Bill Moseley Talks Music and Otis B. Driftwood [INTERVIEW]

From Chop Top Sawyer to Otis B. Driftwood, Bill Moseley has brought to life some of my favorite horror characters. With over 131 acting credits, Bill is truly an amazing actor. I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with Bill since his February appearance at Mad Monster in Charlotte, North Carolina. So we decided to give Bill a call and talk music, horror, Chop Top, and Otis B. Driftwood.

Sgt. Horror: During the COVID-19, everybody’s social distancing, the personal appearances are limited, but fans can connect with you on your website. What are the things that fans can find on your website?

Bill Moseley:

Well, let’s see, first of all, it’s choptopsbbq.com. There’s a lot of different parts of that website. They could play the crazy piano. They can look up some weird head cheese recipes. But I think it terms of what they can buy; there’s a bunch of different 8x10s available. And they can get signed copies of Devil’s Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses and Texas Chainsaw 2 scripts. I think I’ve got some DVDs on there.

Sgt. Horror: Yeah.

Bill Moseley: I got some Repo and Devil’s Rejects DVDs. Then there’s some Cornbug CDs, if they want to get Cornbugs and a couple of Cornbugs DVDs. And I think there are Spider Mountain CDs. And what else? I think some of those Devil’s Rejects posters with the poor girl wearing her husband’s face running through the trees or whatever it is-

Sgt. Horror: Wow.

Bill Moseley: No, there’s a bunch of stuff.

Sgt. Horror: They’re just going to have to check it out by clicking here. Because that’s amazing, so they could safely social distance and still get that signed merchandise. Do you still allow fans to send you items to get signed?

Bill Moseley: Yeah. I mean, all they got to do is send that self-addressed, stamped envelope or box or whatever. And it’s 40 bucks a signature just like at the conventions. And then I’ll sign it and send it back. They can send me a baby grand piano if they want, if they pay for the postage.

Sgt. Horror: I was watching the stop motion video for one of the songs on there, Pigs are People Too.

Bill Moseley: Yeah, that’s a good one.

Sgt. Horror: What’s the story behind that?

Bill Moseley: Well, the stop motion is a kid named Jim Lombardo. He’s probably an old man by now. But many years ago, I was at a convention outside of Cleveland, and this kid came up, probably 14 maybe, and he had a DVD.

He said, “Hey, I do these like videos, and I’d love to do a video for you.” And so he gave me a DVD, and I played it. I called him up when I got back home, and I said, “Yeah, absolutely. Why don’t you start with …” I’m not sure if we started with Pigs are People Too. We may have. And you know, he came up with that amazing video. There’s a bunch of them. He’s done a couple of them for Spider Mountain, a bunch of them for Cornbugs. We even did a battle of the bands, Cornbugs vs. Spider Mountain. So, you know, he’s a really talented guy. I think he’s still doing the videos.

Sgt. Horror: Now, the stop motion videos, are they on the DVDs you’re selling for Cornbug?

Bill Moseley: Those are not. The stuff on the Cornbug DVDs, I put those all together. There’s like snatches of old freaky movies. And you know, I kind of like, I edited some videos from old footage of stuff to some of the songs.

My favorite is actually … well, there’s a bunch of … Dirty Sperm Rag, which is a heck of a good song. It’s got a funny video to it. Buckethead and I are jumping around to Boots on the Ground and Riders of the Whistle and Skull. So there’s a bunch of good stuff. It’s, you know, it’s not elaborate. It ain’t Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, but yeah, I think the fans will enjoy it.

Sgt. Horror: Thank goodness it’s not Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber. That’s not my cup of tea. Do you have any plans to make and release more music?

Bill Moseley: Not right now only because of the pandemic and everything. But I’m interested in another Spider Mountain CD. You know, I did do an EP with Phil Anselmo called Bill and Phil Songs of Darkness and Despair.

Sgt. Horror: I kind of sometimes sit around and being the nerd that I am like to play like what-ifs. And when I look at you as an artist, because I do enjoy your music, I’m like, okay, who could I see Bill Moseley with? I would love it if you and Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, or Slipknot did a song together. Would you be open to working with them on a song?

Bill Moseley: Yeah, absolutely. Those are some pretty, you know, big-time talent, I think people like that, artists like that, don’t really want to have other people on board and are kind of past the collaboration stage, but you never know.

Sgt. Horror: Yeah. You never know. I think a video with you in it, the videos would just be amazing. I know Corey from Slipknot, he’s a huge horror fan. He’s got a horror series coming out. What artists would you like to work with besides those that I’ve named?

Bill Moseley: Let’s see, you know, Buckethead. I haven’t heard from him in 10 years. I hope he’s okay. I don’t know where he is. But he was fun to work with. I’d love to work with Rani Sharone again. There’s also a band that I’ve done one song long distance with them, Rigor Mortis. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them? Rigor Mortis.

Sgt. Horror: No, I haven’t heard of them.

Bill Moseley: You know, they’re like an old, you know, badass, like punk-metal. I don’t know what you’d call them. Not really sure of all the proper designations.

