The combination of horror and heavy metal has always been a perfect mix, both are the darker types in their respective field and always on the more extreme side. While the likes of Alice Cooper and Kiss paved the way for theatrical horror rock, Wednesday 13 stepped it up a few notches and took the horror aspects of rock to a new level. His work on the now legendary Murderdolls is still fun to listen to but his solo career is also undisputed. We had a chat ahead of the upcoming tour to Australia in April to talk about his latest album “Monsters Of The Universe”, touring and of course, horror films!
Andrew: You had the new album come out last year, have you been doing a lot of touring at all the last few months?
Wednesday 13: The new record – well if you want to still call it new, it’s a year old this month actually, it came out January 14th or 15th last year – and we started our U.S. tour and then we did 3 overseas tours, UK, Europe and so basically toured the last 6 and a half months of last year, scattered through out the year and we’re about to get started up again. Leaving 3 weeks for a UK tour, then Australia and then we have the U.S. after that so busy, busy, busy!
Andrew: Yeah and it’s nice to see you coming back to Australia, it’s been a while since the last time we saw you over here.
Wednesday 13: Yeah it was around Halloween 2013.
Andrew: Yeah that’s right. How were those shows for you?
Wednesday 13: Amazing as always! We love Australia and when we announced this tour, unfortunately we are only doing 3 shows and the poor people in Adelaide and Perth were pissed and calling me names on facebook and twitter going, ‘You son of a bitch, why aren’t you playing…’ and I was like, ‘Look, I just want to tell you, I would love to spend a month in Australia and play every place possible but this is what was offered to us’. So I’m not going to turn down a chance to go to Australia because honestly, it’s probably my favorite place to tour.
Andrew: Cool well you obviously enjoy your time down here and hopefully you get to have some good shows. What are the kinds of things we can expect on this particular tour this time around?
Wednesday 13: I think the shows always reflect the record every time and the last time we were there, we were touring on our “Dixie Dead” album with the look of the band and the setlist and everything. We just kinda catered for that record and this album for this tour has definitely taken a turn. So it’s definitely got a darker edge to it, it’s different but I like to keep it changed up all the time. I think my fans have come to know that I don’t do the same thing every record and every tour but it’s enough that it’s not so different that you’re alienating – ‘Well it’s not the same band!’ – I try and keep it interesting so yeah, it’s a totally different show than last time.
Andrew: OK cool, well that’s good to hear as obviously there are some songs that fans need to hear. I guess picking out a setlist is probably quite difficult at this stage of your career now.
Wednesday 13: It fucking sucks making a setlist! It’s the worst because it’s exactly as you said but I try to put myself in the audience as a fan when I make a setlist but I also try to keep it where I am too is what I want to deliver as Wednesday 13 as of this time. So it’s hard to pick certain songs after shows but then again after having so many records and releases, it’s impossible to play everything so there’s always going to be somebody mad that I didn’t play this song or this song. But over the years with this lineup and stuff, we have a pretty good catalogue of songs we know so we can kinda whip stuff in and out here and there for people that want to hear it. We’re not a request band by any means but yeah it does get difficult. This new tour we’ll be playing a lot of stuff off the new album but we definitely won’t be leaving off the classics or what will become the classics. The good ol’ classics like “Fuck You” and “I Love To Say Fuck”.
Andrew: [laughs] Well which album is it do you think the fans respond to the most out of all the albums that you have done?
Wednesday 13: The first one, “Transylvania”, that’s always going to be the one because it had “Bad Things” and “I Walk With A Zombie” and there’s a lot of cool songs on it. I still love it to this day and playing it live, they just go over great. But it’s weird, I really can’t say…it’s just over time, it’s weird. Like when I put out the “Fang Bang” record, the second one and Myspace was kind of the biggest thing on the internet and you could read comments and stuff and I remember a lot of hatred for that record because it was so different from “Transylvania”. But a couple of years after that, people praised it as being that they liked it better. ‘I didn’t like it at first but now I really like it’. And then with the “Skeletons” record, it was so different from “Fang Bang”, that people criticized that one and so I just kinda realized that people didn’t really know what I was going to do. From my first album to my second album and the third, ‘Well is he going to stay the same, is he going to do this?’ And I’ve change it up every time and I think people have gotten to know that now because “Monsters Of The Universe” is my 6th album now and it’s different than all of them. So I think it just depends on who’s there so that people have a favorite record, usually it’s the first one but also people mention “Skeletons” as their favorite record. Like ‘I hated it at first or I loved it at first’ so you just never know and we have so many records out and have quite a list of stuff to choose from which they have a list that they love. 10 records they love and 10 records they hate and I don’t have 10 records so I guess I’m doing alright.
