Interview with Violent J by David Friedman
You’ve got a new album, The Tempest, which marks the first full-length studio release for Insane Clown Posse since 2004’s Hell’s Pit wrapped up the series of the Six Jokers Cards. How has everything been going for you and Shaggy 2 Dope since The Tempest came out on Psychopathic Records?
Pretty good, pretty good. We’ve been in the studio and gearing up for this tour that goes out in about three weeks. We’ve got some dope shit on the horizon, so it’s been an exciting time for us checking out the feedback on The Tempest and seeing what people think.
At first, I was under the impression that the theme for The Tempest was a tremendous storm following The Calm EP. But now that it’s out, it also carries a rollercoaster theme. Can you explain how those two concepts intertwine?
To me, in my head, it all makes perfect sense. But I guess when the record first came out, it might not have made sense to some people! Think about the mythical Dark Carnival—how is a Joker’s Card part of a carnival, you know?
When the storm comes, picture your body being sucked up into a tornado and whipped around inside of a hurricane. I’d assume that’s a lot like riding a violent-ass rollercoaster. You get jerked to the left, jerked to the right, sucked way up into the sky, and then shot straight down to the floor before whipping back around again. The Tempest is exactly that—a storm in the form of a rollercoaster.
It all ties into the broader vision of the Dark Carnival for me, Shaggy, and Mike Clark. Officially, it’s just an album with 16 songs. But mentally and visually, it’s a violent, insane, horrific ride. If you listen to the intro, you hear a guy walking out of his house, looking up at the sky as the wind gusts and sirens wail. The storm is rolling in on the horizon. Then, as the album moves into the song “The Sky Is Falling,” the storm officially arrives. Suddenly you’re trapped on the rollercoaster, caught in the clouds and the wind gusts.
For the rest of the album, you’re being whipped through completely different emotions. It takes you up and down, side to side, shifting from slow tracks to fast tracks, and funny songs to mean songs. That emotional rollercoaster is what The Tempest is all about.
It’s a lot like the track “Murder Go Round” from The Ringmaster album. Is that song about an actual merry-go-round or is it about street revenge? If you listen closely, it’s about revenge—you kill my boy, I kill yours. Yet it’s packaged in the imagery of a amusement park ride. We’ve always done things that way. Look at The Tunnel of Love—is it a collection of sick, twisted love songs or an actual tunnel ride? The Tempest operates on that exact same wavelength. It’s a massive storm, and once it swallows you up, you’re on a wild rollercoaster ride.
Going back to your last couple of albums, you and Shaggy were in a particularly good mood when writing The Wraith: Shangri-La, but shifted into a much more sinister mood for Hell’s Pit. What was going on in your life, and what was the atmosphere like in the studio for The Tempest?
I’ll tell you exactly how I felt. We just got back from The Tempest record release party tour. Looking out at those crowds, I realized that while we keep getting older, our audience stays the exact same age!
Think about a kid who is 17 years old today. When The Great Milenko (the Fourth Joker’s Card) came out back in 1997, that kid was only seven years old. His nuts hadn’t even dropped yet. And when Carnival of Carnage dropped in 1992 and set this entire movement off, that same 17-year-old was a one-year-old baby. After putting down the wicked shit for that long, I feel like we’re not only masters of our craft, but we’ve earned the absolute right to make whatever kind of music we want.
That’s the mindset we had while recording The Tempest. It wasn’t strictly about serving a massive storyline. It’s a solid collection of 16 individual songs arranged like a rollercoaster ride. We just focused on making great music this time, rather than extending a massive saga. That might let certain people down initially, but when you’re transitioning away from a 17-year-long story, any shift is going to upset some fans who want things to stay the same.
It took us a long time to complete those Six Jokers Cards. When Hell’s Pit wrapped up, we felt like absolute champions because we ran that marathon and accomplished a massive goal. That was no piece of cake. So when we got back in the studio with Mike Clark for this project, it felt like the ball was entirely in our hands. We had the freedom to write an album about anything. We didn’t have to worry about making perfect sense within a continuity because this isn’t Part 3 or Part 5 of a chapter. This is just a bomb-ass album that stands alone as its own piece of art. If you want to view it as the devastating storm that wiped the planet clean after the Sixth Joker’s Card, you can; but if you just want to enjoy it as an independent collection of music, you can do that too.
I’m sure you enjoyed working with Mike E. Clark again, but could you pick out a few of your favorite tracks from the album and describe what inspired them?
Before I jump into that, I want to clarify something. I don’t want to act like we didn’t feel any pressure. We live, die, and breathe for the Juggalos. This was actually the most pressure we’ve ever felt making a record because it’s our very first release outside of the Joker’s Card series. It was an incredibly stressful and strenuous process. Every single step of the way, we were thinking, “What are they gonna think of this? I hope we don’t let them down.” We care deeply about what the world thinks. But now that the finished product is out, we stand behind it completely, chest out and proud.
