On The Spot – Wednesday 13 Interview

Thanks to 3Wise Records we had the chance to chat with Wednesday 13 about his new album The Dixie Dead, which is set to be released on February 22, his memories from his trips to Australia, and much more.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Just to start the interview to know a little bit about you, where did the name WEDNESDAY 13 come from?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, it was inspired by the Addams Family character Wednesday Addams, a little girl off that and that’s where the first name came from and then number thirteen, you know then again over history and time it’s been considered a bad or omen, bad luck sort of thing and just to combine those two together, WEDNESDAY 13, 13 just sounded like some futuristic name for like Ziggy Stardust, Mickey Six type hybrids, you know. It was weird enough to fit what I was trying to do. That’s where it came from.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: .. And looking back to when you were a kid or just starting music, who were your music inspirations?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, when I first started to get into music, I mean it’s a lot of the same people I still talk about you know, I mean the whole reason I do what I do was from Alice Cooper. I watched him as a young kid and I saw videos and you know before I even heard the music, I just saw the imagery of it and I just thought it was like watching a horror movie you know. So you know, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, you know the visual bands. As a kid I wanted to see something crazy you know and I was always into monster movies, sci-fi stuff, so anything over the top and crazy, that caught my eye and these bands caught my eye and that’s pretty much geared me into the direction of where I am today. You know, and I still talk about those bands as my favourite and they are cause they shaped what I do.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: That’s awesome. Actually many people compare you to the early years of Alice Cooper, so how do you feel being compared to a legend like Alice?

WEDNESDAY 13: Oh it’s definitely amazing to be compared to Alice along side of him all these years. I mean there probably isn’t an interview that goes by in the past five years that his name hasn’t been brought up and it’s awesome and I tell him that all the time. He’s aware of it as well and Alice is a fan of what I do. So it’s cool you know, I love to, you know, it’s a great honour to be named alongside of people. You know usually, someone asked me the other day, they said ‘oh you know when people think of this genre of music they think of Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Mason and you’ and I was like cause there is nobody else! Hahaha.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Yeah it’s true.

WEDNESDAY 13: I usually laugh about it. But no it’s an honour to be alongside of that, you know, and it’s something I worked hard for. This marks twenty years of me releasing music in this genre and so to be recognized by people alongside those kind of dudes it’s unbelievable, it’s awesome. It’s all I ever worked for you know, so it definitely makes you feel good to see that.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: That’s awesome. Well speaking about that let’s talk about your new album, The Dixie Dead, that I personally love the cover. What can fans expect from this new album?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, it’s definitely completely a polar opposite to the last WEDNESDAY 13 record, Calling All Corpses, and umm this record to me, I’ve been saying it to press for the past couple of months, I feel like this is my strongest and my best solar release that I’ve put out. It’s definitely not up to par with the first one Transylvania record and it’s just because a lot of work was put into it, a lot more time put into it, the songs were stretched out to a year and a half as opposed to when I normally write records I get like two months to sit down and work on something and so the time line stretch it out. So it was more of a thought process on what I wanted to do and I think this record is a good combination, a good mixture of everything I’ve done over the years so I think people that like Murderdolls can like something about this record, people that like only WEDNESDAY 13 they’ll find something they’ll like in this record, you know, so it’s a good melting pot of everything I’ve done over the past decade or so.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: That’s cool. And also you write all your lyrics?

WEDNESDAY 13: Yes yes, I write all the lyrics.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Ok and what would you say is the track you’re most looking forward to showing your fans from the new album?      

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, that’s the hardest part. We start rehearsals in two days for the tour and it will be the first time playing these songs, you know, and right now I want to play most of the record because we like the record so much. It’s difficult right now to tell what songs we are going to be playing live cause I’m so proud of so many songs on the record, so I don’t know if I have a favourite one to pick for the fans just yet. In a couple of days I would probably know a better answer to that.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Also, you’ve been coming to Australia very often so I wonder if you will be coming to promote this album as well this year?

