Musician and horror aficionado Joseph Poole embarked on his career in music in 1992 with Maniac Spider Trash. He left the group in 1996 and formed
Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13 with fellow "Spider Trashers" Abby Normal and Sicko Zero. The band managed to release five full-length albums and six EPs over the span of five years before calling it quits in 2003 as a result of Poole's rising success with his
Murderdolls side project.
In 2004, Poole began recording under the moniker
Wednesday 13, releasing the EP 6 Years, 6 Feet Under the Influence. It was followed in 2005 by the full-length
Transylvania 90210: Songs of Death, Dying, and the Dead. In May 2006,
Wednesday 13 put out a six-CD/DVD box set called Little Box of Horrors, followed by
Fang Bang later that September. The significantly heavier and darker Skeletons dropped in 2008, followed by the equally brooding Calling All Corpses in 2011. The Dixie Dead, the project's fifth studio long-player, arrived in 2013, followed by Monsters of the Universe: Come Out and Plague (2015) and
Condolences (2017), the latter of which was the group's first outing for
Nuclear Blast.
For their eighth album, Poole and co. teamed up with
DevilDriver's
Michael Spreitzer to produce and engineer the recording sessions. 2019's Necrophaze also saw the group featuring guest spots for the first time, with
Alice Cooper,
Stone Sour's
Roy Mayorga, and
Lacuna Coil's
Cristina Scabbia along for the horror-filled ride. ~ James Christopher Monger