The problem with clowns is that it’s easy to dismiss them as a joke — but if you do that with Insane Clown Posse, then the joke’s on you. With record sales in the multi-millions and a loyal fanbase that is comparable only to that of the Grateful Dead, the Juggalo juggernaut has been trucking for 25 + years, and shows no sign of slowing down.

Much maligned and misunderstood, the band and the fan-created “Juggalo” world that surrounds them, are steeped in controversy — much of it being caused perhaps by over-literal interpretations of their tongue-in-cheek horrorcore lyrics. However, despite much-publicized brushes with the law, for many in the Juggalo community, Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are seen as saviors rather than sinners — their inclusive philosophy serving as a lifeline.

Very much in sympatico with the ethos of SuicideGirls, those in Insane Clown Posse’s world celebrate the strange, the weird, and the fucked up — and have an innate understanding that it’s these differences which make us beautiful. The Gathering of the Juggalos serves as a visceral illustration of this. Now in its 17th year, the Lollapalooza-like event — which takes place this year from July 20th thru 23rd at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio — is a family reunion for the disenfranchised and a festival for those from all walks of life who feel a need to get their freak-on.

Ahead of the Gathering, starting May 5th, Insane Clown Posse’s circus hits the road for the Riddle Box Tour. Prior to that, while Shaggy 2 Dope recovers from a work-related injury, Violent J embarked on a solo charity tour, with his Psychopathic Records protégé, Young Wicked, backing him up, and Lil Easy-E and Nova Rockafeller providing support. In between solo dates in Phoenix and Las Vegas, SuicideGirls caught up with Violent J (left), Shaggy 2 Dope (right), and Young Wicked (center) on their tour bus, in a nondescript parking lot somewhere near LAX…

Nicole Powers: So this technically speaking is the Violent J solo tour, right? Though, with the two of you together on the bus, it's not looking very solo, which is awesome.

Violent J: Yeah, right now it is yeah. I'm just doing, what is it, 12 dates? It's just something small, you know, for fun…

Shaggy 2 Dope: He’s out with Young Wicked right now doing a charity tour. I had major back surgery in the middle of December, so I’m coming off the end of recovering from that. So I'm out here just doing a little bit of press... I'm flying out tonight.

NP: Oh, so I'm lucky to get you.

S2D: I wouldn't say all that, but…

NP: I feel your pain. I have an 11 millimeter herniated disc.

S2D: Yeah, I have four of them.

NP: Oh shit, how did you get yours?

S2D: Stage diving, wrestling, it’s just hard on the body.

NP: So the “Sick Kidz” single, that's kind of infectious, if you’ll pardon the pun. I notice that you've got my girl Nova Rockefeller on it too. She's so awesome, isn't she?

VJ: She's the bomb, no doubt. She's super cool. I've always admired her. Her videos are cool… She’s brave in her videos and I think that she has a lot of talent. It's crazy 'cause she could be like a huge fucking star. Some of her music could be huge... If the right people heard it…

NP: I couldn't agree me more. She's so fucking talented.

VJ: She does hits every night, shit that could be global hits.

S2D: She could be international, no question, with the right people behind her.

VJ: Her music... it's kind of pop, but her grind in the hip-hop world is why she's dope for this tour… Because this is really a hip-hop tour. It's just us with mics, and the same thing with her. It's just her, a mic, and a DJ. Same thing with Lil [Eazy] E, you know. It's just hip-hop, very hip-hop. Usually there's a band on the tour, or when we do ICP, you know, we're throwing Faygo and everything, and we got our monsters, it feels a lot more like a show… But this is just a backdrop, me and him, and a DJ. And that's what makes it cool. It's like authentic hip-hop… And Nova fits right in on that. Even though our music might be different, she's on the same grind that we're on...

NP: She’s hip-hop, but like you guys, she has some great fucking tunes in there.

VJ: Thank you.

NP: The “Sick Kidz” single is a charity single, right? But it's for a hospital in Illinois?

VJ: Yeah.

NP: Why not one in Detroit? What's the Illinois connection?

Young Wicked: There are sick kids everywhere.

VJ: I'll be honest, my significant other, my baby's mother, thought of that charity. She chose it. We wanted to do something for charity and she chose that charity in Illinois. I don't know why Illinois, but why not? Sick kids are sick everywhere. So we chose the St. John's Children’s Hospital of Illinois, and that's just where we're donating everything to...

