MURDERDOLL (Freaks_unleashed) все записи автора
After touring the world alongside Slipknot's Joey Jordison for nearly two years as the frontman for The Murderdolls, Wednesday 13 wasn't ready to pack up his guitar and mic just because Joey was returning to Slipknot. Not wanting to sit around waiting for a Murderdolls reunion, Wednesday 13 recorded his first solo album, Transylvania 90210: Songs Of Death, Dying And The Dead.
Chalk full of big rock riffs, the album is a throwback to '80s bands like Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P., but modern enough to be played alongside the likes of Rob Zombie and AFI. When music is dominated by "tough guy" hardcore or whiny emo, Wednesday 13's Transylvania 90210 is a breath of fresh air.
Wednesday 13 HQ to fill us in on his solo debut, his time in The Murderdolls and why he's about as goth as he is country.
Q: Did you always know that you would return to being a solo artist after The Murderdolls went on hiatus?
Wednesday: When The Murderdolls started it was a really cool thing, especially for me because I had never done anything on that scale before. Even for our drummer and bass player it was their first really big band. Even though it was labeled as a side-project, we never called it that and we just busted our ass and toured a long time. We always knew that it would eventually come to an end when Joey returned to Slipknot. So at the end of 2003, we had one more European tour run at the end of spring and during that time I just started writing songs about everything and anything. Basically, by the time Murderdolls had finished touring, here I was with 50-60 songs that I had written over the last six months and I was saying, “Well what do I do with all of this stuff?” After a lot of talk about doing another Murderdolls record that never happened, I put together my first ever solo tour and I had such a great reaction. The kids were very supportive of me and it wasn’t just because of the Murderdolls, they had discovered my other band the Frankenstein Drag Queens and from them we just developed this little cult following. So I thought to myself, “I really want to put out another record and I’ve got enough material for 5 or 6 records.” So we started shaving all the songs down that I liked and didn’t like, went into the studio in June and here we are with the record coming out.
Q: Was there ever talk of going on - like Brides Of Destruction - and continuing on the Murderdolls without Joey?
Wednesday: No, because everybody knew what the answer to that would be. You mentioned Brides Of Destruction and as a fan, when I heard that I was like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” I don’t want people to do the same thing with The Murderdolls, because that was a band made up of those guys and even though we could have gone on with another guitar player, it just wouldn’t have been the same. I just wanted to do my own thing after The Murderdolls. The Murderdolls were so spread out all across the US that we couldn’t just say, “Let’s go rehearse.” For us we had like four days to rehearse because everyone had to book flights, so we just never got as tight as most bands should be. We basically had to be a band as we were on tour and work out our quirks. It wasn’t like a band that had spent two years slugging away playing clubs and trying to get a record deal, we basically had like a few days to rehearse then we were on tour. I just wanted to do my own thing and work with some guys locally, where I could just call them up and say, “Let’s get together and rehearse.” This has worked out so much easier, we’ve gotten so much tighter and we’re just having a lot of fun right now.
Q: This album definitely takes a cue from the '80s hair bands, with song titles like, ‘Look What The Bats Dragged In’. Were you trying to take music back to the days of big rock guitars, but with a modern feel?
Wednesday: I didn’t try to do that, but that’s just the way I write. I’m a big fan of all the old bands from the ‘80s and my favorite is Alice Cooper. I have all his records and I’ve followed his whole career throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. I’m also a big fan of Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Wasp, all those shock rock bands. I was into everything; I had all the Poison records; all that stuff. I was just a big fan of all that Sunset Strip stuff and I think with this record, even though the image confuses people, I’m basically just playing what I grew up on and that’s just basically what comes out of me. People always say, ”That riff kind of reminds me of Motley Crue!” and I didn’t think about it but that’s cool. It’s good to hear that and I think it’s cool that you can bring your influences out when you don’t try, as opposed to having someone copy another band’s sound piece by piece. We do have the whole pale complexion and black lipstick so people always say, “Are you trying to be a goth band like Marilyn Manson?” No! When I think of the way we look, I think of the bands I mentioned before like Motley Crue on the Shout At The Devil tour or W.A.S.P. Nobody called it goth back then, it was just shock rock or hard rock and to me that’s what our image represents. I’m about as goth as I am country! (Laughs) What I really wanted to achieve with this record, is just for people to get the same feeling I got when I put on some of my favorite records. So far, from just about every person I talked to about this record, is that this a throwback to some of those great records, even though it does have a modern sound. That’s a cool thing and I’m hearing it constantly from everybody. It’s kind of hard for me to judge it because I’m so close to it.
Q: You mentioned W.A.S.P., were you around for the whole censorship scandal that went on with them in the ‘80s?
Wednesday: I think when that whole thing went down; I was just starting to get into music. My parents had no clue what was going on, unless it was on our local news or in our local paper because they weren’t into music. I put these pictures of Dee Snider from Twisted Sister on my wall, mixed in with pictures from Fangoria and my Dad would be like, “What the hell are you hanging on the wall?” My parents were cool and they just thought I was having fun and let me be. As far as the whole PMRC thing, I remember hearing about it but didn’t really think too much about it until afterwards. Again, if it wasn’t on the local news or in the paper then I didn’t hear about it because I was from a small town. Q: You even got a good review from Metal-Sludge.com, which is a pretty big accomplishment.
