This year, La Boule Noire in Paris is the lucky recipient of Wednesday 13’s annual Halloween show. Prior to desecrating the jack-o'-lanterns, W13 spoke exclusively with Brave Words scribe Aaron Small.

Does France trick or treat the same way The United States and Canada do? “I have no idea… all I know is 16 years ago we went to Europe for the first time (with Murderdolls), and there was no Halloween over there. You couldn’t find a plastic pumpkin to save your life. Now in London, England it’s crazy – Halloween has exploded there. I don’t know what it’s like in Paris, I hope that it’s there now. If not, we’re bringing it. Our fans there are crazy. We’ve played this venue before; the French audience are intense. Every show we’ve ever played there, they treat us like we’re The Beatles. We’re just going out to the bus and girls are screaming for you, trying to pull your clothes off. It’s pretty cool, I feel like a rock star there for sure!”

As a kid growing up in North Carolina, Wednesday 13 remembers, “Halloween was a big thing, but not in my family. My parents couldn’t care less about Halloween. My brother wasn’t into it, my sister wasn’t into it; I was. You could dress up all day at school, if you wanted to; my Mom wouldn’t let me dress up for school. One year she finally let me dress up, I was a little vampire. Then one year I went as Rambo. But as I got older – I mean 10 and 11, I just really, really got into it; I was reading Fangoria magazines. Then my brother started getting into horror movies and he had a good job, so he would send off to order these Michael Myers masks."

"My brother was the coolest dude in town cause he was the only person who had a Michael Myers mask; he spent like $300 on it. So, my brother would dress up every year as Michael Myers, and I was the kid running beside him; that was a big deal. Then when I got into high school, I wanted to start being an asshole and throwing eggs on Halloween, I did my share of climbing on top of buildings and throwing water balloons and eggs at people, that kind of stuff. Halloween’s always been a special thing for me. Then when I was working my day job, I would always take my vacation on Halloween; my bosses thought I was the weirdest person ever. It’s always been my thing, and now I bring it every show every night.”

Your best Halloween and your worst Halloween. “I couldn’t tell you the worst Halloween; I’m saving that one for the book. That involved the ex-wife. Let’s just say I went to the dog house on one Halloween. Worst Halloween, when I was a little kid, I remember my Mom was so protective of me. I would walk from house to house, and she followed behind me in the car. I fell in a hole and I almost broke my ankle. That sucked! I was dressed as one of the Gamorrean Guards from Return Of The Jedi. So, I’m this little pig squealing in someone’s yard – that wasn’t my favourite.”

“Best Halloween – right when I got signed to Roadrunner for my Transylvania record, I had a big party for Halloween at my house. I had Piggy - who’s in Rob Zombie’s band now. He was dressed up as Danzig; he had this Batman chest piece and this black shirt on. We had a big bonfire in my backyard; I was dressed as a nun, and my kid was dressed in a 1984 plastic / vinyl Freddy Krueger outfit. My drummer at the time was dressed up as King Diamond, and jumping on the trampoline in my backyard, drunk out of his mind. I had this local cop friend of mine, a police officer who came by just to check on us. He had this Breathalyzer, and we’re all drinking, so we decided to see who could blow the highest on the Breathalyzer test. This is all in my backyard."

"I was walking back around to the cop’s car, and there was a dude in my front yard slashing the cop’s tires. I was the last house on the left in the cul-de-sac; there was nowhere to go. We caught this dude right in the middle. The cop goes, ‘Freeze motherfucker!’ And the guy starts running. So, you’ve got a cop running, I’m in a nun’s outfit, you’ve got Danzig, you’ve got King Diamond, all chasing after this motherfucker out to the woods. We catch him, and the cop drags him back to the car, puts him in the back of the cop car – with four flat tires in my cul-de-sac.  Dude’s all bloody and beat up, we’re just circling the car. This guy had the worst Halloween ever, and we had the best Halloween ever. He got his ass whipped by King Diamond and a nun; that would have been a good bodycam. True story.”  

Every year local haunted houses and scary attractions pop up, do you partake in those? “I think they’re awesome. Unfortunately, I don’t get to go to them because we usually tour all of October, so we don’t get to do anything. I used to like going to all those old haunted houses.”

Have you been writing any new music at all? “I have not written one new song since we started this because I was so focused; but I’m itching to do it. I’ve got a feeling when I go home… I was telling Roman (Surman, guitarist) the other day, I haven’t played electric guitar in… fuck, I don’t know? I haven’t played through an amp in a couple years. I’ve only played acoustic guitar, that’s how I write everything usually. But I want to play guitar again; I want to plug into an amp and start writing some riffs. In between the riffs that Roman has and Kyle (Castronovo, drummer) has, there’ll be no shortage of riffs for the next record.”

Catch Wednesday 13 live in concert:

October
31 - La Boule Noire - Paris, France
 
November
1 - Melkweg Upstairs - Amsterdam, Netherlands
2 - Bi Nuu - Berlin, Germany
3 - Headcrash - Hamburg, Germany
4 - Bi Nuu - Berlin, Germany
7 - Chelsea - Wien, Austria
8 - Hansa 39 - Munich, Germany
9 - Keller Klub - Stuttgart, Germany
10 - Legend Club - Milan, Italy
12 - Congress Center - Basel, Switzerland
13 - FZW - Dortmund, Germany
14 - Kulturzentrum Schlachthof e.V. - Wiesbaden, Germany

(Top photo by Aaron Small)