DETROIT, MI - Detroit area natives Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler are grown men who have been dressing up like wicked clowns for more than two decades.
But these members of the Insane Clown Posse are waist-deep in some serious business as they prepare for the July 24 premiere of a new show on Fuse TV called "Insane Clown Posse Theater."

"A half-hour show that will probably go by in about five (bleeping) minutes because it's so (bleeping) funny," said Bruce, better known among Juggalos (hardcore ICP fans) as "Violent J." "We don't have any say in the videos we end up watching on the show. All I can say is that stuff happens."

If the pressure of filling eight 30-minute episodes of the program's first season with laughs wasn't enough, Violent J claims ICP also is hard at work trying to win pending lawsuits against the FBI in multiple states.

The ICP are suing the FBI because the federal agency put the colorful rap group's fanbase on its gang list in 2011 and never took them off.

Violent J explained in an interview with MLive Detroit this week what viewers of the Fuse TV show can expect, gave more details about ICP suing the FBI, and much, much more. Check out his feedback below and share your thoughts in MLive Detroit's comments section.

Tell me more about "Insane Clown Posse Theater" and how similar or different it will be compared to some of the YouTube commentary you guys have done while watching videos from Justin Bieber and that "Gagnam Style" dude PSY.

 

Those ain’t funny, man! Well, they’re funny, but this is a whole TV show built around (the concept) brother! It’s crazy funny. This is super-funny. You don’t even have to be a diehard Juggalo to enjoy this. You can’t deny the truth. We’re saying the truth about these videos and we’re not afraid to say anything, man. That can be refreshing for people.

Are you promised just one season or do you have a more long-term deal with Fuse TV?

We want to get picked up for another season. We want that just like anybody else that’s got a TV show. We want to get picked up for another season more than anything. This is a prove yourself season. We had to put our own tactics to everything; we had to prove ourselves. If we get another season, everybody kind of steps up a little bit more and puts more into it. And when that happens, it gets a little bit easier for us.

You guys seem like naturals for a show like this, based on the YouTube videos I've seen. When did you know something like this was a possibility and how did you guys develop the colorful on-screen personas? 

We’ve been doing that very thing – sitting down and what we call commentating on something – we did that way, way back when we first put out our first ‘Stranglemania’ video. It was a wrestling video on VHS, and we put that out in ’95. That was the same thing (but somewhat different, too). We ordered this crazy wrestling footage from Japan, and when it came it didn’t have any cuss words in it or any commentary. There was no play-by-play action, it was just the wrestling. So we used to put it in and do commentary just off the top of our heads, and all our friends used to laugh and say ‘Aw, you’re funny, let’s do that in a studio and put it out.’ And that became one of our best-selling videos - ever. So basically we’ve been doing the commentary thing forever; just watching something funny and doing the whole ‘Mystery Science Theater’ type of thing. We’ve been doing that for a very, very long time; it’s very natural to us. It’s not hard, but I have found that there are just some things where there’s just nothing funny to say because when you look it at, it’s just so boring.

We have more to the show (than the previous YouTube videos). We have other people involved in the show. There’s Sugar Slam involved in the show, there’s Vampiro involved in the show, there’s Greg ‘The Hammer’ Valentine involved in the show. Plus, we have special guests every other episode and interviews. I think the interviews are some of the best segments. We’ve done so many videos for every episode – with commentary – that hopefully Fuse only takes the funniest ones. For every episode we did 10 or 15 videos, so they should be able to find the funniest ones.

Whats up with all this talk about suing the FBI for the past year? Is this for real? Some of your critics seem to think it's more of a publicity stunt. 

It’s an action. That’s 100 percent happening. That’s going down as we speak. I mean, there were lawyers in the building today (in New York). I couldn’t even heat up my Jimmy Johns because we were in the conference room with them and our manager Billy going over all of that. That’s very real and very ongoing, you know. It’s not easy; it’s not a quick thing. It’s not a quick small claims court type of thing. Do you know what I’m saying? If we didn’t sue the FBI, we would just have to accept (having our fans on gang lists). And if we accepted it, it takes our whole legacy and just (bleeps) all over it, man. We got to fight that. We got to fight that or people will accept (ICP fans as gang members) as the truth. It’s not the truth, you know. If we didn’t say anything about it and just laughed it off, some people, more and more people would think it’s the truth. Next thing you know, every fan we have would be looked at as a gang member, and it just sucks. 

Not to bring anything up, but in recent news, GQ Magazine said we’re the worst rappers of all-time. The only people that would disagree with them are our fans. My point of all this is that our fans are already having a hard enough time being taken seriously. They’re just fans; they enjoy our music, man. Why is everyone giving Juggalos such a hard time? You know what I mean? They're not gang members. People think they got to be wrong about what they listen to; they get a bad rap. How can GQ say we’re the worst rappers of all-time when we’ve been in business selling records for 20 years? How can they get away with saying that? The only people that disagree are our fans. My point is that we take our fans seriously because they’re human beings, man, and they deserve respect. They deserve all of our respect, and everybody else deserves a decent amount of respect just like any other human being.

Have you filed the lawsuit against the FBI or is it something you’re still getting ready to file?

