Category Archives: Musical Musings

Static-X front man Wayne Static electrifies with “Pighammer”

By Jonathan Williams

With his cyber metal band Static-X, Wayne Static pioneered an “evil disco” sound that became a staple of the annual Ozzfest tours, numerous horror and action movie soundtracks and a couple of the WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw video games. After a decade-plus span that included six albums and several tours, the band went on hiatus in 2009 leaving front man Static to focus on Pighammer, his solo debut released in October. Following a string of fall tour dates, Static and his new band embark on a mini-tour Dec. 14-18 to preview a national tour beginning late next month. Before his pre-holiday tour, Static talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about Pighammer, Static-X and the process of getting his life together for the better.

While you were the main creative force in Static-X, Pighammer is the first album released simply as Wayne Static. Was making this album a significantly different process from what you did with Static-X?

The writing process was very similar since I wrote all the Static-X stuff on my own anyway. The main difference was that I didn’t have to get together with a band after I wrote the songs and make compromises and changes to make everybody happy. I just got to create everything myself and do it on my own and do exactly what I wanted to do. So that’s the main difference, but the writing process was pretty much how I always write.

As far as recording goes, did you do most of that yourself or did you have other musicians helping you out in the studio?

Yeah, I did everything myself and really took my time and actually did a lot of the writing while I was recording. So most of the vocal performances are, like, first or second takes, which adds a lot of excitement to it. When I recorded the vocals, it’s not like I had been rehearsing it for months and was bored with the song already, which is what usually happens. Also, I recorded 24 tracks, didn’t do Pro Tools this time, so there’s no editing or anything like that. I think that also really gives it a really great, exciting kind of vibe without having anything cut and pasted anywhere. It’s all real performances.

The artwork and imagery features you and your wife [adult film actress Tera Wray] with pig noses, metal stitches and things like that. If there’s an overall concept to Pighammer and its imagery, what would you say it is?

The original concept was transformation and my transformation leaving Static-X behind and making the record on my own. My wife and I left L.A. and moved out to the desert and spent some time getting clean, getting off drugs. So the record is generally about that. I wanted to figure out a way to display transformation in sort of a dark comical way, which I like to do. And the Pighammer name was something I had wanted to use for a long time, so my wife and I came up with this whole storyline were the Pighammer would be this surgical tool made out of a pig’s foot. She came up with this great idea where I’d be this mad plastic surgeon transforming her into a pig. There’s nothing literal about it. I just think it’s cool imagery and it does represent transformation.

That being said, the song “Get It Together” has a lot of references to partying and drug use and whatnot. Where would you say that song fits in with the overall theme of the album?

You know, that was one of the first songs I started working on. That song and a lot of the songs on the record deal with doing drugs and reminiscing about it, getting off drugs and that whole process. So that song literally is about getting it together. It’s a big decision to make when you want to get clean and it’s not easy to do. I didn’t go to rehab or anything like that, and I did it while I was making the record actually.

You did some shows earlier in the fall. How were those shows with the new band?

The shows were awesome. It was really refreshing to be on stage with a new group of guys who really want to be there and are really excited. I’ve got Sean Davidson on drums, Brent Ashley on bass and Ashes on guitar. Ashes really put my band together for me. He’s been a longtime friend and used to watch my house when I was on tour with Static-X. So that worked out really cool. I didn’t have to hold auditions or any of that crap. All these guys have played with other bands that have had some success, like Sean played with the Genitorturers.

Would you say Static-X is over or just on hiatus?

My opinion is we’re just on indefinite hiatus. We’ll see what happens. Towards the end of the last Static-X tour, it was very clear that no one really wanted to be there anymore and everybody really wanted to do their own thing. So I just kind of let everyone do what they wanted to do and started working on my stuff by myself. We’re kind of a strange band. We weren’t friends outside of the band, we never really hung out or anything like that. So I haven’t talked to the guys and I don’t even really know what they’re up to right now at this point. It’s been a couple of years.

You’re doing a string of shows this month to preview a national tour next year. Do you have opening acts touring with you for this mini-tour?

We’re just doing local openers. I really like doing that for a lot of reasons. It really helps promote the show, number one. But I think it’s really cool for the local bands as well to kind of help get their name out and get a foothold in their territory. We’re going to be doing a full tour next year hitting everywhere in the U.S. and we’ll be bringing some bands with us on that, but we’ll probably still have at least one local opener.

Will these December shows be indicative of what people can expect from your bigger tour next year or will next year’s shows be a bit bigger?

We’re just doing a building thing and seeing where it takes us. We’re just playing clubs right now and keeping it on a grassroots level – a little bit smaller venues than Static-X was playing. But it’s kind of appropriate since I’m kind of starting over in a way. We’re kind of growing it and taking it step by step. But we’ll be seeing you in January and February.

For more information, go to www.waynestatic.com.

The Birthday Massacre wrestles with “Imaginary Monsters” of many kinds

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By Jonathan Williams

From its dark synth sounds and jagged guitars to its cute bunny logo and other whimsical imagery, Toronto’s The Birthday Massacre exists in an innocently melancholy realm somewhere between childlike fantasy and harsher realities. Following last year’s Pins and Needles, the band recently released Imaginary Monsters, an EP that includes three new songs, as well as Pins and Needles remixes by Combichrist, Skold, Tweaker and others. After four headlining shows last week, the band is now on tour with Japanese rock band Dir En Grey through Dec. 20. Pixie-like front woman Chibi takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about maintaining a cartoon-like outlook on life into adulthood.

Photo courtesy Reybee

The Birthday Massacre has always had a balance between childlike whimsy and more sinister fairy tale-like themes, both in look and sound. What is the inspiration for your visual and musical style?

