow, but they don't start where they end. The band drinks. The crowd drinks. And it all gets pretty bizarre and loud and crazy and stupid by the end of the whole thing. It doesn't break down totally. We can still play till the end of the night. But sometimes, that much alcohol with that many people in that small a room, it's intense. It's like a band set up in your living room just gone completely out of control.

Mondays are generally our most chilled out night. They were the nights that started it. When we opened up Fridays and Saturdays, it took a lot of the crowd away from Mondays. On Mondays, in the first few years, they were sold out every single night. We'd have, like, 300 people and a line of people out front. People are real mellow now, and you get a lot of industry types on Monday, which is really cool.

The night I was there, you got really mad and stopped the song because the singer kept saying "fuck" when it wasn't in the song.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. That guy had actually started with our sign-up girl, Jessica — being really pissy with her and being rude to her. Not a gentleman at all. I generally don't get involved in it, because a guy getting involved in it tends to escalate things fast. This guy just wasn't taking no for an answer, and we're like, "Dude." She was about to have security deal with it. I'm trying to get the band to start the song so I don't have to listen to him talk anymore.

There are those people that want that spotlight so bad that they go the cheap way around it, and that guy was already tweaking me out when he got on stage. I forget what song it was, I think it was Van Halen, or Journey, and he started off with "fucking, fuck." I said, "It doesn't have to have the word 'fuck' in it to make it cool. It's cooler than all of us. And he called me a douchebag and walked off the stage.

If your up there singing "Don't stop motherfucking believing" that ain't how that song goes. We don't need to go there.

In a way, we try to train our audience, because they're the ones that are really shaping the event. We've stopped shows over guys grabbing girls asses before. If that girl looks completely uncomfortable, we send security after that guy. If security goes up and asks "are you cool with this guy", and she says "no," that's it, game over. It's our goal and our intention to make Metalsome a cool event that people feel comfortable at. They know that we're going to protect them if shit gets out of line.

What's your best Metalsome memory?

We have had two marriage proposals on stage. Both of them accepted. That people would choose our stage, our event to do that was like, it's kind of beyond me a little bit.

We've had some rockstars on stage with us, and that's always really cool. This year we've had the All American Rejects and Incubus.

It's one of those events that, unless you participate in it in some way, I don't think people get it. They here the word "karaoke" and they think one thing. But when they come and see it and are a part of it, it's different. It's a lot deeper than just people singing rock and roll songs badly, or however. It's a community thing. Metalsome has become a small community within the big community of Atlanta, and I think that's one of the reasons it's lasted as long as it has. Its one of the reasons why we get the amount of people that come back. That's what I'm the most proud of, as far as Metalsome goes. We do make a lot of friends and introduce people. It's awesome.