The Devil Inside Horror Legend Bill Moseley

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 by Nos

Chad: When I was a child ( I had a fever… My hands felt just like two balloons …. Sorry) I remember the kids in my neck of the woods looking up to great sports figures. Basketball, baseball, football stars and maybe firemen. Then, there was me. On the other hand, I looked up to Dracula, Bruce Lee, Alice Cooper, and the actors that played psychopathic killers in twisted films. So for me to get the opportunity to interview one of my favorite movie stars… Well let’s just say it was almost enough to warm my cold blood.

The first time I saw him in a movie he was playing the role as a member of the deranged freaky cannibalistic Sawyer family in Tobe Hooper’s immortal classic ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Pt.2′. His character ‘Chop Top’ was the most intense creeps I had seen since Edwin Neal’s role as the hitchhiker in the first ‘Chainsaw’ flick.

This actors name is BILL MOSELEY

Bill Moseley is a horror movie master! If you don’t know this, then look at his cred.

Endangered Species, OSA, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mamba, The Blob, Pink Cadillac, Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!, The End Of Innocence, Night Of The Living Dead (re-make), Honey, I Blew Up The Kids, Army Of Darkness, Mr. Jones, The Getaway, Blood Run, Prehysteria 3!, Evil Ed, The Convent, Essence Of Echoes, Live From Bagdad, House Of A 1000 Corpses, Vicious, Home Sick, Anderson’s Cross, The Devils Rejects, Evil Bong, Fallen Angels, Thr3e, A Dead Calling, Grindhouse, Halloween, House, A Perfect Place, Babysitter Wanted, Repo! The Genetic Opera, The Alphabet Killer, Alone In The Dark II, The Devils Tomb, The Haunted World Of El SuperBeasto, Dead Air, Blood Night: The Legend Of Mary Hatchet, 2001 Maniacs: Feild Of Screams, The Graves, Godkiller: Walk Among Us, the Tortured, Eldorado, Night Of The Living Dead: Origins 3-D… And soon to be out Rogue River.

Damn!!!

Nos: Simply put, Bill Moseley is one of the greatest cult actors of our time. His second film (per the Bill Moseley imdb page) was TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, playing the role Chop Top. If you’ve seen the film you know just how memorable the character truly is. While CHAINSAW 2 achieved a following right of the bat, Moseley did not. Even with the popularity of Chop Top his career in the 1990’s is largely made up of smaller films/ roles and guest spots on T.V. shows. He did play the character of Johnnie in Tom Savini’s remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. However, Moseley’s performance as Johnnie was so drastically different than Chop Top; some fans had trouble making the connection that was the same actor. So it seems it was both a blessing and a curse that Bill Moseley didn’t get himself type casted in the early days. If you’ll pardon the obvious analogy … Moseley’s success as an actor has been like a chainsaw that’s hard to start.

But in 2003 a little film called HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES hit theaters and Moseley once again acted an extremely memorable part … this time the character’s name was Otis. Something about this Otis part really struck a chord with the horror crowd. Older horror fans remembered Chop Top and fell in love all over again, while the younger horror crowd became engrossed with Moseley and the strange set of Rob Zombie films that followed.

Moseley has worked very hard to get to where he is now and his fans know and appreciate this. His work never ceases to amaze me … even when I go back and watch the pre-Rob Zombie movies and T.V. guest spots. I’ve always enjoyed just how diverse he can be and how much effort he seems to put into his work.

Chad: Bill is one of the busiest actors in the horror genre. And in real life (when not made up like a maniac) he’s a handsome devil and a really down to earth guy. Now I’m gonna talk a lil’ bit about his movies but, I thought it would be appropriate for me (doing what I do) to talk about one of Bill’s other passions….. His music!

I recently talked to him about some of the bad ass goods that he’s delivering. Check it.

Chad Cherry – Alright Bill, not only are you a cult horror icon but I think a lot of your fans need to know that you are a bit of a music man as well. So let’s talk about your 13 track debut album “SPIDER MOUNTAIN : No way out”.

Bill Moseley – Right on!

C.C.- How long did this record take to make?

B.M.- Well my music partner Rani Sharone and I recorded it over about 9 or 10 months. We started working on the first song ‘ Stupid life of a mom eater ‘ and from there until we actually got the CD’s by UPS a couple of weeks ago, probably 10 months.

C.C.- And Rani has done work with Maynard James Keenan from Tool on a Pusifer record.

