Wednesday 13 Launches New Band, Gunfire 76

On Oct. 6, Wednesday 13's self-reinvention will come to fruition, as 'Casualties & Tragedies,' the debut album from his new band, Gunfire 76, will hit store shelves.

"It's stripped back a lot more. This is pretty much just a rock 'n' roll sort of thing," Wednesday told Noisecreep. "I'm still citing all the influences I did with my solo stuff. My favourite bands are still Kiss and Alice Cooper. But the image thing has painted me into a corner where it just kind of sucked sometimes. I couldn't do what I wanted to because I'd get pigeonholed with this whole gothic thing. That's really been a bummer for me over the past couple of years. There's been tours I've wanted to do with other big bands, and it comes back that they saw my picture and assumed I was 69 Eyes or some kind of goth band; it's nothing like that.

"So with this project, I wanted to do something that was based on good music and not around image. There will be an image along with this, but the booklet and the CD -- there aren't any pictures. It's just imaging of the lyrics. I made the cover simple. I just tried to do the opposite of what I would normally do with my solo stuff."

Wednesday's change in image has rendered him unrecognizable to some, while raising the ire in others. "I cut all my dreads off, but I still look like a weirdo. It's a weird thing and I get it, too. 90 percent of people thought it was fine, but some people complain about it, and I can see why. I remember when Kiss took their makeup off, back in the day -- I was pissed off! So I can see it from that point of view. But at the same time, I had dreads for 11 years. It's not like I've got my hair slicked back and I'm wearing a suit and tie. I've still got a rock image, and I'm always going to have an image -- AC/DC has an image."

But again, it's not just about a change of image. Wednesday decided he needed a whole new direction. "I felt like I took what I was doing as far as I could. This is almost like a rebirth for me. I get to do a new band with a new sound and a new look. It re-energizes me. I'm not going to put out music that doesn't stand up to what I've done. I think this record turned out great. Sonically, it's one of the best sounding things I've put out. But there's a lot of different stuff on here that people have never heard me do. I'm not singing the same way; I didn't go in there and scream. I think it's going to translate well live. Gunfire 76 is something I will be doing for the next year and a half to two years. This is the main band as of right now."