Interview with Wednesday 13 By Pallbearer

From the dark depths and ghoulish Crypts I was lucky enough to have spoken to Wednesday 13 amidst the hectic world tour he has been on since April this year…..Promoting his New Album Transylvania 90210- songs of death , dying and the dead.
Having toured Australia doing big day out concerts this time he is going to shock and rock the hell out of us with his latest offerings of Death and the Macabre…In the 6 ft Down under Tour…where he promises to leave no one disappointed.
Enjoy ghouls as the king of Horror-Fi shares secrets of horror, mayhem, and GI Joe dolls with the Australian Public.

W13: Hey, it's Wednesday

PALL: How ya doing?
W13: I'm good, how are you?

PALL: I'm excellent. My name's Matt, but some people call me Pallbearer. I'm from the Gothoholics Community in Australia .
W13: Cool man.

PALL: Well, this is my first interview and I'm interviewing my favorite artist, so I'm freaking a little.
W13: It's all good.

PALL: I'm just going to ask you questions
W13: Ok

PALL: Ok, well a lot of these questions are from the Gothic Community:‘I Walked With A Zombie' was a huge hit here and I guess everywhere for you. The horror-fi film for that, your next clip, will it be in anyway similar?
W13: You know I wish that the label had like hundreds and thousands of dollars to just throw away where I could just keep making really cool videos like that. The next video we're doing actually we've been filming all this footage from all over the world….backstage stuff….onstage….like everything. I was actually going to like piece together a live video and sync it up to one of tracks from the record and film Australia and Japan and include that in the video when I get back and have footage from just about everywhere. You know, we're still debating on which track it's going to be….I think we may do it to the song ‘Bad Things
'
PALL: Ok, excellent
W13: You know, it's going to be a cool live video, I feel that whenever someone puts out a live video, it's just boring and stupid, but we're going to do something really cool coz we got some good ideas for it, so it's going to be fun.

PALL: Oh yeah, excellent stuff. The Six-Foot-Down-Under Tour, what are we going to expect? What kind of craziness?
W13: Everything that you can't expect!

PALL: Excellent.
W13: I've been touring for this record now since like April and we've like got a pretty cool, elaborate show down, I mean, it's nothing crazy with pyros or anything like that, but it's got a cool vibe to it ….a lot of the songs are kinda segways with movies samples and it's just got a really cool atmosphere to it and we plow through quite a few songs and I feel like we're doing a really good show. The show's almost an hour and a half long and we play a lot of stuff and it's not really that kind of show where I stop at the end of a song and say like ‘How you guys doing?' you know, it's not your average kinda show, whereas as the Murderdolls we were like a thing like that. It's definitely flows more like a movie.

PALL: Ok, well this question's not on the list: you get a lot of interviewers asking you how's Joey Jordison and stuff like that. Do you get sick of those types of questions? You know, like all about Joey?
W13: Honestly, I don't get it as much as you probably think. You know, I used to get, you know with Murderdolls, when we were first interviewed, there were a lot of Slipknot questions, which I didn't mind, you know I understand…Slipknot was a huge band and still are. You know I'll occasionally get questions of “So, what's going on with Joey…what's he like?” and things like that, but it doesn't ever annoy me. I'm ok with it. As far as Joey's concerned, I mean he basically pulled me out of this hole that I lived in (chuckles) and exposed me to the world. You know, I had a few bands here and there, but he sort of cracked the egg open to what it feels like inside and I'm forever grateful to him for doing that so when people ask about him, I don't tell them to shut the fuck up. (Chuckles)

PALL:Frankenstein Dragqueens ? I saw on the site there's a bit of a get together. Will there be a lot more of Frankenstein Dragqueens in the future?
W13: Yeah, you know, the thing I've learned over the years is that there are people who can't do multiple things and still keep things going on a good level. There are certain artists that can do different projects…I'm sure if I thought about it right now, I could name several artists that do that and have several different bands and things like that. Just think of the guy from Tool who does Perfect Circle and both bands are equally as successful and you know they maintain that sort of thing and you know, same thing with me like me branching out from Murderdolls, doing my own thing. I got a lot of fans now and I tour all over the world and you know I can tour on my own and be successful with it. Frankenstein Dragqueens was my band before everything and it really didn't get a life until after the band was already broke up, so you know there's definitely a demand for it and there are a lot of kids and people where I go that come up with Dragqueen records and all this stuff. I see the demand and luckily I worked out all my differences with these guys I had in the past and we just started talking and we got this box-set thing coming out and you know, we just started playing together again and we're just having a good time, so you know, we're going to ride it out and see what happens and hopefully do a little tour here and there and let the world actually see the band that they never got to see.