When we were growing up, all of us were really into music as children. There’s obviously a lot of ’80s references, as well as some metal elements. When we got the band together, we were in college and you reach an age where you look back and sort of romanticize your childhood and who you were when you were a kid, before you knew the world was not as fun or cool as you maybe thought it was. All you had to do was play games and learn things and you were surrounded by encouragement and positivity. So it’s sort of that resolution between childhood and adulthood and trying to hold on to those elements back when you were a kid and felt that things were a little more magical, but also having to be an adult. Then you realize things aren’t always what you thought they were when you were a kid.

You did the entrance music for Katie Lee Burchill a few years ago for WWE. That’s another world that straddles the line between fantasy and reality.

Oh, yeah. Those characters are almost like cartoon characters themselves.

Right. How did the collaboration with WWE come about and how did you like doing it?

We didn’t actually write the song. There’s a songwriter for WWE who writes all the songs. But he really likes the band, so he got a hold of us and asked if I’d be interested in singing the song and I was totally into it. I really liked wrestling back in the day. I liked the Ultimate Warrior, the Undertaker, and I kind of knew the history of it and I was totally excited to do it. I went to Stamford, Connecticut, right to the headquarters, so I was pretty excited. And I think I impressed them all with my knowledge of the wrestlers. I haven’t watched it in years, but Bret “The Hitman” Hart? I was all into it when I was an early teenager, so I was really happy to take part in that. I didn’t even know who Katie Lea Burchill was. I don’t even think she’s with them anymore.

No, she’s with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling now and goes by the name Winter.

It’s so hard to keep track. I was happy to be part of it, honestly. I thought it was really fun. I totally got a kick out of doing it. I think the song turned out well, but the only problem was that she had several theme songs before that one, then she was gone so fast I was just like, “No!” But I’d be totally up for doing it again if they ever wanted me to. It was a great experience and I had a lot of fun with it.

Your recent EP Imaginary Monsters features a few new songs as well as remixes from last year’s Pins and Needles album. Were the new songs part of the same writing and recording session that resulted in Pins and Needles?

Absolutely. We had a bunch of songs for Pins and Needles that didn’t get done and with the time constraints we had to narrow it down to 12 songs. We were pretty disappointed because there were some really good ones that just weren’t at the state of completion they needed to be to make it in time for the record. That’s why the EP was really good. It was a good way to finish up those remaining three songs and clean the slate so when we begin writing another album we can start fresh.

A lot of the people who did remixes on Imaginary Monsters are people you’ve toured with or otherwise worked with previously. Does that make the remixing process easier?

Oh, it’s fun because they’re all friends. Dave Ogilvie has produced our last few albums and at this point it was just like asking friends. It makes it cool for us, too, because I’m excited to see what Andy [LaPlegua] from Combichrist’s take on this song is. And Kevvy Mental from Fake Shark – Real Zombie! is a really good friend at this point – we toured with him a few years ago – and he did vocals on his remix with Dave, so I was happy to hear him sing one of our songs.

Around this time last you you were touring with Black Veil Brides and Dommin. Now you’re on tour with Dir En Grey. All of those bands are a bit more rock and metal oriented than The Birthday Massacre, yet it still seems to work well. Why do you choose to tour with bands with slightly different dynamics?

It keeps the show interesting if every band brings something different to the table, which makes it a good show to watch and a good tour. It’s a good way to expose yourself to fans who might find something in your music that is also present in the band that they’re there for. So you’re not just playing for the same groups of people who would be into your stuff and know it anyway, but it’s a good way to expose yourself to a new audience and you have a more interesting live show.

Photo by Ester Segarra

You’re just a few days into this tour, but do you have any touring or recording plans for the near future?

We’re dropping off this tour right before Christmas, so we definitely look to head into the New Year doing another album. We’re going to try to have it done by the summer time, then I’m sure we’ll tour again. We just took a year off from touring because we were all kind of tired and burned out. It’s hard to keep writing and doing things if you’re touring. We’ve done a lot of touring, so it was good to take that year off. But it’s also nice to be back on the road now. I’m sure we’re going to keep touring into the New Year, but still try to focus on writing a new album, which is kind of a strange balance. We always say we’re going to write when we’re on the road, but it never happens.

What has the writing process been like so far, especially considering that you added new bassist Nate Manor from Wednesday 13 after Pins and Needles had been recorded?

The way that we work is everybody comes up with stuff and pitches ideas. I focus more on the lyric element and leave the music up to everyone else. There are six of us, so it’s kind of hard to have a balance. With Nate in the band now, he played bass on Imaginary Monsters, but Pins and Needles was out before he joined us. We’ve had a really solid core group for years, so when someone new comes in it’s interesting to see what they’re going to bring to the songwriting or any ideas they’re going to have. It’s worked out good with Nate so far.

For more information, go to www.thebirthdaymassacre.com.

Skinny Puppy front man takes his ohGr project on a West Coast tour

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By Jonathan Williams

It’s not every day that someone says things like, “You ate it! It’s a lizard’s tail moving on its own. He bit it off or something. That’s fucked up, dude. The tail is fucking flipping around and moving on its own. It keeps fucking twitching. It’s got life, dude. I’m freaking out. Anyway, sorry, I apologize.”

While some people might actually expect such words from Nivek Ogre, the iconic and theatrical front man for pioneering industrial band Skinny Puppy, he tends to actually be a rather mild mannered guy when he’s not onstage in elaborate costumes spraying blood out of machine guns. Ironically, his lizard tail diversion was a result of his dog, who is likely not skinny considering that he dined on everything but the lizard’s tail.

