WEDNESDAY 13 On Upcoming 'Necrophaze' Album: 'It's More Like A Movie Record'

Alex Haber of Heavy New York conducted an interview with horror-punk stalwart Wednesday 13 prior to his band's April 3 concert at Irving Plaza in New York, New York as the support act for CRADLE OF FILTH. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On concluding the touring cycle for 2017's "Condolences":

Wednesday: "Yeah, this is sort of the wrap-up on the tail-end of that record. We were planning to have the record out a little earlier this year, but we decided, or, I decided, that I needed to work on it a little bit more and put a little more into it. So, we stretched the release date out so we get to ride this last 'Condolences' death wave out. Yeah, we're all ready for the new record. It's given me enough time to get that prepared because the new record is totally, absolutely different. It's more like a movie record."

On the direction of the band's next studio album:

Wednesday: "Every record, I want to go to the next level on it without repeating ourselves. 'Condolences' was the heaviest record we had done up to that date, then when we started new music for this record, I was like, 'I don't know if we need to go heavier. We need to do something different.' We added a little more keyboards and things like that and just literally, it brought more of an atmosphere to it. We had Roy [Mayorga] from STONE SOUR come in and he did a lot of keyboard stuff that I wanted to do. We actually took a lot of sounds from the old '80s films that I like, like a lot of synth and John Carpenter keyboards and Gary Numan-style synth, and we added it into some of the songs. That was better than us trying to go heavier. It's new for us. It's still Wednesday 13, but we upped the voltage a bit."

On whether being an "experimental" band allows Wednesday 13 to constantly try new things:

Wednesday: "It's wide open at all times. With me, I never fit in a genre. I didn't even hear the word 'goth' until way after someone called us a 'goth' band and I'm like 'What is goth? What is that?' 'It's like THE CURE, BAUHAUS.' I'm like, 'No, we're nothing like that!' We started getting called 'horror punk' back in the day and I never heard that term before, either. I was like 'Okay…' I like everything. I like punk, I like glam, I like metal, I like R&B, I like everything. I like outlaw country music, so we're just kind of this mixture of all that mixed in with movies and sitcoms and that's just kind of what my childhood, what I grew up on. It's cool for us because there's no rules. We don't have to stick to, 'Oh, that's not the Wednesday 13 — everything we do sounds like us.' It's all over the place. We get to try new stuff all the time."

On whether he's noticed a different reaction to their music depending on the tours they've been on:

Wednesday: "That's the reason whenever we would do our headline tours — if we could ever pick a band or something. ONCE HUMAN, for example, was a band I had been listening to and I loved them, then it came time to tour and I was, like, 'Who do you guys want to go out with?' I was like 'I wonder if this band would go out with us?' We hit them up and they were, like, 'Yeah.' We were, like, 'Really?!?' So, for me, I didn't know if the audience would dig it. I thought they would, but more or less I wanted to see them play every night and luckily, it worked out for their audience. People just like a good show. That's what I go to concerts for. You want to see a good band. Whether they're not the same style as Wednesday 13 and ONCE HUMAN is a killer band. It's not the same as us, but at the same time, they're a killer band and you appreciate them and can tell they put their all into it. To me, that's what it's all about: bringing out bands like that. People, with the whole goth tag and things, people just assume it's CRADLE OF FILTH goth because we wear black? I don't know what we are."

On whether the Wednesday 13 character was created from him writing music in order to come up with imagery:

Wednesday: "When the music is being wrote, I sort of paint this picture in my head as well. I'm thinking about the live show as well as the song. I'm not thinking about it later: 'Now we go to tour. What are we going to do with the show?' Now, I think about songs and think about the live setting and I kind of do it all at the same time because a long time ago, I didn't think about that. I used to write songs and this is when I was with my prior bands. Now, all I do is tour, so I always try to put myself out in the audience and think from that point of view of how to do things. But yeah, the Wednesday 13 thing, when I started out as a solo thing, I started that in 2004 and the first record came out in 2005, it literally has developed to what it is now. I tell people all the time: 'I'm more confident now than I was when the first record came out.' People go, 'That was your prime.' I say, 'I was an idiot then. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to my control my voice. I'd blow it out every song.' It's taken all these years to, I guess, me to get comfortable with what I do. This is the first time in the past two or three years I feel comfortable onstage performing. I used to play guitar because I wasn't confident as a front guy and I wasn't confident as a guitar player, so I did both, so I kind of half-assed both of it. Now, I've just really got into going onstage. I get to basically dress up like a He-Man or GI Joe character in my mind. I've created all these different costumes. It all comes from toys, every bit of it. It's all villain stuff. That's my favorite part of the show now. All day is waiting to dress up and go onstage and act like an idiot with a soundtrack behind me. That makes it fun. I get to dress up every day."

On what's next for his band, including their next studio album:

Wednesday: "It's coming out later this year, in September, we will be releasing that date soon. The new album is called 'Necrophaze' and it's the next chapter. It's the next Wednesday 13. It's all new and I think improved, some people may not say that, we'll find out. I guess they'll let us know on that Internet."

Wednesday 13's tour with CRADLE OF FILTH kicked off on March 7 in Las Vegas, Nevada and will wrap on April 18 in Dallas, Texas.