NP: The single really highlights the dichotomy of ICP; because you're busy helping kids in hospital, and yet the FBI’s Gang “Intelligence” Unit is calling you and your fans a gang.

VJ: Which is a joke… a straight joke.

NP: They're seriously spending taxpayer dollars tracking down clowns…

S2D: Yeah, not the smartest people.

VJ: It's crazy to think about, you know… Back in the day, I remember the big deal when I was a kid was that NWA had the song “Fuck tha Police” out and the FBI wrote them a letter. That was the big deal. They got a letter from the FBI. I believe that letter is actually in the Hall of Fame in Cleveland… And, I'm thinking, damn, I wish we would just get a letter, you know what I'm saying?

S2D: You can solve a lot more by just getting a letter than the way we’re being attacked.

VJ: Instead, they classify the Juggalos as a gang, which forever, you know, everybody that hears about it, all the cops that hear about it, everybody that hears about it, whether or not we're on the gang list this year or not, doesn't matter — it forever fucked up the name.

S2D: And it's not just fucking up our business, it’s fucking up real lives, Juggalos' real lives. It's fucking people up, you know. And that's when we took it serious… We’re like, wow, kids are being [put] on the gang file list... For getting pulled over, if they have a hatchet man tattoo on their arm, now they're a gang member, they're in the gang file.

NP: Right.

VJ: That's fucking crazy, man. They're fans. They're fans of our music, they represent that shit.

S2D: Because they have this tattoo, they have this on them [shows me his hatchet man pendant], which automatically now puts them as a gang member, and they're in the gang file... it's crazy.

NP: So because I'm on this tour bus, does that stick me on some gang watch list?

S2D: The FBI fucking might be watching.

VJ: You might even be plotting with gangs. If Juggalos are a gang, what does that make us?

S2D: The gang leaders? So, you might be in conspiracy with us.

VJ: This bus might be fucking bugged.

S2D: Don't say that.

[Chuckles.]

VJ: It’s just crazy to me that they would say that, you know, because why not the fucking Deadheads? How many deadheads are there out there? Or why not…

S2D: Parrot Heads or Beliebers or Little Monsters.

VJ: Or the KISS Army, why not the KISS Army?

S2D: Or Maggots, Slipknot fans, you know what I'm saying?

VJ: How many of them beat their fucking wives? Or are fucking alcoholics or whatever the fucking problem is that makes Juggalos a gang — how many in the KISS Army do that same shit?

S2D: It boils down to bad apples in a bunch. So, yeah, there might be Juggalos that are in gangs… that do crimes. But on the whole, no… There’s one or two in a city, so automatically they're like, they're called Juggalos, they have a title, so they're a gang. Because these two motherfuckers stabbed somebody, they're Juggalos, so it's got to be a gang, and now it's on a gang list.

NP: It seems to me that the Feds have failed to do basic Google. Because it's all out there; the reason that you’re the Insane Clown Posse and not the Inner City Posse is because you turned your back on gang life… And you did that fucking decades ago.

S2D: Right. We think it's more them saving face now and not wanting to admit they fucked up. As opposed to like actually looking at what's really going on.

NP: I know that the ACLU have your back on that one.

VJ: We're fucking straight up suing them, you know. We want the FBI to admit that they fucked up… that they misunderstood whatever Juggalos are. We want some sort of, what do you call it?

S2D: Retribution or something.

VJ: Retribution.

S2D: We don't want a Juggalo driving his car with a hatchet man sticker on the back getting pulled over because of a fucking sticker on the back of his car. There's Juggalos that are lawyers, doctors, in the Army…

YW: Police officers.

VJ: Fucking politicians.

S2D: The list goes on and on and on and on and on. Are they in a gang? No. But according to the FBI they are because they're Juggalos, you know, it's crazy.

NP: What's the state of the case at the moment? Where's it at?

VJ: Well, first we went to the first judge, and he threw it out. He was like there's no, basis to this case, it's bullshit, crazy, whatever, you know. The second judge sided with us and now we're going to trial.

S2D: Yeah, we won the appeal.

NP: Ah, nice.

VJ: Now we're going to trial and we're going to straight out duke it out in the court... We think it's fucking crazy. I'm just interested to hear about what makes us a gang… I want to know what they say makes us a fucking gang. Because once we say why it's not a gang, I don't know how anybody can dispute that because it's the truth.

