The unmasked Joey Jordison’s Murderdolls are not Slipknot Mark II. Can you imagine the Clown wearing make-up and stack-heels?...
Oh Kerrang, we absolutely can... but that's not the point here
Words: Joshua Sindell
Photos: P R Brown, Lisa Johnson
(drive link)
In a dimly lit room at the Sunset Marquis hotel, five heavily mascara’d men in black leather, each with immaculately back-combed hair, pose and purse their lips for a photographer’s lens. Only a single white curtain against the window protects their pale skin from the outside sun’s piercing rays. Last night’s expedition to famed strip club Crazy Girls has left some of them feeling bleary and achy, but, as the band Junkyard once sang so sagely, ‘That’s life in Hollywood’. Yes, this is LA, the home of all things tawdry and torrid, where giants in spandex so famously used to stride down the Strip. But this is not 1986. These events are happening in June of 2002. And one of these pouting prima donnas happens to be a member of Slipknot.
Murderdolls are the new baby of Joey Jordison – Slipknot’s diminutive drummer – but in stark contrast to his unrelentingly intense day job, their music is a trashy pastiche of glam-rock, New York punk circa 1977, schlock-horror, and heavy metal. Jordison has swapped his mask for make-up and his sticks for a guitar, and has created a band that embody practically everything you don’t ever hear on the radio these days. Alongside him are Static-X guitarist Tripp Eisen, singer Wednesday 13 who previously fronted the Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 and two friends of Tripp from LA – bassist Erik Griffin and appropriately-named drummer Ben Graves.
Just one listen to the Murderdolls’ debut album will be enough to have a legion of Slipknot fans chomping on their home-made boiler suits in confusion. Cheesy songs about grave robbing? Tributes to ‘The Exorcist’’s possessed devil-doll Linda Blair? Zombies? Mad scientists? Ghouls? What the hell is going on?
Jordison, barely five-foot-five even in his new stack heels, allows himself a sly smile.
“This is so far removed from Slipknot that it’s actually the best thing about it,” he says. “When we play, it’s just so fucking funny. We’re very serious about not being serious.”
To change gears from the testosterone-filled, uncontrolled anger of ‘Iowa’ to the sexually charged grind of Murderdolls is certainly something of a role-reversal. Butt Tripp Eisen, who, like Jordison, is also on shore leave from his day job, finds the turn-around almost hilarious.
“It’s kind of like being bisexual,” he jokes. “You’re doing a guy for now, but you’re not giving up on the ‘girl’ thing.”
The seeds of this project were sown years ago, in the mind and garage of Joey Jordison, under the name The Rejects. This was long before Slipknot and nu-metal’s all-conquering domination of the rock scene. The Rejects would eventually morph into Murderdolls, and to Joey, this is no mere side-project.
“I just feel that there’s no point in doing anything that’s even remotely similar to Slipknot,” he reasons, seated at a small table inside the cool, dark hotel room. “For me, it’s a chance to play guitar, which I played long before I played drums.”
Murderdolls began to become more than just a figment of Joey’s imagination three years ago when Slipknot toured with New Yorkers Dope, who had Eisen in their line-up at the time. The two bonded over a mutual love of such bands as Manowar, The Ramones and The Plasmatics.
“I had spent my whole life being kind of a glam guy, but also digging the heavy, heavy music,” says Tripp, a soft-spoken man with dreadlocks that sprout from his head like drooping asparagus. “It’s rare to find someone who can relate to both, and that’s what drew me to Joey. He’s into Slayer and Twisted Sister with equal intensity, and there’s not many people like that.”
To Tripp, there’s not all that much difference between the two. Both metal and glam are escapist and theatrical in nature, and he points out that Mötley Crüe and Slayer both used pentagrams on their albums.
Together, during the off time from their respective bands, Joey and Tripp dug up some of Joey’s old Rejects songs and dusted them off. They discovered a voice in North Carolina native Wednesday 13, and he brought several of his own songs with him. Then, after the album was finished, the band’s line-up was completed by Griffin and Graves.
The record itself is an absolute blast. Roaring guitars, skull-rattling drums and sneering, screaming vocals, all set to fast-paced tunes of terror and turmoil. Imagine the Ramones, the Misfits and the Dead Boys wearing long-haired wigs and goofing on love, lust and comic books. Add to the mix a soupçon of Marilyn Manson, plus a few screaming metal electric guitar leads, and stir. What pours out ain’t pretty, but it will certainly raise some eyebrows.
Joey couldn’t be more excited at the prospect of his Slipknot fans lending Murderdolls an ear.
“Not to take anything away from Slipknot, because I love that band and I’m still very much in it. But playing the guitar is not the same as playing the drums. Wearing make-up and trashy clothes is not the same as wearing coveralls and a mask.”
But what is to become of that famed Slipknot ‘mystique’? Won’t it forever be ruined by the fact that Joey is the first of them to go mask-less? Joey downplays the importance of his decision, saying that the internet has basically removed whatever secrecy Slipknot had tried to maintain anyway.
“We meet and talk to the kids without our masks every day,” he points out. He also says that Slipknot’s singer Corey Taylor and guitarist Jim Root will soon be performing sans masks in their own side-project, Stone Sour.
