Keven Skinner from Gotham News recently interviewed Twiztid. In this interview Madrox and Mono discuss a plethora of topic including a new full length album, the Talking Dead, their health, making tough business decisions and more.

You can read the full interview below.

From Gotham News:

I had the chance to speak with underground rap icons Twiztid while they were promoting their brand new EP ‘Get Twiztid’ during the Bootleg Banner Tour. Members Jamie Madrox and Monoxide commented on how their departure from longtime label Psychopathic Records has affected them as well as their plans on releasing a new full length record during the first quarter of 2015.

Twiztid left longtime music label Psychopathic Records at the end of 2013, not long after their final album on the Insane Clown Posse founded company, ‘Abominzations’, was unleashed upon the masses to great critical acclaim. They’ve since released two EP’s, a mixtape and have toured steadily since their departure. With the group’s new distribution deal at INgrooves, it looks like Madrox and Monoxide are finally ready to begin work on their first new album since the big move.

Another important part of our conversation involved the duo’s campaign to finally secure a guest spot on a future episode of The Walking Dead’s aftershow Talking Dead. The rappers are huge fans of the AMC series and there’s been a large social network campaign to have producers finally take notice. Considering how funny and entertaining they are in their interviews it seems like a no-brainer to give Twiztid a shot.

Keven: 2014 is gearing up to be a really big for Twiztid and with you guys constantly re-inventing yourselves can you spoil a surprise for the fans in regards to what plans you have to end the year?

Monoxide: You’re looking forward to the next 25 years of music. That’s what you’re gonna look forward to. We found a way to keep this going.

Madrox: Hell yeah, that’s right. We have no plans on stopping. We broke the brakes, so there is no brake so if you hit the brake there is no stopping – sir!

Monoxide: Our cars don’t even come with brake pads.

Keven: You’re releasing a lot of new music for the fans in a short period of time, can we expect a new full length album by the end of the year?

Monoxide: We were releasing EP’s until we got a manufacturing distribution deal so we can launch our own record label. There’s no way it’ll be done in time for this year.

Madrox: Realistically we’d like to release it during the first quarter of next year.

Keven: You’ve had to make some tough business decisions in the past year or so in order to level up and grow the Twiztid brand. Has that transition been tough for you?

Monoxide: No. Not at all. Honestly we expected to even be a little harder than it is.

Madrox: We were ready for pretty much anything. But we’re thankful it happened the way that it happened. People welcomed us with open arms and embraced us – they were proud of us.

Monoxide: That’s what it was. It was the support behind us that made the transition flawless. And it wasn’t a big mess out on the streets. It wasn’t like that.

Madrox: People are proud of us and we’re proud of ourselves – we’re a bunch of proud motherfuckas!

Monoxide: And they know… They know what we’re gonna do so the excitement is through the roof.

Keven: What’s been the most rewarding aspect of your decision to move forward on your own?

Monoxide: To be able to do our own thing.

Madrox: Yeah that truly is just it.

Monoxide: From being protégées to actually having our own warehouse, our own studio and we’re getting ready to launch our own record label…

Madrox: In nerdy talk we were padawans but now we are full on Jedis.

Keven: A lot of rappers’ skills deteriorate over time and they get played out. What the hell are you doing to yourselves because it seems like you get better and faster with every album?

Monoxide: It’s a genuine passion.

Madrox: Yeah man we want this, this is what we do. With anything you do you wanna be the best. You need them crisp edges, you gotta know how to get in with the brushes, you can’t be sloppy. Whatever you do you gotta hone your craft. You gotta want to be the best at what you do because if you don’t there’s someone out there that wants it just as much as you and you have to be the one that wants it more than they do. And we are the ones that want it.

Monoxide: We wanna serve the meals, we don’t wanna become them. That kind of passion just drives us.

Keven: Madrox did this thing a while back where he decided to get healthy and lose a bunch of weight. Around that time I also made the choice to improve myself and I wound up losing around a 100 pounds.

Madrox: Congratulations!

Keven: Thanks man, and I don’t wanna be a sap and say that you inspired me entirely with your efforts but in a sort of way you definitely helped because I grew up listening to you guys and felt like, “if this crazy fucker can do it, then why can’t I?” What prompted that decision to change your lifestyle so drastically?

Madrox: It was a health situation and —

Monoxide: We looked into the lard ass eyes of America!!!

Madrox: (laughing) Yeah, no no, he’s right though. It comes with the previous question and just wanting to do this forever and not to say the catalyst wasn’t a doctor’s conversation but it was also because of wanting to go up on stage and keep up with this motherfucker. To be able to move around and look at people and be like, we can do so much more. I want trampolines and to be able to do backflips, goddammit. And if we can be any inspiration to anybody to better themselves than we’re honoured by that so thank you for saying that – that’s pretty dope.

Keven: What do you guys have planned for your annual 4:20 show that would be different than any other night considering you already smoke so much weed anyway on a daily basis?

Monoxide: First 200 people in the door get a prostitute of their choice. (Madrox laughs) The 4:20 show is a lot different and a lot more laid back… because everybody is fucking stoned. It’s amazing that a flower can just bring so many people together from all different ends of the earth.

Madrox: That’s right. All cuts of the cloth, all walks of life.

Monoxide: I love weed man.

Madrox: He does! I do too.

