by Sonya Sutherland / Schwegweb.com
Hype. It’s pretty much what American media culture is based on. Take American Idol for example. Suddenly these nobodies off the street are stars – without having to take the grueling, try-and-fail path of touring before they earn their fifteen minutes of fame (unless you count the host’s debasement of all possible candidates). Departing from pre-scripted Reality TV and venturing back into the real rock field, hype pretty much works the same way; you pay for fame.
And with that said, we arrive at the Murderdolls, whose most noted member is Joey Jordinson of Slipknot. It’s easy to see why these boys got themselves a record contract; big names sell. Fortunately though, the Murderdolls have more than a big name carrying their weight – and, thank God, a sound that departs from the usual rock n’ roll scene currently plaguing American radio. Not that these metal bad-boys have reinvented the wheel, but they certainly have brought back the guitar solo, notably missing throughout the majority of platinum recording artists’ work.
Amidst their rigorous touring schedule, the Murderdoll’s guitar player, Acey, presented quite a challenge to track down. When he finally had a minute, he was more than happy to take a break and share his Homer Simpson Pop Tarts and his opinions on his band, life, and of course a little bit of mischief.
Schwegweb: First off, why were you on Dawson’s Creek?
Acey: Because it was an opportunity for us to get our music out there to a lot of people. There is an old saying, “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer,” and that was kind of our reasoning behind doing that.
Did you get to meet Dawson?
Yeah, I met him and Katie Holms. I had to get a restraining order on her; she kept trying to come over to my trailer, knocking on my door every two minutes. “Acey, Acey!” you know, terrible bad stuff. Why would I want a girl like her, jeez.
What do you like about the horror films? Do you like the sexuality of it – the monster part?
Well, I’m into everything. I really like the Tim Burton films. And it really goes back to the original Mary Shelly Frankenstein. Of like feeling like you are an outcast in society, and I don’t believe anybody in this band or any of our fans are bad people, we are just misunderstood, and that goes back to like Frankenstein all through to any of the Tim Burton characters, be it Edward Scissorhands or Jack Skelington . So I think that’s a lot of it. You’re a bored teenager and you live in the middle of fucking nowhere like we all grew up. Dawson’s Creek doesn’t appeal to us, but horror movies do.
So, um what do you think of the Freudian themes and, let’s say, the fear of the body in adolescents in a horror film like the Exorcist?
We don’t take things all that deep in this band. We are all about the aesthetics – you know our song, “Love at First Fright,” that we wrote about the idea of Wed (singer) falling in love with Regan and her coming over and pissing on the rug and falling in love with her. A silly idea. Were not that deep of a band, we don’t really get into it. That’s what separates us from most bands right now. Everybody is about singing about how bad their childhood was how bad their childhood was and we are here to put a big middle finger up to that, you know.
Why does MTV suck so hard now?
I think when it started out it was good. You know, it’s obviously a totally different medium. Now it’s a TV show about, I don’t know, people living together and shit like that. I’ve got no interest in that.
What about The Osbourne’s?
Its cool, I mean it’s like I think as long as you are laughing with Ozzy and not at Ozzy. Again, I’m not going to take it seriously. I love the show when I watch it, but when I see a bunch of people from the Gap or Old Navy watch it, I don’t like it. I feel like that I am laughing at different things than they are. The other thing too is MTV used to be about…you know, musicians used to influence fashion and what kids used to wear, and it seems like that’s changed over the years, and that’s one thing we are trying to change. We make our own clothes and we do what we want and we really don’t care what any one else does.
Did you dress up for Halloween?
We were in a bus going across Germany and it sucked. We were driving, but we could have dressed up, but we would have just been looking at each other.
Have you ever wanted to quit?
No, there was a time when I decided that I shouldn’t make it such a priority, and as soon as I realized that, then I became a professional musician. When you micro concentrate on one thing and you block everything else out, you lose a lot of things, and sometimes you lose a lot of things to gain everything you could ever want. It was a time when I said, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing” and I need to maybe not take this so seriously. I wanted things done my way every I dotted, every t crossed my way, and as soon as I said, “You know what, maybe I shouldn’t do things my way. Maybe I should see what the universe has in stall for me,” and as soon as I said that, I got everything I wanted.
Then do you believe in fate?
It’s a weird thing. I feel like you have very little control over the things that happen, but that is no excuse to not be pro active in your life. You know what I mean, it’s like um fate can give you a mountain, but you got to bring a shovel. You know, but if you sit on your ass, then you sit on your ass, and nothing will happen. You got to work your ass off, but on the same token not have any expectations.
Do you find boredom on the road precipitates mischief?
We throw water balloons at people for fun because you really can’t get in any trouble, but they scare the shit out of people. But whats really fun, let me show you what you do. Are you ready? Crazy glue. Because it just makes people look dumb. You super glue their things together, you superglue their things closed, and you sit there and watch them try to get things open, and they’re sitting there going “Why can’t I get this open!” Or you superglue things they need to a table, and you watch as they can’t figure out why they can’t get it off. Basically, superglue and waterballons rule. When we were in Switzerland, that was the best, because we were on the ninth floor of this hotel and there was an office building below, and we were up so high, when the office people came out we could just throw them at them. They were looking in the bushes trying to figure it out. That was cool.
Where is Tripp?
He had to go back and work on the next Static X record. So there was no way he could tour and fulfill the commitments of the band. So, truthfully he’s never played a Murderdoll’s show. He was kind of an outside guy. The band has been Wednesday and Joey all along, Trip just came and played a couple guitar solos. He couldn’t tour.
What happens when Slipknot gets back together?
We don’t know. We will have to wait until that time comes and see. There will come a day when we won’t be able to tour, because Joey will have his Slipknot thing going on, and whether then it will be me and Wednesday writing the new Murderdolls record, of course Joey will be in on that too, or who knows. Were not really concerned about it. All I know is we are going to put on a kick ass show tonight, and I can’t really worry about what I have to do today.
Where do you want to go from here?
Musically, I dunno, we’re pretty happy with what we do musically. We don’t plan on changing much at all; we like what we do, you know. We have no intention of doing market research and find out the best way to get on to the Top Twenty or get on TRL or any of that shit. But the thing is, if they come to us, we d fuckin love it. We kind of have the KISS theory of wanting to be the biggest band in the world, but wanting the world to come toward us. Back in ’74 when KISS started, four guys in grease paint wasn’t a smart thing. People were into peace and love and shit like that, and it wasn’t a very smart thing. But here they went on to take over the world, and you know, become this mass market band. I’d like to think we would never take it as far as they did because they have become a mockery of themselves, but on the same token, would I love for us to be that huge? Fuck yeah, but only if it comes to us.
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