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in-death-we-fall · 2 years ago

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Fell In Love With A ghoul

Some people spend their whole lives searching for their soulmate. But as Murderdolls prepare to gatecrash the charts with their cover of ‘White Wedding’, Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 explain why they’re made for one another…

Words: Dave Everley Photos: Roxy Erickson

(docs link) (Clown article x x)

Wednesday 13, frontman with the Murderdolls, is an avowed Mötley Crüe fan. He owns all 11 of their albums; he'll even defend their traditionally indefensible later, minor works with all the passion of a man who has divested large chunks of his earnings into the band's output at one time or another. He has, he estimates, read their infamous biography 'The Dirt' eight times.

Now Mötley Crüe were undoubtedly dunderheaded arse-clowns of the highest order — and you can't help feeling that Wednesday 13, despite his unshakeable affection for the band, knows this. But they were also absolutely fantastic, if only for one particular reason: in the midst of the soulless, self-obsessed circle jerk that was the '80s rock scene, they were utterly, gloriously unique. Yes, they were as dumb as fence posts; yes, their behaviour veered between the mischievous and the truly cretinous; yes, they spawned a whole shower of shit that took years to mop up. But they were out there on their own.

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Murderdolls a Mötley Crüe for the ‘90s, if only for the reason that, in the midst of the soulless, self-obsessed circle jerk that is today’s rock scene, they too are utterly, gloriously unique. Whether you’re of the opinion that they’re a knowing tribute to the days when bands’ agendas extended no further than having as much fun as possible as often as possible, or simply the latest in a long line of shit-kicking party bands that began with the New York Dolls, there’s no debating the fact that they’re out there on their own as much as Mötley Crüe ever were.

And for that reason alone, the Murderdolls deserve your attention.

On paper, Murderdolls shouldn’t really exist. Or at least, they shouldn’t exist on the scale that they do. A modern day cock rock outfit put together by the drummer from Slipknot, a band who, love them or loathe them, at least managed to sneak a form of extreme metal to the top of the charts? Riiight.

Except the Murderdolls do exist, and they are successful. Their sole album to date, last year’s glam-Goth opus ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’, has sold 50,000 copies in the UK – half of what Slipknot sell, admittedly, but done with only a fraction of the hype the latter band has been fuelled with over the past few years. Their new single, a snarling version of Billy Idol’s ‘80s hit ‘White Wedding’ looks set to bust their B-movie indebted noise out to the masses.

In a sparse but stylishly furnished room deep in the warren of corridors that make up the West London headquarters of Sanctuary Management – handlers of Murderdolls, as well as Iron Maiden, Guns N’Roses and dozens of others – Wednesday 13 sinks into an expensive leather sofa and proceeds to empty the contents of his less expensive leather trousers onto the glass-topped table in front of him.

“Man, too many pounds in my pocket,” he says good-naturedly, his attempt at an English accent as successful as that of most visiting American musicians (that is, not at all).

Two days ago, Murderdolls played the main stage of the Download festival. They hung around the site for another 24 hours, soaking up the atmosphere and generally drinking themselves senseless. Wednesday started “partying” at three o’clock yesterday afternoon. He didn’t stop until the small hours of the morning. He woke up at eight o’clock. It’s now two in the afternoon. There’s not even a whiff of a hangover. Bastard.

“I don’t get them,” is his cheery response. “Never have.”

The Wednesday 13 sitting here, laid-back and grinning, couldn’t be further removed from the sneering, spiky, B-movie anti-hero that appears on Murderdolls records. That Wednesday 13 is a sneering, spiky B-movie anti-hero with arsenic and embalming fluid running through his veins. This Wednesday 13 is Joseph Poole, a 26-year-old Mid-Westerner who still lives in the same “tiny as fuck” North Carolina town where he’s spent most of his life and who hadn’t so much as set foot on an aeroplane until Joey Jordison paid for him to fly to Des Moines to join the Murderdolls.

He looks nothing like you’d imagine him to. He’s fleshier for a start – not fat in the slightest, but not the sunken-faced cadaver that leers out from photos. He looks younger too, though that could well be on account of the fact that he’s not made up to resemble death warmed over. Only the array of tattoos that adorn his arms – “horror movie shit” like Bela Ludosi, Linda Blair, the Bride Of Frankenstein, Herman and Lily Munster, ‘Hellraiser’ – equate the man sipping Diet Coke and beaming effusively with the dreadlocked ghoul who fronts the Murderdolls.