Having just released the latest Skinny Puppy album hanDover in October, as well as unDeveloped, the fourth album by his ohGr project, in May, Ogre begins his first ohGr tour in since 2008 in San Francisco tonight. When his dog wasn’t partaking in reptiles, here’s what Ogre had to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about as he prepared for the tour.

Photo by Dan Santoni

Considering that the ohGr album unDeveloped came out in May, followed by the new Skinny Puppy album hanDover in October, how much would you say the two albums influenced one another? Were they recorded simultaneously or were they completely separate ventures?

At one time we were contemplating doing a Lou Reed Metal Machine Music type of record to satisfy our third album deal with SPV when they went into insolvency. There was a slight overlap there, but then the two projects definitely veered off and became two totally different projects. The writing styles on both of them are probably as polarized as you can get. There were a few tracks like “NoiseX” and “Brownstone” on the new Skinny Puppy that were conceived around the time that we were doing unDeveloped and it makes sense because there’s a character based around that song title that kind of works his way through the unDeveloped themes. Really, when it came down to it, when the albums were done there was probably about a year between the two, at least.

Whether you’re working as ohGr or with Skinny Puppy, you often have characters and concepts playing out through each album. How do these two albums compare thematically? Is there any conceptual relation between the two records?

Only in the sense that Brownstone makes his first appearance after the fact on the Skinny Puppy record and is talking more about the housing crisis. Brownstone is a character that’s basically an ex-high level intel operative within the U.S. military who kind of went rogue after realizing he was being experimented on. He turned against everything and went deep and dark and took on various identities. But his whole life, he’s been kind of obsessed with electronic devices and he also shuns the idea of electronic communication, so he uses an Oliver typewriter, which is the typewriter that was used in Naked Lunch, the kind of Princess Leia-eared, beautiful pre-Depression typewriter. He manually types out all these pages after he goes and collects data on the streets and pontificates and uploads his thoughts to a Facebook page in the form of these pages, that are kind of these scattered, schizophrenic data blasts, almost like military proofs in the way of what his agenda is. So he’s sort of my schizophrenic counterpart.

Would you say he’s a Skinny Puppy character, an ohGr character, or is he present in both realms?

He’s probably more of an ohGr character, to be honest with you. Although the minds collide, they split, they find heaven and hell in the same amount of time, but he is definitely more of an ohGr character. For me, ohGr is a bit more of a personal project looking inside and Skinny Puppy tends to externalize through personification and looks outward. The new Skinny Puppy album hanDover kind of indirectly, because of our own experiences with the insolvency of SPV, is examining and popping the various bubbles in the state of our great way of life in a lot of ways. Within all that there’s a certain amount of crossover and our own inner worlds tend to meet in various ways that I’m sure not we’re not aware of through actual perception.

Skinny Puppy and ohGr always have very theatrical and conceptual shows. What are your plans for these ohGr shows? Do you have plans to tour more extensively with ohGr after this West Coast stint?

I’d like to. I’ve had two false starts on this tour in the sense that I was trying to do a full U.S. tour, but ohGr’s a bit of a baby band. It stated in 2000 and we did one tour, released two albums and seven years went by. That’s almost a musical lifetime for a lot of people. So it’s a bit tough in the sense that it’s not an easy sell. We toured in 2008 with ohGr for Devil’s in my Details and it was right when the economy crashed. All the promoters were like, “We know what’s going on right now. We know gas prices are really high and we understand what’s going on. You guys did really good considering…” But everybody looks back now in 2011 and it’s a bit of a building thing for me. So it’s really difficult to get ohGr to the East Coast without losing money. I’m not taking a wage and the musicians are taking way less [than usual] because we’re friends. We’re doing a bit of a pressure release, but we’re also trying to work the band and build it up. It’s a building process and hopefully, if things go well, we’ll do more shows. We’re planning a Skinny Puppy tour in spring, but if this goes off good and promoters start saying, “Hey, that sounds good,” we’ll definitely tour more. I definitely don’t want to lose money. I don’t mind not making any money, but losing money sucks balls.

Definitely. You mentioned plans for a Skinny Puppy tour. How much have you planned for that tour and how do you think it will compare to these ohGr shows?

I’m going to be approaching Skinny Puppy the same as I did with the last tour, with heavy visuals. We’re playing smaller clubs and there’s not a lot of room in a lot of these places, so this is more just straight music as a band. We’re touring with Violet Tremors, which is my ex-wife’s band, and Left Spine Down, which is some friends from Canada. There’s theater in the sense that there’s a theme to the show and we’re all going to look really good, I’ll tell you that. We’re going to look really good this time. But as far as the theatrics and the production go, there isn’t a lot of room for that on this tour. And for me personally, doing 26 years of Skinny Puppy and constantly trying to create a spectacle, I’ve never given myself to go out and be a singer in a band and it’s something I’d really like to do. When you’re encumbered with a bunch of heavy costuming or prosthetics or blood or whatever, it takes you out of that because you have a lot of other marks to hit. With ohGr it’s funny to work with these people I really like and just perform as a front man and a singer. There’s still a bit of theatrics, but it’s not as important as it would be for Skinny Puppy, and it’s a bit of a diversion for me so I’m giving myself a little break.

Photo by Dan Santoni

Speaking of theatrics and costuming, a few years ago you were in Repo! The Genetic Opera, which was your first acting role. You’ve also worked with Bill Moseley, both in that film and when recording. Do you plan on doing more acting or branching out in other creative ways?

