Updated: 01/11/03
Pics of Lizzy Borden from The Metal Blade 20th Anniversary Party Below Interview

Originated: 01/25/01

Lizzy Borden is back with a brand new album that should surprise the older fans as well as introduce him to a whole new generation of metalheads. The latest effort is entitled Deal With The Devil featuring Borden's best performance in years and cover art work by the great Todd Mcfarlane. Read on to find out the latest in the evil legacy of Lizzy Borden.

Highwire Daze: So how does your new album Deal With The Devil compare to the previous ones?

Lizzy Borden: Kind of like the way they all compare with each other. They're all different -- every record that we've ever done has been different than the one before. I think it's another unique Lizzy Borden record.

HD: Where did you get some of the ideas for some of the songs on the new album?

Lizzy: What I do for every record is I make a theme oriented record. For this one, I just rented movies and read a lot of books, like Dante's Inferno and Paradise Lost, just trying to absorb other aspects within the theme of Deal With The Devil. As I do that, I write my own stuff as I go along, just absorb the whole way of looking at these things.

HD: So you were doing some pretty deep reading there.

Lizzy: When I did the first one Love You To Pieces, I was absorbed in the Alfred Hitchcock TV show, horror and splatter flicks and different things like that. I read a lot of Stephen King and stuff like that. For every record, whatever the concept is, that's what I immerse myself in.

HD: How did you get Todd Mcfarlane to do the album cover for Deal With The Devil?

Lizzy: It was just a weird coincidence. My producer also works for a movie company. He asked me what I was doing for the cover and I said, "Well, there's a really great artist named Todd Mcfarlane that I would love to have do the cover.” And he said, "You're not going to believe this, but I talked to that guy today." He was doing a movie with Todd Mcfarlane and Jodie Foster -- so it was just a weird coincidence. So I said to call him up and see if he was interested in doing the Lizzy Borden cover. So he called him up and he said that he would love to. So I had four or five meetings with him -- told him what I wanted and what the album was about -- and this was his version of Lizzy Borden Deal With The Devil.

HD: Had he heard your music before?

Lizzy: I didn't ask him that. But I had heard that he was totally into Lizzy Borden and all that, but I didn't see his record collection. I heard that he was into metal and I know that he was affiliated with Ozzy and Cooper and Rob Zombie and a whole bunch of other people with his toy company. I imagine he listens to metal.

HD: Well, he should know who you are then...

Lizzy: You would think. He said he wanted to do it, and he didn't charge us anything compared to other people -- so I guess he might of been into it.

HD: What is your favorite horror movie of all time and why?

Lizzy: That's a hard one! I guess the scariest movie of all time for me is The Exorcist. When I saw it, I was a kid and it was horrific and realistic. It was one of those things that you can't get away from. But I love so many of them. I have so many favorites. I love the first Freddy Krueger and the Hellraiser movies, but I guess The Exorcist was the most terrifying to me.

HD: Dee Snider has done some horror movies. Have you ever thought about doing anything like that?

Lizzy: I've written a couple. I haven't done anything with them. But since the technology is out there, you can make really low budget movies with digital cameras now. As soon as this album comes out and we see how it does, we're going to buy a camera and a bunch of editing stuff, and shoot our own videos and our own mini-movies. We'll market it in some ways. It probably won't be a big thing, but it'll be a fun thing.

HD: What do you think of the local LA scene these days?

Lizzy: Well, compared to most of the 90's, it's getting better mainly just because the national acts are coming through town and it's lighting a fire under LA. That's a good thing, but I don't think it will ever be the way it was in the 80's. But it could be fun again and there could be somewhat of a scene now that the alternative movement has taken a back seat. With more heavier bands coming through town, they'll be new bands coming through and it'll create a new scene. If not, then we'll just have to depend on the national acts to come through town.

HD: When you look back on your earlier albums today, what do you think of them now?

Lizzy: Well, we did a lot of them very quickly. We did four of them in 14 months. I didn't even really have time to look back on them. We did a lot of work really quickly. Luckily, and oddly enough, we just announced that we would release the whole back catalog with new covers, new sleeves, new pictures, re-mastered with multi-media stuff. And some of them will be remixed, so I might be able to go through and mix some of these things up a little bit and make them sound like I really intended them to sound. But they were all very rushed, and that's what I hear when I listen to them. They didn't get the attention that I give the records now.

HD: Will these re-releases be on Metal Blade?

Lizzy: Yeah.

HD: What do you think of Napster?

Lizzy: I think it could be a good thing if they could limit the things down to thirty second clips. Then it would be worth it and it would make sense. But the way it is now, it makes no sense to me and I think it should be outlawed in every way. But if they could bring it down to thirty seconds songs, then it would be worth it for everybody, because you'd have people who wouldn't normally buy a Lizzy Borden record tune in and listen to thirty seconds of it and see if it was something they'd want to buy. But the way they are giving away music, it's not going to last that long. No one's out there to make music for free -- it costs money to make.

HD: What do you think has kept Lizzy Borden going as a band after all of this time?

Lizzy: We took a long break from 93 to 97. And we've had so many different musicians in this band, so it was really down to whether I wanted to continue or not. And now, I have a whole new lease on the whole thing. I signed a new deal and the next four or five years are mapped out on what we're going to do and how many records we're going to put out. Keeping it going is just the desire to do it without all of the problems. There were a lot of problems in the late 80's that would make it impossible for me to continue, but now that all of those problems are solved, I see nothing but a free open highway.

HD: Do you have any messages for Lizzy Borden fans?

Lizzy: Basically, that this is not a one off thing. I'm not just doing one record for the money or anything else. I'm doing it to really continue where I left off. And there's still a lot of great Lizzy Borden songs and conceptual little works of dark art that I have left in me. So the next five or six years, expect a lot of tours and a lot of records. I'm here to stay.

Deal With The Devil by Lizzy Borden is now available on Metal Blade Records.

PICS OF LIZZY BORDEN LIVE FROM THE METAL BLADE 20TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY DECEMBER 4, 2002