Wednesday 13 (Joseph Poole) is known not only for his band but also for being the Murderdolls' front man. We had the opportunity to talk to him regarding his latest release “Condolences”.
M.I. - Hello, how are you? I'm Sara from Metal Imperium Magazine, we are from Portugal. First of all, we want thank you for taking your time to speak to us.
I'm fine, thank you!
M.I. - We would love to know more about your new album "Condolences"
This is the 7th Wednesday 13 record and it's probably the one we spent the most time working on and recording. We've put a lot of work in this record, I think it's one of the biggest Wednesday 13 releases we have ever put out.
M.I. - We would like to know what the main inspirations were, we heard serial killers were a big inspiration.
They were just part of the subject matter for the lyrics. I've been writing and making music for over 20 years now and back in the early 90's I always wrote about what I knew; movies, toys and cartoons. It's been over 27 years now and I felt I was repeating myself so I looked for other subjects, keeping in mind the horror world. So I started to read about true crime stories and I've heard such terrible things, scarier than any horror movie I have ever seen and I've incorporated some of that into the lyrics to give it a darker, scarier vibe and I think it worked.
M.I. - Definitely, reality can be creepier than fiction. And still about serial killers and inspiration, do you have one fascinated you the most? Or that you really wanted to write about.
I've read many books about the most famous ones like John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. I know a lot of stories and things about those people in particular and they're truly disturbing. There is another one, he's known as BTK, I find that guy to be truly disturbing, his confessions, how he spoke about those crimes... I find him creepier than Jason or Freddy Krueger, he was a normal guy no one would have thought he'd do such things.
M.I. - You said this album was the one that took you the longest time to record, can you tell us how long was that and if it was because you were writing together as a band? Since you wrote the previous albums alone.
In the past I've always wrote a lot of the music alone and did the demos on my own, afterwards I'd sent the audio to the guys by email and we'd get together in the studio and do it that way. With “Condolences”, last year, I didn’t want to do it that way. I didn’t want to write all the songs, I wanted to get together in a room with the whole band to write. So we’ve made the decision, we took June, July and August off to write and record. We sit down for three weeks and wrote a song every day, we made sure we would write a good song every time we were together. We just worked really hard on it and it was something I have never done before, a different routine.
M.I. - We've also noticed the new album is on the heavier side, was it a natural development or if you wanted to do it that way?
Yes, it was a natural thing, our last release before “Condolences” was headed on the heaviest direction. It may be even heavier than this record, I don’t know. Some people think it is. I knew this record would be heavy but we didn’t go in it with that idea or with that in mind. We just wanted to write good songs and it happened naturally. I don’t try to force anything, I wasn’t thinking in making a heavy album we were just letting it do what it does and that’s what makes good records.
M.I. - For sure! We remember you from Murderdolls, of course, and we can still feel that vibe.
Yes, I think so. My guitarist has played on the last Murderdolls album as well and our drummer Kyle, he’s younger than us and his favourite band was Wednesday 13 and Murderdolls so his drumming style just fits in it too and it’s a good thing you can also hear that.
M.I. - Do you have a favourite song in the new album?
It changes all the time, I really like the “Condolences” title track a lot and the last track of the record “Death Infinity”. I like how those two songs flow into each other, kind of like one song. Those are probably my favourites and were the first ones I’ve wrote for the record, I think it captured a really cool atmosphere and vibe to it and that’s something I really thrive for in a record. I’m a big fan of soundtracks, it captured this really eerie vibe and it feels like you are listening to a soundtrack with a rock band.
M.I. - And what about your video clips? There were some visual differences we have noticed, do you want to tell us more about it? How was the process and how were you involved?