S2D: We don't run guns. We don't sell drugs. We don't organize drive by shootings and crime. We're not an organized crime outfit. We're rappers, you know what I'm saying?

NP: You're an organized rap outfit right?

VJ: We're an organized record company, that’s for sure.

S2D: But yeah, gang member, that's just crazy.

NP: I think that law enforcement don't do humor and irony, so they see the lyrics on paper but don't understand that you're not Kanye West, you're not serious about everything that comes out of your mouth...

VJ: Look at the shit we say we do on our albums. We talk about…

S2D: Cutting throats.

VJ: Stretching our nutsack back and letting it go and slanging it into your mouth, like euuun ppsssheeewww!!! That's a fucking cartoon, you know?

NP: That sounds like a serious terrorist threat right there.

S2D: Dead bodies dangle out the back of our car through a city...

VJ: We talk about hanging out with a dead body and then eating it.

S2D: Or a dead body being your best friend or talking to a dead chick that's in your attic…

VJ: Why do we say any of that? ...It's just fucking entertainment. It's just craziness, freshness, funniness, humor, you know, raw, wicked…

NP: Another controversy you’ve had to contend with is the issues surrounding the Miss Juggalette Beauty Pageant. I understand three years ago you had to flip it back from being the Ron Jeremy sausage fest it’d devolved into, to something bit more female forward?

VJ: Yeah. Ron Jeremy was creeping Juggalettes out.

S2D: He took it in to his own hands.

VJ: We never saw that ourselves, because we were always doing something else, but we started to hear through our friends Ron Jeremy was creeping Juggalettes out.

S2D: It even comes down to our Gathering of Juggalos, our yearly festival, it got to a point [in] the last place we were at, there was a spot called ‘The Drug Bridge.’ We didn’t dub it that, it got dubbed that. People would come just to sell drugs that weren’t even Juggalos. Once we caught wind of that, we were like, no, dead that, we’re done with that. We moved to a different site, all that stuff. Because we don’t condone that. We don’t condone shooting up heroin into your face, and three guys banging one broad in broad daylight. It got too out of hand, too crazy. So we were like, we can’t do that, we’ve got to move it somewhere else. We can’t have the fucking Drug Bridge. And with Ron Jeremy, creeping Jugalettes out, waggling his dick around.

NP: He does have a talent for creeping chicks out. I knew a girl that went on a date with him once; he invited her over to his place and offered her several day old Chinese takeaway leftovers.

S2D: I believe it.

NP: I just don’t think he knows how to treat a lady right.

S2D: I just don’t think he knows how to live right. Ron Jeremy is a creep.

VJ: That’s so funny you said that. I read his book, right. And his whole book, basically all it said was, I’m a fucking creep.

NP: At least he knows it.

S2D: He is a creep. There has been instances where we’ve been in LA and went to the Rainbow Room, and I’ve seen Ron Jeremy and I’m just like, oh shit, and just kind of go the other way because I don’t want to talk to him. Straight up.

VJ: Let’s not talk about Ron Jeremy anymore. He was too much of a problem, you know what I’m saying?

S2D: He’s not Gathering bound anymore, that’s for sure.

VJ: No more waggling his dick.

S2D: Waggling his fucking baby arm or whatever.

NP: How did the Lette's Respect movement come about?

VJ: It’s always been there. It was something going on we didn’t know about.

S2D: And when we did find out about it, of course we supported it. Big time. Why would you not respect a Juggalette just like a Juggalo? To the point where there’s chicks who [say], I’m not a Juggalette, I’m a Juggalo.

NP: That’s where I'm at. If there’s Juggalettes and Juggalos, I’m a Juggalo.

S2D: A lot of broads are like that.

VJ: Let me say something; I’m going to make an official statement about that — the whole Juggalo and Juggalettes thing. I believe, unless I’m mistaken — I’m probably seriously mistaken, OK... I used to have something called The Weekly Freekly, which was my weekly column. And I believe back in the day I started using the word Juggalettes... And from there, I think it spread, from wherever I heard it from.

YW: It’s just natural, like cigar or cigarette.

VJ: I started using the word... And when I used the word, I meant it straight up as respect. I thought it would be cool to be like, I’m a Juggalette. Anyway, a lot of Juggalette’s don’t see it that way.

