Amid a 2002 musical landscape full of baggy pants, backwards caps and tracksuit pants, rose a metallic glam-punk band that defied the prevailing trends and brought back hard and fast rock ’n roll. Murderdolls dug up the corpse of rock, defiled it and injected pure unadulterated undead life back into it. And it was glorious!



Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls’ and its successor, Women and Children Last were like nothing else. Fast and dirty, raw and macabre. Drawing lyrical inspiration from classic horror, each track is full of tongue-in-cheek horror done to perfection. Led by horror-punk icon, Wednesday 13 and the late great Joey Jordison, Murderdolls slithered their way to the top of the horrendous heights of rock amassing a colossal cult following along the way. 



With the sinister, sneering vocals, huge hooks, gang vocal choruses, pounding rhythms and some of the best riffs ever penned, Murderdolls wrote songs for arenas and played them in theatres, making their adrenaline-fuelled odes to the darkness that much more thrilling.



In February, Wednesday 13 will return to Australia with his band to play a full set of Murderolls songs. Joined by former Murderdolls members Roman Surman and Jack Tankersley, Wednesday 13 will rip through tracks from Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls and Women And Children Last, giving fans the chance to relive the glorious shock and awe of the Muderdolls once more, while also providing an opportunity to celebrate the life of a dear friend and music legend who was lost far too soon.



Ahead of the tour, we caught up with Wednesday 13 for a deep and meaningful discussion about the experience of revisiting the Murderdolls catalogue, touching on how the ‘00s revival is bringing their music to a new generation, the ways that Joey's passing continues to impact Wednesday 13, and the shows, and of course, the undeniable truth that everybody loves to say fuck.

The Word Fuck Has Always Been My Secret Weapon - An interview with Wednesday 13. 

Wednesday 13,  wow the bloody hell are you?



“I'm good. It's a day off today. So I'm tired. I've had six in a row and I need a day off. So that's what my day is today, interviews and then using this bed behind me to rest these eyes behind these goggles”



Sounds like a solid plan now, six days in a row that is pretty close to a full touring schedule. How are you feeling about being back on the road to such an extent?



“I love it. It's been fantastic. This is a 38-date US tour we just finished show 23 or 22 I believe we just did six in a row, our 45 minutes show every night with non-stop action energy, no backing tracks. Just the real deal, rock and roll. And that's what it's what it's what it's been. And it's been a blast. And we've had tons of sold-out shows and tons of sold-out shows on the way. So this has been a great tour for me. Great way to end the year.”



That's awesome. Now I'm of course talking to you because you are coming out to Australia to play a string of shows at which you will be performing nothing but Murderdolls songs. It's been a while since anyone down here has had a chance to hear these songs live. How are you enjoying getting reacquainted with them as you tour around the world?

“Yes, it's been a blast. It's been. It's been fun. It's also been challenging to go back and revisit something that was recorded 22 years ago. It was 21 years this year. So for me, you know, going back and approaching this music, I wanted to approach it with dignity and honour and make it sound as good as the records or better. So I'm pushing myself to sound as good as I do on those albums.” 

“When I look back on old videos and stuff of the first incarnation of Murderdolls, and touring and stuff, we're a bunch of 20, mid-20 kids going crazy on stage out of breath, you know? It was punk rock and it was amazing. This time, I want to go back and I want to play the songs correctly, I want to sing them correctly. I think that’s what people are going to remember, I'm not trying to recreate the Murderdolls band or anything, we're just celebrating the music. And that's been that has been our approach to it.”



“The fans' reception to it has been amazing. They're loving it. A lot of people are showing up to these shows that were too young to even experience Murderdolls the first time this is their chance to hear those songs, and they're loving it. So there's a whole new generation of fans that have shown up at the shows on this tour. And it's been blowing my mind. I'm like, What are these? I call them kids because I'm 47 years old, and they're like 18 or 19. But they're there and they're singing every word. I'm like you couldn't have been there 20 years ago.”

Yeah, it's crazy. I was talking to Dez from Coal Chamber a little while back and he was saying a similar thing that there are all these people discovering the music from that era for the first time now. It's revitalizing them. Is it interesting seeing yourself get to the point where your music has come back in fashion? Does it feel like we’re back in the early ‘00s?

“It’s overwhelming. I’ve just been smiling this whole tour. This is a pretty grueling tour it is 38 shows in six and a half weeks I think we left on October 28 and got home on December 11. So it's a long tour and I am enjoying every bit of I'm smiling every night. Several times a day, whether it is someone in the audience or it is at the VIPs, I’ll meet someone who tells me ‘Oh this music changed my life’ or ‘You helped me’, or ‘I just discovered this and this my favourite new thing’.  So it was just all these feelings and emotions from every age group and it made me realize that this was worthwhile. And anyone who ever told me that my music was dumb and stupid and never meant anything, I can look back on that now and go, ‘you're wrong’.”

I think history has proven they are wrong. They always are. People who say that to musicians are just assholes. Let’s just acknowledge that, but it must feel good to prove them wrong.

“I mean, I again, I was the guy that was, you know, growing up writing these songs writing what I thought was just kind of funny tongue-in-cheek songs like Rambo or the songs that would end up becoming Murderdolls songs like, ‘I Love To Say fuck’ and, and stuff like that people were like, ‘Oh, these songs are dumb, they're never going to do anything’. And I'm like, ‘one day, one day, it will and now we end our shows in our encore with, I Love To Say Fuck’, and I have every single person in that place singing the words to it. And it's just, it's a great feeling. Because I wrote that song in like, 1999. You know? So it's just to see that it's, it's, it's grown, and it's just, it's a hit song that could never be a radio hit.”

Those are the best types of hits, but it's also universally true. Everyone loves to say fuck, how could you not get with that message?

“Every night I ask a crowd if they love to say fuck, and they do every single one of them. So it's a it's a great feeling. And it's just fun to use. Shock Rock has kind of done its course. You really can't do much beyond Alice Cooper, or Marilyn Manson or Ramstein these days, so my shock value was with lyrics.”

“When I first performed a tour with Alice Cooper, I thought his audience was going to love us and understand this completely. And we came out and the audience was just standing staring at us. Like what, what the fuck is this? And we couldn't get them. I couldn't get him. I couldn't help the audience. And then we played I Love to say fuck, and everybody was either appalled or, or loved it or both. And there was a younger audience there and the parents were grabbing the kid's ears when we were doing the song and I looked over and Alice Cooper was watching us and he's just got this shocked look on his face.” 

“Alice is a good friend and we've talked and he's just like, he's like, ‘that's your guillotine. That song is your electric chair. That's your shock.’ And he watched it. We shocked Alice Cooper's audience. We shocked them by saying the word fuck 35’000 times within five minutes.”

If only you knew it was that simple. That to shock the Alice Cooper fans, all you had to do was swear? 

“Yeah, coz he doesn’t do that. He just never had to do that. And for me, that's my secret weapon. And, you know, so that was a cool, a cool thing. You know, and that's that's always been my secret weapon, the word fuck. It's taught me and it’s treated  me right all these years.”

Do you find yourself still getting emotional at times playing this music? Given that it was the product of your friendship with Joey? I hate asking the question given that something you probably don't like revisiting much, but has Joey been prevalent in your thoughts on stage?

“Every day, in every show. I can't talk about this music or, or think about this music without thinking about him. Somedays I get emotional with it. Our very first show of this tour was super emotional for me. But after that, one, everything else has been a little easier. But I look out into the audience every night and I talk about Joey a couple of times and tell stories on the stage. There's one song we dedicate to him and in the crowd, sometimes I see people bawling their eyes out. It's a healing thing. It's good.  it's it's it's good for the fans, and it's good for us because we get to celebrate him and the music all in one place. And we get some sort of closure with it because there wasn't a closure with it. Once he passed. It was just like ‘why’. And we had to search for what was going to make us feel better, and it’s music that does that.”

It sounds like you’re getting to have that farewell moment with the fans. As you’ve indicated for Murderdolls fans, there hasn’t been a chance to physically mourn Joey’s passing together. Even though we're in a deeper, deeper, deeper cycle now of the cycles of grief, is it nice for you to have that moment of communal connection with these people who also loved your dear friend?

“Yes. It's a fun thing. It's not like a sad event. It's just it's a celebration. It's a fun celebration. People come out and that's what he would want, and what he would love the most. Everybody is just coming out, singing the music, screaming, getting drunk and having a good time. In his honour. It’s been a good thing. And that's what it's been every night.  People are loving the show, and I've heard no complaints. It is an hour 45 minutes show. I tell stories. We play 20 songs from both records, it's been a blast.”

That's awesome to hear.  Have any songs started to establish themselves as your favourites to perform?

“The one that stands out the most to me, and it's a weird thing. It’s the ‘White Wedding’ cover of Billy Idol. When we did that back in 2003, that was the last part of the touring we did. That was like the last song we added as a bonus track on this special edition. It wasn't part of the album in the very beginning. So that single kind of was released, right when we stopped touring. It came out as soon as we stopped when Joey went back to Slipknot. And I knew it did well for us, it charted in the UK, it was like in the top 20 or 30, or something. We got to play on Top of the Pops. It was a big single, but I wasn't out and active I didn't know what it had done. So when Murderdolls came back around the second time, Joey and I, I think we just were like, I don't want to play that song. Let's just try to avoid that.”



“We didn’t play it on the last tour. So when we started playing it on this tour, for the first time since 2003, I didn't know what the reaction would be. But when we played that song, it was just like this light just turned on. And just, I saw this reaction I had never seen before I was like, ‘Holy shit, ‘I forgot this song was popular’. The reaction to that song is crazy. Even though it's not our song, we did put our stamp on it. It's cool to see that when we play that song, everyone there knows and loves our version of it. That’s the version they know.”

I mean there is no denying that it’s a good song! It’s been a hit twice now, and it’s a great cover. 

“Thank you! The original version of that song started with my band before Murderdolls, back in 1995, we tried it out a few times live and it went over great. I showed Joey the video for that and he was like ‘We have to do that’, ‘I can hear what you’re doing, but I can improve on that’. That’s what you hear with the Murderdolls version. He was like ‘I can make this a million times better.’ Once I heard what he did, it made me want to do it.



“That's what Joey could do. He could hear something I had done, and make it better. He was much more of a producer than people would ever give him credit for. He could hear a song and he could hear the potential of it, even when maybe you couldn’t hear it. He’d say ‘This is a good song, stick with it’, and that’s how a lot of our songs happened."

What do you consider yourself to be a Maniac for?

“'I’m a collector. I'm a collector of my youth and that's toys. Horror memorabilia. He-Man, Masters of the Universe, GI Joe: A Real American Hero, the 1982 collection. That's, that's my life. That's what I collect. It keeps me young, it's my fountain of youth. It's also my source of inspiration for what I do, I surround my home is just covered with all of this stuff. So when it comes time to pick up a guitar and write music, I am surrounded by all of this and it keeps me young, it keeps me happy. And that is what I am a complete maniac about I have run out of room on our tour bus I have collected so many gifts and toys. I'm going home with a lot of stuff on this and I still have three weeks to go. So I'm just like, this is the best problem ever.”

If you could have any song play the moment you enter a room, like you’re a fighter or a pro-wrestler, what song would you want it to be and why?

“There's a great track from John Carpenter, the movie director, and composer he had a movie called Assault on Precinct 13. The title track of that is one of the most badass baselines with no vocals just walking into a room and saying; ‘Hey, get out of my way.’ It’s just one of those one of those kinds of songs, so that would be my song. If you don't know it, check it out. It's great. Cool. Synth keyboards. Bass is badass.”

That's brilliant. And just a simple one before we go, what have you been listening to?

“KISS, Twisted Sister and WASP. On repeat every night before we go on stage. That's the three bands that I listened to. We did an upgrade now we've been watching KISS, WASP and Twisted Sister live concerts as we get dressed on our bus. So we all get dressed like in the same room and I either have music blasting or video blasting. And we watch all that stuff because all that stuff is what all of us grew up on. And we watched those bands and it just, I don't know it just kind of reignites this flame kind of inside of us every night. Because that was those bands that made us want to do what we do. And I'll look around I'm getting dressed in the mirror and I see my bass player in the corner and he's over there doing his Gene Simmons. So the older music. New music is not really on my radar, I just always go to the stuff that makes me happy and KISS and WASP and Twisted Sister and Alice Cooper are my go-to artists.”

I'll let you get back to your life or potentially your bed. Do you have anything you'd like to say to the people of Australia who are awaiting your arrival in February?

“Get ready because we have we've already worked out all the kinks on this tour.  We've got an amazing show, an amazing tribute to the 21 years of Murderdolls and we can't wait to get to Australia because our fans are insane there and we're bringing a great show. So get ready motherfuckers because we're bringing it.”

Wednesday 13

Australian Tour 2024 

Friday, Feb 2: The Triffid, Brisbane

Sat, Feb 3: The Metro, Sydney

Sun, Feb 4: Max Watts, Melbourne

Tues, Feb 6: Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide

Wed, Feb 7: Rosemount Hotel, Perth

Tix on sale now via The Phoenix. 

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