Wednesday: Yea’ the Sludge has been really cool to me, even though they did beat me up on the album artwork, but honestly, I don’t really care. I believe bad press is just as powerful as good press, so they can say it’s terrible or whatever, just as long as they’re talking to me. It’s when they stop talking to me that I’ll get worried.
Q: This album sticks out like a sore thumb in the current crop of heavy music.
Wednesday: You’re right it doesn’t fit in with what’s currently popular. I don’t know of anyone out there that is doing what we’re doing. It’s also made it really hard because the label keeps saying, “Who do you want to go out with?” and I don’t know who they want us to tour with because we’re not an emo or death metal band, so I said, “Fuck it. We’ll go out and do our own thing with some local and unsigned bands.” We’re going to make our own trail; we’re not waiting for some big tour to come along. It’s weird because when The Murderdolls’ record came out we stuck out, but now it’s even worse because the musical climate has changed. When The Murderdolls came out everything was nu-metal and now its all this emo, screamo or whatever. I don’t even know what I’m listening to anymore. I just do what I do and throw it out there. I think there are enough fans out there that will keep me going for a while, so we’ll see what happens.
Q: When The Murderdolls’ album came out, you guys were touring with Papa Roach, which is the complete opposite of what you sound like.
Wednesday: We all love those guys, but our musical styles were night and day and I think we could have used that time better to tour the US, or even Europe, on our own, even if it was to 100 kids a night. Papa Roach’s audience was wearing sandals and button-up shirts, had heard them on the radio and then they come to the show and see us and go, “What the hell is that?” That was the kind of reaction we got and I think we definitely learned from our mistakes in The Murderdolls and I’m not going to go out with anyone unless it just really makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense then I’ll go out and do it myself. This whole record was done by me. My wife is my manager and between her and I, we do everything on our own. We communicate to the merch companies, the booking agents, the label and we deal with everything hands on. A far as shows go, I’m unloading gear from the show we did last night right now. I’m still the same guy I was 10 years ago playing to 25 people in a bar and unloading my own equipment. Nothing’s changed. I’m more hands-on so that nobody is stepping in and getting their piece of the pie. I think this is way more productive than the way The Murderdolls did things with a big management team and all that crap.
Q: Gettting into the record a bit, I gotta say that ‘Buried By Christmas’ might just be my song of the year.
Wednesday: That’s great and we actually just played that live for the first time last night. I always wanted to write a Christmas song and I wanted to do it really morbid. I think I achieved that. This record is a lot of fun and I think that there are people that are going to get it and then there will be people that won’t.
Q: There are a lot of horror movie references on this record. Were you trying to incorporate your love of horror movies into the making of this record?
Wednesday: Well that’s kinda been my whole theme for just about everything that I do, I kinda base everything around movies and television. We’ve got the nod to Vincent Price and “The House by the Cemetery”, even though it wasn’t written about the movie. I’ve always just been fascinated by the whole horror imagery since I was a kid with the posters and everything. I always said that when I started a band, I wanted to make it like a horror movie with guitars, which is kinda what I’m doing now.
Q: So what are some of your favorite horror movies of all-time?
Wednesday: The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, Phantasm, Halloween, the Friday The 13th series. Man, the list just goes on and on.
Q: So what’s your take on the recent trend of horror movie re-makes like Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
Wednesday: At first I was like everybody else saying, “Fuck that. You can’t touch the original.” I was all dead-set against them re-making the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but a friend of mine told me I’d love it. I didn’t go see it in theatres, but after I did finally watch it I thought it was really fucking cool. I didn’t really care for Psycho, although I do like Vince Vaughn. Dawn Of The Dead was cool and the new Amityville looks cool. I’m really excited about the new Rob Zombie movie, The Devil’s Rejects. I thought House Of 1,000 Corpses was one of the best horror movies in a really long time.
Q: If you were to star in horror movie, how would your character die?
Wednesday: Wow, that’s a good question. Probably by some kind of power-tool like a chainsaw, skill-saw or something like that. I can’t pick one for sure, but definitely some kind of power tool. It would definitely have been a slow death.
Q: Do you have any expectations with the release of this record?
Wednesday: Well every time you put a new record out you want people to buy it, because you put all this work into it and you want people to recognize it. I don’t really have any expectations though, I just know that I put everything I have into the making of this record and I hope people enjoy it, half as much as I did making it. I just want to sell enough copies that I can make another record and know that I have fans out there that will support me and keep me going. I want this to keep going for a really long time.
wwwishnya (Freaks_unleashed) все записи автора
прошу не путать представителей различных субкультур с фриками. фрики- они вне правил, присущих каждой субкультуре. у фрика свои правила, и свой стиль, не похожий ни на чей.если чувак одет как мерилин менсон или бьорк, это не значит что он фрик, это значит что он косит под мерилина менсона и бьорк.
Vampire_freaks
Allistor_Klown (Freaks_unleashed) все записи автора
According to a posting at Kiss Kollector, Wednesday 13 (of MURDERDOLLS fame) surprised the crowd at his band's headlining set at De Lantaarn in Hellendoorn last Sunday (Nov. 13) by performing the encore while wearing a latex KISS mask. Wednesday's band — who recently opened for ALICE COOPER at a handful of West Coast dates — are touring Europe for another week. Commented Wednesday: "The crowd just loved it and went wild! Hey it's a KISS nation after all... We all grew up with the hottest band and needless to say we just love them. Each night before we hit the stage you will hear KISS music out of our dressing room and during the drives on the tour bus... yep... we are watching a lot of KISS videos." [END]
