Wednesday 13’s frontman shares memories of deceased former bandmate / drummer Ben Graves
Wednesday 13’s frontman shares memories of deceased former bandmate / drummer Ben Graves
Wednesday 13‘s frontman — who has the same stage name as the band name — was recently interviewed by Jay Oakley for Just A Rock N Roll Junkie and spoke about his former bandmate / drummer Ben Graves who passed away of cancer back on May 9, 2018.
Wednesday 13 stated: “The Ghoul, oh man. There’s nobody like The Ghoul. Anybody that gets one name like Madonna or Prince, Slash…The Ghoul. What I really thought was cool about Ben Graves was that wasn’t a stage name, that was his real name. Everyone always thought, Graves! I thought so too and he shows me his license and said, “No, dude. Check it out.” Ben had this really thick Boston accent and he was like eight feet tall. We’d be talking and he’d be like, “Huh?” and we’d go, “Get out of Ghoul-Land! Get down here with us.” He was such a cool dude and we had a blast, man. That first Murderdolls record (Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls,) that was my first big tour, that was his first big tour and we got to tour the entire world. We did like Australia twice, Japan twice, we toured with Iron Maiden for six weeks and we did a lot of cool stuff.
So, we share a lot of those memories and it’s funny because when I moved to LA every time I would see him, I didn’t see him a lot, but every single time I’d see him we would always go right back to the same conversation and it was us quoting the scene from Terminator where he goes into the gun store and he’s going, “The Uzi nine-millimeter with laser sighting.” (In Arnold’s voice) and The Ghoul could just like imitate that and we would both just do that back and forth, we’re both movie junkies. He’s just a cool guy and it’s just unfortunate, you never expect that. I had no idea he was as sick as he was but I luckily got to make a phone call to him before he passed, said a few words and that made me feel good. It’s a sad thing, forty-five years old, that’s way too young. I’ll be forty-two this year and it’s just crazy to think that that guy’s gone. But, we had a tribute thing on our kick drum made for him, so we’re taking that all over the tour and over to Europe as a little dedication. Every night I get to look down and I see his name and every night I see it and I think about him at least once during the show every night. He’s there in spirit.”
You can read the rest of the interview with Wednesday 13‘s frontman at Just A Rock N Roll Junkie.
Sleaze Roxx interviewed Pretty Boy Floyd frontman Steve Summers back in May 2018 and the singer also had the following nice things to say about Graves: “Lots of funny stories with Ben. You would have to know him personally. He was a very interesting guy. His nickname was “Ghoul” — “Ben Ghoul.” Just a tall, funny, kind of sarcastic, dark but funny — lots of stories. Jesus Christ, if you’re in Pretty Boy Floyd for more than three shows, you’re going to have stories of stuff. People ask me that all the time about even back in the day or ten years ago or when I played with different line-ups. [There are] too many. They occur all the time. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. The stories are all the same man. It’s the same for us, for Guns N’ Roses, for Mötley Crüe. The joke that I always make is that we don’t have the millions of dollars that they do.”