Louder Sound has ranked Murderdolls among the 10 best heavy metal supergroups, a fresh nod to a band that turned a side project into a cult name. For Wednesday 13, the recognition goes back to a first live show where the crowd had one thing on its mind: Joey Jordison.
Murderdolls were formed in 2002 by Jordison and Wednesday 13, during Slipknot's scheduled hiatus after its grueling 2001 touring cycle. Jordison, a Slipknot co-founder and drummer, wanted a campy horror-themed project shaped by his love of B-movie horror, while Wednesday 13 brought the frontman role he had built with Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13. The pairing gave the band its horror punk edge and its supergroup label, even if it was never meant to be a long-term operation.
Their debut album, Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls, arrived in 2002 through Roadrunner Records and delivered the tracks that defined the project: Dead in Hollywood, Slit My Wrist and a cover of Billy Idol's White Wedding. The record climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart, which is designed to track developing acts, while none of the band's songs entered the main Billboard charts. That split says more about Murderdolls than any ranking could. The band had enough pull to break through in album sales and enough attitude to live outside the mainstream singles machine.
That tension between cult reach and wider chart success is part of why the list placement lands now. Murderdolls were not a sprawling, career-spanning act; they toured extensively until 2004, reunited in 2010 for Women and Children Last, then officially disbanded in 2011 after their final live show together at Soundwave Festival. Yet the group left behind a short run that still reads clearly in the 2000s horror punk and glam metal era, and Wednesday 13 said the first reaction they faced made the hierarchy plain: the room chanted for Jordison first, then discovered the rest of the band. The question the ranking leaves open is not whether Murderdolls mattered, but how a band that never crossed into the main Billboard charts still ended up counting as one of heavy metal's defining supergroups.