To answer your question about which tracks were the most fun, I wasn’t 100 percent sure how people would react to most of the record, with the exception of “The Tower” and Shaggy’s track, “The Party”. I loved those two so much that I was fully confident people would dig them.
What gave you the idea for “The Tower,” which tackles one of the more serious subjects on the album?
It’s actually based on a true story from a Texas university campus back in the 1960s. A military veteran who was an expert marksman barricaded himself at the top of a 20-something-story college tower on a scorching hot day. He had an arsenal of rifles and just started sniping people. Nobody could reach him, and people kept thinking they had retreated far enough to be out of his range, only for him to hit someone else.
To me, that terrifying unpredictability mirrors the exact methods of the Dark Carnival. I don’t really know what sparked the initial idea to write a song about it; it’s not a historical event that I was obsessed with or anything. I just did it, and I absolutely love how the track turned out.
I really like the song “Growing Again”. It makes it clear that when you guys are in the zone, you can’t make a bad song. What inspired that track?
Who knows—maybe it was just the relatable struggle of gaining weight and getting fat. Or maybe it was just the newfound freedom of being able to rap about absolutely anything we want. If we had put a track like “Growing Again” on The Riddle Box, it wouldn’t have fit the narrative and fans probably would have called it corny. But these days, we just write wherever our brains lead us.
I had the concept ready and tried it over a few different beats, but it wasn’t clicking. Then Mike Clark served up this acoustic guitar instrumental, and it fit perfectly. It’s just original, goofy ICP style. ICP doesn’t always have to be about killing.
Lately, I feel like I constantly have to defend ICP’s honor and choices in every interview we do, though I really don’t want to have to. I love ICP, and we have earned the right to make songs that are softer, funny, or just straightforward storytelling without always relying on the Dark Carnival theme. We’ve actually had tracks like that since the very beginning, all the way back to “Joke Your Mind” and our oldest material. This album is classic ICP.
Look at our most successful record, The Great Milenko, which dropped ten years ago. When it first came out, a ton of Juggalos absolutely hated it. They kept comparing it unfavorably to The Riddle Box and Ringmaster and weren’t feeling it at all. Now, it’s widely looked at as a definitive classic. Every time we drop a new record, we have to walk through the rain with it at first. I respect our fans’ opinions immensely. If someone is still peeping our music, even if they’re hating on the new direction, I respect the fact that they bought the record and checked it out. I love talking to them and reminding them, “Well, look at our catalog. We did something similar on this older album, so why weren’t you bitching back then?”
Another standout track is “Haunted Bumps”. How did that track come together in the studio with Mike E. Clark?
A lot of artists have made tracks celebrating heavy bass, but this one came together the second I heard Mike’s instrumental. It had this incredible, pounding bassline running straight through the track. Mike’s music talks to me in a way nobody else’s does. He will hand me a CD of instrumentals, and the music straight-up spells out its own concept to me. It says, “This song needs to be about this.”
It’s almost scary because sometimes Mike will cut a track intended for Boondox or someone else on the label. I’ll have the CD in my car to deliver it, and as I’m driving, Mike’s music will start talking to me anyway! Even though it isn’t my song, the beat starts telling me exactly what I would do on it if it were mine. I can walk into the studio with absolutely no clue what I’m going to rap about, but the second I put Mike’s music on, I’ll have a complete concept mapped out in two minutes. There is real magic in his production.
The song “I Do This” strongly reminds me of “Juggalo Homies” from The Wraith: Shangri-La LP.
Me too. It’s funny because Mike wasn’t even a big fan of “Juggalo Homies,” so it wasn’t intentional. “I Do This” captures a phase of life that everyone can relate to—that feeling of, “Yeah, I’m a scrub, and I’ll gladly do it.” I do that shit all the time; I’m not too good for the seedy side of life. I’ll go to the strip club, I’ll smoke that with you, I’ll wild out.
It’s a total Juggalo anthem because it embraces the fact that at our parties, nobody is trying to be elite or exclusively sexy. We aren’t standing at the door turning people away because they don’t look a certain way. At this club, everybody’s ugly, meaning we are all in this together as equals. The song is saying: when you’re feeling down, or when your job demands that you be absolutely perfect, come see us, let your hair out, and let’s go hit the gritty side of town.
You’re about to kick off a U.S. tour with Twiztid and X-Clan. How long has it been since you last toured with Twiztid, and how does it feel to share a stage with them again?
It’s been at least five years, so I’m incredibly geeked about it. In the past, while building Psychopathic Records, we had to strategically split up our tours. If we had a newer artist on the roster, we’d need them to go out with us or with Twiztid to gain exposure, so we couldn’t really tour together.
We also had to flip-flop our schedules. Both an ICP album and a Twiztid album are massive undertakings for the label. When ICP was on the road promoting a release, Twiztid would lay low in the studio. Then, when we hit the studio, Twiztid would drop their album and hit the road. Fortunately, the timing worked out perfectly this time around for us to go out together. We’re even setting up a mobile recording studio on the tour bus so we can cut another Rydas album while on the road, which I’m real excited about.