B.M.- Ya, he also has a band with his brother called Stolen Babies. Rani’s a great guy, he was really the music brains behind Spider Mountain and he was a lot of fun to work with. It was ultimately just the two of us. We recorded it up at my buddy Travis Dickerson’s studio in Chattsworth, Ca. He threw in his two cents and did a great job recording it.

C.C.- It does sound great. The first single is ‘Rolling Hills’. It’s a catchy song and the video is fantastic. I’m not sure if any of the fans have seen it yet but it’s a claymation video that rocks! Was that your doing?

B.M.- Well I’ll tell what happened. I used to have a band called the Cornbugs with Buckethead, and during the Cornbug years I met Jim Lombardo at a horror convention in Cleveland who gave me a DVD with his claymation work on it. I got him to do 3 different animations for the Cornbugs, which are all on youtube. And when we where ready for Spider Mountain I immediately gave him a call, sent him a copy of ‘Rolling Hills’ and he came up with that on his own.

C.C.- It’s a real fun video.

B.M.- The only thing I asked Jim to put in more of when I got the first copy was, I said we just need a lil’ more of SPYMO. SPYMO is our blatant Spider mascot.

C.C.- I think he’s creepy Bill.

B.M.- Creepy? He’s cool!

C.C.- You also have the track ‘Lord let me help you decide’ which will soon be heard on the soundtrack to Tim Sullivan’s splatter sequel “2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams” . You’re gonna be in this movie too?

B.M.- Yes, I’m actually going to be one of the stars in this. I take over for Robert Englund who played the mayor of a town of southern souls who where whipped out in the Civil War and now every year seek revenge against the Yankees.

C.C.- Perfect.

B.M.-Tim Sullivan was looking for different songs to put on the soundtrack and I had some old lyrics from the Cornbug days… “Lord let me help you decide, who on earth should live and who should die”. I ran it by Rani, and he pulled out the banjo man and started plucking, and boy, that song came together in a hurry! We sent it over to Tim and he absolutely loved it. And now it’s one of the songs that plays when the end credits roll, so I’m very excited about that. I actually just saw a screening of the movie last night and was very happy to see Spider Mountain represented at the end of the credit crawl.

C.C.- And Ogre from Skinny Puppy fame, who you’ve work with on both film and music will be in this flick with you as well?

B.M- Oh yeah. Ogre does a great job! And it was a lot of fun. You know we almost got Ogre on the Spider Mountain CD. We’ll probably get him on the next one.

C.C.- You’ve worked with him on his latest album ‘Devils in my Details’. A great record that I wasn’t expecting to hear your voice on, so it was a real treat.

B.M.- It was amazing! Ogre and his main music guy have this great studio. You can really create orchestras. You go in, sit down with some lyrics.. I remember working with Ogre and I literally came in with some lyrics and poem fragments in a notebook. We sat down and I just spoke them into the microphone and a month later I get a copy of the ‘Devils in my Details’ CD and I’m just blown away!

C.C.- ROCK!!!

I wanted to keep this more on the musical side but I’m gonna get off the subject, just for a bit. Bill, ya gotta tell us about the new movie you got coming out soon called ‘Rogue River’.

B.M- Rogue River is something that I’m really looking forward to! We shot that in December up in Oregon on the banks of the real Rogue River. It was directed by Jourdan McClure. ‘Rogue River’ is a creepy movie…. And it’s not supernatural. Basically this young girl meets a creepy couple….. And creepy things happen……

(At this point Bill and I start laughing our asses off like the angels we are.)

B.M.- The couple is actually me and my real life girlfriend Lucinda Jenney. Lucinda has done a lot of great work. She was in Rain man, Thelma and Louise, The Shield, lots and lots of great stuff. But she’s never done a lot of horror. She was the wife in ‘Thinner”, so she’s done a lil’ bit. She’s more of a quote “legitimate” actor haha, and we have never worked with each other for all of our time together. We’ve been together for about 16 years.

So the opportunity came up for her to play the women of the creepy couple. At first she was reluctant. She said “No, no, thats your world Bill”. But then she thought about it, it is a lead in a movie and it’s not small potatoes and I think she took her psychological walk and then by the end of the day she said “I’ll do it” and I was happy. I wasn’t trying to encourage her or discourage her knowing her psychology. She came to it, and she was great!

It was nice to let the public see what an evil person see can be hahaha! She did great! Wow! It was a lot of fun to work on. It was great working with Jourdan, the script was very cool cuz the story is really, really twisted. We all went up there and really busted our humps. I’m not sure when the movie is coming out. Maybe sometime at the end of summer. But if you get a chance to see ‘Rogue River’, CHECK IT OUT!!!