PALL: Excellent stuff.
W13: But that doesn't mean that anything is going to take me away from doing this project you know, or if Murderdolls happen to get back together from time to time really soon to do a new record. Nothing's going take away from it and I realize there's room to do…everything. I hope that wasn't too much a long answer for you.

PALL: Nah, that's cool. So, you've been down to Australia before. What do you think of Australia ? What are your impressions?
W13: Yeah, I was down there last year and you know, anytime you can leave the dead of winter and move straight to summertime (chuckles). And believe me, I'm not a big summertime fan, but it wasn't like miserable…..it was just really weird. I had never left in January and had…summertime. It was just really bazaar and it was such a cool, relaxed tour and it wasn't like you played everyday, which I would have rather played everyday and we had all these days off and meeting all these people and toured with a lot of cool bands and I made a lot of friends on that tour and you know just being there in Australia and the fans there are insane. It was such a good time. Honestly, whenever I go to Europe and different countries….Germany and Norway , you really notice just how different it is from America , but Australia , to me, was the closest thing to having the luxuries and things I'm used to in America . Which is another reason why I liked it so much….it didn't really feel like I was that far away from home. It was just a cool vibe. If I was to ever move outside of the US , that would be my number one choice.

PALL: Yeah excellent. I've noticed that the UK and down here have really embraced the whole Wednesday 13 thing. It really has taken off here and it's just getting larger and larger.
W13: That's great to hear.

PALL: I think everybody's just sick of the saturated….hip hop stuff nowadays….I mean, the general comment is someone puts your album on and have fun, and that's cool. Ok, I have few crazy questions here….Ok, you've stolen Dr Who's Tardis and if you could go anywhere in time, who would you see and talk to? Who are your aspirations?
W13: Who my heroes are?

PALL: Yeah, like if you could travel back in time and see anybody, who would it be?
W13: If I could travel back in time and see anyone, it would be the original Alice Cooper band.

PALL: Hell yeah.
W13: Just to witness and see that reaction with the audience at never seeing someone hang themselves or behead themselves on stage and all the stuff Cooper used to do. I mean, he was so original and so out of the ordinary. You know, that's my favorite band of all time so I'd love to see from the sidelines and just watch the reaction to that kind of show coz it was so intense. But outside of a musician, in answer to your question, I'd love to travel back and meet Ed Wood.

PALL: Oh yeah, excellent. Did you see that movie Johnny Depp did? Did you like that movie?
W13: I loved it.

PALL: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
W13: Yeah, I knew the name Ed Wood and I had even seen half of it before I even knew what I saw, but when I saw that movie, I mean I'm a huge Tim Burton fan and I think Tim Burton was a big Ed Wood fan and he really just exposed me to him and that's really the whole reason Frankenstein Dragqueens started. I mean, there was no other reason than Ed Wood that the band existed….it's because of him.

PALL: Ah ok…cool.
W13: I mean, I knew that he wasn't a musician and he didn't make music, but it was just his drive and his desire and you know he was….he basically made himself happy and he didn't care what anyone else thought and he always found positive stuff in other peoples negativity and to me that was really inspirational and it was the reason I wanted to bring Frankenstein Dragqueens together. It was sort of like my tribute to him.

PALL: Ok cool.
W13: Not a lot of people know that.

PALL: Man, that's excellent. One of my favourite songs off the album is ‘Ghost of Vincent Price', I just love that song. How long would it take you to write a song like that? And then, how long did it take you do the whole ‘Transylvanian 90210' album?
W13: You know, I've always wrote my best stuff when it takes me hardly any time at all. Actually I wrote…..this is actually a really funny story…'Ghost Of Vincent Price', I've been wanting to write a song about Vincent Price coz he's one of my favorite characters of all time. He was just the character, just Vincent Price. Counting the people he played, he was just a character and he was always one of my favorites and I wanted to write a song about him and believe it not, me and our drummer Ghastly…when I was moving into my house last summer, we were helping carry a sofa up the stairs into my house and I told him, all day we had been moving furniture back and forth and I just kinda had the melody of that song in my head and I came up with the lyrics and I remember telling him, I was like “hey, I wrote a new song today” and he's like “really? What is it?” and I was like “it's called The Ghost of Vincent Price.” And we're trying to carry a sofa up the stairs and we're about to fall over each other (chuckles) and that's how that song was wrote, me and my head getting this melody while we were moving furniture. So I would say it took about 15 minutes to come up with the melody for that and then I put the guitar up and I had the song wrote in like 10 minutes, so it was a pretty quick thing.

