Wednesday 13 has been creating rock music to annoy parents the world over since 1996.  Having fronted Frankenstein Drag Queens and Murderdolls he is making a pretty good go of things as a solo artist.  He is now back in the UK to support his latest offering Skeletons, and I was lucky enough to catch up with him in Wolverhampton before the first night of the tour. 

Wednesday 13

So you are just starting off your UK tour, in support of Skeletons.  If we start with the album, how do you think it differs from your previous two? 

Wednesday 13:  I think it’s totally different.  I always try to do something a little different every time.  Sometimes it kinda happens on it’s own, it’s not like a completely thought out process.  But this record in particular it really kind of created it’s own atmosphere and vibe for the whole thing because, for a large part of the last couple of years I’ve been on tour constantly and with touring comes everything you can imagine, every rock n roll cliché, you’re offered everything, you can do whatever you want.  This is the kind of job where you’re expected to be an alcoholic or a drug addict and so I definitely indulged in the drinking part.  And so last year, especially when I started writing this record, I was drinking every single day, I mean just constantly, and when I started demoing the songs for this record I would start drinking and I’d go in my little home studio that I have and I’d record and I’d be so plastered by the time I was done I wouldn’t even know what I recorded.  So I’d get up the next day and I’d listen to what I’d recorded and it was really cool because that’s what this record was.  I was almost kind of writing out of body in a sense because I was completing all the lyrics and everything and I was singing about different things and it was really, it became kind of eerie after a while because I was like ‘I don’t remember writing any of this’.  It was almost kind of I was just zoning out and most of this record was completed in that way and I was really kind of depressed a lot last year and it definitely kind of shows on this record.  Not that this is a sappy record and I’m this woe is me kind of thing but there are definitely a couple of songs that reflect that and that’s something I really haven’t done in the past, I’ve never really let anyone see up my sleeve and see my tricks and this is a record where I am kind of exposing myself a little bit.   My other records have always been just kind of fun horror movie oriented and this has got that vibe into it as well but it’s a little more personal horror movie kind of thing. 

‘Skeletons’ and ‘My Demise’ certainly are that bit slower, almost more like Transylvania. 

W13:  Yeah, and the reason those songs are together on the record is I wanted the record to kind of start off just heavy and then all of a sudden go to that dark corner, and then it kind of climbs out.  I like to make the record like a rollercoaster sort of thing, but yeah those are the two songs in particular that kind of more or less are the personal type of songs. 

Do you think it’s something you will look into more for future releases?

 W13:  I don’t know, I mean it’s got to a point where, I don’t want to be the kind of artist where I get painted into a corner where ‘that’s the horror rock guy and all he can do is sing about zombies and Night Of The Living Dead’.  That’s fun and that’s what I’m known for and I don’t want to stray away from that and it’s not that I’m not happy with that.  But I think that there’s other things that I can do, like with this record I think I took on a different way to do it, where I was talking about my own personal horror and my own things so I definitely took it a different way as opposed to me singing about horror movies this time I kind of sing about my own.  It was kind of cool because it was almost like therapy for me to write this stuff and listen to it.  And every night I play these songs live now, which I didn’t know how it was going to be, we just started playing the new songs this past week in America.  So now I’m singing these songs live and I’m thinking about all this shit, something I’ve never done before you know, normally I’m singing and thinking about a movie or something that I watched but it’s cool and it’s different and I think it shows that there is more than just one side to what I do.

 Do you think that you’ve taken on different inspirations and influences more in your music this time? 

W13:  Yeah, the thing is you know, and I don’t expect people to know, but it’s like when you’re an image based band, which is what I’ve always done and been a part of, they just automatically assume, you know I get the goth tag, which I don’t, it’s got elements of it.  I’m the kind of guy, I grew up on Motley Crue and Alice Cooper and Twisted Sister, like shock rock bands.  A lot of people don’t really know what exactly what I listen to, like I’m super excited that Willie Nelson is here. 

I was going to ask about that because you’ve got a country project (Bourbon Crow) as well. 

W13:  Yeah, I’m a huge old outlaw country fan and when I found out he was playing I’m like ‘Oh God, we’ve got to have time to go see at least one song or something’.  But I listen to that, I’m a fan of like, I’m not really into a lot of the newer bands, I know their names and certain things, but I was always a fan of like early Metallica and Pantera and White Zombie and bands like that that kind of had the real heavy riff stuff and I think that kind of shows a lot on some of the new songs as well.  So a lot of people don’t really know a lot of what my influences are, but it’s really all over the place.  I listen to a lot of old school glam rock like T-Rex and Sweet and we went to a bar last night down the street here, and I was just bored and I went in there and went to the jukebox and played nothing but like Runaways and T-Rex and Thin Lizzy and all this stuff and just created my own little thing just to get out of the bus for a little bit. 

