On Halloween, the Insane Clown Posse will hit the stage of Detroit’s Masonic Temple for the rap duo’s 32nd annual Hallowicked show. The Wicked Clowns Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope promise a stellar lineup this year full of surprise guests, and this year’s spectacular will also be live-streamed on veeps.com — so if you can’t make it to the Masonic, you can still paint your face and spray Faygo around your living room for a truly authentic experience.
Ahead of the big show, we caught up with the Duke of the Wicked, Violent J, who waxed poetic about the spiritual philosophy of ICP; its fans, the juggalos; and the group’s ambitious “Joker’s Cards” suites of albums.
[Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
Metro Times: How are you doing today, J?
Violent J: I’m good, man. I’m feeling good. I’m excited about this tour. I’m ready to get out there. This is our fourth time going out this year. We’re keeping it short. These runs have been like two weeks. Instead of going out a month every four months, we’ve been going out two weeks every three months.
Metro Times: You guys have been hitting some good spots. Even though they’re shorter tours, you guys are still packing the shows full of all the craziness.
Violent J: Yeah, man. This is crazy, bro, because we’ve been doing this for 34 years, right? This is the craziest thing ever. There’s been no point in our career, not during the ’90s when we were all on the charts and all that — there’s been no point that we remember that we’ve been drawing like this, selling shows out in a matter of a day or two, shit like that.
We did a tour, we sold out the entire tour. We have never done that. There’s no point in ICP’s career that we sold out an entire tour every day. It’s never happened.
Metro Times: I think you guys are getting a really good, not just a resurgence, but this whole new crowd. I was at the 25th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos in Thornville, Ohio in August, and you could tell people that have been down since Carnival of Carnage, and you could tell people that have just kind of jumped on the wagon. You guys are hitting all kinds of new demographics and just really capturing that “Dark Carnival” love all over again.
Violent J: There’s some really wild stuff going on right now in the world, bro. Look at Limp Bizkit, you know what I mean? Killing it — killing it. And on a much smaller level, we’re killing it. For us, we’re killing it. Me and Shaggy talk about it every time. We go out there and the crowd don’t even sound the way they’ve always sounded. Like when they cheer, it don’t sound the same. It sounds like high-pitched screams. I’m not saying they’re fanatical more. I’m not saying that. … Like, it don’t even sound the same. And the other thing is, ICP don’t have no hits, right? Now, what I mean by that, I’m not saying we don’t have no good music. I’m saying we don’t have any hits.
Like a lot of bands, when they play, the crowd is waiting on the hits, the stuff everybody knows. We don’t have any songs like that. We never had any number one hits or anything on the radio at all. But now, we got hits. We have certain songs that when they come on, the whole crowd erupts. And me and Shaggy look at each other like, “What the fuck?” Like, we’ve been doing this song for 20 years, but it blew up on like TikTok or whatever. And now, they’re like new age hits. They’re hits in today’s world. And it’s not through the means we’re used to, where it became a radio hit at some point. It’s the same though. It’s a TikTok hit. It became part of a trend or whatever the deal was. And suddenly, we got hits. Like, there’s probably six or seven songs we do where when they come on, it’s like a really loud pop from the crowd. And that is brand new for us because usually, every song we do gets the same reaction. But it’s not like that no more. There’s songs that we do that get a much louder reaction when they come on.
Metro Times: Yeah, you can definitely hear it.
When I was in the crowd, you could feel a difference in the energy when like “The Neden Game” came on, or “Boogie Woogie Wu”, like those types of songs. And, you know, and I think it speaks to people going through your entire back catalog of stuff, like just searching for all the goodness.
Violent J: You know, this is a trip — and this is scary though. We have a song on the Riddle Box album called “3 Rings.” Now, we’ve always liked to put that song on the show tape in a position where we know we need to catch our breath, because it’s a sing-along song — the crowd sings the whole lyrics of the first verse: “Ring one, a dung a dung dung/
My name’s Violent J and I staple my tongue/
To the desk in school then I run down the hall/
Scaring the shit out of all y’all, bitches…” And we would just hold the mics out and catch our breath while everybody sings it, right? So we put that song on our show — and nobody sang it. Nobody! We couldn’t believe it. It’s like they haven’t found that one yet. They haven’t reached the Riddle Box album, which many of our old fans consider the best work we ever did. But nothing from Riddle Box has really popped off on TikTok and all that yet, right? It’s been all [The Great Milenko] and stuff after that. So when we go to that song, they don’t know it. And you hear a few people singing it, but nothing like it used to be. And it’s just wild, man, because it’s a different group of people coming out, mixed in with the classic people. It’s a wild time, brother.