What are your thoughts on touring with the legendary X-Clan? Were you a fan of their music growing up?
Absolutely, I was all over their first two albums back in the day. Then they went quiet for a long stretch. I was kicking it with Brad X of the Kottonmouth Kings, and he mentioned that they had signed X-Clan to their label. I immediately started asking what they were like and if they’d ever be open to touring with ICP. Brad said they absolutely would, so we called up the Kottonmouth Kings, asked them to connect us, and they hooked it right up. I can’t wait to meet them and see them live. We’re going to be on the road all summer for The Tempest, and we’ll be touring through Halloween too.
DOC+ 4
What is the latest on the Psychopathics from Outer Space, Part 3 compilation album?
It is officially coming out this year. The structure is going to feature two solo tracks from each artist on the roster—two from ICP, two from Twiztid, two from Blaze, two from Boondox, two from Tali Demon, and two from Dark Lotus. Then we’ll have two massive “family” tracks that feature absolutely everyone collaborating together. If there’s any extra space left on the disc, we’ll throw in some sporadic, unexpected combinations like a song featuring Twiztid, Boondox, and Tali Demon together. It’s going to be all brand-new, mixed-up family shit.
Speaking of Tali Demon, she is the first official signing to Hatchet House, your newly formed sub-label. What can you tell us about her?
She is a crazily talented rapper who unfortunately never ran into honest people in the music industry before us. We actually tried to sign her to Psychopathic a year and a half ago, but because she had been burned by so many people bullshitting her in the past, she and her team were incredibly cautious, and the deal fell through. When we launched Hatchet House, we approached her again, and this time it worked out beautifully. We’ve got her up here in Detroit living and working with us now.
She’s built a reputation on the internet as an extra-special talent, but we are ready to officially introduce her to the global underground. Once you earn her trust, she completely relaxes and shines. She is a genuine creative genius, and as with every true genius, she comes with a little bit of beautiful insanity!
Why did you decide to start the Hatchet House sub-label rather than just signing new artists directly to Psychopathic Records?
To be completely honest, 2006 broke our hearts. It was a really painful year seeing ABK and Esham leave the label, and it got pretty ugly for a minute there. That broke our hearts, and it broke the fans’ hearts too, because the core foundation of everything we do here is family. Psychopathic Records isn’t just a corporate workspace or a standard record label—it’s a posse, a close-knit club of adults trying to navigate life and realize our dreams together by protecting and trusting one another. Whether you’re a rapper, a wrestler, or working hard behind the scenes, everyone is equally important, and strength comes in numbers.
When people abruptly quit, it deeply hurt everyone involved. It’s something we choose not to look back on or openly discuss anymore; we just keep our eyes forward and focus on growth. But it made us realize that the main Psychopathic roster needs to stay locked down exactly as it is right now: ICP, Twiztid, Blaze, Boondox, and Dark Lotus. Psychopathic is sacred and legendary to us, and we can’t keep having people walk out and tarnish that name or hurt the Juggalo family when things go south.
Hatchet House was created as a sub-label so we can freely experiment, take creative risks, and try out different kinds of music—whether it’s a rock band or an R&B group—without breaking anyone’s heart if it doesn’t work out. Artists on Hatchet House get the exact same love, identical production deals, and the same heavy promotions from us. It’s just a protective buffer to keep the core of Psychopathic sacred.
Between holding JCW matches on your release tour and launching JCW Presents Slam TV, you and Shaggy have found a way to run a full-time wrestling promotion without necessarily needing to take bumps on every single card yourselves. How is that working out?
This is exactly what Shaggy and I planned to do once the Six Jokers Cards saga was completed. We’ve always run JCW, but historically it was limited to about four big shows a year. I’m 34 years old now, and we decided that “one day” is right now. We want to run it as a full-time promotion.
We’re just trying to create cool shit to entertain the Juggalos, because a lot of them share our lifelong love for wrestling. Even if a fan doesn’t care for wrestling, they’ll still dig Slam TV because it’s hilarious comedy regardless. Slam TV will air once a week, and all of the chaotic storylines and feuds are designed to build up to a massive climax on Saturday night at midnight at the Gathering of the Juggalos in Michigan. We call it BloodyMania, and it’s officially our equivalent to WrestleMania.
Psychopathic Records also hosts its own online radio station, WFuckOffRadio.com. What can you tell us about your personal show?
I host The Witching Hours. My show gives me total freedom to play whatever the fuck I want, which usually means spinning a ton of old-school rap and classic grunge. I rarely play new music, though I will occasionally introduce themes. For example, on my last episode, I broadcasted a bunch of unreleased Hatchet House demos and had Juggalos call in live to share their raw opinions on the tracks.
The station features a whole lineup of different shows broadcasting every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. It’s fresh entertainment for Juggalos who are sitting at home looking for something dope to tune into.
What do you hope fans take away from experiencing ICP live on The Tempest tour?
I just hope they walk away fully understanding that nobody out there is doing it like us. Our live performance is, bar none, the greatest show in rap music today.
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