Wednesday 13 On Horror Punk, Full Circle Moments And The Power Of Staying Underground

Joining Kim Dracula for this most triumphant homecoming is the absolute legend, Wednesday 13 who returns on the back of a sold out Australian tour in 2023 celebrating his former band Murderdolls. The pairing of Kim Dracula and Wednesday 13 is a stroke of evil genius. Fast and dirty, raw, chaotic and macabre. It’s tongue-in-cheek horror done to perfection. Murderdolls and Wednesday 13 defined an entire subculture, Kim Dracula has raised the (wooden) stakes and thrown gasoline on the fire. It was an absolute highlight talking to the legendary Wednesday 13 ahead of their tour next month.

Another Australian tour, you’ve got to be really looking forward to coming back with Kim Dracula?
Yeah, always happy to return to Australia. One of my favorite places to tour, my favorite, I just love it there. The audience is so unique, and they love what I do there, so I’ve been fortunate to come back almost every year. I didn’t think I was going to get back there this year, but we got offered this tour at the end of the year, and I’m like, alright, we’ll do it. They were there last time was January 2024, so I thought it was going to be 2026, but we made it, so we’re there.

There’s plenty of love for you here in Australia, that’s got to be humbling?
It is, because I’m not an artist that’s an arena act, I’m not a radio act, I’m pretty much underground and I’ve been able to do this consistently for two decades now. Like, it’s insane, you know, just to be able to consistently come back to these countries all over the world, I’m able to tour. It may not be slam-packed or sold out every time, but there’s a enough people every time that I’m able to do it every year. So, if this is as big as it ever gets for me, that’s good enough for me, because I’m very, very happy with what I do and how I do things.

Do you notice much difference between Australian fans and fans everywhere else that you tour?
Oh, jeez, yeah. Australia’s a lot closer to the energy I think of fans in Germany. German fans are… at least my shows are kind of rabid. Even the UK, too. But I think Australia might win as far as energy and rowdiness, and it’s great there, that’s why I love Australia. I don’t question why.

Touring with a new album, Mid-Death Crisis, that’s got to be exciting as well?
Yeah, man, I mean, to be doing this so long, and to put a new record out, and have new songs that people like, fans can be kind, and they can be cruel. But a lot of fans, when you put new music out, or newer bands, they’ll go, okay, that’s good, I like it, alright, I want to hear the old stuff, but with this record, my fans love it. They want to hear the new songs. They like the new songs as much as the old songs, so I scored with winning them with a new record and new fan favorites, and it’s exciting for us to be able to play new songs as much as I love playing my older songs, like the ones I wrote twenty-some years ago, when they get a little old, you know, but whenever you get a chance to play a few new songs, it literally breathes oxygen into you.

Does it get easier, or does it get harder? Ten albums in, did you find that this one really challenged you in a lot of ways?
There’s definitely challenges on every record, just because I’m a perfectionist and I won’t settle for less. I always put out what I consider quality records. I don’t put in songs just for the sake of doing it. They got to be good. So for this record, my challenge this time was my longtime guitarist, who’d played on the last five records or whatever, wasn’t there anymore. I went back to playing guitar, which I haven’t done in a long time. Then our new guitarist came in as well, so it was he and I handling all the guitar stuff, so I haven’t done that in a while. I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but I loved it. I got my love of guitar playing back again with that record. It was a challenge to see if I could challenge myself, because on my first album, I played everything on the record. I played every instrument except for the drums and I haven’t done that in a while, so it was a challenge to see if I could do that again twenty years later, and do it as good. I feel like I did or came very close. So, yeah, that was the challenge on album ten that had to be good. It couldn’t just be another record. It had to mean something, you know? I wanted it to make all the other records before it, put it to the test, and I think this record is one of the best Wednesday 13 records in the catalogue.

So where does the inspiration come from? Is it purely horror films and things like that?
This room I’m in, is one of the many rooms in my house that’s just covered in memorabilia of what I love, it’s all my 80s toys, cartoon-type sort of stuff. The horror movie stuff is on this side of the room and in the other room. So, whenever I pick up a guitar and I’m going to write a song or whatever, I just literally open my eyes and just look around. There’s so many things in this room,I’m staring right now, I’m staring at The Shining, The Exorcist, Battlestar Galactica, Freddy Krueger, Ultraman, Pumpkinhead, The Joker, The Zodiac Killer, and Tales from the Crypt, all right here over this corner of the room. So if I wanted to write anything about those movies, because I know them, that’s how I come up with stuff. I just literally look around, and it helps. I never really can run out of inspiration when there’s this much around me.