I’d love to. I was lucky with a bit of serendipity with Repo! and I had a really good audition. I had a really bad audition once before for The Crow. I was up for the part of Funboy and I went into a room with Alex Proyas, the director, and producers and I was playing a sexy part to a girl, who was the assistant director, who was a guy, and I was really out of my element and couldn’t do it. So when I had the chance to do the Repo! audition, I really prepared for it and had an amazing audition. It changed everything for me in a lot of ways. So I nailed the audition and got the part, then I did 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams with Bill Moseley, which was a sequel to the remake of 2000 Maniacs. And I’ve done some other small things. I did an Edgar Allen Poe thing for Staci Layne Wilson and I’m doing another thing for her maybe when she gets it up. When I get back from this tour I’m going to put my reel together because I’d love to do some more stuff. It’s a lot of fun. It’s tough, too. You really have to work for it and nothing comes for free.

I painted a bit when I was younger and I’d like to get back into that just for myself. I don’t know that I’d ever show anything, but I really enjoyed the very fact that it was a medium I had complete control over. It was something that I started with a white board and finished with the last stroke of paint. With a lot of other things you’re not really in control of the outcome sometimes, so I really liked that.

For more information, go to www.wdihtf.com.

An Evening with Corey Taylor offers sinfully intimate interaction with the Slipknot/Stone Sour front man

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By Jonathan Williams

Best known as the monster mask-wearing singer for metal band Slipknot, as well as the singer for the more hard rock oriented Stone Sour, Corey Taylor has recently shown his more studious side. First he was a guest lecturer at Oxford University this past June, then he released his first book, Seven Deadly Sins, in July. For the past couple of weeks he’s been on a solo tour that features spoken word and acoustic performances, as well as more intimate interaction with his fans than anything he’s done previously. With the tour continuing through Dec. 13, Taylor took a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the shows, the book and the wrestling-style promo he did to promote the tour.

So you’re about a week or so into your first spoken word and solo acoustic tour. How’s it going so far?

It’s going really well. Unless I say something stupid onstage, like make fun of the Pope or something, I think we’re doing alright.

This is obviously not your first time performing without your Slipknot mask, but it is a more revealing and intimate look at who you are as a performer than anything you’ve done previously. That being said, what can people expect from these shows?

I wasn’t really sure how the audience would respond to it and they have responded so wonderfully. Basically the show is me running my mouth for the first hour, then I take a quick pee break, then I play for, like, an hour and a half. It’s anywhere from two-and-a-half to three hours every night. It’s been a lot of fun. I come out and I rant in the vein of whatever chapter I’m going to read from that night, so every night is different. Then I read from the book, we do a Q&A, then we play some songs. It’s been really fun for me specifically because I love to have one foot in the structured side and one foot in the extemporaneous side. I love being spontaneous and if something’s feeling a certain way you just run with that. The audience has been so into it it’s really been awesome. Basically it’s like if [Henry] Rollins, [George] Carlin and Dave Grohl were the same person. That’s really been the response we’ve gotten.

I just got a copy of the book a few days ago, so I haven’t had a chance to spend much time with it yet.

Well, I apologize in advance.

I’m sure it’s not that bad. Tell me a little bit about the concept behind the book and why you decided to write a book.

I’ve been threatening to write a book for a long time. It’s one of those things I’ve always wanted to do since I was a kid. I’ve been a voracious reader since I was young and once I developed a taste for writing I knew that someday, if I ever got the chance, I’d want to write a book. When the chance came along, I jumped for it.

The concept of the book was originally just going to be about philosophy and me taking the piss out of philosophy in general. Luckily my agent talked me out of that and was like, “Dude, that will be 5,000 pages, it’ll weigh as much as a Volkswagen Beetle, we can’t do that.” I was like, “What do you suggest?” We kind of shot some ideas back and forth and he’s actually the one that said, “Why don’t you write about the Seven Deadly Sins?” At first, I was like, “That’s kind of a hackneyed premise when you get down to it. Why don’t I write it from the standpoint that they’re not sins, they’re just part of being human?” The more I thought about it, the more I truly believed that. So I basically used the book to make that argument that the Seven Deadly Sins are not sins at all; they’re part of being human and making mistakes. They can lead to sin, but the emotion itself is not the sin. I think in this modern literal world, we break it down into what is literal. There’s no room for esoteric mistakes anymore, so for me it made more sense to make that argument and balance it with stories from when I was growing up or being on the road and whatnot and basically say, “Look, I went through all of these ‘sins’ and I came out the other side and I’m a better husband, better father, better person for it. So how can you call that sin?” The reaction has actually been really good.

Did you have to do a lot of re-reading of The Canterbury Tales, John Milton and all that?

I read that stuff a long time ago. I studied it in school and read it on my own and whatnot, but I didn’t want to get too ensconced in the original material. I really wanted to make it feel a little more fresh. That’s one of the reasons I left out the Seven Golden Virtues. I wanted to concentrate on the sins themselves and really pick them apart like that. I knew that if I got too deep into the original material, I would start to quote too much. I brushed up on it briefly, but for the most part I just kind of ran with it. I did my best to make sure everything I was writing was as original as I could make it.

Was the spoken word tour part of the plan the entire time or did that come about after you finished the book?

That came out of nowhere. It came from two things, honestly. It came from my speaking engagement at Oxford and the two gigs I booked after the book had come out in England. I was doing a signing tour in England anyway and I thought, “Let’s just go into a club and do a show.” Those two shows were so much fun that I was like, “We’ve got to do this in the States. There’s no way I would not want to do this in the States.”

The Oxford engagement was really where I came up with the idea for the Q&A. At the end of my speech, I could tell no one wanted to leave. So I was like, “We’ve got a little more time, you got any questions you want to ask me?” It was so much fun. With every question, I had a weird little story I could tell. So it was really cool to be able to kind of incorporate those two ideas into the American tour. One of the reasons the show is different every night is because not only is my rant at the beginning a little different, but the questions allow me to tell different stories and really break it up and give something to people so that specific show is completely different.

