The Murderdolls

The Murderdolls could just be the band that saves the rock scene. Looking at the current crop of Puddle Of Mudd and Staind it's hard to imagine a time pre Nirvana, but with the Murderdolls they bring back all the rock & roll excess of times gone by. Add glam rock, guitar solo's, Friday 13th, which feature in equal parts, and not forgetting the fact that Slipknot's Joey Jordison has swapped the sticks for a guitar it makes for a exciting proposition.

We caught up with frontman Wednesday to find how himself and Joey forged an alliance between The Rejects and Frankenstein Drag Queens to form the Murderdolls. After two months on the road the band are getting used to the fact that they've not only attracted a cult following of Murderdolls obsessive's, but are set to scare the mainstream when they support Papa Roach later this year.

Q: It's one of the most complicated family trees in rock & roll history, but could you summarize for our readers how the Murderdolls came to being?
A: In the shortest story I can explain cos' it's such a long story. Joey had a band called the Rejects that he had about 95/ 96 as well as being involved in Slipknot. But the Rejects used to play around Iowa and then of course Slipknot went on, got signed and became huge and we didn't have time to do the band. But any time Joey had time off, he would come home and the Rejects would do shows. It was basically just Joey and this singer guy called Dizzy, actually some of the guys from Slipknot would play shows like Corey, but they would just get people together and play these songs they had.

In 2000, Joey had some time off, went into the Studio, played all the music with a singer and recorded 14 songs. He also met Tripp who is in Static X, but who at the time was in a band called Dope. And it's weird because the ideas been around for ages, but as far as being physically a band between Slipknot's and Static X schedules they came in and did 2 live shows in the same day - one in the afternoon and then another in the evening.

A year later I get brought into the picture and Joey had heard the band I'd been in, Frankenstein Drag Queens, and he really liked our music cos it was really similar to what he'd been doing with the Rejects. Were on the same wave length, like the same music and the same movies, but I came into the Rejects as a bass player. I went up there, recorded some songs and Joey was like I really like your voice - I wanna get rid of this guy I've been with for 6 years. And from that point we basically started on the record. Once the album was done we found Eric and Ben. Eric was in a Static X video playing a vampire, so he knew Tripp. And then Eric said I know a drummer guy, which was Ben, and they kind of came in as a team.

We'd never played together as a band until a week before we went on tour. So we had to learn all the material and go out on a tour of the States. Most bands will be together for years and years and we were like I hope we can play these songs as well as the album. Now when I listen to the album, it's like we play it so much together now.

Q: So as you said then. The album came together from Joey's "Reject" songs and your "Frankenstein Drag Queens" songs. Is it working as band now?
A: The story always focus' about the rejects, but a lot of the material came from my band. And we just put them all together and Joey had the name The Murderdolls wrote down in a notebook for a couple of years. We just stuck with it even though we knew it would give us a load of ***, cos you can't say "Murder" - it's bad - so we've come across some shit for that already. It's like were not going to carry a band called the Murderdolls!!!!

Q: You guys grew up in a time where Rock bands made an effort rather than just walking on stage like they'd got out of bed. Where did it start for you?
A: For me when I started really getting into music I always say the original Alice Cooper Band. I say the band cos even though Alice always got the main attention, the albums that that band did they were such a brilliant band. But of course I wasn't alive when those album came out so I had to read about them and hear about them.

So when I started to get into music I saw "Were Not Going To Take It MTV" from Twisted Sister and Motley Crew's "Looks Could Kill" video and for some reason I was always attracted to the bands that had an image. Like when I see AC/DC it was like they look like guys that work on cars in a garage.

Kiss, Alice Cooper, Motley Crew. In my mind when I think of rock bands that's the image that comes in mind. So with us, that's why it's so important. So that when we walk on stage we don't look like that guy walking on the street over there. It's really important for us to look like were from outer space because the way bands look today if they fell of stage you really couldn't separate the band members from the audience.

Q: And the sound as well is from a more traditional rock perspective isn't it?
A: We have guitar solo's in our songs and nobody does that anymore. It's popular not to have them, but in my mind when I write a song that's the structure of it I write. People compare us a lot to the 80s and I guess it is. But the 80s are just a copy of the 70s and the 70s are just a copy of the 60s - it's just a big cycle thing.

We took what we liked from that music, we put our own stamp on it and we think we squeezed all the cheese out of it. Put a little more aggression onto it and put a more darker image on it.

Q: Have you got a Murderdolls Cult going yet?
A: Yeah, it's weird that the red and black thing has really taken off. We knew that we weren't a top 20 radio band and our mind was made up with the fact that we were going to start a band the way we wanted to start it. We thought we could form this small army and build it up and up and from our first American Shows to this tour it's all sold out.

For me to walk out on stage and see hundred's of kids with Slipknot T-shirts on, which I think is completely opposite to what we play, and for them to walk away and think that is the greatest show I have ever seen. If they can accept Slipknot and accept what we do it's really opening minds. People keep saying is this a real band? Is this a side project? Were busting our *** and you'll definitely see more albums and I think after you see the show tonight you'll see that the kids are digging it too much just to be some stupid side project. Like when I think of side projects I think of the guy out of Limp Bizkit who did that Big Stupid Face side project and Fieldy from Korn - but with this there's something special.

And now we've just got the Papa Roach tour as well, so were going in front of kids who are buying the Top 40 popular music. Were going in front of kids who are probably terrified of us and were gonna turn them over.

Q: It's a real package tour for the UK- the Murderdolls and Anti Product. Tell us a little about Anti Product?
A: Well, I don't know whether you guys knew this or not. But our bass player, Ben, his father died over the weekend. So he flew home for the funeral and he's coming back tomorrow and the lead singer of Anti Product is playing bass with us for tonight. Because if not we'd have to cancel sold out shows and it would be a nightmare.

Anti Product are weird and that's what cool about it. We didn't want to bring a Nu-Metal band or anything like that. They're like a punk rock Abba. It's cool watching them come out at night because the audience doesn't know what to make of them - they give them a little *** at first, but they win them over by the end of the show.

Both bands are totally opposite of what's popular right now in music. We didn't want a band that was Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park so we just got two weird bands.