Johnny 3 Tears is here to assure you that metal never went anywhere—it’s just been doing push-ups in the dark while pop got Botox and hip-hop bought a yacht.
“I think metal’s always been there,” says the Hollywood Undead frontman, promoting New Empire, Vol. 1, the band’s extra-crunchy Valentine to themselves and anyone else who still likes their music with a little danger. “People think it doesn’t exist just because it’s not on Ellen. But go to a show. There’s thousands of people losing their minds.”
Hollywood Undead has always been the weird kid at the genre party—half rap-rock, half brooding synth apocalypse, with just enough eyeliner and irony to get by. On New Empire, they’ve gone full rage. “We were all doing steroids,” Johnny jokes. “Called Goosen. So we had roid rage. Or maybe it was road rage. Honestly, maybe both.”
The heaviness wasn’t planned. “We don’t go into the studio thinking ‘let’s make a hard album.’ We don’t have skeletons of songs. We just go in and see where the rage leads us,” he says. That approach results in songs like “Already Dead,” a self-immolation anthem about burning down the past just to see what rises from the ashes. “You gotta kill something to make it grow,” Johnny says, slipping a Plato reference into a conversation that just mentioned Huey Lewis. “If something isn’t growing, it’s dying.”
This rebirth—or demolition, depending on your angle—is why the band finally committed to a double album after three cycles of almost doing it. “We usually write more than we need. A lot of that stuff sucks. But this time, we had too much we actually liked. So we said, fuck it, let’s do two volumes.”
The band also stripped away some of the masks—literally. “The fans don’t want us to change. But if we don’t change, we die inside,” Johnny says. “And fans don’t realize it, but if we put out the same album they say they want again, they’d complain that it’s the same album.”
So instead of leaning into nostalgia, Hollywood Undead went nuclear. New Empire is their “Year Zero” moment. “Let’s pretend American Tragedy never happened. Let’s pretend we’ve never written a thing. What would we make now?”
Apparently, they’d make something like “Empire,” the title track that serves as both mission statement and accidental political commentary. “I don’t just think of the band as a band,” Johnny says. “It’s a community. It’s a connection that transcends anything else. People feel seen in this music. That’s an empire. Not control, not power—connection.”
That idea might sound suspiciously heartfelt coming from a guy who brags about testosterone-fueled detours into banjo and harmonica, but Johnny’s dead serious when it comes to music’s cultural role. “Music’s the only thing that soothes the soul. It’s the highest art form. Without it, I think the world would’ve imploded a long time ago.”
So yeah, they dropped the record on Valentine’s Day. Strategic? Sort of. “I just didn’t want to go out to some overpriced dinner with my wife,” Johnny laughs. “I told her, sorry babe, album release. Gotta go scream onstage instead.”
Rock may not be dead, but it’s definitely getting out of date night.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below!