S2D: Yeah. The word Juggalo has a male stigma to it.

VJ: I’ve since heard that a lot of Juggalettes are like, fuck that, I’m a Juggalo... And I just want to say my usage of the word Juggalette was never, and still is — I still say it sometimes — was never meant as anything disrespectful or anything like that.

S2D: You put the word ‘ette' at the end of anything, it’s just more feminine.

NP: I know exactly what you’re saying.

S2D: It’s a big cigar, or a cigarette, you know?

VJ: I totally meant it as Juggalette, for the girls who want to be a Juggalette. Some girls embraced it…

S2D: Some girl even came up with a Juggalette logo, like the hatchet man but a girl.

VJ: And we put [Juggalette] merchandise out, and it sold fairly well. Some people liked it. But some people don’t now. So, I’m just going to have to not use the word anymore.

NP: No, no, no, please carry on using Juggalette. The thing is, that’s political correctness gone amuck, and feminism gone amuck. I mean, the fact that we’re sitting on a tour bus having a serious discussion about whether the word Juggalette is politically correct or not — that’s some fucked up shit. You know what I mean?

VJ: But there are Juggalettes that say, I’m a Juggalo, I don’t want to be a Juggalette.

S2D: Hey, they’re more than welcome to be a Juggalo.

VJ: No doubt.

S2D: When we say Juggalette, you think feminine, more feminine. Not to say that a Juggalette that calls herself a Juggalo is less feminine, but some Juggalettes just like to be Juggalettes not Juggalos. It means the same thing, just girl and guy.

VJ: When I say Juggalos, I mean everybody. But when I say Juggalettes, I mean girls only, when I say it from the stage. Like if we’re doing a song and I say Juggalettes make some noise…

NP: If you’re doing a call and response?

S2D: Right. You might have a couple dudes go [does a comedic high pitched scream].

VJ: I might say, you Juggalettes are looking good tonight or something like that. Looking around, I might see a bunch of pretty Juggalettes, and say something like that. But I don’t want to say, you Juggalos are looking good tonight.

S2D: [In exaggerated voice] Juggalos make some noise! Now all you female Juggalos make some noise!

NP: That’s why I think you can’t get too caught up in words, like the politics of bitch or Juggalo versus Juggalette.

S2D: It’s just up to the person. Like don’t say fuck, say frick, or don’t say bitch, say female. Whatever, it’s just slang.

NP: There has to be a basic trust that there is respect there, which is what I get from you guys and what I get from your music. One of the tracks I was listening to on one of the most recent albums was “Confederate Flag.” That is a really fucking profound song. You guys celebrate uniting all the freaks, all the weirdo’s, everyone, but the Confederate flag is purely divisive at this point. That track is really fucking powerful.

S2D: Not at this point, it always has been. It’s kind of a new look at “Fuck Your Rebel Flag” that we had back in the day, just harder.

VJ: We released “Fuck Your Rebel Flag” in 1992… And when we did “Confederate Flag” on the new record, that was just to let everybody know we still think the same. We still feel the same twenty-some years later.

S2D: Right. Our thought process about that has not changed, you know, still “Fuck Your Rebel Flag.” Just because we ain’t hollering it every minute, we still feel the same way about it. It’s bullshit. It’s crazy. Whoever climbed up that pole and ripped down the rebel flag was definitely the bomb.

NP: Ah, Bree Newsome from #BlackLivesMatter. Absolutely.

S2D: Yes, that was awesome.

NP: I think that song, it’s more prescient now given what you see going on in the Presidential race, and all of the divisive racist bullshit.

S2D: Yes, it’s crazy. And we did that song before Ebay stopped doing all that rebel flag shit. Right before it.

VJ: Wow. What happened with Ebay?

S2D: They won’t sell rebel flags anymore. And that snowballed, and nobody will sell rebel flags on the internet.

YW: All that controversy happened right around the time we put that song out.

S2D: Which is funny, because Cooter, the mechanic from Dukes of Hazzard, hated that because that was his bread and butter, selling Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia.

VJ: How did you find that out?

S2D: I see it on TV.

VJ: Cooter? Cooter was getting paid selling the flag?

S2D: Yes, that’s what he does for a living, he sells Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia.

VJ: Oh, there goes his money.

S2D: He was pissed, I saw it on CNN or some shit. Plus his name is Cooter, come on. That means pussy right?

