Real Detroit Freshness
Insane Clown Posse
By Andrea Bonaventura
Oct 27, 2009, 13:23
Printer friendly page
Getting Supernatural With
Insane Clown Posse
Ten years ago, at the young and impressionable age of 15, I stumbled across an early issue of Real Detroit and was floored to find an article about ICP. If regular teen angst wasn’t enough, it was extra frustrating not to be able to see my favorite group on MTV or hear their songs on the radio or read about them in any magazines. I was a clown girl in a boy-band world.
Real Detroit was the only magazine with the balls to write about ICP even back then, and here we are a decade later and Real Detroit still has huge balls. You may look at this cover and simply hate it, but ICP have accomplished more than most local artists. This is why ICP are on the cover today ... not buried inside like in other publications. So hate on, haters.
Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope have never been heroes in the music industry, although they should be. Not many groups have built their own record label from the ground up, created their own JCW wrestling federation, have dozens of releases under their belt and a line of merch know as Hatchetgear. Honestly, that's just a small sample of what the clowns have accomplished. And this all happened much to the surprise of pretty much everyone. ICP’s latest album, Bang! Pow! Boom!, debuted at No. four on Billboard charts ... Not bad for the most hated band in the world.
It's that time of year, once again, for Real Detroit to catch up with Violent J and chat before ICP's annual Hallowicked concert in Detroit on Halloween.
People are going to see ICP on the cover of Real Detroit and think, “Why are they on the cover?” What do you say to all the haters?
Fuck you or fuck off. However you would like me to pronounce it. This interview is coming straight from the heart. You’ve really got to be an asshole to be a hater. We’ve already shut everybody up. We’re still here and we’ve proved we’re not a novelty. There is nothing to hate. We do our own genre of music. You don’t have to look at our faces on MTV or listen to us on the radio. The only way to find us is if you look for us.
Tell the truth, is Bang! Pow! Boom! really the seventh Joker’s Card?
We’re on tour right now and we don’t want to disrespect the original six Joker’s Cards. Every night we tell the audience maybe Bang! Pow! Boom! is the first of six more. We’ll have to see.
With Bang! Pow! Boom! you have decided to revisit ICP’s storytelling ways of the Dark Carnival and team up with Mike E. Clark. What was this process like?
It felt wonderful. That’s what we’re most comfortable with. We gave Mike E. Clark more input on this album than we ever have previously. We wanted it to be a team effort. When we recorded the Tempest we felt like we were taking it seriously but it was nothing compared to Bang! Pow! Boom! With Bang! Pow! Boom! we stopped smoking weed while we were recording and we drank hot tea before every studio session. When we weren’t in the studio we were calling each other all the time with new ideas for the album. The studio sessions were so fun. It felt like the old days.
Right now you guys are on the Bang! Pow! Boom! tour and the album debuted at No. four on Billboard charts. How did that feel?
We are so grateful. Ten years after the first time we did it, we did it again. Everything is going so good. That feeling started right when we started making the album. It feels like everything is going our way. It feels like things are growing and coming around. It's like a new beginning ... like the ultimate busting a nut. All of the reviews are really good. Like instead of everyone just trashing us like usual they’ll admit that we’ve mastered our craft. It's still hard to be a Juggalo. Juggalos have it worse than us because people just don’t get it. Looking into the crowd at shows is mind-blowing. We’re so lucky. Juggalos make it magic. It doesn’t get supernatural until the room gets full.
What’s next?
We’re going to be touring for a while. We’re coming home for Christmas and then more touring. We’re going to do a big arena tour and we’re going back to Australia. Eventually we’ll do another JCW tour and have more videos like Slam TV but fresher. | RDW
Hallowicked • 10/31 • The Fillmore