Metro Times: It’s like the TikTok kids all intermingling with Vinnie the ICP Kid. You get the old and the new, and then everybody’s just chilling together.
Violent J: They are chilling together, and that’s what’s important, because everybody that’s down with the clown came aboard at some point. Everybody was new to it at some point, and how they found it don’t matter. They all were told about it by a friend, or they discovered it on TikTok, whatever. They all came aboard the wagon in their own way, and everybody was new at some point. It don’t fucking matter if they’re new today or if they’ve been down 20 years. Nobody is more superior than anybody else, because what matters to me is that once they’re down, they stay down. They look at this as a good time in their life. They don’t say, “Oh, I used to listen to that bullshit.” I want them to appreciate our music as a good time in their life when they discovered it. That’s, to me, what really defines a true juggalo, instead of people that grow out of shit. I’m not saying they got to remain their number one fan all their life, but I don’t like it when people say, “Oh, I used to love the Beastie Boys, but they suck now.” The Beastie Boys never changed. You changed! Your taste in music changed. Because you used to love that album. Now you don’t like it. That’s you that changed. That album didn’t change.
Metro Times: I remember my cousin gave me Riddle Box on tape on our way down to Cedar Point one year. And right when it came out, that blew my mind. So I was hooked instantly.
Violent J: Dope. See, everybody gets on board at some point, you know? And nobody is more important than anybody else. As long as they’re down, they’re all part of the family. That’s how I feel.
Metro Times: You guys released The Naught this year at the 25th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos. This is your rounding out the second Joker’s Cards deck with The Naught. How was that going into that album compared to writing all the other albums?
Violent J: A lot different, brother. A lot.
That album literally means nothing — literally. It means “nothing.” The first six Joker’s Cards ended with the choice of Heaven and Hell — it ended with Shangri-La and it ended with Hell’s Pit, two different albums. They were both the sixth Joker’s Cards. The whole “Dark Carnival” mythology, or whatever it is, is about having faith. Believing there’s something after death. There’s more to this. There’s something on the other side. That’s the whole idea of the Dark Carnival, and believing in that, believing there’s a better place where the good-hearted are rewarded and the bad-hearted — depends on what you believe. Some believe they get punished. I don’t necessarily believe that. I just myself believe they cease to exist. They don’t get to go to the beyond.
But The Naught is for the other people that have no faith. They don’t believe in an afterlife of any sort. They don’t believe in any type of religion or anything like that. And that’s really the basis of what the entire Dark Carnival is.
So this is what you got: You got three sets of cards coming out, right? The first six cards came out, it ended with Shangri-La and Hell’s Pit. The second six cards came out now. It ended with The Naught, which is for atheists, for non-believers. The third deck is next.
And there’s only going to be five. There’s not going to be six cards. There’s only going to be five, because that sixth card is potentially our death, for real.
You know what I’m saying? Because we’re getting older.
Metro Times: Don’t say that, man.
Violent J: Well, you know, it’s just a fact.
We’re getting older. For people that have been around the entire ride, we’re getting older. And we have to answer that question ourselves. Where do we want to see our souls end up? That’s your sixth Joker’s Card. When the listener or us in this situation, or any situation, when we pass, where do we want to go? So there is no actual sixth Joker’s Card. Plus, that would be 666, and 665 has a totally different meaning. It adds up to 17, which has been the juggalo number from day one. And it means a lot. You know, 665 means a lot in juggalo mythology.
So when we went into The Naught, how do you represent an album that means nothing? We just went in. We just threw it together, brother. We just threw it together. It actually came out better than we thought, because it actually came out pretty good, but there’s nothing on it that is meaningful. There’s nothing on it that is memorable to me.
Metro Times: I don’t know — that last track you guys did [“WHILE IT LASTS”], your own version of “Africa” by Toto? If you’re saying that that album means nothing and all those bangers that you guys put on there, like, I’m going to respectfully disagree because that was a great album.
Violent J: Thank you, man. It came out better than we thought, but there’s a lot missing from that album, though. A lot of the ingredients we put into our Joker’s Cards, we didn’t bother because … basically these were just songs.
OK, put it like this: We have EPs sometimes between our albums … like [Beverly Kills 50187] or Tunnel of Love. … or The Terror Wheel. Those albums, those EPs, are just collections of cool songs. This album, The Naught, is almost like a full album, a version of that. They’re just songs, they’re great songs. They’re fun. They’re entertaining. That’s it. But there’s no deep meaning to them. There’s no message to them. There’s nothing we’re trying to relay. There’s nothing. It’s just songs. It’s just us rapping over dope beats and having fun or boasting, talking shit.