Sgt. Horror: Got you.

Bill Moseley: A band called Rigor Mortis. And Bruce Corbitt was the lead singer. He’s passed on. And a couple of the guys from the band wanted to work with me. And so we came up with this band called MR. MACHINE, named after the old toy from the ’60s. And we have one song so far called Best Mouse, but you know, because of the pandemic and everything, we’ve kind of, our flow has kind of gone down to a trickle, but you know, it’s good.

Sgt. Horror: Definitely. I have to check that out. Now, what are your favorite bands that you like to listen to?

Bill Moseley: I love to listen to early Fleetwood Mac. That was when they were a guitar band before Stevie Nicks and Christine. They’ve got an album called Then Play On, which I love. A friend of mine sent me a hard drive with all kinds of old British invasion and garage band songs on it. And there’s a band called Anonymous. They put out one album. They were from Indianapolis. They put out an album in the early ’70s called Inside the Shadow. And I happened to hear one of their songs. I’d never heard of the band, you know, let alone their music. I heard a song called Pick Up and Run, and that’s been my like pandemic anthem, Pick Up and Run.

Bill Moseley: I certainly like Judas Priest. I’m a classic guy. I’m from the ’60s and ’70s, so of course, it’s Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin. I like all that stuff.

Sgt. Horror: Which of these bands have you seen in concert?

Bill Moseley: I saw Jimi Hendrix. I saw Led Zeppelin. You know, I’ve met The Doors. I’ve met all three of them except for Jim, of course.

Sgt. Horror: When you saw Jimi Hendrix, how was that?

Bill Moseley: That was a life-altering experience. It was in like ’66 maybe. And in Chicago. I was on summer break from school. I was working on a pheasant farm in Dundee, Illinois, with my best friend. Our boss got us tickets to see Jimi at the Oriental Theater in Chicago. And the opening band was an English band called Soft Machine. And you know, they did like a 45-minute jam, which was kind of, you know, whatever. And then, fucking Jimi came out doing the Are You Experienced Tour. That was his first tour.

Sgt. Horror: Oh wow.

Bill Moseley: And it just, it blew my mind.

Sgt. Horror: Hmm. They don’t make music like that anymore. I was lucky enough to see the Grateful Dead when Jerry Garcia was still alive.

Bill Moseley: Sure, yeah.

Sgt. Horror: Did you ever catch a Dead show?

Bill Moseley: Oh yeah. Yeah. I went to the Grateful Dead Dance Marathon in New York City. Like, I don’t know, shit, man, probably ’71 or something like that. Yeah, I got around.

Sgt. Horror: Now, did you stay in the parking lot, or did you go into the actual show?

Bill Moseley: Inside. It was in a big ballroom. I remember, I took a hit of weed, and I kind of passed out. Like I got a rush, and, you know, I passed out and went on the floor. The ballroom was filled with people standing up, and I was on the floor. And I kind of came to, you know, it was a rush. And I just decided I was going to stay on my hands and knees instead of trying to get up. So I just rimmed through everybody’s legs for like a half an hour. It was really one of the great experiences of my concert-going life.

Sgt. Horror: That sounds amazing.

Bill Moseley: It was a different perspective. That’s for sure.

Sgt. Horror: Do you think we’ll see Otis and Baby in more movies?

Bill Moseley: You know, certainly, one of the things I don’t do is try to figure out what Rob Zombie is cooking up and going to do next. Certainly, I would say just from a story point of view, you know, after 3 from Hell, after we’ve said goodbye to Captain Spaulding and hello to Foxy, that certainly we’re reloaded. And the way it ended with us driving away, he keeps that door open.

Sgt. Horror: Yeah. I was hoping Rob would bring in, instead of Foxy, he would have let Richard Brake portray Doom-Head. I love the Doom-Head character. Chop Top, your character from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I always loved the franchise as more of a straight horror than a comedy. I always wanted to see Chop Top as just like not a funny character, more of just a killer, extremely brutal. Do you feel you could do that to the character, and what would it look and feel like?

Bill Moseley: I don’t think so, because Chop Top is a, you know, is a clown. I think that Chop Top’s brutality is even more emphasized by his sense of humor. He’s kind of somewhere between a clown and one of The Three Stooges. So there’s always, a menace to that humor, which is really important. I think just to have Chop Top be a brutal guy would really take away a big aspect, an important aspect of his character.

Sgt. Horror: What are your favorite Otis B. Firefly quotes?

Bill Moseley: Well, the one I loved the most was, “Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck,” which I said at the beginning of The Devil’s Rejects, just because that was the easiest line I had. But you know, “Next words out of your mouth better be some brilliant fucking Mark Twain shit, because it’s definitely getting chiseled on your tombstone.” You know, “Hope it don’t rust the barrel.” “I’m Willy fucking Wonka, and this is my chocolate factory.” I mean just about everything that Otis says is quotable.

Sgt. Horror: Don’t forget if you are unable to see Bill Moseley due to the COVID-19 outbreak. You can still order photos and other great merchandise at choptopsbbq.com.

Be sure to check out our Live Stream with Bill Moseley: