JOEY JORDISON: 'Women And Children Last' Is Really The First MURDERDOLLS Record

Sergio Pereira and Bret Dugmore of South Africa's MusicReview recently conducted an interview with Joey Jordison of MURDERDOLLS and SLIPKNOT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

MusicReview: [The second MURDERDOLLS album] "Women and Children Last" is distinctively heavier than "Beyond The Valley of the Murderdolls". Do you think this change might upset some of your older fans who enjoyed the glam/horror punk sound of before?

Jordison: "Summertime Suicide", "Blood-Stained Valentine", "Homicide Drive" and "Chapel of Blood" [tracks off "Women and Children Last"]; those are all more stories, we're not writing anything from "Frankenstein" or "Dracula" or "Dawn of the Dead" anymore. The first album was great — and I love it for what it was — but I'm not repeating what we've done before. The new record is obviously a lot more heavier and a lot more direct; just the way I wanted the MURDERDOLLS to sound. You know, when we did the first one [album], we just wanted to go out and have fun — we didn't really care about a direction overall. Whereas now, we've been working on a direction for about a couple of years now.

MusicReview: Did you and Wednesday write the album from scratch or did you both bring out some old ideas, which you had working around the first album?

Jordison: No, we worked on everything from scratch. There is nothing from our old record or leftovers or anything. Everything was created here. This is the first time me and him sat down and wrote together. The first record was a combination of songs I wrote for my old band and then songs from his old band, FRANKENSTEIN DRAG QUEENS. We kind of just pieced it together, so I always consider it to be more of a glorified demo, as to where with us writing this record together [now], this is really the first MURDERDOLLS record.

MusicReview: How did it feel to hit the stage with Wednesday again after all these years? Was there any fear or pre-show jitters?

Jordison: No, no, absolutely not. When we hit those first two shows, those were better than any MURDERDOLLS shows that we ever did during the whole year-and-a-half, almost two-year run of the first record. The whole band is different now; we have a different attitude and we're way more aggressive. Wednesday is a completely different singer than he was before. I'm a way better guitar player. The band that we put together is way more lethal, so I think people are gonna be really surprised.

MusicReview: Last time around, "Beyond The Valley of the Murderdolls" seemed to be more popular on foreign shores than the U.S.. What have you guys done differently this time around to ensure that you conquer the U.S.?

Jordison: I think at the time we did that… SLIPKNOT have never been a nu-metal band at all, but it was during that time when that type of music was still out there, so what we did was completely a 180[-degree turn] from what the American scene was like. So I think right now… now that we're heavier, the songs are more catchy, they're actual songs now — instead of like a minute-and-a-half/two-minute horror-punk songs — this is gonna turn some heads in the American community for sure.

Read the entire interview from MusicReview.