During a recent two-night stint at The Rockpile in Toronto, Wednesday 13 invited Brave Words scribe Aaron Small aboard his tour bus for an all-encompassing conversation. Initial thoughts expressed were of the late, great Tom Petty who had just passed away, aged 66, of cardiac arrest. Of course, W13 covered the Tom Petty classic “Runnin’ Down A Dream” on his Bloodwork EP in 2008.

“I woke up and I was checking all my social media stuff – I saw it and, oh man! He just played the Hollywood Bowl right before we left (for tour), and I didn’t get to go. It’s like Bowie. That guy changed music. Every single song Tom Petty had was a hit. Whether you had the record or not, you’ve heard it. It’s amazing that a dude like that could have such a long career, just writing amazing songs ‘til he was done. It’s just unfortunate how the press got out that he was, he wasn’t, and he was; what a way to juggle! When I covered that years ago – I wanted to cover it back in the ‘90s with my Drag Queen band; but I don’t think we could have pulled it off back then. So, when it came time to do a cover, I thought it was the perfect time to do it. Everyone expects me to do an Alice Cooper song, or a KISS song; here’s some Tom Petty. It’s such a cool song; you might even hear us play that before the end of the tour. I used to play it years ago.”    

Tom Petty was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. The nominees for the class of 2018 have been announced and include: Bon Jovi, Dire Straits, Eurythmics, J. Geils Band, Judas Priest, MC5, Rage Against The Machine, The Cars, and The Moody Blues, amongst others. “None of them are already in there? That’s a goddamn shame! The Cars are not in there? Wow! Priest ain’t going to get in there this year – they should be. They all should be. What I would love to see is MC5, Bon Jovi deserves to be in there – another band that writes nothing but hit songs; whether you like them or not. And Bon Jovi’s still relevant today. The Eurythmics – I got a feeling they’ll probably get it. I’m just shocked that none of those bands are already in there. Good luck! That whole thing just seems like it’s this group of faceless people that decide who gets to be in this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Who the fuck are they to decide this? It’s business, they get who they want in there. I’ve got my own rock and roll hall of fame in my brain; I don’t need some building or award to tell me they’re the best. That’s how I look at it.”

Wednesday previously mentioned that people expect him to do a KISS cover, which he hasn’t. This of course raised the topic of Gene Simmons releasing The Vault – featuring 150 never-before released tracks. “Gene blocked me on Twitter… I don’t know why,” reveals W13. “I read the whole details of that… yes, it sounds like the ultimate fan thing in the world. But of course, he’s only doing it because of the huge price tag. It’s just like going on tour and having your fans pay for every dime of it. $50,000 for Gene to come to your house. I read something online saying, ‘that’ll never sell.’ Oh yeah, it will! You’ll get ten KISS fans to put up the money for it; he doesn’t give a shit. If it’s for the fans, how about you do that for free? Or just a small price. It sounds like a cool idea if you’re a millionaire and wanted to do that, but I could never – I wouldn’t pay five cents to meet him. I haven’t heard Gene Simmons write a good song in I don’t know how long, so I don’t need to hear the demos that didn’t make the cut.”

Currently on tour until mid-November in support of his new album Condolences, once Wednesday plays his final gig of 2017 in Germany, he will return home to The United States. “We’re taking the rest of the year off, and starting up again hopefully in February 2018 in Japan and Australia. I haven’t been home for Christmas in seven or eight years, so this year I’m going home. I’ve been working my ass off since January with the acoustic tour, then all of these shows. All the videos, getting everything ready for the record, I’ve been going full throttle. When this tour’s done, I’ll be glad to kick my feet up and rest. I don’t know when Nuclear Blast will want us to do a new record; hopefully they’ll want to keep us there. I feel like they’re happy with it. We just did a new video for ‘Cadaverous’ (which can be seen below). That’s our fifth video (from Condolences). We did it all on green screen. Basically, we made it look like I’m in four or five different, classic horror films. There’s rubber bats; it’s very Munster-ish and very campy. It’s very old school; perfect for Halloween. It turned out cool, it didn’t even feel like I was filming a video, it just felt like I was goofing off for 30 minutes. I’m hoping we’re going to film another video, probably the first of the year. I would like, and if the label still allows us to do it, to have a video for every song. That would be amazing, when it’s all said and done, to have a visual (representation) of the record. We’ll see if I get it done. I actually like doing videos now, they’re fun. At first, I hated doing them; now I’m getting into them, they’re pretty easy.”

Those who enjoy videos will certainly want to get out to one of the remaining Wednesday 13 concerts this year, as there’s a unique treat lurking in the shadows. “Actually, at our merch table we have a DVD that we’ve been selling only at our live shows called South Of Hell, 666 Days On The Road – it’s not in stores or anything. It’s an hour and a half compilation of backstage stuff from the past seven years of Europe. Anyone that likes our goofy, behind the scenes videos we used to put out; this is professional HD with seven or eight songs from Monsters Of The Universe live, and some of the acoustic shows over in England. There’s Roman (Surman, guitarist) and I at Stonehenge, all kinds of cool stuff. If you’re a fan and you like our personalities, this is the ultimate thing. What I compare it to is – I’m a huge Skid Row fan and I love their home videos! Oh Say Can You Scream, and Roadkill; it’s in that spirit. Also like the Type O Negative home videos, the Pantera ones; it’s that kind of stuff – just not on VHS.”

Catch Wednesday 13 live in concert:

October
17 - Rail Club - Fort Worth, TX
18 - Launchpad - Albuquerque, NM
19 - Sunshine Studios - Colorado Springs, CO
20 - Mesa Theater - Grand Junction, CO
21 - Diamondz Event Center - Jerome, ID
22 - Hawthorne Theater - Portland, OR
26 - Manchester Club Academy - Manchester, United Kingdom
27 - Glasgow Garage - Glasgow, United Kingdom
28 - O2 Academy Islington - London, United Kingdom
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)