There’s no message in The Naught. Because we don’t really have anything to say to people that don’t believe in a faith. We don’t really have anything to say except provide them with entertainment.
And there are some messages on there like the last song [“WHILE IT LASTS”], it’s saying, “Enjoy it while it lasts.” Because if you don’t believe in an afterlife, enjoy this now. And the opening song is [“THE NAUGHT”]. It’s saying, “For you, all of this amounts to nothing. Everything you did in your life means nothing.” Because if you believe in nothing, what’s it all matter, anyway? What does any of this matter? Even if you’re the G.O.A.T., even if you’re the greatest of all time, when they shut that box, that coffin, what the fuck does that matter? You’re not there to celebrate it. You’re nothing. So there are messages, but they’re blunt. They’re just saying for you, nothing — this all means nothing.
We each get a choice of what we want to believe in in life. I’m not mad at atheists or anything like that. I don’t have any specific religions. Maybe I’m an atheist. I don’t know. I don’t really know how religion works. I just know I believe in an afterlife. I believe my mom is somewhere better than this. I believe in my soul. And I know there’s enough paranormal type shit going on in this world to prove damn near that there’s more to this story. There’s enough ghost shit going on to know that there is a beyond.
Metro Times: It doesn’t have the same hopefulness that “Pass Me By” or “The Unveiling” and all that has. It’s the anti that — it’s kind of like a purgatory for you guys.
Violent J: It is, and it’s just saying it’s entertaining. It’s not a shitty album. It’s a good album, but it’s not uplifting. It’s not — it’s just what it is. And that’s what we set out for it to be, with literally no fear of what the backlash was going to be. Even when you look at the [album liner notes] booklet, you flip through the pages — it just says nothing. Every page says “nothing” in another language. It doesn’t even say anything in there. Because it all amounts to nothing if you don’t have any faith. Faith is a powerful thing, brother. Just the will of believing will help people get through life so much better. Believing that it’s going to get better. Having faith is an important fucking thing, man. Without faith, people’s lives would be terrible. A lot more people would suffer, man. Without faith, when you lose a loved one or something, it’d be so much more painful without having faith that they’re in a better place. And that’s just how we feel.
Metro Times: And you’re a big subscriber to The Secret too, right? I read that book too — you know, manifesting and getting what you want, believing in yourself. Even without the book, that’s always been your guys’ motto and credo, too — you guys have to do it for you.
Violent J: I know it without a shadow of a doubt it’s real. I’ve always known that ICP would be OK. I’ve always known that the day we leave this earth, our band will be more successful than it’s ever been. I’ve always known that. It’s never anything I ever worried about. I always known my kids would be OK. I never thought we’d be broke and fucked up in the end and nobody would care. I always knew in my heart that, and I still know in my heart, that ICP is OK because even if some sort of scandal broke out or something, I know that we’re good people. So there’s nothing we have to worry about being uncovered or something getting out. There’s nothing, there’s no worry. And so I’ve always known that we’ll be OK. It’s just going to be more and more people discovering our shit and appreciating it for what it is. And if it’s not your thing, like most of the world, it’s not your thing.
Metro Times: You’re taking Juggalo Championship Wrestling with you to almost every stop. You guys got a hell of a lineup on some of these stops. You got James Storm, and 2 Tuff Tony, and Vampiro, and Suicide, and all kinds of guys.
Violent J: JCW is my passion, brother. That’s my passion project. That’s my fucking whole M.O. right now. JCW has always been for juggalos, by juggalos. It’s been a product to entertain juggalos. But now I want to show the world how good we’ve gotten at it. And now I want it to be juggalos showing the world how bomb ass of a wrestling product, a wrestling show, we can do. I want to show everybody how these juggalos get down because most of our roster is made up of actual juggalos, and I want to show the world how good these juggalos are at writing wrestling storylines and putting on these matches and keeping it engaging. And that’s our goal today. Ever since we started Lunacy, the goal is to break that image of this is just for juggalos. We want it to be for every wrestling fan. We want to show them how dope our shit actually is.
Metro Times: You guys got your homegrown talent, like 2 Tuff Tony. And then you’re getting these national stars like Nick Namath … I feel like there’s a huge amount of respect for what you guys do, because you guys are former wrestlers, current wrestlers yourselves, that you guys respect the business. You’re not just promoters trying to hustle.