I worked my butt off on it and so did the rest of the cast. There is a lot of great acting in this. Low key special f/x. It’s pretty much what you see is what you get. And it’s a wild story!

C.C.- Got that kiddies!!! ROGUE RIVER!!!!!!! Can’t wait!

Bill I got to ask you one more question. The real one that I wanna get out of you… For the sake of the rockers…. You got to tell me your top 5 favorite rock bands.

B.M.- Jimmy Hendrix, Love, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Captain Beefheart.

(From here we went off for quite some time on a musical tangent about 70’s rock, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Hot Rats, Willy the Pimp and all sorts of stuff that reeks of cool… Way to much to write down ya creeps. We talked about how the game has changed a lil bit, but how it still didn’t matter.)

B.M.- If you have a good story, for movies a least, you know you are gonna sell tickets. That’s why I think ‘Rogue River’ is gonna be so cool cuz it’s twisted and it’s got a good story to it. That’s really what attracted me to it. And of course the opportunity to work with the beautiful Lucinda Jenney haha!

C.C.- It’s always great to work with the ones you love.

B.M.- It’s nice. I like to work with actors that “go for it”. I like to work with people that “go for it”. Rob Zombie goes for it. Tobe Hopper goes for it. Jourdan Mclure by golly went for it. It’s great to work with Sid Haig! Guys that aren’t about “Is my left side on camera”… Who cares. You really just have to jump into it, cuz that really is the fun and the art of acting and singing or whatever else you’re doing. Eric Bousman is great! Go for it!

C.C.- Oh yeah. Eric Bousman of ‘Repo! The Genetic Opera’. It’s wicked! That’s some of my favorite people in cinema right there Bill. I think ultimately you all know how to make the movies great and have a good time doing it.

B.M.- That’s the fun about it. Contrary to popular belief there’s not always a bunch of money in this. So you really better be having a good time or you better be experiencing something you’ve never experienced before, really push the envelope, whatever the phrase is. Cuz that’s your legacy man. And I don’t want to leave any safe, crappy performances that you know is just for the money. I’m sure I’ve met a few in my life haha. You know, I think the people will remember movies like ‘The Devils Rejects’, ‘Repo’! and Texas Chain Saw Massacre pt.2… I hope they will remember a little bit about The Cornbugs and a lot of Spider Mountain.

C.C.- I feel if you are having a great time infecting peoples minds with the things they love. Then so be it.

B.M.- Also there is an obligation too that comes with it. Once you get peoples attention, let’s say you do some kinda performance, a musical, a movie, whatever, you get peoples attention. Then what’s really fun is to just keep going with it. Use that as a confidence builder, to just keep trying new stuff. And you know some people like it, some won’t. Just keep going. That’s how art works. Ya know you lose a lot but you win sometimes… But you just keep going. And it all seems to work out pretty good.

C.C.- Wise words Mr. Moseley.

After I concluded this interview Bill and I kept rappin’ about movies, music, records, tape decks, 8-tracks, classic stereos, pioneer amps, tecknic, more art and his home town of Chicago… Who he says hello to.

To let you know just how amazing Bill is, when our conversation was over he stopped me before I hung up the phone and yelled one of my favorite movie quotes of all time……

“LICK MY PLATE YOU DOG DICK”!!!!!

Leaving both of us raging with laughter!

(That’s one of Chop Top’s many quotes from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Pt.2. For those who are morons…. “Dog will hunt” was another one. It’s a dub in the Primus song ‘Jerry was a race car driver’. )

Pick up SPIDER MOUTAIN: No way out. It’s available at choptopsbbq.com. There’s about 500 signed for you if ya hurry yer ass.
And don’t forget to get on the new film ‘Rogue River’ coming soon.

The ChopTopsBBQ website is incredible too! It’s a must see!!! I look forward to Bill doing more of what he does… And that’s kicking ass! Speaking of ass, mine looks good in this new pair of Lip Service jeans I just got! Oh Yeah! I hope you enjoy this, my ass that is, and don’t forget you can download the brand new single by The Last Vegas “Whatever Gets You Off” for free!!! Rock it out at thelastvegas.com. Check out the video too… I dare you. Now don’t say I never did anything for you. Do what I say! And see TLV with AC/DC in April. I love all you freaks and I’ll see ya on the other side.
xxx
Dr. Chad Cherry