Howdytoons, The Toronto Band With 1.5 Billion YouTube Streams, Releases Ferocious New Single “Smilodon” And Debut Album, Megafauna Metal
Howdytoons – the Toronto-based band behind the most-streamed dinosaur music on the planet, with over 1.5 billion YouTube streams and more than 50 million Spotify plays to their name – today release “Smilodon,” the lead single from their debut full-length album ‘Megafauna Metal,’ out now. Written by Mike Whitla and his son Jake, the track is a prowling, snarling portrait of the prehistoric sabre-toothed predator – delivered with the kind of riffing intensity that has earned Howdytoons a place on Spotify’s editorial Hard Rock playlist and the respect of some of the biggest names in metal.
“Smilodon” arrives as the culmination of a creative evolution that began with a one-man recording project and has grown into something far larger. “My eyes are burning bright / I’m the prowler in the night / Listen and you’ll hear my song / Sabertooth tiger, is the Smilodon,” the track opens – before the song builds through a chase sequence of escalating ferocity, each verse tightening the coil until the kill is complete. It is a master class in narrative heavy metal, and a showcase for Jake Whitla’s emergence as a formidable songwriting force in his own right.
“Smilodon is Jake’s fantastic contribution to this album,” says Mike. “He’s a jazz prodigy now turning his talents to metal – and he relishes this chance to live out his boyhood dream of making rockin’ dinosaur music with his dad.”
Megafauna Metal is the first full-length album from the Prehistorica series, the Howdytoons project co-written since 2017 with guitar virtuoso James Reid. The album is a genuine all-star achievement: Marco Minnemann – the drummer of choice for Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Nuno Bettencourt – plays on every track from 2020 on, having first joined Howdytoons for the recording of “Megalodon.” Billy Sheehan, the legendary bassist from Mr. Big and David Lee Roth’s band, adds his unmistakable authority to “Mastodon.” And Rody Walker of Protest the Hero – who discovered Howdytoons while listening with his young son and reached out to collaborate – delivers a performance on “Quetzalcoatlus” that Sleeping Village Reviews describes as possessing “a certain pedigree,” noting that “the kinetic songwriting itself sucks you in.”
The album also functions as a tribute. “Mastodon” is an explicit homage to the metal band of the same name – a gesture of respect toward a group that has inspired Howdytoons deeply and that speaks to the seriousness with which this band approaches its craft. That seriousness is everywhere on ‘Megafauna Metal:’ in the scientific accuracy woven through every lyric, in the animation created in close collaboration with Kolkata-based artist Soujoy Kumar Bhowmick, and in the album’s ambition to deliver prehistoric natural history through the most electrifying vehicle available – heavy metal.
The Howdytoons story began in 2011 when Mike Whitla released Dinostory: The Ultimate Dinosaur Rock Opera, a song-cycle following Terri the Triceratops that would eventually spawn billions of streams and millions of subscribers across multiple YouTube channels. What started as a solo project has grown into a three-person songwriting ensemble – Mike Whitla, James Reid, and Jake Whitla – with a live debut planned for 2027 that will bring the full energy of these recordings to the stage for the first time. Megafauna Metal is their most powerful statement yet: proof that kids’ music and genuine metal credibility are not opposites – and that the prehistoric world has never sounded this alive.
Hi, guys! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers for those not familiar with your music?
Hi I’m Mike Whitla. Howdytoons was born from an album I made in 2011called “Dinostory – The Ultimate Dinosaur Rock Opera”. The album sold well immediately, and I thought the concept could be bigger than just the music, so I started getting the songs animated. I found our first animator on Craigslist! This is how the Howdytoons YouTube channel started. Originally I was the only writer. Although Howdytoons has made music in a lot of different styles, we’re best known for our songs in the Hard Rock and Heavy Metal genres.
I’m James (Jimmy) Reid. Mike and I began collaborating back in 2017. He wrote a song called “Velociraptor” which I sang and played lead guitar on. We agreed that we should try writing together and a concept of prehistoric animals came up. “Five Woolly Mammoths” was born. We went on to write a whole series called Prehistorica and the album Megafauna Metal is the culmination of that project to date.
I’m Jake Whitla and I’ve grown up alongside this channel and have been a background singer on it since I was a little kid. Working with my dad as a composer on this project has been something I’ve been wanting to do for most of my life. I started writing for Howdytoons back in 2021, while completing my degree in Jazz Saxophone at York University.
“Smilodon” feels like a full cinematic hunt in song form. How do you approach storytelling in a heavy metal structure?
Mike: When we’re writing about a particular prehistoric animal, we learn as much as we can about them as we write the song. We imagine what challenges they would have had in their lives.
Jake: From there, we started working on writing music that fits the character, so for Smilodon, the verse had to be jagged and aggressive to show the wild and rugged characteristic. We wanted the chorus and guitar solo to be anthemic and compact, showcasing Smilodon’s explosive power, and the years of refinement through evolution, tailoring it into a hulking killing machine.
Jimmy: I’m sure our memories will differ on this, but the idea of writing a song about a Smilodon was a concept we had for quite some time. We knew we had to write something about a saber-toothed tiger! The common misnomer—that everyone calls it a tiger when it is actually more closely related to a house cat – was the only part that originally stuck. The initial ideas were a bit too silly, but Jake and Mike took the song to the next level, making it exactly what it needed to be: ferociously rocking!
Mike: I forgot about that version, “Sabertooth Housecat”. Maybe that song could be a followup. We actually wrote 2 songs about Smilodon which never saw the light of day. But this is typical in our writing process which can take years to produce the right riffs for a song. Although Jake and I wrote this song it was cool that it was you, Jimmy, who ended up singing the lead vocal on the track.
You have over 1.5 billion YouTube streams. When did you realize this project had grown beyond a niche idea?
Mike: Ha!! I’m not sure if we are beyond a niche idea. Heavy metal about dinosaurs is a pretty specific genre. The fans that are into our niche are really committed to what we do and listen and watch our stuff a lot.
I knew pretty early on that we were on to something when our first song, “Brachiosaurus” passed one million streams on YouTube. I thought if this song was successful that others would be too. I really enjoyed writing music about dinosaurs and there really did not seem to be many good ones out there in the world, so I was satisfying a demand that was already there.
You have legends like Marco Minnemann and Billy Sheehan involved. What did they bring that elevated the album?
Mike: In our process, we usually add the drums at the end, after all of the guitars and vocals are roughed in. At that point we have some virtual drums that we have programmed. Then we bring Marco in to record the drums and that is when the track really comes to life. If the track was sounding good before the drums with Marco in the mix the energy goes through the roof.
Jimmy: Billy Sheehan delivers a bass performance on the song “Mastodon” that is nothing short of superb. His presence adds a dynamic range of highs and lows that provides a powerful and unexpected depth to the track. Marco Minnemann truly lives in a world of his own when it comes to independent limb coordination – sometimes it feels like he has four separate brains controlling each extremity.
Jake: These all-star musicians push us as musicians as well. As I watched Marco become the go-to drummer for these projects, the songs started to be composed with him in mind. Increasingly thorough arrangements, with asymmetrical form, for our songs have become the norm. Keeping these world class musicians in mind while we write these songs pushes us to go that extra step with the arrangement.
With a live debut planned, how do you even begin to translate something this visual and larger-than-life onto a stage?
Jake: It’s a work in progress. There will be projectors involved projecting the visuals onto a screen above us while we play the music live.
Jimmy: Like everything else, it begins with an idea and if we work at it enough, it might blossom into a full-sized live show of ‘Mammoth’ proportions.
Mike: The best thing to do is to come out to a show and see for yourself what we end up doing!