Violent J: We’re getting there, man. We’re getting that respect. But what we’re about to do, what we got planned now, is really about to flip the whole company up on its head. The thing we’re kicking into right now on this tour, man, we have been setting this up for months and months and months. And we finally got it all worked out and all lined up. And our show Lunacy, which has been on for about a year, maybe 15, 16 months now, every week on YouTube, Thursday nights at seven o’clock, is about to fucking kick into overdrive big time. We’re really excited. It’s like we’re putting all our marbles in this shit. We’re mashing the gas now. We’re about to drive this bitch right off the cliff. And I’m really excited about it. We’re going to really flip a lot of wigs, man.
Metro Times: It’s some of the most talented people on the scene right now getting into your squared circle.
Violent J: It’s my greatest joy right now. Doing JCW is my greatest joy right now — beside my kids. My kids will always be my greatest joy. But aside from that, doing JCW is the funnest thing I do in my life — watching the show, writing these storylines.
And the crazy thing is, if you look back in the book I wrote years ago, and if you look in this book we just came out with called Unaccepted, it shows our whole history of wrestling. Me and Shaggy, we were doing backyard wrestling when I was 14 and he was 11 and we were writing wrestling storylines, running a backyard wrestling promotion. So this is literally something I’ve done my entire life. Even before I was an adult, we took it serious in the backyard. We took it serious. We would go to a Holiday Inn and rent the banquet room and pass out flyers everywhere and put gym mats out and run a show at the Holiday Inn just so we had a venue. I have a shitload of experience. This is my greatest joy aside from my kids.
Metro Times: A bit of a step up from stealing railroad ties and garden hoses. Like you guys have a legit ring.
Violent J: That’s right. We can afford a ring now, a real one.
Metro Times: So this tour that you guys are venturing out on winds up in Detroit on Halloween for your 32nd annual Hallowicked. What kind of surprises do you have in store for that?
Violent J: Literally just before I did this interview, we figured out the lineup, ’cause we always bring a special show to Detroit. We got some dope shit coming, man. This is going to be a big Hallowicked this year. I’m excited to see the people that are on the lineup myself. And just yesterday we landed some festivals. It’s fun to get booked on these festivals, and we landed two of them and we’re excited about it. So it’s been a productive week, man.
Metro Times: I caught you guys at Bonnaroo down in Tennessee and you guys were the last big band to play before it all got canceled [due to rain]. And that was crazy.
Violent J: They should have known, man. We’re going to shut that shit down every time.
Metro Times: Even talking with the other photographers and the media people there, there was so much buzz about you guys in the media tent. Everybody was scrambling. I think you guys had maybe like 20 photographers down in that photo pit, just fighting for jockeying for position to get pictures of you guys.
Violent J: Man, we did a festival at the end of our last tour, just like a month ago in Louisville. And it was an ocean of people out there. And in the pit between us and the fans on the bottom of the stage, there was all photographers. And when we opened the Faygo, they would just run. They would just run. They look like cattle running, or bulls running to get away from the Faygo.
Metro Times: There were all these expensive cameras. Luckily I had a couple extra ponchos that I handed out to them so that way they would be protected. They didn’t know what they were in for.
So what do you guys have your eyes set on for after Hallowicked?
Violent J: We’re going to put together a tour. It’s going to be a dope ass tour. It’s not going to be ICP though. It’s going to be “Psychopathic Records Presents.” And we’re talking about just now. … We want to put a big juggalo party on tour together this winter, and do it through possibly December, but definitely January, ‘cause ICP don’t really tour in the winter. We don’t like to tour in the winter because you send everybody out in fucking clothes all wet [from Faygo] and the freezing weather and all that. So we stopped doing that probably 15, 10 years ago. But we’re going to put together something fun for juggalos to do if they want to, and also use it to film our Lunacy episodes.
Metro Times: I forgot to mention, Hallowicked will be streaming live on veeps.com for 20 bucks. That is a steal for all those that can’t get to the Masonic Temple in downtown Detroit.
Violent J: Can’t beat that. … Last year we came out as Super Mario brothers.This year we got that beat. I think our new costumes are going to beat that. So it’s a challenge. We wanted to do something cooler than that. I think we did it. … It’s going to be cool, man.
Insane Clown Posse’s Hallowicked starts at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 31; Masonic Temple, 500 Temple St., Detroit; axs.com. Tickets start at $78.
This article appears in Oct. 29-Nov. 11, 2025.