“I’ve said this a million times before, but wearing the masks is what the music ‘made’ us do,” says Joey. “It was not to just hide our faces. After knowing what Kiss looked like without their make-up for so many years, when I went to see them on their reunion tour, I didn’t give a fuck if I knew what they looked like under their make-up. When I saw them in make-up, I said, ‘That’s fuckin’ Kiss’.”
Scheduling the Murderdolls sessions and upcoming tour was never an issue with Slipknot either. All of the nine members decided that their loving maggots could allow them a few months’ rest, and many of them are pursuing solo projects.
“It was a mutual decision,” says Joey, “It wasn’t like we all needed the time away from one another. I told them that I felt that this stuff was worthy of being put out on a record. I think that it’s worthy for people to see it live as well. I’ve been spinning upside-down on a drum riser for the past 10 months, and now I’m going to go jam with this other band for a while, and they were totally cool with that. They knew from the start, even before the first Slipknot record, that I was going to do this, so it was no surprise to them.”
As for the other members, this much is known. Tripp Eisen says he’s still very much a part of Static-X, who are just about ready to wrap up their touring scenario for 2002 and will immediately begin writing their third album. Singer Wednesday 13, recruited to replace Rejects singer Dizzy, is an aficionado of ‘80s glam acts like Pretty Boy Gloyd and Tuff, and claims, quite horrifically, to have the soundtrack albums to every one of Sylvester Stalone’s movies – including ‘Over The Top’ and ‘Rhinestone’. Wednesday, who speaks in a warm southern drawl, plays a big role in the band’s theme and sound. He explains the song ‘Dawn Of The Dead’.
“I’ve always loved that movie,” he says, “and I thought, ‘How great would it be to have a Quiet Riot, ‘Cum On Feel Tha Noize’-type chorus for a song like that?’.” The singer described the sound of Murderdolls as a “Frankenstein monster we stitched together.”
The two newest members are Ben and Erik, friends of Tripp’s from LA. They do not play on the record, and both were struggling musicians who felt left out by the onslaught of post-grunge blandness and down-tuned rap-rock. Secretly, they wished they’d get hired to play just this kind of balls-out rock that just didn’t seem to exist outside of their old CD collections. They were working in shops on trendy Melrose Avenue when Tripp gave them a call.
“Once we all agreed that Nikki Sixx was God, we knew they were the right guys,” observes Wednesday.
Joey is loath to describe the band’s sound as metal or punk, though clearly it has elements of both, as well as some of the more frenzied moments of Marilyn Manson’s catalogue. In particular, ‘Dead In Hollywood’ truly sounds as if the God Of Fuck was somewhere in the mix, lending a helping shout. As it turns out, Joey asked the man himself to contribute, but not on any of the songs that have turned up on the record.
“Marilyn’s a friend of mine and we’ve always helped each other out,” says Joey. “I played some guitar for him and hooked him up with a remix, which he just recently used on the ‘Resident Evil’ soundtrack. He said that he’s going to sing on one of our songs now.” Unfortunately, what with his own deadline looming shortly, Manson’s tracks – either ‘People Hate Me’ or ‘Nineteen Seventy 666’ – may have to wait until after the release of the new Manson disc.
If all this sleaze and disorderly conduct sounds a little backward thinking, it is no accident. Even Trip agrees that the ‘Dolls pay tribute to a bygone time.
“I feel that kids today don’t know about what we grew up on, and I think that we’re trying to bring the whole package to them. The Union Underground and Sinisstar are similar in the respect that they’re bringing trashy rock back, but we just feel like we can do it better.”
Wednesday speaks with an endearing confidence that borders on pride.
“Nobody’s done it to the extent that we will,” he brags. “There were bands like Buckcherry and Beautiful Creatures who were doing the whole Guns N’Roses rock thing, but nobody’s done it at the level that we’re going to.”
Without too much Slipknot business to attend to, aside from the upcoming Reading and Leeds appearances this summer, Joey is clearly basking in his new-found freedom. Returning from the bathroom after applying his make-up, he jokes that posing for photos in Slipknot is so much easier than this current Murderdolls shoot. “You just throw on a mask and make hand gestures!”
Joey says that he’s looking forward to sharing his band with the world, and playing guitar live.
“I think that we’re original, but we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,” he muses. “I think that in Slipknot, we broke down a lot of doors. I’m very proud of that, and I’m very fulfilled there. This is just another way to keep the glass full.”
Murderdolls release their debut album, ‘Beneath (sic) The Valley Of The Murderdolls’, on August 19 via Roadrunner.
Doll Parts
Joey Jordison’s guide to his new bandmates…
Ben Graves
Joey: “Again, Tripp found him. Does he look like Twiggy Ramirez? Absolutely no comment.”
Wednesday 13
Joey: “He and I wrote all the music and the lyrics together. It’s fun when we’re singing about grave robbing. It’s much more tongue-in-cheek than anything Slipknot’s ever done.”
Erik Griffin
Joey: “Tripp brought him into the band. I saw a video that Tripp did of them jamming, and he looked right for the band.”
Tripp Eisen
Joey: “When we met, we instantly knew that we had the same taste in music. I really love his leads on the album. Live he’s great, and he’s a great friend.”
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