Actually, Wednesday 13 isn’t really anything like you’d expect him to be, full-stop. Back home in Landis, he lives in a suburban home with his longtime girlfriend and his five-year-old daughter, Zoe (“We’re like ‘The Addams Family’,” he smirks). He admits that he’s shy, that “when I talk to people, I don’t really look them in the eye” (this is true). He’s not embarrassed to admit that his relationship with his parents is “awesome – my parents were always super-cool”.

What was your childhood like? “Dude, I lived in a trailer until I was 13 years old. I didn’t even have my own room until I was 10 or 11.”

And how were you supporting your family before that call came from Joey? “Delivering magazines. I had to drive an hour to my job, so I’d get up at 4:30 in the morning, leave at five and be there at six. I drove a big delivery truck. I had to go to grocery stores and put ‘National Enquirer’ and ‘TV Guide’ and all that shit in there. That sucked.”

Ever think of jacking it in and moving to New York or LA to get closer to the action? “I always thought it’d be cool to live in New York, but I never had the money, and I never had a band that was willing to pack up and move. I really lucked out when I got a call from Joey. The last fucking dude on earth I thought would call me would be the drummer from Slipknot.”

Before Joey Jordison entered his life, Wednesday 13 fronted the Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13. Formed when he was 19 years old, the Drag Queens combined the twin influences of Alice Cooper and Ed Wood. Between 1996 and 2001, they released four albums of schlocky, snotty punk rock (several songs from these records would be reworked and re-recorded for ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’). Their schtik – wigs, dresses and zombie make-up – was as becoming as it was dumb. Still, in North Carolina – a pig’s squeal away from Bible Belt country – that’s one hell of a statement to make.

“When we started out, it was complete war,” is his memory of the Drag Queens’ early days. “We didn’t want to be friends with anybody. Every show was a fucking battle. I’d just say shit to the audience to get a rise – if they were drinking beer, I’d shout, ‘Beer is for fags!’. Then they’d start throwing shit at us, and I’d take my guitar off and jump into the crowd.”

Did it ever get physical? “All the time. At one gig, a guy in the audience threw a beer at me. I dived in the audience and tackled him, and started beating the shit out of him. I was wearing a pink dress and platforms at the time. This was in a new town and there were 100 or so people there. I thought they’d beat the shit out of me, but they ended up cheering me on.”

Remarkably, Wednesday managed to survive those early shows relatively unscathed. Even more remarkably, local club owners seemed to like the band’s mixture of outrage and antagonism. The buzz around the Drag Queens began to spread across the state.

“Everybody in town hated us, because we actually got gigs. The club owners kinda dug us. They were like, ‘We’re sick of all that other shit – this is fucking entertaining, let’s book them’. All the other bands hated us for that – ‘They’re fags, they’re wearing dresses, they don’t know how to play music’.”

What did your parents think of what you were doing? “My mom always sewed my clothes for me. She sewed all my dresses up.”

And your dad? “I dunno. I’m sure any man doesn’t want to walk around a corner and see his son standing there going, ‘Hey Dad, I got this new dress. Like it?’. But now I think he’s proud – he’s seen that I’ve stuck to my guns with it all.”

What was the best thing about being in the Frankenstein Drag Queens? “The very beginning was awesome because it was so fresh – I was working in a furniture store, making five bucks an hour, so I took out a loan to pay for the recording of the first record. The record came out, and we felt like we were above everybody else. Then two months later, the drummer quit. But by the end, nobody gave a shit – where I lived, it had really died. That’s why when Joey called I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to do this Murderdolls thing’.”

There’s a track on the ‘White Wedding’ single called ‘I Take Drugs’. In reality, Wednesday 13’s recreational pursuits extend no further than an impressive capacity for alcohol.

“I’ve never done drugs in my life,” he says with a shrug that says ‘Why should I have done?’. “I guess I’m chickenshit. I’ve taken aspirin, but that’s all. I’ve never taken coke or E. I’ve probably smoked six cigarettes in my whole life. I don’t need it.”

It’s a strange admission from a man who shamelessly admits to a lifelong obsession with the most debauched of genres, cock rock. In fact, Wednesday 13 is so obsessed with cock rock that he’s possibly the only person on the planet right now who could not only namecheck long-forgotten Welsh glam tarts Tigertailz, but also take the time to describe their logo (he does both today). He might not be Mötley Crüe material, but he might just have sneaked into fell Sunset Strip darlings Faster Pussycat.