Keven: You guys have been campaigning to get onto The Talking Dead and I think you’d be an amazing fit because it’s obvious how funny and entertaining you both are and you’re legit fans of The Walking Dead. But did Marilyn Manson fuck up that opportunity for guys like you to get onto the show after he spaced out and acted like a dickhead?

Monoxide: Hardwick’s afraid of us. He knows that if we get on that show, his job is gone. So I understand why they don’t wanna have us on. We’ve done all the petitions, we’ve had the talk and the numbers are there.

Madrox: We did have a helly petition.

Monoxide: The imbeciles they have on there that don’t even watch the show!

Madrox: That’s the real kick in the pants.

Monoxide: And that needs to be brought up. If we were hosts of that show it would be brought out.

Madrox: Do you watch the show? Name five characters.

Monoxide: Whose your favourite? Alex? Really? There is no Alex! Hardwick needs to grow a pair.

Madrox: Come on Hardwick! Get us on the goddamn show if you’re reading this.

Keven: I saw you guys live for the first time not long ago when you toured Canada and played Lethbridge, Alberta. The energy in that small club was electric and when you closed with LDLHAIBCSYWA (“Love Don’t Live Here Anymore…”) – I lost it when I was right up near the front of the stage because it’s probably my favourite song that you’ve ever done. What was the inspiration behind that track?

Monoxide: Life. Relatable pieces of life. The parts of life that everybody goes through. If you can’t relate to that song then you’re not fucking human. So when I’m listening to it and my dog is sitting there with that stupid ass look on her face – we’re not speaking for her.

Madrox: There’s a certain connection with that song and it can’t be described as something other than magic. Every now and then we’re able to get that touchstone.

Monoxide: When you see grown men crying, you know you’ve done something.

Madrox: You know you’ve touched their souls. And that’s a good thing.

Monoxide: Or touching any other part of a man… And that’s why they’re crying.

Madrox: (laughing) And by the way that tour through Canada was pretty fresh bro. We didn’t know what to expect.

Monoxide: I got two words for Canada – Go. Wings.

Madrox: (laughing). Ah shit, that’s great.

Keven: I have to ask you about this while I got you too. Before you guys hit the stage in Lethbridge there were a lot of technical difficulties and I remember this quite clearly, but correct me if I’m wrong. I was standing near the back beside the sound guy and right before you came out Aqualeo walks by, grabs the soundguy’s iPod and unplugs it from the soundsystem. This little engineer dude then proceeds to scream at Aqualeo and everything from that point forward seemed to be a little messed up.

Monoxide: They thought that was their iPod. It was just a big misunderstanding.

Keven: I remember your manager being in a yelling match with the sound guy because the music kept cutting out along with Madrox’ mic which delayed the opening of the show – everything was messed up. Do you remember what happened?

Monoxide: Oh no wait, that was because the club was a bunch of fucking – (someone stops Mono from yelling) – Oh no?

Madrox: It might’ve been that the promoter didn’t have the proper sounds for us or we were pushing too much bass but that entire Canadian run was like a trial for us. We didn’t know what to expect – Canada didn’t know what to expect – but it was all good.

Monoxide: Except for that club in Red Deer.

Madrox: We still get a lot of love from everybody on Twitter asking us when we’re coming back to Canada. We didn’t know we had such a good impact there.

Keven: What was the most frustrating live experience that you’ve ever had?

Monoxide: There’s nothing more frustrating than the sound not working.

Madrox: This is just to show you how professional he and I are – and we don’t know what the intention was, if it was just a technical difficulty or if it was somebody being like “fuck them” but we’ll be performing and someone will totally cut our showtape off and we’ll be like fuck it, with or without a tape we’ll keep on rapping. Our own crew and shit are like “I’ve never seen anybody do that!”. Usually people are like “oh we’ve been compromised! Stop the show” We’re like fuck you dude. We’ll keep going on and once you get through a verse or two and people will be like “I can’t believe this is happening” then the beat comes back on.

You can cut the beat but as long as you leave the microphones on… But if the mic goes out – that’s a motherfucker right there. But we’ve been through all of that before and we’ll keep going on and think oh “they’re gonna hate us” but then afterward people think it’s the coolest thing ever.

Keven: Is the latest EP a good indication of what the sound will be like on the new full album?

Monoxide: I’ll tell you this. The album ‘Abominationz’ marked the new sound of Twiztid. That record, that’s where it’s heading. You can hear that record in everything we’ve done since then.

Madrox: You can also hear us playing around with that cause that’s how we are. We’re always experimental so we’re ahead of the game. We’re ahead of ourselves. Sometimes we’ll drop a record and it won’t be relevant until five years after it’s been out. People are still coming back with “what happened with Green Book dude? I just heard that yesterday for the first time and it’s fucking amazing.” They’re still finding back catalogue and saying “Mirror Mirror – where the fuck was I when that came out?” I don’t wanna say anything prematurely though because I know when we get in there —

Monoxide: We pride ourselves on not sounding the same.

Madrox: We always get in there and don’t expect anything and shit just starts happening. We’ll look at each other and say “did you just hear that?” and that’s it. Sometimes some of our best stuff is done in the final moments. It’s scary to say that but that’s how some of our masterpieces come about.

Monoxide: We have never worked harder on a record than ‘Abominationz’ though. To me that is the epitome of what we are today. That’s it.

Contributors:

• Keven Skinner

Websites:

• gotham-news.com