So this is the first date in the UK?

 W13:  We did 3 warm up shows in America before we left just to test it out and test the new songs, because it is a really weird kind of rehearsal thing.  Nobody lives in the same town so when we do a tour I make a set list and I mail the guys a CD and they learn it in their own time and then we come in and we have like three days to rehearse, so we kind of get better as the tour goes on with songs.  Doing this past week in America we got to kind of work out some of the bugs which is what I wanted to do. 

So are there any songs that you can’t leave out live? 

W13:  Yeah, and that’s the thing that sucks is like now that I’ve got a new record coming out and the thing about the fans that come to the shows is that they’re just not here for Wednesday 13 as the solo stuff I’ve done over the past couple of years, they’re here for the Murderdolls and they’re here for my other band the Frankenstein Drag Queens.  So I’ve got like, you know, I started that band in 1996 so I’m looking at a 12 year history of songs that I’m trying to make myself happy with the set list but also I wanna appeal to the fans.  So this is the first set that I’ve done that really is more Wednesday 13 kinda oriented, I’m not doing as many Murderdolls songs or the Drag Queen kind of stuff but there are certain songs that I can’t leave off like ‘I Love To Say Fuck’ is on it and the Rambo song, things like that, those are just like set pleasers they have to be in there.

Last time you were here you did an intimate tour, was that almost to leave behind some stuff, because you did more of a mix of unusual stuff? 

W13:  Yeah, that was something I kind of wanted to say ‘alright well this is maybe the last time you’re gonna hear a lot of these songs for a while’ and every tour I try to whip out something that’s maybe a little different.  But you know it’s just getting more difficult to make a set list because I’m like ‘I’ve got to play some of the new stuff, I’ve got to play stuff off this record and this’ so that was probably like the last time people would have saw a lot of those older songs. 

Did the intimate tour give you what you expected from it? 

W13:  Yeah it was really cool man, because a lot of people never heard a lot of, I mean a lot of people never got to see those bands live and this is the first time they got to hear the stuff.  It was really cool and some of those songs I hadn’t played in years so it was kind of cool when I was making the set list and I was going through my itunes and I made like a playlist and I’d go ‘I haven’t played that song… I hated playing that song so we’ll leave that one off’.  That was a really cool tour and it sucked man because when I did that tour it was right after I had my car accident last year and I was so fucked up on pain pills, and all kind of other pills my doctor gave me, and I was just taking them all at the same time and that tour was really just a complete blur to me which really sucks.  So I’ve been looking forward to this tour as being sober where I can remember things.  That tour I have to ask my guy that works for me ‘what did we play here?’, ‘You remember we went upstairs?’ – No,  ‘You remember the dressing rooms were like this?’ - No.  I don’t remember, I know I did the tour because it’s marked in my passport. 

When you did that tour you had more props and a lot going on with the show is that something you are going to continue with? 

W13:  Yeah, it was something that I had to do because I couldn’t play guitar because I broke my left collarbone, so I couldn’t wear a guitar anymore, because I’ve been playing guitar on everything.  So I pretty much had to be just a frontman again which scared me to death because I’ve never, ever, I’m still not comfortable just being a frontman without a guitar, that’s like my security blanket.  And so when I was doing that tour I was like, well you know I can kind of bring these songs alive and I started bringing back the props and things like that and I kind of have some of that as well with this show.  There’s stuff I carried over from that so I feel a little bit more comfortable with it but I still really really miss my guitar, so we’ll see, I may break it back out again next tour. 

Are you fully recovered now from all of your injuries? 

W13:  Yeah, I think I’ve permanently fucked up my shoulder, I mean it’s healed a lot but I don’t know what it is going to be like if I try to actually tour for weeks and weeks with a guitar over my shoulder for an hour and 15 minutes every night.  So yeah I’ve probably fucked it up permanently and it’ll constantly be a pain in my arse or in my neck! 

We were talking about the props and everything.  How do you get through customs with an umbrella that says fuck? 