Have you ever dated a stripper, Wednesday? “Yeah, and it was one of the worst things I’ve ever done too. She tried to kill herself in front of me. I broke up with her, so she ran into my kitchen, pulled out a butcher’s knife and cut her arm open in front of me. I grabbed the knife and grabbed her arm – my fingers went into the cut, and I actually touched her bone. I threw her into the car and drove her to hospital. When we got there, there happened to be a cop in the waiting room. There was some very quick explaining done.”

Ever filmed yourself having sex? “Never. But mirrors are cool.”

Ever been arrested? “No. And I don’t want to. I’m not the kind of guy who walked around going, ‘Fuck the police’. I’m totally pro-cop. I’m so pro-cop, it’s actually ridiculous.”

That’s not a very rock ‘n’ roll thing to say. “Fuck that. I think that being a cop is one of the bravest jobs ever. I couldn’t imagine pulling over some car at three o’clock in the morning, knocking on the window, not knowing who’s in there – you’re fucking with death. I’d never have the balls to do that job. I’m pro-cop all the way. And I don’t care what anyone says.”

What do your neighbours in North Carolina think of you? “Well, the guy on the left is a priest. He’s a nice guy. He helped me take my garbage out the other day, then tried to persuade me to come to church. I had to tell him no, in the politest possible way. The guy on the other side, I just know to say hi to.”

What’s it like being a father? “It changes you. I never planned to have a kid that young, but I would never take it back. My kid is my life. I’d do anything to protect her. I never forget who I am and that I’ve got responsibilities back home. When you go on the road, you turn into a monster, then you come back home and you’re back to normal, Mr Nice Guy.”

What does your girlfriend think of what you do? “She’s known me since I was 15. She’s got bright red hair and more tattoos than I do. She loves it. But when I get home it’s different. I’m just the family guy.”

Unlike Wednesday 13, Nathan Jonas Jordison – Joey to the rest of the world – is everything you expect him to be. Thanks to the phenomenal rise of Slipknot, and the volumes of press that have been written in its wake, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that you already know him inside out.

You don’t so much interview Joey Jordison as try to keep up with him.Sitting in the same position on the same sofa that was, until 20 minutes ago, occupied by Wednesday 13, the drummer and guitarist (he played both on ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’) will spend the next half hour machine-gunning out answers to a barrage of questions as quickly as they come in. He’s loud, assured, articulate and passionate. In fact, the only thing that’s surprising is that he still lives with his mother, in the same house in Iowa that he’s been in since he was two years old.

“It’s a real humble place out in the country,” he says. “I like the quiet. I like getting away from the busy streets and the noise and the chaos. It’s nice to go home to some peace and quiet, cos there’s none of that on the road.”

As we speak, Jordison has at least three projects on the go (there’s Slipknot and Murderdolls, plus an unnamed extreme metal project he’s working on with Necrophagia frontman Killjoy). His explanation is that he gets bored “very fucking easily”. Back home, he has three guitars placed strategically around the house (“one in my room, one in the bathroom and one downstairs”). Ask him what his greatest obsession is, and he replies, “music”. Ask him how he switches off from music, and he looks puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

Do you ever stop thinking about music? “No. It’s the only thing I know how to do well. I can spin upside down on a drum riser in front of 20,000 people with Slipknot, but I can’t go to the mailbox and figure out my mail. I have no sense of normal reality at all. Today I went out shopping. I walked to the fucking store, then I couldn’t figure how to get back. I have to be pointed in the right direction. That’s why I have to have an assistant with me all the time.”

As much as the Murderdolls are an equal partnership – and both Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 are adamant that it is – there’s no doubt that it’s Jordison who provided the initial impetus. He’s the one who took the raw materials – specifically The Rejects, the glam-punk band he played guitar with intermittently during the ‘90s – and shaped it into something new. He’s the one who marshalled the personnel, calling Wednesday out of the blue and flying him to Des Moines to see if his dream could work. He’s also the one who, by dint of his status as a member of one of the biggest metal bands on the planet, gave the Murderdolls an instant profile.

Are you a control freak, Joey? “Yeah. Well, maybe not a control freak, but I definitely like to have my opinions. People respect me because I have strong opinions. But it’s not about ego – it’s about the end result. That’s all I'm concerned with.”