How did the Oxford engagement come about?

They had been trying to get me to do that for about three years. I was always on the road or in the studio and I just never had any time to go and do it. So I was really lucky that they came to me every year for three years and finally that last year I was actually going to be in London anyway for the Kerrang Awards and for Slipknot rehearsals. So I was like, “Absolutely! Let’s do it. If I don’t do it this year I’m never going to get to do it.” I’m so glad I did. It was just fantastic and so much fun.

The tour announcement video you did featured you cutting a wrestling promo for a fictitious promotion called the IBWF (I Be Wrestling Federation). What was the inspiration for that?

We were sitting at my kitchen table trying to think of a different way to promote the tour. I hate doing the same crap over and over. It drives me nuts after a while, so I wanted to do something different. And I went, “Oh my God. A wrestling promo!” Everyone around me was like, “That’s amazing!” It was right around the time that the Halloween shops had sprouted up everywhere, so I was able to find everything I needed in one day. We went back to the house, I put on my ridiculous outfit and we shot it in 10, 15 minutes. It was great. I knew people would take that and run with it. The weirder I get, the more the fans are into it for some damn reason. It was a perfect way to set the tour up. Plus it gave us a chance to put Chicken Cow Cow back out there. Search for Chicken Cow Cow on YouTube and it’s the first thing that comes up. It’s my little dance remix thing that I do with my keyboard.

Were there certain wrestlers you drew from stylistically when cutting that promo?

Obviously there’s Hulk Hogan in there somewhere. I’ve been a wrestling fan since I was a kid. If you embrace it for what it is, which is entertainment, I have no illusions about the fact of if it’s real or not. But I know it’s physically taxing and it takes great skill to make it look good and no skill to make it look crappy. I know the people who rise to the top are the best in the business and it’s almost a metaphor for the music business. People come and go, but legends stay forever. My all-time favorite wrestler is Stone Cold, but I also love the Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and the wrestlers I grew up with, which is Hogan, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, Tito Santana, Andre [the Giant], even “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. I got to meet him and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake and I was, like, freaking out. I was losing my shit, I was like, “Oh my God. You guys are awesome.” I’m still a fan.

Do you still follow it much these days?

I try to. But it’s like getting to watch football on Sundays, it’s hit or miss. I know the Rock is back. I was actually at the Anaheim show when he came out and they announced him as the guest host for WrestleMania this year. I lost it. I jumped up out of my chair and was losing my mind, so much so that I scared an entire family sitting behind me. They were like, “Excuse me, sir. Could you just sit down? I’ve got kids here and they’re trying to see.” I was like, “No. I won’t sit down. I don’t care. It’s the Rock. Get out of my face.” Then I sat down and was like, “Sorry, I’m just really hopped up on sugar.”

Were you there as a guest of WWE or as a paying fan?

I was there as a fan. It’s very rare that I go to anything as a guest. I’m just like everybody else, I buy my ticket. There’s not a lot of shows that I go to, whether it’s wrestling or music or whatnot. But at the end of the day, I can buy a ticket like anybody else. With the rare exception of if I’m friends with the band I’m going to see, then I’ll call them. But that’s really because I want to hang out with them, catch up with them, see if they’re doing OK and whatnot. But when it’s band’s like Van Halen or Nine Inch Nails or whatever, I buy my tickets, I go and I sit, watch the show, love the show and if I don’t get close seats, so be it.

Now that you’ve done spoken words, acoustic performances and various other musical projects, do you think you’ll be branching out into more mediums in the future?

Maybe. People ask me all the time if I want to get into acting and whatnot. I don’t want to be the star of a movie or anything, but I would love to do some supporting stuff and just be the guy that walks by in the background and you’re like, “Did I just see Corey Taylor in that movie?” I want to be the body on CSI so bad I can’t even breathe.

Me and Clown [Slipknot’s Shawn Crahan] are actually starting our own film production company where we’re going to start making crazy, twisted, weird movies. Movies that everyone can enjoy, but also movies that look great, feel great, that are different. We want to make movies that look fantastic, but also scare the crap out of you or make you think. So that’s something we’re working on right now.

For more information, go to www.thecoreytaylor.com.

VNV Nation brings its retro-futuristic “Automatic” tour to the U.S.

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By Jonathan Williams

With its latest album Automatic, electro-industrial act VNV Nation has created one of its most successful and forward-thinking works to date. Heavily inspired by the sleek art deco minimalism and optimistic spirit of the American ’30s, Automatic is a stylistic and thematic departure from previous albums while maintaining the signature sounds that singer Ronan Harris and drummer Mark Jackson have established for VNV Nation. Having just finished a massive European tour in support of the album, the band’s United States tour kicks off tomorrow with German electronic dance act Straftanz opening each show. Just before departing Ireland for the tour, Harris talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about Automatic.

Ronan Harris and Mark Jackson of VNV Nation. Photo by Ben Wolf

You just finished a European tour in support of Automatic and you begin your U.S. tour tomorrow. How have the shows been going so far?

I’m not lying when I say they’ve been going phenomenally well. The album came out at the beginning of September while we were on tour and we really put a lot into this tour. We started doing an extended set, so we’ve been playing anywhere from two-and-a-half to three hours, which really seemed to fly by. We played all over Europe and the reactions from fans and reviews have said this is the best tour we’ve done so far. We have a set that we think really kicks and we just played in Scandinavia last week and people were blown away, saying this was the best show ever. That’s not something you can intend to do, that’s not something you can plan to do, you just hope it works out. It seems to have paid off in spades. People are going nuts about it. It’s a very energetic show with ups and downs and it just keeps people going.

