Murderdolls: ‘Knot The Same.

Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls is in stores now.

Joey Jordison, most renowned for his role as Slipknot’s hooligan drummer is set to unveil his ‘other’ band the Murderdolls.

Jordison’s primary role in the Murderdolls is as a guitarist, although most will be able to tell that he has commanded the drums on their forthcoming album ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’, and one only needs listen for a few minutes to realize that the band have approached things in a slightly different manner to the way in which Slipknot are most familiar.

The Murderdolls is a more Manson styled, ‘shock rock’ kind of band that brings to mind acts like the Cramps, The Misfits, and strangely Australian cult band Lubricated Goat. Manson aside, the Murderdolls are a little more modern than their comparatives, but it gives you an idea.

Many will be surprised to learn that Jordison is a guitarist first and foremost.

“My parents always sat me in front of the stereo, instead of in front of the TV,” Jordison recalls, “so I kind of latched onto music at a very early age… I’m talking three or four years old. My grandpa was very involved with music, and he always had guitars and pianos at his house. I’d just fuck around with all his stuff, and I guess I just latched onto the guitar first.

“I started learning some basic things,” continues the band’s unofficial spokesman, “and when I starting getting into middle-grade school, some of the older kids were forming a band and they needed another guitar player. I went into that band when I was in the 4th grade.

“And that’s when I switched to drums,” comes the revelation. “When I was playing guitar in that band, they wanted to get rid of the drummer; they didn’t like him at all, so I set out to play the drums, and I kind of put down the guitar for a little while.”

Much of the album that is to be released as Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls, manifested during the band’s sort of original incarnation as The Rejects. The introduction of Wednesday 13, formerly of the Frankenstein Dragqueens From Planet 13, was the catalyst for the band to change their identity. Originally in to play bass in the band, he usurped Rejects singer Dizzy, and took over as lead vocalist, injecting much of himself, and his glam-punk influences into the freshly forged Murderdolls.

“When we brought Wednesday into the band, he brought some songs with him,” says Jordison. “I really enjoyed his previous band because they were doing basically the same type of thing and we hit it off instantly. We had the same old-school influences like Alice Cooper, The Cramps, and The Damned, and the first time we spoke, we realised all our horror movie influences were the same too.”

Jordison acknowledged that album title Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls is a pisstake of the Russ Myers feature, but the films that the pair draw true inspiration from are a generally a little more sinister than sassy.

“The very first Texas Chainsaw Massacre is probably our favourite. The Exorcist is definitely up there too. I definitely like the Italian zombie films like The Beyond and Jorg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik too.”

Even the band’s name could be born of a horror flick. Chucky from the Child’s Play films was a pretty legendary murder doll…

”Yeah, that’s true,” he says excitedly. “It was more a combination… the name’s not necessarily really original or anything like that but we just thought it was really representative of what we were doing. We’re not trying to re-invent the wheel, we’re just trying to write some great, catchy fucking songs and have a fun time doing it.”

“We want to have fun with it and keep a dark sense of humour to all this shit. We’re big fans of the New York Dolls, we’re also big fans of the Murder Junkies. It’s kind of like a wonderful combination of the two bands, and we straight up admit it.”

The notion of Jordison doing another band has raised questions about an unmasked Joey Jordison making the scene. And as you can see from the accompanying images, the mask is gone. Coupled with the unveiling of Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, and Jim Root for Stone Sour, it screams KISS circa 1983 when the make up, or in this case, the masks were removed.

“It’s not like we’re trying to ‘come out’ of Slipknot,” Joey attempts to inject some direction to the conversation. “We’ve had these projects for a while, and we’re not trying to take anything away from Slipknot, but at the same time, what would be the point of doing another band with our masks on? I just don’t see the point in doing that.”

And Jordison is keen to point out that the Murderdolls is not just a project, but a fully blown band that will tour, and continue to put out records.

“I don’t want people to perceive this as just something I’m doing just to fill in time,” he comments. “We’d like to do it full time, and since my life has revolved around music 24/7 anyway, if anyone can do it, I’ll be able to.”