W13:  That’s the easy one.  That’s the cool thing, it’s so funny because it’s just toys you know, and like with this tour we got to have a new gun for Rambo that’s almost like a life size replica gun.  We have that, we have like severed heads and skulls, it’s a whole box of just like death props.  One of the funniest times that ever happened was a couple of years ago we came through Heathrow, and you’ll see tonight in the show on one song I have a shovel that has a decapitated head through the shovel.  That exact same head a couple of years ago, I had it hooked to another prop and we had it in this road case and it got fucked up on the belt coming through.  It got smashed and the head was hanging out of it and it looked real and it was so funny, we were going to collect our gear off the baggage claim and it came around and there was this head hanging out with blood all over it, and you should have seen the peoples’ faces, that’s always fun.

You tour over here quite a lot, do you have a big following over here relative to other places? 

W13:  Yeah you know, it’s been one of those things and that all really contributes to the fact that the Murderdolls had a lot of success in the UK as opposed to anywhere else in the world.  I mean we did really minimal touring in America, we maybe did two or three weeks total in dates in America, just really scattered stuff.  But Murderdolls, we toured a lot over here and we did Japan and Australia so we built a following up there and never really focussed on America, but I’ve been really trying to bring that back up and now it’s starting to get to a level that’s I’d say a little bit behind what it is here now, which is really good.  But the fans over here have been so dedicated and every time I come back I see a whole new group of kids which makes me feel good because I know there’s some that aren’t here anymore.  But that shows that I’m not just playing to the same people, it shows that it is growing and there are newer fans, because I remember a lot of people, I’m really good, I’m terrible with names but faces I go ‘I remember’, so every time I come back there’s a whole new group of kids that are getting into it so that makes me feel good, not just playing to the old people every time. 

In America you have self-released the album, how is that going? 

W13:  At the beginning of the year I was talking to a label and discussing putting the record out with them worldwide for four months and it just kept going to the same paperwork, ‘ok well this is a standard deal and you sign it for seven years and this and then you’ve got an 18 month option to wait until you put your next record out’ like 18 months, that sucks, you wait almost two years until your next record comes out.  I’m the kinda guy I want to put a record out every year, I’m not getting any younger so it makes me feel productive when I’m making stuff, I’m waiting two years in between records, that sucks.  I realised, well I’ve been doing this same contract stuff over and over again, so with this you know I was like I tour so much and I’m not gonna be a label’s priority, I’m not gonna be like a Velvet Revolver kind of band where I’m gonna be thousands of records in each market things like that.  I’m gonna be limited to stuff, I’m like I’m better off releasing this record myself, I’m on tour so much, I’ve got a mobile store, I can sell it at the shows.  I was like unless somebody wants to do some kind of exclusive deal that just really blew us away, we’re just gonna do it on our own and as soon as we said that the company Hot Topic in America got in touch with us and were like ‘we want to do an exclusive’.  And they’re in every mall in America, there’s 450 music stores, that’s more music stores than any chain in America, there aren’t anymore chains, all the chains are done.  I’m like well that guarantees it, I can control the price of it, we’re selling it for $7.99, which is cheap, the record stores are $18 for a record, so I can control the price, I’m not signed to a contract and I sold more records the first week on my own than I did on Roadrunner and my last label.  So that just proves right there that I can do it on my own.  I made the same amount of money that I would have made taking an advance from a label and I’m not signed to anything, I can do whatever I want this year.  The deal in Europe I did with Demolition, we licensed a deal with them, so I’m not signed to Demolition, I signed this record with Demolition, but I’m not contracted where I can’t do anything else, so I basically did licensing and partnered up with them for distribution and things because I can’t do that on my own here, it’d be impossible. 

Are you going to do a similar thing with your EP as well? 

W13:  I don’t know, the EP the whole idea, I mean we’re kinda waiting to see what the reaction’s been, like our ideas change everyday which is great because we have that freedom to do that.  But at first the EP was just going to be a tour exclusive, and we were going to have it online and that’s it, no anything, but now the response has been so good we may end up doing something like that, I don’t know.  One idea was to package it together later on with a special thing with a DVD and put all that stuff but who knows, there’s a million ideas. 

Why was it actually kept separate?

 W13:  Well I always go in and always record a batch of songs, I always record 17, 18 songs on each session of a record, and when I started listening to the record, started putting Skeletons together, there were certain songs I just didn’t think really fitted.  I did two acoustic versions, I did an acoustic version of ‘Skeletons’ and ‘My Demise’ and I didn’t wanna have ‘and the bonus tracks are the acoustic versions’ and then it gets separated from America, and I wanted to separate it and plus I didn’t get to put out a record last year and I thought well this year I’ll put out two things to kind of make up for that.  I thought it was just two separate kind of vibes on those things. 