WEDNESDAY 13: Yes we have plans. I don’t have the exact date just yet but there is definitely a plan to tour Australia and this time we plan to do more then the three days we did last year and hoping to add Adelaide and Perth as well and hopefully we can do New Zealand along the way. So we have a lot of touring plans and I want to get out and play as many places as I can and you know, especially where the fans are and Australia has definitely been a big place for us over the past few years.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: How would you describe your Australian fans? Are they different from other parts of the world?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, my fans are unique, I mean, they act rabid crazy for what we do everywhere. But I do sense in the Australian audience, maybe it’s because it’s so much more lately, but my audience in Australia has turned into probably my biggest audience anywhere in the world now so I see more of a fan reaction in Australia. It just seems, I don’t know, it just seems new to them, whereas I’ve been touring the UK non stop for over a decade now a couple of times a year, whereas Australia is still kind of new to me so maybe people aren’t as sick of me yet. Haha. I guess.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Well this is more like a personal question. I still remember the sideshow you did with Manson and Coal Chamber in Sydney for Soundwave, so I wonder what you remember from that night?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, I remember that all the sideshows with Manson was cool. It was great, I mean getting to know the Coal Chamber guys and striking a friendship with them and you know I wasn’t really aware of that band and what they did so I got to see those guys. It was a fun tour. Again I love touring, I love being able to open up for, especially artist I grew up with and were a fan of, especially Marilyn Manson, so you know I was a huge fan obviously. So to be able to play a show with him was great, but as far as what I particularly remember, I think that was the first show we did or maybe the second show, I can’t remember exactly, but yeah every night was great, there were no egos, everybody was having fun and it was just great to be in Australia and great to be playing a show with Marilyn Manson.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Fantastic! And did you get to hang out with Marilyn Manson?

WEDNESDAY 13: I finally met Manson on the very last day of the tour in Perth and ever since then we struck up a friendship and we’ve become friends so we send each other messages and stuff on our phone. So who knows, maybe one day if I can bother him or ask him enough, he’ll finally take me out on tour, so we’ll see if I can aggravate him enough.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: That’s awesome! Well this is the part where we open up the chat and ask the questions we’ve received from your fans. So, I have a guy asking if you could pick any artist dead or alive to jam on stage, who would you choose and why?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, artist I’d like to jam with on stage, umm, I don’t know. I’d say Johnny Thunders from the New York Dolls just because he had the swagger, he had attitude, he didn’t care about anything and he always looked good so I’d say Johnny Thunders!

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: What a great answer!…Ok another question we got, well you are a friend of Joey Jordison, so he’s wondering if you guys are planning a new Murderdolls album or any reunion soon?

WEDNESDAY 13: No. There’s no plans for Murderdolls at this time and probably not in the future anytime either. We did our last record cycle in 2011 and that’s where it pretty much ended at. There’s no plans or talks of anything else and if anything else did happen again I would be surprised. So I think Murderdolls maybe has finally closed its doors, but we’ll see. I hate to never but it looks that way.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Ok. And you also probably have so many crazy stories on the road so I wonder what has been the craziest fan request you ever got?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, the craziest fan request! I mean,umm, I think one that isn’t particularly crazy but one that struck me off guard was some fans from Germany once asked me for my blood so they could put it in a necklace to wear.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Are you serious?

WEDNESDAY 13: Yes.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: That’s weird!

WEDNESDAY 13: Yeah, they came to the show and they brought me an envelope that had the syringes, like clean needles for me to strike my blood from and everything so that was different.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Did you do it?

WEDNESDAY 13: Hahaha. No! But I actually did send they back a package to play around and they actually thought I did but I didn’t actually do it.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Haha. That’s sick! Ok dude. Well to wrap up the interview, do you have any advice for Australian musicians who like your stuff and want to follow your steps?

WEDNESDAY 13: Umm, advice! I always tell people who want to get into this, I’m not going to say this kind of music but just in genre and keeping a career and doing music you just have to be willing to sacrifice everything and you have to know this is what you want to do you know forever. There’s no turning back. There’s no doing this half way. You got to commit to it 100% if you ever want to make it anywhere and you know I’m committed 100% and I’m still trying to get to where I want to be with it. So you got to keep on keeping on. Don’t let anything distract your dreams or your goals.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Well we just got a last minute question from a fan and he’s saying he loves the song I want to kill Miss America. Where did you get that idea? It’s the funniest song I’ve ever heard.

WEDNESDAY 13: Haha. It’s actually an old song. I think wrote that song in 1996 that’s how old the song is. Where I came up with the idea I’m trying to think now cause it was so long ago, I think the idea of that was we just started in a band called Frankenstein Drag Queens, uhh I just wrote a song about a transvestite that was trying to enter the Miss America contest and were going to get in there and become Miss America regardless, no matter what. It was just some stupid story I put together that now is history.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Well that’s an awesome song dude. Seriously. And just to finish and to let you rest, I would like you to take over the microphone and invite you to tell all your Australian fans to get your new album or any message you want to give them.

SPOTLIGHT REPORT: Ok mate, thanks a lot for your time! Looking forward to see you back in oz this year!

WEDNESDAY 13: My pleasure man…Hope to see you soon!

2013 is the year of 13!  The Dixie Dead is out February 22nd on 3Wise Records.