It’s all happening. It’s already happening. It’s all going down. Our manager and attorneys can tell you more that I can because that (expletive) gives me a headache. I’m going to know about it every single day because it’s going to go on for a long, long time. We’re letting people know we’re fighting it. I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as defeating the FBI. Our attorneys are telling us, honest to God, that when we finally get to court, our attorneys are telling us we got a sure shot chance of winning this thing. They’re telling us we can actually win this and get the Juggalos removed off the list. But when you’re going up against the FBI, at least I feel like there is no winning. They are the very people that hold the gavel. They are the judges. They are the government. They can do anything they want. But I think that as long as people know that we’re fighting it, they know we ain’t havin’ it. It’s more important to let people know we’re standing up and saying ‘Wait a (bleeping) minute, Juggalos aren’t a gang.’ That’s like calling the Rolling Stones fans a gang just because they’ve been loving the Rolling Stones and getting together at various places to love the Rolling Stones; gathering in the woods, smoking dope and loving the Rolling Stones. 

The Rolling Stones … some people think we’re better than the Rolling Stones. Our fans deserve the same amount of respect as the Rolling Stones do. We’re just saying ‘Hey man, we’re not a (bleeping) gang.’ It’s important that we’re fighting it – even if we go broke one day and die still fighting it. It’s important that we defend the Juggalos. When it first happened and we first heard about it, we laughed about this (expletive). Then we heard about all those Juggalos affected. You have Juggalos going to see their probation officer and they got a hatchet tattoo and the next thing you know they’re violating probation because they got a tattoo. All kinds of things are happening; people are being refused from joining the military; they’re being told no because they’re accused of being in a gang. All kinds of (expletive), and how it can actually suck to follow our music because there is punishment being handed down by the government. If you publicly let it be known you’re a Juggalo (in some places) and put a sticker on your car, you’re going to make the gang file. And that means harsher punishments, harsher sentencing, all kinds of (expletive), man. If you make the gang file and you get busted with a little bag of weed, you don’t get busted as a normal civilian. You get busted as a gang member; harsher punishment and penalties. The government is actually punishing people for listening to our shot and representing our shit. And that’s (bleeping) nuts. That’s just terrible. We have to fight that shit. Who else is going to stand up?

 

How are you filing these lawsuits against the FBI?

 

It’s being filed in different places where these suits from Juggalos have occurred, where they represent and live. There’s certain cities where (being an ICP fan) is looked down on. It’s not like that in Detroit. There are places where they’ll write you up just for having a sticker in your back window. There’s cities where it’s just way worse.

 

How has Detroit, as city with plenty of struggles over the years, influenced how you and Shaggy create your music? Seems like most of Detroit has been in decline most of your life. 

I think the city is on the way up. I think it was really bad when we were kids. But now, to me, look at downtown where you live. There’s a lot of reasons to go downtown and spend money. There’s a lot of really nice restaurants and things that can help the city. Back in the day there was Trapper’s Alley and what? You know what I mean? Now there’s all types of shit. I think there’s a lot of good things. I think the city is on the upswing, it’s on a comeback, man. For a long time, it was just Coleman A. Young and a lot of madness. Not it just seems like a lot better; they’re actually building things downtown. There’s a big different, especially when you head downtown on Woodward. I used to live in Ferndale and take Woodward all the way downtown and it was just pure bombed out war zone all the way down. Now I see brand new businesses and apartments being built. This is not just downtown, this is different parts of the city. The roads are getting paved, and it looks a lot nicer. When I take that trip down Woodward to downtown it looks a lot nicer than it did when I was a kid. I think it’s on the positive, a real come up.

I don’t think it was about where we are from as much as what was going on in our own houses. Being poor was a thing. You can be the poorest person on your block and still live on a nice block. You can still be poor and have everybody making fun of you. Even if you live in a suburb, you can be the poorest person in your school and have everybody making fun of you. It sucks just like if you are from the ghetto. It’s been more about what was going on in our houses, dealing with divorce, separation and all that. Being poor and all that put the wickedness in our music. That’s where I think a lot of our anger came from. Some of it had to do with the way the city was. But mostly it had to do with the separation of Detroit. You’d have a big wall separating Grosse Pointe from Detroit – a rich neighborhood from a poor neighborhood. One neighborhood growing up would be all Mexican, another all white and another all black. Streets were separated like that. Once we went on tour, we saw that most cities weren’t like that. That’s what bothered me about Detroit, the segregation. And I really didn’t like that when I noticed how other places were so different. Detroit was so separated. I remember when I was 15 or 16 and going down to live with my brother in North Carolina; he was in the Army. I remember living there and just seeing how different it was than Detroit and just how everything was. That left some salt in my mouth about separated things were in Detroit. That had me feeling salty. I think that it’s still a lot like that in Detroit; I really don’t know what that is. I don’t us being from Detroit is the reason why we have so much pent up anger.

 

What keeps you guys going after all these years? 

Honestly, love! Love! Love! There’s a lot of love (for ICP) that you don’t know about, man.

 

 

There will be another part of this interview where they discuss Eminem, Kid Rock and new ICP music.