Going back to your tour, you are doing haunted visits as well?

 W13:  Yeah, that’s something that got offered to me, it wasn’t anything I searched out it was with Demolition.  They mentioned the idea to me and I was like ‘OK’, so I’m excited, I don’t know when the first one is but I’m doing a couple on this tour so that should be interesting to see how that turns out.  I’m the biggest sceptic in the world, I’m gonna be like yeah big deal, I know something’s gonna scare the shit out of me and they’re gonna have me on video and I’m like ‘don’t put that out’. 

Is this going to be on a DVD then? 

W13:  I think they’re videoing something for it.  I don’t know exactly what, first idea they were videoing it and then they were doing like podcast videos and I don’t know. 

Have you never had anything spooky happen to you? 

W13:  Yes I have, I’ve been a sceptic about it and over the years just kind of forgotten about it and been it had to be this or this and I think a lot of it was just like dream stuff.  I heard that my house that I lived in was haunted and I had a couple of weird things but nothing like made me go ‘my house is haunted’.  I mean I moved into this house when I was 13, ironically, and my family had a yard sale and the first week we moved there we had all this stuff and we had like three or four people come by, random people, and they told my parents that they heard that our house was haunted, and I was like ‘bullshit’, I think that just got stuck in my head and I heard like a weird noise and I was like ‘urgh’.  I don’t believe. 

But you might after this? 

W13:  Maybe after this I’ll be like ‘mum, you’ve gotta get out of the house.’

 Obviously you’re horror film influenced, you’ve got tattoos of Pinhead and everything, were you into the films first or was it more the shock rock?  

W13:  As far as my tattoos and the whole imagery, as far as characters and stuff, I’ve got most of my favourite stuff, and there are certain things that are my favourites.  I’m a big fan of just TV in general man, I like comedy shows as much as I did the horror stuff.  But I always really liked the horror imagery and then I would see people like Motley Crue and Alice Cooper and they really explored that with the shock rock type kind of stuff, so I just always liked that imagery.  So when I started doing my own thing as I got older, I wanted to kind of have that image to it.  I’ve never seen what I would do as a bright, happy kind of image, even though it’s fun, I think horror movies are fun and that’s something I always try to keep telling people is that even though this record may have a couple of serious things going on it’s still, the live show is still a fun live show.   

Given that you’ve had problems with depression and drinking do you find it difficult to go on stage and be happy? 

W13:  Well, I did at first, I did several tours since then and I didn’t think it was even possible for me to go stage without having four or five strong, strong drinks.  I was nervous, I’ve always been kind of shy and I’ve always been nervous and I used to think that was something that I had to have.  I used to do it so much and then one show I tried not to do it and I thought it was the worst show I’d ever done.  And I thought ‘wow, I’m never gonna do that again’, so I had to relearn, and it was really cool because stopping doing that really made me focus back on what the whole reason I’m doing this for, and that’s to play for the fans and being on tour and putting on a good show.  That for a while became secondary to me, I was more worried about what I was going to do after the show, or if we were going to have enough booze to get us through the night, and then there’s ‘oh, we’re gonna play too, ok’.  I was more concerned about everything else other than that, so now the main focus is to put on the best show we can, and whatever happens afterwards is all afterwards.  That was one of the most important things that I got out last year and just stopping drinking. 

Have you ever upset anyone with your lyrics? 

W13:  I’m sure I have.  I hear fans all the time saying that their parents hate it, things like that.  I don’t think there’s anybody really that’s physically come up to me and said it to me.  A long time ago, in one my older bands, we used to have a song called ‘Fuck Authority’ and I had an American flag that had fuck authority written on it, and the guys in the back of the venue thought it said fuck America and there was a whole motorcycle gang that wanted to fight me and I was in a pink dress saying ‘noooo’.  That was like the most physical thing through lyrics.  It could have been horrible. 

You’re never tempted to put a dress back on and do more Frankenstein Drag Queens stuff then? 

W13:  It’s one of those things, and I get asked that a lot.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m so proud of what that band did.  But it’s kind of like, if we ever did a reunion tour, I’m just thinking like we’re in our thirties now, and I don’t know who really wants to see a guy in his thirties in a fucking dress, trying to squeeze into it, so I don’t think it’s a possibility. 

Was the box set a bit of a nail in the coffin of it? 

W13:  Yeah, that was sort of my whole plan, I had an idea at first, because I got back with the guys for a bit and we did a little bit of stuff and then I kind of realised why I was glad I got away from that in the first place.  I’ve just been really working so hard on the Wednesday 13 stuff that was always my priority.

