Jamie Madrox of the rap duo Twiztid paid us a visit here at 1428 Elm to talk about his long career in music and his love for the horror genre.
Warning, the following interview contains language some may find offensive. Proceed with caution. The again, you clicked on a Twiztid interview…let’s do this shit.
The Intro:
Born out of the gritty and often violent streets of Detroit, for the past 20 years Twiztid has blazed a trail of underground wicked music. The demented duo consists of Jamie Madrox and The Monoxide Child, two friends who came together and became the horrorcore juggernaut that is currently celebrating two decades of scaring the hell out of the mainstream.
When I saw Twiztid was coming to my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, I knew I was blessed with the chance to sit down with the man, the myth, the legend Jamie Madrox. We discussed the group’s love of horror films, what influences them and what fans can expect from the group and their record label Majik Ninja Entertainment in the near future.
Currently on tour, Twiztid has hit the road and brought their special brand of macabre and humor to unsuspecting cities. Every night the group takes the stage, they perform their debut album Mostasteless in its entirety. So without further ado, I bring you my exclusive interview with the multiple man himself, Jamie Madrox.
The Interview:
— Courtesy of Majik Ninja Entertainment
1428 Elm: I want to start out by going way back, I want to go old school.
Jamie Madrox: Let’s do it.
1428: How did the demented duo that we know and love as Twiztid come to be? Did you guys know each other from school? The Detroit music scene? How did you guys first meet?
JM: Me and Paul, we’ve been friends for like for-fucking-ever. We had a common friend, this dude Brian, who was R.O.C. in House of Krazees, we met at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of America. It was like, our neighborhood was not like a good neighborhood, but it was before you know shit got really crazy, but our parents were like if you let you kids go play at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club it was a good after school place.
If you had children, you’d let your kids play there because you knew it was safe. You could go do your parental thing and you knew your kids would be safe you could pick your kids up later on at night and they would be all good.
So like, I met Paul there and we later on found out we had a common friend in Brian. And it was through the course of time we became like the inseparable three. And later on as time progressed they introduced me to rap and I showed them heavy metal music and we just, and things happened man, things blossomed and a lot of crazy, a lot of really cool shit happened man. We still are to this day, I am still blessed to be friends with them, you know what I mean. They’re my brothers to the end of time. So it’s just a crazy dynamic, hell yeah.
Photo via UKJuggalos
Brian, Jamie and Paul
1428: It has been 20 years since Mostasteless was released. You are currently on tour performing the album in its entirety. Any favorite memories or experiences you can remember from recording that album?
JM: When we first started recording the record, everything about it was like, all we wanted to do was be heard and when we had first gotten that opportunity, it was like winning the lottery. So everything that we were doing was like the realest, like you know what I mean, so like if you were drinking a Coca-Cola it was the sweetest Coca-Cola in the world. If you were eating a candy bar it never tasted that chocolatey. The studio time was the greatest studio time, the microphones sounded the best, the headphones never sounded so crystal clear, like everything felt so perfect and it felt so right and it was just a crazy time.
Little did we know that it was going to be a lot of work ahead of us but we were at the moment that you speak of. We were intoxicated with, ‘Holy shit we’re actually going to be able to do this.’. When you want something so incredibly bad and you finally get it in your life you’re like ‘Oh my god oh my god oh my god,’ but they always say be careful what you want, you know what I mean? Because you don’t know what’s about to be here. You’re just at this point, you’re like ‘Yes!’ so yeah at that moment dude we were fucking cloud nine. It was great.
You can feel it in the songs. I mean even when we do them on stage every night, it’s fucking crazy, like going back to material that is that old. And it’s like I was even saying that a couple of days ago to Paul, it’s crazy and ironic the material is still relevant. Some of it, not all of it. That’s fucking crazy but that’s cool, I guess that’s the cool part of Twiztid. It’s always gonna have some kind of spiraling through the fucking universe somewhere, you know what I mean, and have some kind of relevancy to it.