YW: Yep.

NP: Cooter? I haven’t heard that.

YW: Trust me, in some circles Cooter means pussy.

NP: I will trust you. I think you are probably more of an authority on this topic than I am.

YW: I got you covered on that one.

S2D: So he was just a big pussy selling rebel flags.

YW: Pretty much.

NP: One of the other tracks on the album is “How.” Especially knowing your history, and knowing what you went through with your father leaving your mother to bring up three kids alone, that track almost comes full circle to the very genesis of Insane Clown Posse.

VJ: Yeah, Thank you. That’s him singing the chorus on that. [Nods head to Young Wicked.]

NP: Really? You have a sweet voice. Dang!

YW: Thanks.

NP: He’s got a rock-tastic voice.

S2D: He’s a big, big integral part of Lost and Found — the hooks, the production, all that stuff.

VJ: He played a big role on our last two albums, The [Marvelous] Missing Link: Lost and Found.

S2D: Basically, he was like a third member of ICP on Lost and Found.

YW: A Juggalo dreams come true, that’s what I call it.

NP: The title of the last albums, Lost and Found, makes me smile. And I kinda daren’t bring his name up, but when I first got to LA, one of my good friends introduced me to your music; he was your agent for a while.

S2D: What was his name?

NP: [Redacted].

Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope: [In unison.] Oh. [Redacted].

S2D: If you see him tell him we say what’s up.

VJ: Listen, I know that was bullshit how we wrote about him in the book, but we were just young. We loved [Redacted].

NP: He was such a true believer, and he had such a good taste in music. He just loved music. So when he introduced me to your music, it’s like, I know this shit must be good.

S2D: Do you still talk to him?

NP: Yes.

S2D: Tell him we said what’s up homie.

VJ: We say, what’s up! I think he sued us.

S2D: Tell him mad love, who gives a shit.

VJ: We deserved it. It’s all love, it’s all love, we love him. He’s the shit. Thank you for fucking extending and taking a chance with us back in the day. Seriously, putting us on the road.

NP: I know, it was before anything had blown up, right?

VJ: All of that. Thank him, thank him.

NP: I tell you why the Lost and Found albums makes me think of that. I remember when you parted ways, one of the reasons was he left some masters in an airport.

S2D: Oh my god, I forgot about that.

VJ: Oh my god, I didn’t even think we had masters.

NP: I always imagined that somewhere in like a Miami airport, there’s the lost Insane Clown Posse album eternally circling on a baggage claim carousel. It’s been circling on a baggage claim carouse for twenty fucking years.

[Laughter all round.]

NP: What album was that?

VJ: That was The Wraith: Shangri-La.

S2D: Yeah.

VJ: The sixth Joker's Card… That was a big, top secret, couldn’t be heard deal at the time, and he left it at the airport, yeah.

NP: So the album got entirely recovered, did it?

S2D: Yeah. It never came out.

VJ: Luckily it never leaked.

S2D: No, it never leaked because of that. It came out, but it never leaked because of that.

VJ: It came out, but not because of that.

S2D: We always loved him, and we always will. He’s our boy, bottom line.

NP: I always wondered if there was a lost album somewhere out in the universe that someone will find one of these days.

S2D: It might have different mixes tweaked down a little bit different, but other than that it’s the same record.

VJ: But we definitely got love for [Redacted] though. Please tell him that…

S2D: Please tell him we got nothing but love for him… I got a solo tour coming up sometime this year, hopefully, maybe I’ll look him up.

NP: That’s what I love about you guys, you're very comfortable doing your solo thing and then coming back together.

VJ: We go to work together every day. Every day. We’re not like other bands.

S2D: Five days a week, we go twelve hours a day… Weekends, that’s when we chill with our families.

VJ: Usually we go on tour together all the time.

S2D: We rarely do solo tours.

VJ: We usually go everywhere together.

S2D: Rarely do we do solo tours. This is his first, I’ve only done one. That was ten years ago when I did mine. I’m working on a solo record right now, and I want to follow with the solo tour. He’s doing a solo tour right now. But we barely ever do solo shit. It’s always ICP.

VJ: This is just something that... there was some time. It was just let’s do something cool for charity. Something different. Something that don’t cost a lot.

S2D: My back is in recovery, and he’s gung ho.