I understand you recorded this album a little differently than you’ve recorded previous albums. How did the Automatic process differ from other albums and how have you translated that to these live shows?

There are a lot of computers in our setup. We have two computers on stage, which are operated by the keyboardists, and they’re using sounds that are on the album. Sometimes it’s loops, sometimes it’s sounds and melodies, but we try to have as much playback live as is possible. There’s a computer system at the front of the house that has all the multi-tracks and all the other bits and pieces. This isn’t like playing a guitar and a bass, there’s a lot of weird little sequences, effects and loops. The drummer is playing a lot of the sounds from the album as well, so the whole thing together is as much as we can split off the actual recording and recreate live as is possible. Then there are a ton of videos and all kinds of fun stuff.

As far as the album production is concerned, there were things with the last album that I really wished I had done differently. That didn’t make it a bad album, I think it was one of our best albums. But I wanted to do something much, much bigger. I went for a very vibe-y sound on this album. There’s a lot of distortion and sort of harmonic overdrive being used on this album. I didn’t want it to saturate the whole thing down to sound like mud, so I spent a lot of time pre-thinking about how we do things, using a lot of state-of-the-art plug-ins. So I would predominantly concentrate on writing the songs and creating the sounds that I thought were fitting for this sound. It started to become very cohesive and everything I was creating for the album all seemed to fit together. There wasn’t going to be something that would stand out on the album and sound like it came from a completely different place. I wanted it to be everything from heavily energetic to soulful, but it always comes from the same space.

There are a lot of new sounds on the album, a lot of new styles that we would never use before. And we’ve basically taken a break from a lot of things we’ve used in the past to really give it new flavors. I guess a lot of underground electronic music has had an influence on me. There was a lot of sort of punky electronic music that had an influence on me as well. I wanted a very analog feel to this album, even though I’m using a computer, so everything was mixed through an analog device. The one thing that is always going to be there for every single album is the vocals, and it’s always going to be me singing, so we really concentrated on that. We’re not a band with massive amounts of equipment, so we concentrate on what’s important. I got the best microphones I could get for this. A lot of people might not understand why that’s really important, but when you hear the results on the album, that basically says it right there. This was leaps and bounds from what we did before as far as recording quality is concerned, and also the ability to mix things without having problems. We started out from the same point, I had a very strong idea of how I wanted the whole thing to feel and sound, then we concentrated on certain things in the right places.

Ronan Harris and Mark Jackson of VNV Nation look to the past for a better future on "Automatic." Photo by Ben Wolf

This album was also inspired by other pop cultural and historical sources. How would you say this album compares thematically to previous albums?

It was heavily influenced and inspired by the American ’30s. I do graphic design for people under another company name so it’s never tied to the band, but I do a ton of other work that I ended up involving in this project. The spirit of the American ’30s, which is something I’ve read vast amounts on and collected books and paraphernalia on, was a very unique period. Even though it was a period of only ten years, the world changed dramatically technologically and in the spirit of wanting to achieve. It was a period, as well, of economic crisis, which I found ironic as I started to reread a ton of books about two years ago. I really got back into this and have really immersed myself, and I found out that they were dealing with a lot of things that we’re dealing with today. What they had that we don’t have was the amazing sense of vision because they were trying to change the world to make it a better place. There were huge fairs and shows and a sense of naivete about the future. But the spirit of it was to make the world a better place, to make it easier for people, and it was all about individual effort. It wasn’t about being part of some massive organization or something like that, it really was about the individual’s creative output and expression.

As far as design is concerned, the ’30s was an incredible period because everything looks sexy. Any retro-futurist film is always going to borrow a huge amount from that era. A lot of the things I was writing were from a retro-futurist point of view and imagining everything within the look and feel of that era. I wasn’t going to do swing music or anything like that. But there’s a track on the album called “Streamline,” which encapsulates a lot of the philosophy of designers who were saying, “This is how the world could be and this is how we should approach it.” I wanted to express it’s naivete and style-wise the song is based on ’70s electronic futurist music, which was all about how great and automated this sci-fi world will be in 20 years. I wanted to combine the two because electronic music really began its commercial use in the ’70s. Before that it was pretty much test equipment or the toys of the very, very rich. People like the Beach Boys and the Beatles could use it, but they didn’t really know what they were doing with it aside from creating some neat weird noises. But the ’70s produced this ton of great artists who were writing cerebral and trippy music, and they invented ambient music and a ton of other things that are still evolving today. I wanted to capture a bit of that ’70s electronic futurism and marry it to this ’30s American futurism.

How that differs from previous albums is that I view this as an incredibly positive album. I think the last album I did that was roughly in this vein would have been Futureperfect in 2001, and that was about “Here we are 100 years later, what is different between the world at the turn of the 20th century and the turn of the 21st century?”. It was a very dark album, a very bittersweet album, in saying, “Where are all the visions? Where’s our get-up-and-go in wanting to make the future a better place?” This album is really about immersing yourself in that spirit and writing as though that were the vision of today.

You’re also heavily involved in the visual aspects of VNV Nation, which are always a big part of the shows. What have you been doing visually on this tour?

A couple of years ago we started to experiment with LED systems, but using them in a clever way. A lot of people will just build a wall and show an image. What we were doing was splitting the panels up in different places around the stage and using them all independent of one another, and using them both as visual media and as a groovy light show. It’s been honed and maximized, so I think it’s a very energetic stage show that doesn’t dominate the art that’s on stage. Some people have shows where they’re trying to push everything at the same time at the same level, but I want everything to fit in it’s right place. But I think we’ve really taken it up a notch.

For more information, go to www.vnvnation.com.