I was very involved with all of them, we’ve done four videos so far and I’m doing another video this next weekend for “Cadaverous”. It will be a sort of Halloween video. Every track we’ve done for the videos weren’t the songs we’ve picked out as a band and it was the first record I’ve put out without knowing which song would be the first single. We all liked different songs, we just couldn’t tell what song should be the first release. We asked the label and our friends and those were the main four songs they’ve picked; “What the night brings”, “Cruel to you”, “Blood Sick” and “Condolences”. I’ve tried to make them different, I haven’t made a video since Murderdolls, 7 years ago, so I wanted to make sure that the videos would look legit and they were good. Each one we did I got more relaxed and at ease, doing videos isn’t the most natural thing to me but I think I got used to it by the time we were done with the 4th video. They were all filmed at different times, over two months. It was a lot of work and something we talked the label about, because we wanted to make sure that with this record, since we are a visual band and we didn’t have any videos on catalogue, we had plenty of eye candy for the fans so they could see what this band is about. And I’m trying to make every video different, this new one will be an old school horror with a Halloween theme, that’s the plan, I never know how videos will turn out.
M.I. - And right now you are going on tour, right?
Yes, we'll start a US tour a week from today actually. It will be 28 shows in the US and then we’ll fly straight to the UK and then we’ll go on Europe and will begin our European tour at the Halloween night, in Paris.
M.I. - So the video will be out after the tour?
No, the video will be out before Halloween.
M.I. - And after the tour what will you be doing?
After the tour we’ll be playing for at least next year, it’s a lot more touring really. I’m hoping to include Australia and hopefully Japan again. We’ll still have US tours to do and the festivals in the US and Europe next year. So it’s just staying busy and we’re going to keep working on this record and when it’s all said and done we’ll have a video for every song of the record. I want to do something that's almost like a movie.
M.I. - And what about visiting Portugal? Will you return here someday?
I’d love to! I never ever turn down playing anywhere. We played on Portugal once in a festival with Marilyn Manson, in 2005. And that was because I was with Roadrunner Records and I had tour support so we did all the major festivals that year. I’m hoping next summer we can do a full European festival run and that would include Portugal. I love travelling in the World, I love playing anywhere and everywhere and I haven’t been there for a really long time. I love meeting my fans all over the world so hopefully that would be on the schedule. I want to play for my fans everywhere but I don’t play those places all the time, the places we play on a regular schedule are the main places that take us, it’s kind of hard to play where people don’t know who we are. Hopefully with this new record and having the videos out and a label behind us we can reach more places.
M.I. - How has it been with the label? What have been the main differences?
The music business changes every year and it’s a total different world than last time I was on a label. I am managing the band right now, we don’t have a manager. I’m doing everything by myself so I’ve been working closely with the label, we are honest about everything. Nothing crazy, not what you typically hear, those crazy record stories and people screwing you over. It’s an honest thing, we’ve put the record out and so far they’ve been really awesome with me. They’ve been doing videos and a great promotion on them. So for me I just have to say from all the labels I’ve been before, this is the best experience I’ve had and I really enjoy working with the people at Nuclear Blast. I’ve became friends with a lot of people in there and a lot of people that work for Nuclear Blast now were people that worked for Roadrunner back in the day so I had a lot of old friends in there. It feels more like a family, like I have a home there and hopefully they feel the same way with us and we will continue to work with Nuclear Blast.
M.I. - Do you have anything to say to your Portuguese fans?
Thank you for being there and support us through all the years and hopefully we’ll get back there for some live shows. See you guys all soon!
M.I. - And for the last question, what inspires you the most?
I don’t know. I used to say different things but these days I think the fans inspire me the most. I feel like I don’t want to let my fans down. I know I have an audience out there that I have to entertain in every show, in every record and that makes me want to be better at what I do, do better records and shows. So my fans inspire me. Music is something I know how to do and I have people that who to hear it, that’s the greatest feeling in the world. When I first started doing this my inspiration was just have someone to listen to and now I know I have my audience, it’s not the biggest in the world but my fans are so die hard and they make me feel I have the biggest fan base.
Interview by Lilly Rose