VJ: I can go out on a solo tour and just play small venues, and keep expenses down, and make some money for charity. We did it in December too. I went out and did the same thing, eight cities or something, and the money went to charity. We didn’t earn a lot then because we brought wrestling with us. Most people looked at the show as a wrestling show, and not as a concert. So it didn’t draw what these solo shows are drawing. Because this is more like a show, a concert — it’s more exciting to Juggalos then wrestling is.

NP: It must be nice to be able to do something low key, because Insane Clown Posse comes with pressure and expectations, right?

VJ: Exactly. We’ve gotta to bring a stage, we’ve gotta bring a truck full of Faygo, we’ve got to make sure the venue’s okay with Faygo. On a solo tour, I’m able to go in to places that ICP could never play.

S2D: Yeah, a solo tour, it’s not about the theatrics, you’re up there with a mic. That’s it.

YW: Hip-hop style.

VJ: But ICP is about theatrics.

NP: Because your fans have raised the bar so much, your fans have forced you to raise the bar, which forces them to raise the bar, and on it goes

S2D: We’re competing with ourselves. It’s been like that forever. We’re always competing with our old shit. Everybody always remembers the shit when they first discovered you. That going to always be our best shit, to them. They’re always going to look at that like it was the greatest shit. We’re always competing with our old shit. But to new Juggalos of today, this shit we’re doing now is the dope shit. In ten years from now, they are going to say why don’t you make anything like you did in 2016? That was good shit.

NP: That’s the thing, the Lost and Found stuff, it completely stands up — if not surpasses — what you’ve done before. It’s fucking bombastic. I love the vocals. I love the track, “You Should Know” too.

YW: [Sings] You should know...

S2D: That’s a jam.

VJ: It’s a deep track.

NP: It’s like an operating manual for a dude. Every guy needs to come with their own track like that, with instructions, right?

VJ: Yeah, but the guy I’m portraying in that song is a scrub. He’s a bum. He’s like, we’re going to live off your money, I’m cheating on you all the time…

S2D: That’s how we came up though. It’s from the heart.

VJ: That’s where our heads were when we were sixteen, living in the gutter…

NP: As with that track, a lot of the album is you going back to those times.

VJ: That’s what we draw from. That’s the struggle.

S2D: We can’t rap about what we’re doing now.

VJ: We can’t base our music on our lives today, it’s all full of love.

S2D: I can’t rap about sitting in my nice house, with my awesome kids and wife, doing fresh ass family shit.

VJ: I’m not going to rap about how Juggalos give us love every where we go, and support us, and say that our music saved their life. And all that love they are throwing at us, and overwhelming compliments, and just amazing things they’re saying to us right in our face, pulling their fucking shirt off and showing us their back, when the whole back is fucking tattooed, saying they named their kids after us and shit... That shit is just buummphhssszzzz!!! — like a fucking nuclear bomb going off in my skull… What do you say to that? When someone comes up to you and says, your music saved my life.

S2D: Right. I’m not going to suck your dick, but fuck man, I probably should.

NP: I’ve watched a couple of the documentaries that are out there and you’ve had such a profound effect on so many of your fans lives.

VJ: It’s so much love. It’s showering us with love. Like love raining on us.

S2D: When you have a grown man come through a line, a grown man that’s like seven feet tall, three hundred pounds, crying… how do you react to that? It’s mind boggling. It’s insane. It’s like no other job. You work at Home Depot, nobody is coming through buying nails doing that... It’s hard to handle sometimes. Because you don’t know how to react to it. It’s really tough sometimes.

NP: Especially because it’s such a profound experience for the fans, so you can’t brush it off, when they tell you something that’s so deep and personal like that…

S2D: Exactly. And you can’t brush it off because you’re dumbfounded yourself. It’s not like, meh, whatever, next. It’s like, holy shit!!!

VJ: You wouldn’t fucking believe it. You wouldn’t believe it. Nobody would believe it, the things the Juggalos have said and meant.

S2D: The media wants to portray all the bad shit, but the shit we see is a whole different ballpark than what the mainstream media [reports].

VJ: Some people have it completely wrong. Like, they say, thank you for the dark carnival. Thank you for creating the Juggalo world. And we did not create the Juggalo world, the Juggalo world happened to us. The same way it happened to them, it happened to us.

S2D: Yeah, it just grew.

Violent J: We did not plan the Juggalo world.

S2D: We started out as two rappers that just wanted to rap.