Unknown Hinson was billy before “Squidbillies” was cool

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Long before he became the voice of Early Cuyler on Squidbillies, Unknown Hinson was playing hit (at least in his mind) country songs and brandishing an obliviously alpha male persona that is equal parts Johnny Cash and Bela Lugosi. Though there is little that differentiates Early from Unknown (aside from the tentacles and fangs), you’re not likely to see a Squidbilly on stage performing songs such as “I Cleaned Out A Room (In My Trailer For You).” Known for performing numerous shows a year, Hinson emerges from his trailer park coffin to begin a series of one-off performances tonight with a show at the EARL in Atlanta. Before he takes the stage, he talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about his new stage show, Squidbillies and his mysterious background.

Photo by Robert Leslie Dean

I’ve seen you perform several times over the past few years and your stage show has evolved with each show. You no longer have a manservant and your band lineup has changed from the first time I saw you. What kind of stage show theatrics do you have planned for these shows and what’s your band look like now?

Well, that’s a good question. This time around I’ll be doing only my songs. I don’t play no songs by nobody else. I just play my own mess. It’s all Unknown Hinson songs and it leans more towards the country-western side of me. Not so much rawk because country-western is my first love.

I don’t know about theatrics. I just get up ‘ere and sing and play my guitar and that’s about it. Who knows what might happen? Different thangs happen different times. Ain’t nothin’ I really plan to happen, you know. I just kind of go with it. I use a steel guitar player, a drummer and a bass player, and, of course, me. I don’t play no covers by nobody, I don’t play no rawk and mess like ‘at. My family had a country-western intervention. I used to play some rawk, but I figured out that my ass was gone burn in hell if I kept that up, so I give it up.

Now that you’ve been doing Squidbillies for a few years, do you ever find that people who may not even know who you are or what you look like recognize you by your voice?

Yessir, it happens all the time. It sure does. Squidbillies is a lot of fun. I’ve been doing it since 2005 and a new season is on the air right now on Cartoon Network‘s Adult Swim. Actually, we’re working on season six, to be released soon.

Yeah, people do recognize… It kind of works both ways. Some people who know me will check out Squidbillies and some people who see Squidbillies get curious about me and come to my shows. So one kindly helps the other, you know what I mean?

Yeah. You’ve had a recurring character on the show named Thunder Clap, who is voiced by professional wrestling legend Mick Foley. What has it been like working with him on those episodes?

Well, you know I don’t get to work with the other voice actors. We do it all in separate studios. I’m located out of North Carolina. Sometimes I will fly to Atlanta to do a session for the show, but it’s usually a special record or something like that. Or we might shoot a promotional video for the show and in that case I would fly to Atlanta. But most of the time they direct me from Atlanta while I’m in a studio here in the Charlotte area. Then they put it all together.

Wrestling is obviously a pretty integral part of the north Georgia setting of Squidbillies, as well as in Charlotte and throughout the South. What are your thoughts on professional wrestling and the Squidbillies episodes about it?

I love it. I think it’s great entertainment. I really do. A lot of people who like me seem to like it, and vice versa. It’s funny how it works like ‘at, but I’ve seen that.

Outside of Squidbillies, have you ever been involved in any kind of professional wrestling show in any way?

Naw sir, I never have. That don’t mean I wouldn’t like to someday, but I never have so far.

I understand a collection of music from Squidbillies will be available as a free download soon. And you’re also working on your own album of new material. When will all that be available?

Yep. There’s an album coming out consisting of the various artists that have contributed songs to the show. I think there going to be a couple of my songs on there that I wrote for the show, as well as several other artists. It should be a lot of fun.

I got my own new CD coming out in time for Christmas. It’s not a Christmas CD, but it’s a new CD for me and it’ll be released in time for Christmas. So far, I think it’s my best work, really. I think it’s right up there in the top two if not number one because it’s a lot of songs from the past year and it’s more reflective of me this time, not so much my take on other sitiations. It’s pretty much what’s coming from my heart and my brain.

For your show in Atlanta tonight, you have the Syrens of the South burlesque troupe opening for you. They’ve opened for you previously in Atlanta, but do they do shows with you outside of Atlanta?

Naw, mostly the only time we work together is when we’re in Atlanta together. They a nice bunch of ladies. I look forward to seeing them again. It’s a lot of fun, but that’s the only time we’ve worked together is when I play Atlanta.

How do you like having them open for you?

I thank it works. It goes right along with what I do. Plus, ain’t nothing wrong with having some purdy girls back in the dressing room, know what I mean?

Right. Do you have any favorites in the troupe?

Naw, I like ’em all. I sure do. They’re a bunch of nice ladies.

I interviewed you a few years ago and asked this question, and I’m sure you’ve answered numerous other times. But I think it bears repeating. How did you get the name Unknown Hinson?

Well, you know, my mama and daddy did not know one another when they conceived me. They was both drunk when they had the sexuals and they never even bothered to find out each other’s name. When my mama discovered that she was with child afterwards, and it was time for me to be born, the doctor was filling out my birth certificate and said, “Miss Hinson, what do you want to name the boy?” Hinson was her maiden name, she weren’t married. She said, “I want to name him after his daddy.” So, you know “Mother: Miss Hinson, Father: Unknown,” ’cause she dun’t know his name, ’cause they’s drunk. That’s how I got it.

Photo by Margo Baker

I know you don’t have much to go on, but have you ever tried to track down your father?

No sir. The only thing she knowd ’bout him was he was not much count. He was a mean, kinda rowdy feller and they just had that one experience together and she didn’t never hear from him no more. So I don’t know if he’s even alive or nothin’. Mama dissappeared when I was ten year old and I run away from home and joined up with a carnival. The fella who run the carnival pretty much raised me till I was about 22 year old. Then I got set up and framed for his murder and they tried and convicted me and sent me to prison for 30 years. I went in ’63 and got out in ’93 and I’ve been playing my chart toppers and writin’ songs and touring as much as I can. Trying to make up for lost time, you know. But I ain’t bitter about spending that time in the joint because, hell, it give me time to write a lot of songs and practice my guitar and my sangin’. Plus I learned how to read and write in ‘ere.