Are you friends with the people in your bands? “Every one of them. The Slipknot dudes are like my brothers. We’ve been through everything together – we started with jack shit and we became one of the biggest metal bands around. With this band, I don’t know everybody like I know the guys in Slipknot, but I love them all to fucking pieces.”

Does it bother you that the Murderdolls are still seen by some as ‘Joey from Slipknot’s band’? “I don’t think people see it that way anymore. When we first toured, all you’d see is Slipknot shirts. You don’t see that now. Now it’s kids all in red and black. Murderdolls is a fun band.”

What about a party band? As in a band who like to party? “Oh yeah.”

How much alcohol do you get through a week? “Wednesday got through a bottle-and-a-half of Jägermeister last night.”

What about the other trappings of rock ‘n’ roll? The sex, the drugs… “Certain guys in the band like the groupie thing. I don’t necessarily. Wednesday certainly doesn’t.”

Why don’t you like it? “I’ve kind of gone through it already. It’s not even really that good. It doesn’t… (pause) I mean, I’m into making girls do weird shit.”

Such as? “If a girl’s got a cool trick, she can come on the bus for entertainment purposes rather than sexual purposes.”

Give me an example of the sort of entertainment you’re talking about here. “A girl came on the bus once and fucking smoked a cigarette through her pussy, then blew it out of her mouth. I was, like, ‘I wanna see that’.”

You’re friends with Marilyn Manson. What does a night out with the two of you involve? “Actually it’s not as crazy as you might imagine. We might be round his house, watching TV, having a couple of drinks, talking about music. It’s not like you think – chicks and drugs and shit.”

The most common misconception about the Murderdolls, usually held by people who either don’t like the Murderdolls or have never heard them, is that they’re stupid. Murderdolls aren’t stupid. They’re stoopid, like Kiss were stoopid, like Mötley Crüe were stoopid. Yes, that might occasionally involve what Wednesday 13 calls “our idiot tendencies”, whether that means getting cross-eyed drunk on red wine and falling asleep in the lavatory of an airplane (as Wednesday recently did on a flight back from Japan) or starting a bar brawl in Germany (as Joey did when the band were last in Europe).

But ultimately, the Murderdolls are a rock ‘n’ roll band, and that’s precisely what rock ‘n’ roll bands are supposed to do. And now, more than ever before, we need rock ‘n’ roll bands who are willing to do rock ‘n’ roll things.

And that, once again, is why the Murderdolls deserve your attention.

Murderdolls are currently touring the UK with Stone Sour. Check Out There for details. Their new single, ‘White Wedding’, is released on July 14 via Roadrunner.

Gig Of The Week

Murderdolls/Stone Sour

Dates: Birmingham Academy July 9, Glasgow Barrowland 10, Manchester Apollo 11, London Brixton Academy 12. Admission: £16, London £18. Support: Elviss.

Some and see us because… Corey Taylor (vocals, Stone Sour): “Where else can you see five idiots kicking ass and getting naked? It’s going to be great playing with the Murderdolls, they’re a great live band. We can’t wait to get back because Donington was awesome. I got some comments about looking like Joe Elliot backstage, and it was weird playing with Metallica in the background. But that was crazy shit, and I got very drunk.” Wednesday 13 (vocals, Murderdolls): “You will see a rock show, not a nu-metal show with baggy pants, and you will see a group of pretty guys – us. It’ll be cool to play with Stone Sour. I sat down with Corey for the first time at Donington and we talked about movies and shit.”

Look out for… Corey: “A couple of songs that aren’t on the album, and Jim doing his weird goose-step walk. I’ll say no more about that.” Wednesday: “Toothpaste and toothbrushes. Fire and blood. That’s all just part of our show.”

Don’t go to the toilet when… Corey: “We’re playing. Hold your fucking piss. If you go while we’re onstage, I’ll fucking kill you.” Wednesday: “We’re playing. You could miss anything. There’s no telling what we’ll do. You could miss my big, giant gun. Which, incidentally, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting through customs. I know people.”

If you see me in the bar afterwards… Corey: “Buy me a Jack and Coke. Everyone knows that. We love hanging out and goofing off, when we’re not getting drunk and stripping.” Wednesday: “Buy me a shot of Jägermeister. Absolutely definitely come and say hello. I always hang out with the kids.”

Brett Callwood

#if you want anything else from this scanned lemme know #interview #murderdolls #wednesday 13 #joey jordison #ben graves #eric griffin #acey slade #kerrang 963 july 12 03 #corey taylor

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