VJ: We did not try to orchestrate the Juggalo world, any of that, nothing. It just happened to us. It’s a blessing. It’s such a fucking amazing blessing.

S2D: And I’ve said this in so many interviews, to so many people, but it just happened organically. It just was this whole thing that sprouted and grew and grew and grew.

NP: Even when the first kernel of the idea for Insane Clown Posse came in a dream, it was an epiphany, a vision, right?

VJ: That’s still where we draw from today.

NP: I find it interesting, because obviously the last round of press you did you started talking about religion and there is a very epiphany-like nature to how Insane Clown Posse came to be.

S2D: Yeah, we got penned as Christian rappers for a while there…

VJ: Which is crazy.

NP: Was that some journalist taking something out of context?

Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope: [In unison.] Absolutely, yeah.

S2D: Yeah, it was. But it was a lot of them.

NP: Once one gets something wrong, then it just snowballs.

S2D: We just try to open people’s eyes to what's good and what's wrong.

VJ: But you know, I’m not afraid to admit we believe in God. I’m not afraid to admit that. I know that’s not cool or normal in 2016, but fuck that, I believe in God.

NP: Who is your God, though? Does your God have a sense of humor?

VJ: Yes. My God is fresh. Of course it’s easy to have your own God. That’s the easy way. And if you do this or that and that, you can just say, well, my God is okay with this, that and that... Nobody wants to make a sacrifice, you know what I mean?

S2D: Right. It’s just the basic guidelines. You don’t punch an old lady in the face and take her purse. Who does that? Fucking people that are going to hell... You grab her arm and help her across the street. It’s karma, what it boils down to — karma. Everybody has, in their mind, they know the difference between right and wrong. In our music, we try to express the right, covered up with cursing and violence and what not, which people can relate to. But there is an underlying message there: Don’t be a fucking asshole. Do the right thing. You know what’s up.

NP: That's what a lot of your music is about; the very traditional push and pull of good versus evil.

VJ: Very basic; live your life right... That little voice in your head, follow that voice. The one that is saying, you shouldn’t do that, your guardian angel or whatever you want to call it.

S2D: Everybody knows what it is. Everybody knows you just don’t run up on a motherfucker and punch him in the face for no reason. Who does that? Psychopaths do. That’s wrong. Everybody knows that.

VJ: And our music, the anger in it, how we talk about killing and murdering, and all that shit — a lot of times, that’s our very real anger but amplified and characterized. Just like when you go to the mall and they do a caricature of you — that’s what our music is, caricatures of us and caricatures of our real feelings.

NP: It’s also anger expressed in a healthy way.

VJ: There’s a lot of that.

NP: You’re not doing it, you’re expressing it.

VJ: It’s music.

S2D: It’s not real life, it’s entertainment.

VJ: Right. And a lot of it is just entertainment too. A lot of it, there is no underlying message.

S2D: Funny songs, happy songs, positivity.

VJ: A lot of it is straight wicked shit. Straight bad guy shit.

S2D: Right. Shit we came up in Detroit listening to.

VJ: That’s right. Shit we enjoy. Hardcore fucking anger, release, therapy for people like us that fucking suffer from fucking depression and fucking anxiety, and people that fucking have it harder than other people. Our music brings therapy to them.. and to us to perform it. It’s therapy for us, it just a great thing.

NP: Do you get to spend much time back in Detroit, back where it all started?

S2D: Sure, yeah, we work from Detroit.

NP: A friend of mine from Occupy Wall Street has been working with the Detroit Water Brigade, and it’s just disgusting what’s been happening with something as basic as water.

S2D: Oh, Flint, yeah. I actually live closer to Flint than I do Detroit right now.

NP: What’s the water like in your taps?

S2D: Well, I use well water, so I don't feel it. But it’s horrible. Who’s the asshole that made that call. It’s crazy. I forget who I heard say this, but there’s a couple of rich cities in Michigan, like Grosse Point and Bloomfield Hills. If that were to happen in those cities, it would have been handled like that. [Clicks fingers.] Because Flint’s poor… it’s still going on. But, you know, we’re not political. We don’t get in to shit like that. It is what it is. We do charities, we help where we can help, but we don’t go out and rally. We’re entertainers, we’re not politicians.

NP: You say that because maybe you’re not overtly political party, but a song like “Confederate Flag” is still a political statement.