 You did a DVD recently as well (Weirdo a Go-Go). 

W13:  We haven’t put it out over here yet, I’m still trying to figure out what we’re gonna do with that, we’ve only put it out in America.  I don’t even really know how to explain it, it’s just me with like a bunch of puppets, it’s like a demented kind of Sesame Street, with profanity.  In between some of the clips there’s a story line with the puppets and then like it goes into old horror movie clips, like we’re trying to figure out what happened to one of these characters and I’ll be like ‘hey kids, while we figure this out watch this clip from The Mole People’ and then it goes into something like that.

Sounds interesting. 

W13:  Yeah it’s bizarre.  It was totally an alcohol induced project.  But it turned out really good so alcohol didn’t exactly have all negative effects, or maybe it did, I don’t know.

Have you ever wanted to get into acting or anything? 

W13:  I guess I’m acting on this video, which I’m horrible at.  But doing videos you kind of do that anyway, so I kind of got used to it.  I think I’d be a much better director than an actor, but I used to do that at school, I took theatre classes for all the years I was in school.  I used to write stories and plays and things like that and me and my friend used to make all our own independent films and things like that, so that’s something I’ve always been interested in and I guess when I want to take a break from doing this I’ll pursue that, so hopefully one day I will do that. 

So what did you think of the new Rambo film? 

W13:  Awesome. I loved it, it was great, it was cool man.  I’ve just been a big fan, I mean I didn’t like very movie in that, this is like the fourth one.  I really liked the first one a lot because of it’s realness and the new one has got that realness vibe to it, whereas the second and third one was just kind of Hollywood, just one guy in a jungle killing everybody.  This is more realistic so it was great and the same thing with the new Rocky film that came out as well, it was as good as the first one I thought, so I loved it.

One subject we haven’t really touched on, the Murderdolls, people will always ask is anything going to happen?  Also do you find it frustrating that it was primarily old Frankenstein Drag Queen songs, or were you just grateful that it got you attention? 

W13:  There were a lot of songs from Frankenstein that ended up being Murderdolls songs.  The thing that kind of sucked was after we did the record there were so many other songs that we spoke about, Joey and I were like ‘Why did we record this? Why did we do that one and we didn’t do this’, and I didn’t think we had done my favourite songs, and so I wasn’t bummed out about it.  And the idea of us getting back together again and I don’t ever say never about it.  I have Acey (Slade) playing with me now who was in Murderdolls and before I had Eric (Griffin) our bass player was playing with us.  Everyone’s just realised that that was not a priority kind of band, and as long as Slipknot was a functioning band we would always be a side band.  It definitely broke us in where we could get our foot in the door and that’s the only reason I’m able to do what I’m doing.  I mean Joey found me out of nowhere, I was at home working at a magazine delivery job and he called me and my life changed within a matter of months and I was on tour doing what I always wanted to do.  He’s the whole reason I’m able to do what I do and if we ever get a chance to do it again I think it would be cool, I just don’t when that’s gonna be so it would be one of those ‘they got back together for this one show and then…’ so we’ll see. 

He didn’t find you through Tuff fans anonymous? 

W13:  I don’t think he even knew who Tuff was.  He actually knew a lot of the glam bands that I liked, but he didn’t know everything because I was just a big hair metal connoisseur.  The funny things is, now I know all these guys, it’s mentioned in the press so much that I’m fans of this, I’m really good friends with Stevie from Tuff now and you know he calls me all the time, I know all these bands now. 

There seems to be a big resurgence of that style of music going on now. 

W13:  Yeah, and a lot of bands have mentioned things like that and I kind of feel like I’ve maybe helped in some weird way, mentioning some of these bands, like Tigertailz from the UK, the singer from Tigertailz is coming to our Cardiff show.  It’s cool I’ve made a lot of friends with these guys and they’re fans of what I’m doing and they see that, that’s what I hear in a lot of my music, a lot of people don’t hear that, they don’t know those bands, there’s a lot of great music nobody ever heard because those guys weren’t huge.  As far as the musical influence, the writing style, there’s a lot of things that I got from bands people don’t even know about. 

And with that Wednesday 13 headed off to get ready to rock and  shock Wolverhampton. Sure a lot of people may not know some of the bands that have influenced the modern day god of shock but more and more people are catching on fast to what Wednesday 13 himself has to offer and, with a new album Skeletons out now via Demolition, that number is only going to increase.

Darren Brushneen