Wednesday 13 talks about coming back to see us later in the year and his latest release , plus we get to talk Murderdolls, e-bay and horror movies…
Mark: Hi, Wednesday, how are you? Thanks for speaking to us today.
Wednesday: Hey whatsup Mark, how are you? This is my last interview today and they’re all blending into one so we gotta try something!
Mark: I’ll try my hardest to get some different answers out of you then. The new album, “Dixie Dead” sounds fantastic, and it’s come around quickly after the “Spook and Destroy” EP, how do you manage to keep up the pace and the quality of what you are putting out?
Wednesday: To be truthful I don’t know how, this is my job and it keeps me busy, I don’t have a label, so I have no pressures in that regard, but I keep busy and I enjoy it. The EP was out of the blue, we took a couple of days off the tour and we did that, I knew I was going to be putting out the record later, and record that in the summer but again I don’t ever try to record an album just for the sake of putting it out, so I’m always happy with what I release.
Wednesday: Yeah, I can write anywhere, I don’t constantly do that though. The difference that I’ve noticed lately is that we are a little more inspired. But, after doing the last record (Calling All Corpses) I noticed I was so burnt out after doing the record, by the time I’ve done, I just stop. But then I get inspired again and I already have three or four ideas for what will be on the next Wednesday 13 album. My song writing the way it comes about is every year I have a formula where I move around to get outside of my comfort zone: last time I was in North Carolina this time I was in California so I move around a lot. But I have managed to write wherever I go.
Mark: The opening track, “Bloodsucker” is fantastic, and the album itself seems to be heavier than previous releases, is that just the way it came out, or was it intentional?
Wednesday: I think it was intentional, and it did become that way, and I do compare it to my first album. When I did that record, it was heavier record, I down-tuned like I did with Murderdolls and all of my previous projects. But before that on ‘Calling All Corpses’, my first record back after Murderdolls, I really decided to do something different, then I guess I went back to my roots.
Mark: The new album is subtitled “Hell Has Come Home”, can you tell us a bit about the concept behind it?
Wednesday: It’s the old horror movie concept. We wanted to make the art work on the record like an old horror movie, and we were inspired by films like “The Dawn of the Dead” and the headline at the top of the movie poster, “When there’s no Room in Hell the dead will walk the Earth”. Also we could bring in things like movie trailers and stuff, it’s kinda cool.
Mark: I love the concept. What’s the initial feedback been like to the album, so far?
Wednesday: It’s been surprisingly good, I’m really close to all that as I handle all my own stuff. I don’t play arenas or anything like that and I’ve never been that far removed from my fans. I think that’s why this record came out the way it did, I hear the fans, the way they talk at the end of the show, and they said they wanted to hear a heavier record, and that’s just the way it went.
Mark: It’s certainly one of my favourites so far, and I’ve only had chance to listen to it a few times.
Wednesday 13: Why thank you.
Mark: You seem to have a great sense of humour, how important is that to offset the horror themes, with humour and what percentage of cheese is acceptable!?
Wednesday: For me, I’ve definitely walked the fine line between dumb and dumber, for years!! The humour has to be there for me. The side I represent of horror films, was never really that dead serious horror side, I have had that side in certain songs, but overall the concept of Wednesday 13, was of fun and sense of humour. I like to think of myself as like Beetlejuice, he was funny, but at the same time kind of scary, you don’t push his buttons too much, or he’s going to creep me, but, he’s funny, and that’s what The Munsters and The Addams Family was too, it balanced on that weirdness. So, that’s where it all really comes from. It’s super important to me, I don’t think there’s anything worse than seeing, a bunch of grown men, and I am 36, and most of the band are of the same age, being on stage and taking yourself that seriously, and singing songs about Rambo and being so dead serious: you’d be like the biggest fool on earth!! You have to go with it, and this is as goofy as it gets! I have never taken myself so seriously, and I’ve been able to laugh at myself, I think that’s what separates me from other artists and certainly from the pack. I stand on my own.
Mark: Yeah, it’s like the fun of eighties rock with the horror theme, for me, it’s about not being too serious, it’s about going out and losing yourself for that concert, and enjoying it.
Wednesday: Yeah, and I think that’s what I provide for people, or try to, and yeah, it’s fun for me to be an idiot, there’s nothing more fun than to walk out on stage and have a plastic gun and sing a song about Rambo!! And I do that every night, I get to laugh at myself – I can play that song and it’s never boring!
Mark: You have a couple of tours coming up; you’re back in the States for a while and then over to the UK, is there any chance we’ll see you in Australia this year?
Wednesday: Yeah, absolutely, we’re just working out the schedule right now. We do the US and the UK, and that takes us up to the middle of March. Right now we are working on putting together a cool summer tour, and hopefully it will turn in to a world tour, so we can take it outside of the US. That’ll include Australia, Europe, and if we do come, we’ll try and include Adelaide and Perth, and New Zealand, if that works out as well. Australia has been a place that is overly welcoming over the years. I did my first full tour in 2010, and I came there and did three dates, and I had been there five years before that, and the crowd was bigger than it was five years before that on a major label. So, I saw there was a crowd going for it. We did Soundwave twice, once with Murderdolls and once on my own, and doing two solo tours there all within a three year period, I’ve seen the audience grow, and I hope with the new record coming out, it will take the audience there to the next level. The entertainment World has finally caught up with what I’m doing, on television, its zombies in The Walking Dead, and I’ve been singing about that shit since I was fifteen years old!! It’s like, finally, I like this guy, he sings about zombies!!