Thangs worked out good. The only thing is I can’t cash no checks because you can’t cash no checks made out to Unknown. I ain’t never had no driver’s license, which is a big, major qualification to be in my band. You got to have a driver’s license and a pay-at-the-pump gas card ’cause I can’t get none. With my name, I can’t get pretty much nothin’. On paper, that is.

What ever happened to Gustav, the manservant that helped you out with such things?

Well, that’s a very unfortunate story. He was a very good friend of mine and he was unfortunately murdered at the first of this year, I’m sorry to say. And that’s really hard for me to say. But he’s no longer with us. He was a fine feller and he was a big help to me. He worked with me for about seven years.

Do you think you’ll ever hire a new manservant?

Naw. Couldn’t nobody ever replace him. Not at all. I never have even considered it. He was my chauffeur and my butler. My manservant, you know. He was a wonderful photographer as well as a fine person and an actor and entertainer. But his life was taken early this year and it was very bad. I sure do miss him and all his friends miss him terribly.

For more information, go to www.unknownhinson.com.

Voltaire, goth’s pop cultural ambassador, is always ready for Halloween

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By Jonathan Williams

While he is perhaps best known for the darkly satirical gypsy folk music he’s been creating for more than a decade, Voltaire‘s creepily creative talents have seeped over into other areas of pop culture including animation, comic books and collectible toys. With an insider’s view of the goth and geek scene, Voltaire has published books such as Paint It Black: A Guide to Gothic Homemaking and written songs poking fun at Star Trek, making him an annual favorite at pop culture conventions such as Dragon*Con. Following the release of his latest album Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children, which features contributions from David J of Bauhaus, Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls, Melora Creager of Rasputina and others, Voltaire set out on the Black Unicorn Cabaret Tour. As he prepares for a performance at Anne Rice‘s The Theatre of the Vampires Ball in New Orleans on Oct. 28, he talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about his music, Halloween and more.

Your latest album features collaborations with some of your biggest musical influences, as well as some of your best known peers. How did this all-star lineup of goth luminaries come about?

Photo by Scott Irvine

Most of the people on the album are musicians I know personally or have worked with before. The drums are played by Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls. He played the drums on my last album and I asked him if he’d return for this one. The cellos are played by Melora Creager of Rasputina. She played cellos on the soundtrack of one of my short films a year or so ago and we recently went on tour together. And David J of Bauhaus plays bass. We’ve run into each other a few times on the road and have played a show or two together. So it really was a case of calling on people I know, whose work I admire and asking them if they’d join me on this record. Don’t be fooled though, just because I know them all doesn’t mean I don’t fanboy a little at the mere thought of it.

As your musical career has progressed, you’ve simultaneously crossed over into practically every other realm of pop culture, from film and comics to video games and children’s songs. Are there any areas you have yet to explore that you’d be interested in delving into? Wrestling, perhaps?

Wrestling is definitely not in the stars for me. I’m a lover, not a fighter, as they say, which is really just a fancy way of saying, “I don’t fight well.” But I did recently write a feature film script which I hope to get made and believe it or not, I’m getting more and more excited about the thought of acting. I’d like to spend more time in front of the camera, especially in horror films. So I think acting and making features is my next move. I’ve also got a novel or two in me, I think. I just don’t know where I will find the time to do all of this stuff.

As steampunk has grown in popularity, your music has gone from being described as goth to steampunk (without much, if any, stylistic change on your part). How do you feel about these different labels being applied to what you do? Conversely, how much crossover do you see amongst your fans between various subcultures?

Well, truth be told, I’m still referred to as “goth,” but I have never made goth music. Seriously, I sound nothing like the Cure or Bauhaus or whatever people call goth these days. Musically, what I do is probably closer to folk. It’s always acoustic, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, usually about dark subjects. I personally relate to being goth because that’s the scene I grew up in and I’ve always loved the macabre. But I’m not a musician who makes goth music, I’m a goth who makes music. The music in my songs has drawn from folk, country, flamenco, gypsy, classical, rockabilly, jazz, ska and even reggae. It’s the message and snarky viewpoints expressed that define it as “dark.” Over the years I’ve been called goth, darkwave, anti-folk, gypsy punk, dark cabaret and steampunk. It seems like every couple of years a new term comes up and I get lumped in, probably because no one, including myself, has come up with a neat categorization for what I do. At the end of the day, I don’t really care what people call my music as long as they are enjoying it.

Photo by Jimmy Lin

You’ve also become an unofficial spokesperson for these subcultures, having appeared on Fox News, MTV and elsewhere over the years. As someone who so adequately represents some of these spookier elements, what does someone like Voltaire do for Halloween (especially when Halloween falls just after your tour)?

Well, usually I’m performing somewhere. October is hands down my busiest month of the year. Sometimes I feel like the mayor of Halloweentown, which I like quite a bit! Wherever I am, I’m not generally wearing a costume though. There’s no need. It’s the one day of the year I fit right in wherever I go.

What are some of your current projects (musical or otherwise) that your fans can look forward to and where can people find them?

Well as you know, I have a new record out and I’m touring to support it. I also try to make a short film a year. The most recent one is called Odokuro. It’s narrated by Gary Numan. It has just started touring the film festival circuit. I also have some new vinyl toys of my character Deady, some of which came out this summer and some more that are coming out this winter.

For more information, go to www.voltaire.net.