Twisted Thoughts

I got the privilege to sit down with Dr.Espling of Twisted Thought after a late night show at one of the all age clubs here in town. The show was insane, filled with mostly metal kids wearing there Slipknot and Lamb of God t-shirts. I thought Twisted Thoughts would never be able to make this crowd get into their music. There was just too much of a difference from them to the other bands on the bill this night. I spent the night wading through intense growling vocals and buzz saw guitars to windup at the foot of the stage just in time for Twisted Thoughts to take over. The intro music began to play and the lights flickered to life. The voice over in the intro music insisted that the crowd welcome Dr.Espling, Spider and P. And the crowed roared with delight as the bass beats hit and each member made there entrance. The band quickly came to point and jumped into one of the highest energy shows I have seen in many years. They ran through a 45 minute set of pure hits. Starting with the extremely catchy “Price We Pay” followed by some more bouncy songs about doom and gloom. The biggest crowd please had to be “booty Crimes” this song is a club hit from the door! They ended their set with a song that brought Tha Doc out on stage wrapped in chains and a straight-jacket. He was being tortured and beaten all while performing the song. It was amazing to see a performer take such a brutal beating in the name of art, and believe me I was only a few feet away and they were truly wailing on the poor mans body.

The crowd was overwhelmed and I could see it in the eyes of some of the girls in the front row. The had bee entertained, mesmerized and turned into fans of Twisted Thoughts. I couldn’t believe what a great show I had just seen as I made my way back stage to meet up with the band.

Empire – Hey Doc, you ready to do this? (he is standing, with sweet still dripping from his face, the make-up that was on his face at the beginning of the show is all but gone and his hair makes Seinfeld’s Kramer seem tame.
Dr.Espling – Absolutely, come have seat.

Empire – Great show.
Dr. Espling – Well, we try. The kids seemed to like it.
Empire – Looked like you made some new fans.
Dr. Epsling – I hope so. That’s why we’re out here, playing our asses off. It’s great to see people come out and be down and singing along to your words. That’s a great feeling.
Empire – You get the girls ogling you to?
Dr.Espling – Me and my fat ass, ha! We get all the girls trying to get backstage and stuff and wanting a free shirt or some shit, but I don’t pay much attention. I’m the old guy around here. That’s more the territory left to P and Spider.
Empire – So they pick up the slack?
Dr. Epsling – Oh in more ways than one. I could never do it with out them. They are very important to this group. P is always coming up with ideas and lyrics and just crazy shit. Some times we got tell him to shut the hell up. We mess with him, you know. Turn his mic off and that kind of shit. And Spider, that boy has been making some hot beat as of late. Wait till you hear the new stuff we are working on.
Empire – So you have been writing new material?
Dr.Espling – Yeah, I’m always writing and those guys are too. We don’t get to be together as much as we would like as far as recording and writing. So each of us has our note book with lyrics and ideas in it. Then when we get together we can just drop that shit and run with it.
Empire – So Spider does all the beats and production.
Dr.Espling – No. He does do a lot of beats he did the “Booty Crimes” beat, the”Kill For No Reason” beat and some others too. But I do a lot of beats myself and handle most of the production at this point. I can’t wait till it gets to a point were I can turn that over to somebody. But it’s really hard to release that control to somebody. I just need someone that I can trust and knows what I’m thinking. Still looking.

Empire – So what else is coming up for Twisted Thoughts?
Dr.Espling – Tons of shows, some more recording. We are planning a fall release of the EP and following up in the spring with a brand new full length CD. There are some collaborations going on to. Nothing I’m allowed to talk about yet though, just keep watching. Oh and we are gonna do a video. That should be cool. I’m not sure what song yet.
Empire – Cool, I would love to see a video from you guys.
Dr. Espling – Me too. Our songs are pretty visual. Meaning that they contrive a visual image with the words and to see that laid out on film would be great. We are not gonna do some lame mash of live footage and call it a video. Maybe down the line, but for now we want to enhance the story of the song and bring it to life even more.
Empire – Absolutely! So here is the question I’m sure you always get asked.
Dr..Espling – Oh great. Let me guess, something about ICP.
Empire – Yeah.
Dr.Espling – Here is the deal. NO WE DO NOT SOUND LIKE ICP (standing up and shaking his fist) The only similarity is that I wear black and white make up. We are closer to Mushroomhead or Slipknot in our look and image and our sound is nothing like ICP, nothing! I mean I have much love for Joe & Joey. Those guys built and empire. Ha funny, don’t mind the pun. But damn, we are not them. I feel like we are living in their shadow, I know exactly how Twiztid feels. We’ve tried to distance ourselves from them, but so many of our fans are their fans too. I mean it’s got to be like 90% or more. I guess it good for them and good for us. Maybe we will get to do a tour with them and everybody can see how different we are when you hold us next to each other.

