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WEDNESDAY 13 + HOLY GRAIL + DEATH DIVISION + FINAL UNDERGROUND
http://www.wednesday-13.com
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When word gets out that an artist is doing a concept album, most people tend to cringe with dread. However, Wednesday 13's new opus, Monsters Of The Universe: Come Out And Plague, is not a typical concept record. Titles such as The Crimson Idol by W.A.S.P. or The Last Temptation by Alice Cooper, tend to focus on a single character, Monsters Of The Universe is quite the opposite. "Yes, and I wanted it to be like that because I'm not really a fan of concept records," reveals W13. "Of course I have Welcome To My Nightmare (also by Alice Cooper), and the two you mentioned, but I never wanted to write a story like that where you had to know the character. On Monsters Of The Universe, the character is Earth, is people. If you're a person, you can relate to this; that is the character."
Another unique aspect regarding Wednesday 13's sixth studio album, is the fact that it has two title tracks: "Come Out And Plague", as well as "Monsters Of The Universe". "At first I had the title Come Out And Plague written down, then when I came up with Monsters Of The Universe, I just thought they should go together. It works. I don't know why, but it turned out that way."
Movies have always been a big inspiration for W13 song titles and lyrics; this time around it's no different. "I Ain't Got Time To Bleed" is a classic line from the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger flick Predator, spoken by former pro wrestler and Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura. "Yes! That was one of the first song titles I had written down in my book before I even had a title for the record. I'm a huge fan of Predator and Jesse Ventura. Somehow I worked it into the concept story of the record. That's what I call the 'Eye Of The Tiger'. That's the people fighting back; but they're still going to die going out swinging." Predator hit the silver screen 28 years ago, why write about it now and not earlier? "I am surrounded in my apartment by Predator toys; it's never left my life. It's kind of funny because all the conspiracy theories I got into on the record, Jesse Ventura had a conspiracy theory show (from 2009 to 2012). So it really tied into that as well."
In 1988, the John Carpenter science fiction film, They Live, was released; starring another professional wrestler, Roddy Piper. This movie about a drifter, who discovers the ruling class are actually aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to accept the status quo via subliminal messages in the media, is the impetus behind "Come Out And Plague". "That movie and what it represents you put the glasses on and you can really see what the world is. That's kind of the concept of the story, so it was cool to use that as a reference. I remember seeing that as a kid and it struck a chord with me. I still watch it to this day, and it's pretty accurate to how things could be. That's what the concept of this record is; what if everything you found out is a lie? Put the glasses on. What if it was revealed to you that's scary! That's a really scary thought. Wake up one day and turn on the news everything is a lie. Everything would collapse; we would be fucked so bad."
Believe it or not, although Wednesday admits to being a "huge wrestling fan," he insists it was "total coincidence" that two movies starring two wrestlers served as his Muse. "I grew up in North Carolina where a lot of wrestlers (including Junkyard Dog, Tatanka, and current WWE CEO Vince McMahon) are from. I grew up with my Grandfather yelling at Ric Flair on TV; he hated him! To this day, Ric Flair is my wrestling hero."
Thankfully, They Live was left alone as a single entity, unlike Predator that spawned numerous sequels; none of which have come close to the original. "I agree. The story in They Live could go on, but I'm glad they didn't take the characters and ruin it. Some of the Predators of course there's nothing that can top the first one, but I did like some of the visuals in Alien vs. Predator; watching the Aliens on the pyramid, that blew my mind! I thought that was insane."
The concept of misheard lyrics is nothing new. Perhaps the most famous incidence is Ozzy Osbourne listening to Jimi Hendrix do "Purple Haze". The Prince of Darkness thought he heard, 'scuse me while I kiss this guy', when in actuality Hendrix was singing, 'scuse me while I kiss the sky.' That phenomenon now applies to Wednesday 13. During "Come Out And Plague", W13 sounds like he's singing 'Obama they're coming for you' as in the President of The United States, Barack Obama. Realistically, the lyrics go, 'Oh brother they're coming for you'. "Well originally, it was 'Oh Barbra, they're coming for you', because I had written it strictly about (the 1968 George A. Romero film) Night Of The Living Dead - "They're coming to get you, Barbra". In the demo version I sent to the band, I had a sample of that before the song started. I didn't think about Obama, but yes, I will think about that now when we play it."
A more classic influence pervades "Bombs, Guns, Gods This Is A War", that being Nineteen Eighty-Four, the dystopian novel by George Orwell, published in 1949. "Yes, a lot of people know that story, but they forgot about it. It was cool to actually write a song about that. I've seen the movie, I've read the book, and it's kind of crazy because it really is a lot of things that are going on today. Big Brother is watching you. They're looking at your cell phones, your texts, your Internet; they're watching you. People get microchip implants in their pets in case they get lost. Well, that's kind of like a chip in you. One day, when whatever goes wrong and you end up on the enemies list, they program that chip into their drone from remote control city you're done!"
There are a couple of departures from the sci-fi concept on Monsters Of The Universe, one being "I Love Watching You Die". Lyrically it seems more at home in a serial killer / horror movie like Saw. "Actually, that song is really a fucked up song," testifies Wednesday. "I knew it would fit with my audience, and it sounds like my kind of, I guess, typical lyrics. But I wrote that song about some really horrible things that I read in some of these conspiracy theory books which goes into the 'Serpent Society' song with The Reptilians. Some stories I read about these people who were sacrificing children. The whole thing in horror movies is, 'we got to sacrifice a virgin.' And Hollywood made that virgin hot with tits; she's good looking. But the whole virgin sacrifice thing in history goes back to children. It's a really dark fucking song. There's a guy in England who died three years ago Jimmy Savile he was like the Wolfman Jack of radio. After he died, he's been linked to hundreds of child murders; yet he was friends with the Royal Family."