Andrew: Well speaking of “The Monsters Of The Universe” album, how has that been going so far? Are the crowds loving this one or are they having the same kind of reception as you mentioned before?
Wednesday 13: The reaction for this record has been great! It’s a heavy record, for me it’s heavy and live it just comes off like a fucking freight train in a fun way. We play a lot of stuff off the new record and it really translates well live and I think if you don’t know the album well yet, you’ll still move your head to it because it’s just a force. The reaction has been great, that record really inspired us as a band because we were so happy with how it turned out. This is what we did on this one, the next one is going to be even better so we’re excited to get back into the studio this summer and start working on the follow up to that.
Andrew: OK cool! Well one of the interesting things about “Monsters Of The Universe” is that it’s a bit of a concept album, taking a lot of your interests in horror movies and that kind of stuff. Where did the idea to do a concept album come from?
Wednesday 13: Accident, it really was! I sort of pieced it together, when I first started writing for the record I had no thoughts of doing a concept record or making anything in a theme or anything. But during the writing of that, I really started getting into a lot of conspiracy theories and starting to read a lot of things online and watched a lot of movies and documentaries and did a lot of research and just reading a lot of things I had never heard about that were just interesting, crazy stories I had never heard about. Not necessarily that I believed in everything I read, they were just crazy stories and I found them as interesting as any movie or horror movie I could write about as they were just some strange shit. So I started writing a lot about some of the things I had been reading about and putting them into the songs and then I went, ‘Man I could really make a story out of this’. So I did, I sort of made a story but that’s not really the point of that record, other than the liner notes in that record and there’s a story you gotta read that explains it all but you don’t have to know the story to like the record. It’s basically about the human race, basically a man who found out everything he knew was a lie that was taught in school, the whole government collapses and then an alien invasion happens and a plague breaks out and everyone dies happily ever after. It’s not a happy story so it’s an end of the world, sci-fi, horrific monster tale.
Andrew: Yeah well obviously you have a keen interest in that kind of stuff like horror movies. Do you have a particular favorite film or horror related movie or TV show?
Wednesday 13: My favorite horror movie of all time is Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s always my favorite, it’s in my heart.
Andrew: Oh OK, I’m more of a fan of the zombie stuff, especially ones like Night Of The Living Dead and Dawn Of The Dead. I love the references to those in some of your earlier work as well like Dawn Of The Dead.
Wednesday 13: Oh yeah man I’m just a huge horror movie fan altogether. It’s funny as zombies seem to be like Star Wars, it’s everywhere now like The Walking Dead. I was obsessed with zombies when I was 15 so a lot of my older songs are from that. Zombies are still awesome, I’m just like, eh, I can’t turn the TV on without seeing a fucking zombie movie or video game or something.
Andrew: [laughs] Do you ever watch the Walking Dead series at all?
Wednesday 13: Yeah I do, I’m a fan! I’ve watched every season of it, it’s a very interesting story, it’s pretty cool. I’ve definitely followed it since it’s been on the air and looking forward to seeing the new season when it kicks back up I think a week and a half from now.
Andrew: Yeah looking forward to that! I actually got into that show through the comic book series which I think is a little better than the TV show. Are you aware of the book at all?
Wednesday 13: Yeah my guitarist Roman (Surman) knows a lot about that, he’s the comic book guy in the band so he’s explained to me every thing of the book, from the comics and everything and to the show and this and that. So yeah I’ve heard quite a bit about it but never actually read it myself.
Andrew: OK cool it’s a very interesting concept anyway. But it’s great to see you guys coming back to Australia in April, we are looking forward to it. Thanks for the chat today, it’s been an absolute pleasure and we will see you in April!
Wednesday 13: Awesome man, see you soon!
WEDNESDAY 13 AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2016:
Thursday April 14 – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday April 15 – The Brightside, Brisbane
Saturday April 16 – The Factory Theatre, Sydney
Tickets and tour details can be found at Destroy All Lines.