PALL: Ok, excellent
W13: I mean, to get the lyrics completely, it took a bit longer than that, but the general idea and the chorus and thing were pretty much done…..were done pretty quick.

PALL: That's awesome.
W13: In itself, I spent a year writing, you know all these different songs and when it came to recording the record, I just pulled out all the tracks I liked the most.

PALL: It's crazy, I love the album.
W13: Thank you.

PALL: Another one I was going to ask you about was ‘A Bullet Named Christ'. Now that one is a really trippy song. What was the thinking behind that one?
W13: You know I wish I had a really good answer for that song, but I mean that song just like came out of nowhere. A basement recording, this old demo I basically made up the demo on an old 4-track recorder I had. You know, it was like one o'clock on the morning I came up with this piano line. I just started playing on my keyboard and pieced it all together. I don't know where it came from. I think I just had the name of that song wrote down in a book somewhere as a cool title and I pieced it all together and it just turned out, I just thought it's a pretty powerful song and it was just really different to anything I had ever done and putting that at the end of the record was kinda like a surprise, an uppercut, a sucker-punch…people would be saying “oh, they're going to end it with a big bang of punk rock, yeah a 1-2-3 Ramones type of song. It ends with that record and kinda leaves you hanging, going “wow”. I wanted to end the record with a song that was different and something people wouldn't expect and sort of leave them hanging. It turned out really good. I've yet to play that song live. I've got to work that out, how to pull it off. I'd love to. I think the song turned out really good.

PALL: Oh yeah, I loved it. It's another favorite. The whole album is great. When I was talking to Bob from RoadRunner ( Records ), the biggest disappointment with that is that it ends. You keep wanting more.
W13: Thanks…that's the sign of a good record. Waiting to hear more. You know, that's a good thing.

PALL: So, have you guys anything planned for another recording?
W13: You know, I don't really think it'll be soon, I mean the record just came out in April, so I wouldn't really see a record coming out before that. Basically, we're going to finish touring this year. I do Australia and Japan and then go back and do Europe in November and December and then in January, I'll probably do some more stuff in America and if goes well, I may even do a quick run with Frankenstein Dragqueens…somewhere, I don't know yet. I'm going to try and piece that idea together. But I would like to maybe be recording a new Wednesday record by next spring sometime and maybe have it out next fall for Halloween next year…in the meantime, if people can't get enough or whatever, I'm sure I'll have something else coming out, whether Frankenstein Dragqueens do a new record or what, they'll be something else going on in the meantime to keep them on hold.

PALL: Excellent. Ok, just a few questions before the call ends. Bob told me this call just cuts off after 20 minutes. So I'm like shit!
W13: (chuckles) Oh yeah, they're calls…they cut you off if you go over the time, but I hear this little…it makes a kinda ‘beep' noise. When it makes that beep, I'll let you know coz you'll probably only have about one minute after that.

PALL: Ok, cool man. This one is quick answer stuff….George A. Romero?
W13: Oh yeah, I love his stuff, Dawn of The Dead. You know, I even like the new one, Land of The Dead . I just saw it recently.

PALL: I like the older ones, but that's me personally (chuckles)…yeah. Ok So, who'd kick ass, Freddy (Krueger) or Jason (Voorhees)?
W13: You know, I love them both. I got them both recently tattooed on me, but I think I'm more of a Freddy fan.

PALL: Cool.
W13: He's funny and, you know he has a cool hat and sweater (laughs).

PALL: (laughs) Yeah…..Marilyn Manson?
W13: Yeah, you know I think his ‘ Portrait of an American Family' record is one of my all time favourite records and everything he did after that. I wasn't a big fan of the very last record he done, but I still thought it was good, but compared to the other records, I didn't like it as much, but I still respect that guy as an artist. You know, he gave the music scene a much needed kick in the ass, so yeah, I clearly salute that guy (chuckles).

PALL: And the last one, I think I know how you're going to answer this one, but G.I. Joe or Action Man , which one would kick ass there?
W13: (laughs) G.I. Joe anyday! I'm a huge fan of G.I. Joe! I still have like a hundred of my figures from when I was a little kid. I have them all on a shelf in my collector room. And I can match every weapon to each guy.

PALL: Really? That's cool (laughs).

W13: My life's been collecting them, so I know them inside and out.

PALL: (laughs) Cool, well I hope to catch up with you while you're out here. Thanks for today and thanks for letting me talk to you.
W13: Yeah, I'll see you on tour. Just introduce yourself and we'll hang and talk.

PALL: Ok, thanks a lot.
W13: Alright man, thank you.

Interview by Pallbearer (Matt Freer)

Thanks to:

Wednesday 13
Road Runner Records
Blue Murder Promotion