S2D: It’s political, but it’s… everybody knows that flag is wrong. We’re not running for office saying, hey, get rid of that because it’s one of our policies. Come on, it stands for racism, it stands for oppression. If you’re waving that, you should be beat.

VJ: You should be punched in the face — that’s about as political as we get.

[Laughs.]

NP: So we’ve got your summer tour going on, then we’ve got your solo tour going on, what’s next for ICP?

VJ: After this is the Riddle Box tour. That’s when we go out and perform the Riddle Box album in its entirety.

NP: Very cool.

S2D: It’s starts May to June. Then we hit Canada for three weeks for the first time…

VJ: In over ten years…

S2D: More than that, it was the '90s.

VJ: Yeah, [it's] fifteen years since we've been to Canada. We’re going back and doing a full three week tour in Canada?

NP: How come it’s been so long? It’s only across the water from Michigan.

S2D: Criminal records and stuff.

VJ: But we’re going. He had to pay just as much as I did to get in.

S2D: I got a more lengthy record, but they don’t like you just as much as me.

VJ: I’m no angel either... But, yeah, we’re doing that, Canada...

NP: I guess that’s had quite an effect on your career, because there are lots of places that you can’t tour, right?

VJ: Yeah, well, there’s places we’re banned from... We have trouble playing in Denver. We’re just now getting back into Denver. Something happened, there was a stabbing or some crazy shit. It probably had nothing to do with Juggalos, but we’ve been banned from Denver for years... Same thing with Albuquerque, New Mexico. We were banned from Albuquerque for years, we’re just now getting back in. We’ve been banned from Seattle. All kinds of shit, man. But we’re pretty much passed all of that now. We’re getting back in to these cities, we’re trying to keep everything good so we can play everywhere and make everybody happy. We’re doing all right. We’re doing pretty good. We have Gathering 17 coming up, which is the gathering of all gatherings, you know what I’m saying? We’ve got a lot of products coming up, projects that we can’t talk about yet because we’re announcing them at The Gathering, but they are going to fucking spool the shit out of Juggalos. They’re going to be amazed. Their heads are going to explode. It’s just going to be a great, great time.

NP: Well thank you very much guys.

VJ: Thank you.

NP: It’s been an absolute pleasure. Is there anything that you feel like I missed that maybe you wanted to talk about with the SG community?

S2D: Yeah, man, just don’t believe the hype. All that fucking FBI shit and all that man. Our music is wholesome and pure. [Chuckles.] It’s wholesome, very wholesome, very pure.

VJ: It’s good for the kids.

S2D: Yeah, it’s good for this generation and the next generation, and the last generation of kids.

VJ: We appreciate you talking to us though, big time

NP: Well, I have a huge faith in the ACLU. They are one of the most amazing fucking organizations. And if that helps fans and the wider press and media separate fact from fiction, and the fact you shouldn't take words at face value.

S2D: If this whole case wasn’t bullshit, the ACLU wouldn’t be on our side.

VJ: No doubt.

S2D: Bottom line.

VJ: It’s such a blessing to have them on our side.

S2D: Because they see the bullshit.

VJ: For someone to take our side, it’s so unusual for us in our world. We’ve always been fucking dissed on, we’ve always been the most hated band in the world, always been overlooked, always been treated as not… You konw, if you get The Encyclopedia of Rock, which covers everything — rap, rock, everything is in this fucking encyclopedia right? – you go to I’s and we’re not there. We have two fucking albums that sold two million copies each. We have four additional gold albums, but we’re not even in fucking existence.

S2D: Our career has been based off of, every couple years, a career-crippling blow that should have put us out of business, but we keep going because we ain’t never going to die, you know what I’m saying?

VJ: That’s right. We’ve been in existence for over twenty fucking five years, killing it, putting it down. We’re still here now. And what do they do? They take our whole fucking legacy, our whole thing we can be most proud of, which is the Juggalo world, and they say it’s a gang. You know what I mean? They shit all over everything we’ve done in our life. They say it’s all bullshit. It’s all negative. It’s all bad. They officially stamped that on us.

S2D: All the joy we’ve brought millions and millions of people, they just shit all over it.

VJ: Saying it’s all bad. It’s all evil. It’s all no good. It’s gangsters.

S2D: Fuck them. Fuck them. That’s my final statement. Fuck them.

VJ: Mine too. Fuck them.