MURDERDOLLS: The Making Of 'Women And Children Last'

ARTIStdirect.com editor Rick Florino conducted an interview with Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 of the resurrected MURDERDOLLS. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ARTIStdirect.com: Do you feel like you're injecting more of a metal sensibility into the new music?

Joey Jordison: Completely! This is the first time we've actually sat down and written songs. The production is a lot better, and this is the first time we've really collaborated. The first record was a mix of my old band and Wednesday's old band, and we kind of threw it all together. It was just like a demo pretty much. [The forthcoming MURDERDOLLS album] "Women and Children Last" is like eight years worth of material.

Wednesday 13: It wasn't like we got together and said, "Alright, we're doing this new record. Let's write three weeks' worth of songs." This is eight years of demos that I've passed back and forth to Joey. With as much stuff as Joey's done with SLIPKNOT and I've done on my own, there was so much material to choose from. I've recorded a lot, and there's stuff that's gotten left behind. Joey digs out all this stuff. I'll say, "You like that song, really?"

Joey Jordison: At first, we didn't think we needed to do that song you just heard, and now we're like, "That's one of the best songs!" [Laughs]

Wednesday 13: It turned out great!

ARTIStdirect.com: Does "Women and Children Last" preserve that classic Sunset Strip attitude?

Wednesday 13: Kind of…the title more or less exists to piss people off. Even though I'm a hair metal fan, I've become a huge SLAYER fan over the years. With the way the new MURDERDOLLS music sounds, it's everything from that Sunset Strip stuff to SLAYER. It goes everywhere this time — whereas the first record was more punk rock.

Joey Jordison: I'm really excited about it. I think it's actually going to reel in a lot of the SLIPKNOT fans because of the heaviness. We're not going to lose any fans; this album is only going to gain fans for us. We weren't like, "Okay, we're going to crank out some campy songs like we did before."

Wednesday 13: There are a few songs on the record that are going to appeal to that. However, it's a new sound for us. "Women and Children Last" is exciting because it sounds different. It's got that element of the old rock 'n' roll we grew up on, but we're down-tuned and it's got a new groove.

ARTIStdirect.com: Bringing in those heavier influences, do you feel like your personalities shine through the music even more?

Joey Jordison: Yeah, the first record has the fast fills, but with this, there's more double bass. One song is so heavy that people are going to say, "That can't be them." [Laughs] But it is…

ARTIStdirect.com: Did you envision these songs as a whole while you were writing?

Joey Jordison: Wednesday had a lot of ideas that we'd been working on, and I'll take them, re-adjust them and I'll get the frame.

Wednesday 13: The way I'll do demos is I will record a verse and chorus — just like a minute and ten seconds. If it's a good up to that point, I'll say, "Is it worth finishing?" Then Joey adds all of his magic.

Joey: It works perfectly. I'm writing a lot, and Wednesday's constantly writing. I usually always have an idea in my head, but I don't necessarily record it. It's like what I do with SLIPKNOT; I have it in my head and I go to practice and start rehearsing. With this, it's always good because I'm on the road and Wednesday has all of these ideas. He'll email them to me, and I'll start mapping it all out.

Wednesday 13: We were sending demos back and forth up until the time Joey got on the plane to come to the studio [Laughs].

Joey Jordison: Yup! He sent me these ideas, and I thought, "These are great!" He said, "Really?" It's because he's lived with these ideas for awhile, and when I hear them with fresh ears, I'm like, "That's great! Let's work on this." Then we go from there.

ARTIStdirect.com: How intertwined are horror and hard rock?

Wednesday 13: Seeing Alice Cooper and KISS tied it together for me. I played with GI Joe's and watched horror movies as a kid and I didn't care about music. Then I would see KISS and Alice Cooper and I'd say, "Wow, you can put music to this, cut your head off and electrocute yourself. This is great! "That's where the whole theme and image came for me. Over the years, every band's been fascinated with death or something. It's all about horror movies. It's always metal.

Joey Jordison: On this record, we've actually toned a lot of that down.

Wednesday 13: It's just really violent shit this time [Laughs].

Joey Jordison: The topics are going to surprise a lot of people. We'll listen to a song and say, "That's a total radio song" and then we'll get to the lyrics and be like, "Nope, not now!" [Laughs]

Wednesday 13: I think I might've went over the limit this time.

Joey Jordison: Yeah, there are some bad ones on there!

Wednesday 13: I think this might be the most "motherfuckers" on an album in my history — ever. It's going to have two advisory stickers on it. It's just bad. Your parents are going to hate you.

Joe Jordison: It's going to have the typical parental advisory sticker and the second one is going to say, "We're serious. Fucking advisory!"

Wednesday 13: We're going to have a scratch-n-sniff that smells like shit too. It's going to be great [Laughs]. This is just thinking out loud…This record is dripping so much sleaze and dirtiness. It's happening! That's the best part. We're not coming here trying to create this, it just happens. We've got skeletons with pencils and shit hanging out of them in the studio. We created a vibe in here. It's good! We've got x-ray goggles, a Gremlin head…

Joey Jordison: I'm going to do the rest of the interview with x-ray goggles.

Wednesday 13: Look out, America! He can see right through you!

Joey Jordison: "Can you imagine if we had these when we were five?"

Wednesday 13: "Better yet, we've got them when we're 30!" [Laughs]

ARTIStdirect.com: Has your guitar playing evolved?

Joey Jordison: I've been playing guitar for a really long time. I'm more of a songwriter than a noodler. I can do it, but only to a certain point. I'm more of a rock 'n' roll guitar player. With SLIPKNOT, the stuff that I write is basically rhythms. It's stuff that I hear in my head. Something will inspire me, and I'll just go and it flies out. I've got to be hungry or want to do it. Otherwise, I'll get writers block and I'll have to sit on it for awhile.

Read the entire interview from ARTIStdirect.com.