Mark: I think culture is finally catching up with you!! A question I must ask, are there any future plans with the Murderdolls?
Wednesday: No future plans, that pretty much ended in 2011, we did the last show at The Roxy, in Hollywood. Joey went off to do his stuff, and he knew I wanted to do Wednesday stuff, and honestly, that’s where it ended and that’s where it stopped. That leads me to believe, it’s on the back burner, way in the very back, and in answer to your question, no, there’s nothing going on!
Mark: I actually loved your album, “Gunfire 76” you did with Todd Youth in 2009.
Wednesday: Thanks, yeah, that was a cool, fun, record, not many people heard that or knew about it, so thank you! That’s cool to hear!
Mark: I have a copy! I suppose there are no plans for revisiting that at any point?
Wednesday: Yeah, that was something that I had a lot of fun doing, and I am always writing, and I write stuff and think that could be a Gunfire song! So, I definitely have a batch of songs like that, so I don’t know if it’ll be a touring thing, as much as a recording project. But, I don’t have any immediate plans to work on that, but I can definitely see another “Gunfire” record coming out down the road sometime.
Mark: if you could have been a fly on the wall for the recording of any album, or piece of music, in rock, what would it have been and why?
Wednesday: I don’t know. My favourite artist of all time is Alice Cooper, and the original Alice Cooper band. So, maybe sitting in on one of their sessions in the Billion Dollar Babies era, just loaded with money and throwing it back at that record. They had Marc Bolan step in and people like that, to be a fly on the wall then, when people lived at the height of rock and roll excess. I’m a big Cooper fan, and I’ve read his books, I’m a big fan of the seventies, and my favourite music does come from that era.
Mark: I knew one day I would find somebody who would actually say that album!! I think that would be the one for me as well, it would’ve been crazy! Now, if you could have been behind the camera for the filming of a horror movie, what would that have been for you?
Wednesday: Probably the original “Trick or Treat” that’s my favourite movie, I’ve sang about it in many songs, and for some reason it connected with me personally. I’m from the stix, from the south, and it just scared me as a kid, and it was related to the same time, I’m in my thirties now and I’m still looking at the posters on my wall, so to be behind the camera for that would be pretty cool.
Mark: It’s a great film, with a great soundtrack as well. What is the meaning of life?
Wednesday: For me, it’s to live life to the fullest. I don’t live by a book, I’m not a religious person at all, I feel like when I’m dead and gone, music’s left and statues and structures are left behind. So, for me the meaning of life is, live life to the fullest and leave a dent behind so that people knew you were there. I’m compiling a giant pile of music, so people will listen to it a hundred years from now.
Mark: You have a fantastic catalogue behind you already. I was just checking out your web site, and I noticed you have some pretty cool stuff on e bay at the minute, but unlike a lot of bands that will put up little bits and pieces, it seems to be unique stuff that you are selling.
Wednesday: Yeah, I clean out my closet between every tour! I don’t have like a giant house or garage for storing things in or a big museum of stuff. I am constantly moving, so I have big piles of stuff, there are props that don’t mean a lot to me and I can’t store anywhere, so, I can give them to my fans and offer them a chance to bid on it. To some kids this is the holy grail of collectibles. If Gene Simmons had auctioned off his demon boots, and someone could’ve bought them back in the day, they would’ve walked around in them every day. If I’d have been a rich guy back then and he sold them I would’ve bought them. It’s a way to give back to the fans, but not everyone can participate, and get rid of stuff. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t have been able to move and travel and do the things I do.
Mark: It’s a great idea to give the fans the chance to own a piece of you, not many musicians do that.
Wednesday: I’m fortunate that I have fans who want to buy it! The amount of money they spend on these things, I’m shocked sometimes!!
Mark: One day you’ll look out from the stage and fans will be wearing your old stage clothes!!
Wednesday: I’ve already seen that!
Mark: A couple of quick questions, we’ve been asked to ask. What’s the coolest present a fan’s ever given you?
Wednesday: I don’t know, I get so many cool things, like shirts, and I don’t know I really can’t pick anything out. I have had a doll that somebody made of me, which was really cool, action figures and things like that, knives with a 13 in it. I get so many cool things all of the time, people bring me custom Jack Daniel bottles they’ve painted on.
Mark: If you heard strange noises in the middle of the night, would you go down in to the cellar!?
Wednesday: I live in the cellar!
Mark: That’s great answer. Are there any horror movie clichés that you think have been overdone?
Wednesday: Yeah, but anything worth doing is worth over doing! The alien going from body to body, in Jason Goes to Hell and Night of the Creeps, and movies like that were overdone in the eighties. I’m just looking for someone to do something original and cool, to shock me like Leatherface did in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, back in the day!
Mark: Well, thanks, Wednesday, much appreciated, take care.