It’s not like they make films like that anymore either, with the ones that you’ve just mentioned?
No! And that’s why I’m constantly watching this old stuff. I don’t watch new movies. I try, I don’t like anything new, I don’t really like a lot of newer music, unless it sounds like older music. This is just the era that I love, and this keeps me young, it’s natural for me, so I don’t have to necessarily go searching for inspiration all the time, because it’s literally all around me, and believe it or not, with all these years of doing this, there’s still stuff I haven’t wrote about yet. So I just need to look around and go, oh, that’s a good song title right there.

When you’re out on tour, are you also seeking out stores for memorabilia to add to your collection?
I absolutely go out looking for stuff, but I’m really fortunate that a lot of fans know that I collect this stuff, so when I travel, people will go, hey, I brought you this! I’m like, no way! It’s great, because when I come to different countries, I get the different versions that I didn’t get in America. So, usually when I come home from a tour, I’ve got an extra suitcase or two just of gifts and stuff that I’ve picked up, and I come back and I add to my collection. I would say fifty percent of the stuff behind me was probably given to me. I don’t have to buy as much stuff anymore, because I get a lot of cool stuff.

Teaming up with Taime from Faster Pussycat on No Apologies, that’s an awesome song. Have you known him for a long time, and was he the obvious choice for that track?
Honestly, I wasn’t going to have any guests on the record at all, because I did that with my Necrophaze record a couple years ago, I had a ton of guests on it, and I just wasn’t looking for guests in the beginning, but that song in particular, I brought it in the studio, I was tracking it, and our producer, who had just heard for the first time, he was like, “Man, this song has a Faster Pussycat vibe to it.” I was like, yeah, I guess it kind of does. I’ve lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years, so I’ve known him for that long now, and we did a tour in Australia a couple years ago when we came down on the Glamfest tour, so that was the first time we toured together, we travelled together, we saw each other every day, and we just became even closer friends.

So I’m in the studio. Producer says, “This sounds like Faster Pussycat.” I’m like, yeah, it does. Next week, I’m laying the vocals down. He’s like, “Man, this has got a Faster Pussycat vibe. You should get Taime to sing on this.” And I went, “That’s a good idea.” I literally took a fifteen minute break, and I texted him and said, “Would you want to sing on this song? I think you could do the second verse and sing on it, it’d be a cool thing, what do you think?” And he was like, “Where and when?”

It was that simple, and he came to the studio that weekend, and we spent a few hours tracking it, and it was killer, man. The quick, short story, my introduction to Faster Pussycat, they were my favorite band when I was, like, eleven, twelve years old. When I first started playing guitar, I learned how to play guitar to their first album. That’s what I learned everything from, every note. That’s really the only lessons I’ve ever had on guitar, was that record. So, flash forward from me being eleven years old to last year, and I’ve got the dude that wrote the song in the studio playing on my song, so it was a full-circle moment, it was very important and special for me. Those are rewards for me. That’s how I get rewarded in this business by little things like that and that meant a lot to me. I knew a lot of our fans would dig that too, because we got a lot of similar fans, but he was a big influence on me. I tell him, I’m like, you’re the reason I dyed my hair black. He had blonde hair, I had blonde hair. When he dyed his hair black, I went, I could do that and I’ve stuck that look since I was fifteen years old.

Is he as big an influence as Alice Cooper?
I would say so. I mean, visually, you know, Alice Cooper was the horror lyrically, but Taime’s voice was really a big influence on me, like his raspiness, his overall swagger, and coolness on stage, the hats, the sunglasses. I’m literally a mixture of all of that. I’m Alice Cooper and Taime! I’m a little bit of that all together, so yeah, I wear my influences on my sleeve. I still listen to their music, it’s not like it was back in the day. It’s cool to that they recognise me now as well, so that’s how I said I’m rewarded in this business.

Does it get you thinking about future collaborations with other people you respect as much as Taime?
Yeah, I’ve definitely got a list, and I’ve got a couple ideas, I can’t talk about it, because it would give it away. I’ve got a project I’d like to collaborate with a bunch of artists on a particular subject, and I’d like to put that down one day on a record that would get everybody in one place, in one record. I’ve got people contacting me all the time for collaborations that I didn’t even think about. There’s a band called Lord of the Lost out of Germany that we’re touring with at the start of the year. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with them, but they’re a really big band in Germany. I’m on their new album and they are fans of the band and asked me to be on it. It’s always fun, man. I’m a music fan, and as long as I’m making good music I want people to hear it.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Wednesday 13 on tour with Kim Dracula on the following dates, tickets from The Phoenix…