Musically, "I Love Watching You Die" is very different from the rest of the album as well, seeing as it's a lot more goth-oriented. "That was something else too. I love how it goes on the record, and we do it live as well, from 'Planet Eater' into that; black metal into fucking goth/synth. Who does that? I do." The drums in "Planet Eater: Interstellar 187" are the heaviest ever heard on a Wednesday 13 album. "It's so cool! That's (guitarist) Roman's, that's his baby. At the very end, I had all the demos, we were about to go to Texas and record. Ramon and Troy (bassist) got together and worked out a demo with a drum machine. Ramon's such an old death metal fan; he loves Carcass! He sent me the song just the music and immediately I was like, how the fuck am I going to sing over this? This is not my typical kind of thing. It's funny because I did everything exactly opposite to how he thought I would; it was cool to work with something that wasn't in my comfort zone so to speak. Now, that song is a fucking machine! We do it live and people go, 'what the fuck?' It sounds massive."
nadvertently, W13 just revealed a secret. In the liner notes to Monsters Of The Universe: Come Out And Plague, it reads: Recorded Aug-Sept 2014 at parts Unknown across the United States. The truth comes out at last; one of those parts is the Lone Star State Texas. "Well we actually recorded it at Roman's apartment, in his living room. We were there for three weeks, I came back home and did all the vocals in two days at my friend's place."
Given the fact that Monsters Of The Universe: Come Out And Plague was recorded without the benefit of a "professional studio," the results are amazing! The production is the best it's ever sounded. "The reaction from people has been, 'Holy fuck, you did it. You surpassed yourself.' It's the best I've ever done. Our guitar player, Jack Tankersley, engineered the whole record. Once I heard the record, I couldn't believe we did this over the course of a month in two different apartments. And it wasn't comfortable. We were sleeping on top of each other. We'd record from noon 'til two in the morning; it was an all-day process just music, music, music. That was something I'd never done before. Normally it's like, we're at a studio for five or six hours, go home and come back. We couldn't get away from it. We were completely entrenched in this record. We had such a blast! And it was cool to sit back and let Roman take time with his guitar parts. We had all the time we needed to do this, which was great, and I think that's why it turned out so good."
On previous albums, W13 has taken very justified jabs at organized religion. Throughout all the sci-fi and alien plot lines present on Monsters Of The Universe: Come Out And Plague, he's still managed to include a few more, very welcome, blows to the church. One of the lines in "Keep Watching The Skies" goes: 'If you're praying to God, then you're praying too late.' Another gem resides in "Monsters Of The Universe": 'All your faith and hope, it's been a fucking joke.' "Again, it ties in with the concept of the story. It's a really scary thing if you think about it. When you watch Walking Dead, that TV show, and they're going through this apocalypse or whatever; they've still got their faith. They've still got their God, or whatever they believe in. But what if you were told there is no God. These are the facts, you were created by this. People live off their faith. Religion is a scary fucking thing! Being where I'm from, growing up and seeing that. I was just there recently, like a week and a half ago. I've lived in LA now for five years so I don't see it that much. But (in North Carolina) there's a church on every corner."
On the live stage, with the addition of a keyboard player, W13 is now a six-piece; for the first time ever. "Never had that many people up there the thing is; I've always wanted that in the band. I don't crank it in the mixes, but Transylvania the samples between the songs the way it flows. To me, just playing songs is boring. It has to be a roller coaster ride. When I do my shows, the ones you seen in the past, we still have an atmosphere there, but it would be a guitar tech on the side hitting buttons. If it's not perfect, I'm losing my mind, but I can't get mad at him cause he's doing everything else. I've always wanted a guy who could control the fuckin' vibe of the show. What we've done is, we went back and added keyboards to the old songs so they fit with the new stuff. It's just something I wanted to do. It's been ten years since Transylvania came out. I'd been doing the same thing; I needed something to be fresh for me. This is the new level. That's not me being cocky or anything, I'm just confident. And you can see the reaction, you can feel that vibe. I couldn't be more happy with it."
Earlier this year - on January 15th to be precise - Wednesday 13's show in Dallas, TX at Trees was filmed in its entirety. "Well, there's two things going on with that. We had a friend in town that wanted to come out, so we're talking about using that footage to sync up a live video. But the first thing we're doing when I get back from this tour is we're filming a video for 'Serpent Society'. It's not going to be a band performance at all. It's going to be like a mini-movie. I'm basically going to act out the lyrics to that song. Full reptilian, full-on production, super special effects; it's not going to be my typical video. This whole year for me is just doing changes, doing things in a different way that I don't think people would expect me to do."
After all the lyrics and imagery that comprise Monsters Of The Universe, the million dollar question is, does Wednesday 13 believe in UFOs and life on other planets? "Absolutely! I mean, anytime you look up in the sky at night and see a star, or whatever. To think we're the only people in existence is ridiculous. As far as UFOs, I definitely think there are people from other dimensions, other worlds that have come here and visited. But when it comes down to it, I think we are the aliens. It's impossible to think that the evolution thing we just evolved from ape and all of a sudden we've got iPods. Somebody came here, manipulated what was going on. My thoughts on Mars, I think Mars wasn't alien; Mars was us. I think we were there before, it got cleared out; it came here. I have a lot of theories, I can talk for hours."
BraveWords is giving away vinyl (yes VINYL) copies of Monsters Of The Universe: Come Out And Plague! To enter the contest you must "Like" BraveWords on Facebook and then send us an email to contests@bravewords.com with the subject line "Spread The Plague!". The winner will be chosen at random. Contest closes February 25th. Please include your snail mail in your email!
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