Hollywood Undead On Tour With Falling In Reverse

‘I’ve had bad experiences with Australian flights. I took Ambien once, I guess I peed in the galley and they arrested me and I’ve only taken it once in my life. I slept walked and they arrested me at the Sydney airport, but I talked my way out of it. It took a while, they finally let me go. It’s so crazy I did that. I’ve never touched Ambien since then. I don’t remember any of it!’

Jorel Decker or more commonly known as J-Dog from Hollywood Undead, the rap metal groovers from, well Los Angeles, is reliving a couple of rock star moments before arriving in Australia next week. I’ll finish with another at the end. Talking of rock stars though, they are on a heavyweight bill with Falling In Reverse and Black Veil Brides, having toured with the former on the European tour that ended controversially at the UK border. Are these band the last rock stars?

‘I try to be honest and speak my mind because a lot of guys in bands pretend to be something they’re not and I don’t care, so I think so. I think Ronnie Radke (vocalist of Falling In Reverse) is a real rock star. Spending a month at his shows with him in Europe. That dude is a real rock star. Seeing him on stage, his vocal capability and songs, the way he interacts with the Crowd. I’m like ‘holy shit, this is what the world’s been missing!’ Like a heavyweight rock star. That’s how I look at it. Mike Tyson, the heavyweight champion of boxing, made boxing famous. I feel like Ronnie’s a heavyweight rock star. He is bringing back rock and roll again, in my opinion, real rock and roll. The lifestyle and attitude that also comes with it. I meet a lot of guys in bands. They just play video games all day. I’m like, you guys are fucking nerds. Hey, if that’s what you are, cool, but why do you have music videos of you being all crazy and doing all this stuff and you literally don’t do any of that. I don’t really hang out with guys in other bands as you can tell.’

After twenty years of tearing up stages, back stages and most likely, strip clubs around the world, is the J=Dog slowing down?

‘I feel like it’s settling down as we age, have families and stuff, but every time we go on tour it’s still pretty crazy and that’s not even an image. I try to hide it. You know what I mean? I don’t want people to know the crazy stuff that’s going on. I’m not broadcasting it. There’s so many stories I will never tell out loud, and some of them are more recent. It’s not something I’m proud of. I guess it’s just who we are. It’s like, yeah, one of the dudes in my band looking for drugs at 4:00 AM in some alley in some shady neighbourhood. Is that rock star or is crackhead? I don’t know. There’s a fine line between the two of ’em, one or the other?’

There is an obvious humour mixed with a strong sense of irony with the vocalist however that’s not the say there also isn’t huge dollops of truth involved. The interview takes me on a mini tour of his property and let’s just say his fingers are green. Much like their music and shows.

‘We always have fun on stage. A lot of people become fans of us after the live show. We try to interact with the crowd a lot because when I go to shows, I want to be entertained. I want to laugh. I hate it when bands between songs have silence. I like it when bands interact with the crowd. It’s like a lot of bands are like, oh, that crowd sucked. I’m like, ‘so you had a bad show? Dude, they’re paying you to be there. It’s not their job to entertain you. It’s the other way.’ It’s our job to make them have a good time, so it’s going to be fun. We’ve had a lot of bad crowds obviously, and by the end of it, we won them over. They’re laughing, they’re having fun, they’re dancing, whatever they’re doing. Our shows are always fun.’

Which brings us to another Australian rock star story from the man.

‘Australia’s cool. It reminds me of LA. Every major city reminds me of Venice Beach. They’re giant beach communities and it’s very familiar to me, it feels like a permanent vacation. Everywhere you go, it just feels cool. We saw Bondi Beach, we went to the Sydney Opera House. Last time, I drank two bottles of wine in the trees before we went in. I don’t know why I did that. Then halfway through I had to go to the bathroom at the Opera and I got up to go. It was like two hours had gone by, I’m about to piss my pants, so I walk out and everyone’s hissing at me, the people doing the Opera looked at me and stopped. I was like, oh shit, I don’t think I’m supposed to stand up. I got out and the ushers come running over, ‘Are you okay? Do we need to call an ambulance?’ I was like, why? They’re like, ‘You’re not supposed to stand up at an opera!’ I was completely embarrassed that I did. I had no idea.’

Yes, the man goes to the Opera, however it’s not that hard to imagine, think of the theatrics, the performance, all are very much in line with Hollywood Undead. As are other genres of music.

‘I’ve always listened to all sorts of types of music. Obviously from gangster rap to metal to country, you name it. I like almost every genre of music. At the time when I started actually writing music, I got heavily into the Transplants, Tim Armstrong’s band, and you can see obviously some similarities of Hollywood Undead with that. When they came out, that’s when I actually started writing my own music because I was heavily influenced by them, and there was a group called The Gravediggaz. It’s RZA from Wu-Tang Clan’s old hip hop group, and those two probably influenced me the most.’

We are running out of time as the band put the finishes touches to prepare to fly out here shortly on a ‘grueling twenty hour flight’, so we will leave with one final rock star flying story featuring none other than Steel Panther.

‘Next time I went to Australia, I was super scared they were going to grab me and then I sat next to some of the Steel Panther dudes on the plane and they were like opening their duty free vodka. Some of their crew guys were drinking it. They met some girl on the plane. She got so drunk she passed out in the aisle and threw up and the flight attendant’s asking me, Are you with them?’ I was like, sucking my thumb, looking out the window, ‘I don’t know these guys. I don’t know who they are!’ Every time I wanted play in Australia, something goes wrong!’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Hollywood Undead on tour with Falling In Reverse on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…

Hollywood Undead headline shows, tickets from Destroy All Lines…