Empire – that’s all the questions I have, anything you want to throw in?
Dr.Espling – Oh, thanks dude, for doing this, we appricate all the support from Empire and everyone. We have a ton of websites behind us to, like WesterPAJuggalos.com and PAJuggalos.com and all the internet and college radio stations. With out your support we would be playing at stupid house parties. Thanks

- Empire Magazine

Gathering of the Juggalos 2005 -- Posted by sirpsychosexy on Wednesday, July 27 2005
Well, my Gathering weekend started a day earlier with my homies from Twisted Thoughts playing the Marz show at Peabody's in Cleveland. We hit the venue about an hour before anyone started. Twisted Thoughts was booked in the Pirate's Cove, an offshoot room to give an alternative to the main stage. Thank God!! I don't think I saw one group all night that I dug. Pirate's Cove opened up with Dramadeus. They were some industrial sounding rappers that caught my attention. Next band I remember was No Clue. This consisted from few buds I know from JuggaloSauce.com. I'd heard they're CD before, and honestly wasn't too impressed at the time. But when they busted out live, there was so much more. Twisted Thoughts was up a couple groups later. They had a great show, and their extras got a little carried away in beating the shit out of them and didn't help making the group hit the right queues here and there. The Sauce/No Clue ninjas started moshing the fuck out and ended up all over the place. On the stage, Wrestling in the pit. All over. Doc continued his emerging reputation as the Mick Foley of music as he took a half gainer off the stage in his chains and straight jacket. After that, we discovered that Marz wasn’t on until 12:15. Considering driving back to Jamestown and New Castle, respectively. Down with Marz, but sleep comes first. - sirpsychosexy.net

We go to Peter's Pub. I find Dante and Juggalo Joe who stood in a bat weilding and extras for the Twisted THought show tonight. Dante got the hardcore award for the night in having people staple dollars to his arm so he could raise ten bucks for an I.C.U.M. In Your Face shirt. No one took him up on the $5 nipple shot. The band was seen onn ths streets of Oakland, dressed in their gear, promoting as usual . One follower had a hanibal lecter mask, and another in a gas mask, and Dante in a Jason mask.

Most of the night was some metal stuff. Not bad for what it was, but not my bag. Then TT gets on. Logan and Dante playing supporting stage presence in the same masks as before. The crowd was wrong, the sound sucked, but they tore it up. They threw chairs, beat each other up, beat up the crowd, got beat up by the crowd. Logan threw a shovel over his head into the crowd. A real shovel. Doc almost got choked out again in the chain gimmick for Dr. E. Fucking nuts! Then Blackmarket Bodyparts gets up and pays homage to TT's Price to Pay by replacing there origianl lyrics with Twistedd THought's in mid song. Cool shit all around. And to top off the night The Doc got up on stage with Blackmarket Body parts and did a total metal version of Insane Clown Posse's Dead Body Man.

Afterwards, we ended up going to an afterparty at this Live Wire pizza place on Brookline Blvd. They threw a big feast for the band and basic had a party for the home town hereos. Word on the street is that the Live Wire is nameing a new steak sandwich after Twisted Thoughts. Could be interesting - westernpajuggalos.com

Tonight I attended the very first Twisted Thoughts show. This is a new horrorcore rap group made up of Pee Wee and Adam (P and Spyder) formerly of LYNT, and Dr. Espling of course. Man, this was like a dream team. The songs they've come up with are lightyears better than anything that gets sent to me via WPAJ and the Radio. I saw a concern for professionalism tonight that I don't think I saw often with LYNT back in the day, a common complaint amongst others about them. Everything was very tight and put together. the ideas they had to make the show theatrical were very good. Doc being brought out in chains for his song. P with multiple constume changes. The crowd really got into it. well, not as big a crowd as the thrashers before them, but good size. Better than we all expected. There were deffinately a few Juggalos in the crowd. Everything was perfect until the next to last song.house sound system goes out. Aparently the player they had fucks up if bumped wrong and resets. Luckily, I was running the video camera and had an idea of where they were from the counter. So it took forever to get the 20+ minutes into the track list. Luckily, they were pretty decent at ad libbing. They actually ended up doing Booty Crimes and Midnight Hour twice since it started earlier than we guessed

Now, this was a benefit show, and it had an odd mix of bands. At least three were more slash/metal/hardcore something. One, Liquifly sounds like Alien Ant Farm or something. After Twisted Thoughts was some dude from the Delaneys and the one guy from Mushcup, I think, doing acoustic and bongos covers. Then Mushcup, who I think was awesome. These guys were right up my alley. They had a double singer thing going for a bit. The kinda rap/rock era shit I really dig. - westernpajuggalos.com