Mars: Every Day Is Halloween

What better man to explain the true meaning of Halloween than one who lives it all year long? Horrorcore’s been going strong for decades now and one of its mad barons, Mars, has been at it almost from the very beginning–though not without a coffinful of controversy. If you only know Mars from that sweet couples photo of him in our compilation of Jessica Larson’s hottest Instagrams, hoo boy, are you going to see a different side of the jack o’lantern. Here, in his own words, is the story of how Mars embraced his weirdness. 

Imagine having to tell your family that you wanted to be a professional weirdo when you grew up. It’s happened. Over the last 17 years, I grew from a fan of horrorcore music to being one of the most recognizable faces in the entire genre. In those 17 years, I’ve had to explain myself often to many “grown ups,” girlfriends, TV personalities, radio hosts, magazines, newspapers and police officers.

You see horrorcore is a form of hip-hop music where no subject is taboo. In fact the subjects are that of the taboo. If Freddy Kruger rapped, this is what he would sound like. Songs of madness, murder, suicide, and even worse. It’s shocking. Its disgusting. It’s awesome. When I was a child, I would often go to the drive-in movie theaters with my grandma on my mothers side and see scary movies. The shock of the gore, and the nervousness of being scared at the sounds that built up in each scene was like an adrenaline rush. Years later, this is the same feeling I would get when I heard my first horrorcore song.

I remember being in my best friend’s car on the ride home from high school and he popped in a cassette I’ve never heard before. It was a group called Triple 6. I remember the lyrics from that day because they scared the $#!+ out of me. “Came back pissin’ on gravesites, !@(%in’ off to the Virgin Mary, ooh what a sight.” I thought I was going to hell for listening to this! It made my stomach turn. I went on a decade-long hunt to find a copy for myself.

That year again on the way home from high school from another classmate I heard a song by incarcerated gangsta rapper X-Raided. The whole car shook with bass as he rapped “I be stalkin like Jason, ^!&&@a I ain’t sayin $#!+, mask on with a machete in my right mitt….”

I had to have that tape. He was rapping from prison over the pay phone while on trial for murder. I was hooked. It was such a crazy story, crazy lyrics. I wrote my first rhyme around this time with the same style content on a piece of paper in my room and never showed anyone. If my mom would have found it she probably would have thought it was a suicide note.

Growing up I collected posters, print outs and magazine articles from rappers like Brotha Lynch Hung, Insane Clown Posse, Esham, and House Of Krazees. Every inch of my room was covered in memorabilia. I loved the shock value and of novelty of horror-based music. It was not on TV. It was not on the radio. I had to search for it. When I found each tape, to me, it was something that I discovered. It was mine. I was living with my grandparents and around 1997 my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Such a sad time in my family’s life, it drove a few of my relatives to find God. You know how when somebody first gets into Jesus they want everyone around them to be too? Constant preaching, judging , and unwanted spiritual guidance was being tossed around like crazy around this time. I got the worst of it. The strange thing is, I believed in God. They just !*(%ed with me so much it pushed me away! In some weird family meeting I was sat down, and was told the posters in my room were a gateway to hell and these posters were giving my grandmother cancer. What the !*(%? Seriously? Yes, they were serious. They made me take them down.

Okay, we admit it. We’re intimidated.

Jason, my best friend who played the Triple 6 tape for me, called me one day and played me a song that he had recorded with his brother Gary. Gary produced a lot of local rap artists from our area. It was horrorcore. He rapped about murder, suicide, drugs and all kinds of weird $#!+. He was good, too! I started writing immediately. It was only natural that I, too, rap about the craziest stuff I could.

Around this time there was a serial killer in my hometown of Pittsburg, CA. I rapped about these murders, and killing babies, and anything I thought would piss people off if they heard it. I put my first basement demo out into the world called S.I.D.S. It didn’t even matter that I sucked. The album cover had me holding a dead baby on it. People wanted it. It became an obsession. Insane Clown Posse were all over the news for being kicked off Hollywood Records for their lyrics and Christians boycotting the label. I was a huge fan! They wore face paint and had an intense stage show that matched their music perfectly. It made me imagine these guys doing all the stuff they rapped about more vividly. I was so drawn in by the theatrics that I started wearing the Hannibal Lecter mask that I do to this day.

Music was all I thought about. I kept recording, planning and thinking of new ways to piss people off and please weird kids that also enjoyed horror based rap music. I planned on taking all these newspaper clippings about the murders, and kidnappings, and cutting out weird words from the newspaper and making a serial killer-ransom-type collage for my next album cover. I kept them in a little ziplock bag on my desk.

One morning I woke up to my family sitting in a circle around me. My four-year-old cousin holding the bag of newspaper clippings in front of my face in disbelief. My aunt leading the parade. This was an intervention. It was as if they found my stash of weed! As a matter of fact when they did find my stash of weed, it was less of a big deal. They were like, “What is this?” Why are you saving these? What do you plan on doing? I was in shock. They wanted to know why I rapped about the stuff that I do. I couldn’t even explain myself I was so taken off guard. They thought I was a !*(%ing weirdo! I tried showing them my sales from S.I.D.S. where I had just made thousands of dollars. They ignored that. They wanted to know why I was probably going to kill all of them in their sleep. At least thats how they made it seem. I remember being crushed. My girlfriend broke up with me and tried to use my music against me in court to get custody of my daughter. They laughed at her. What a %!+(#. I was hurting. At the same time, this fueled my fire. Not only am I pissing people off, but I have my family convinced I’m some type of psycho serial killer. If only I can convince the world.

Facing your nightmares in art is a great way to be toughen up when you meet them in reality.

I started getting a lot of attention pretty fast. My favorite record label who housed both Brotha Lynch Hung and X-Raided signed me. I, in turn, signed another hero of mine, Ganksta N-I-P, to the imprint. I was excited. My family told me to get a real job. I was approached by ADR Lavey of Triple 6, the very first group I heard doing horrorcore and asked if I wanted to do an album with them. He took me to my first real studio. I met producers and artists in the Bay Area I grew up listening to–everyone grew up listening to actually. He was the nicest guy ever for a Satanist.

I started getting in magazines for my weird music. I would say the most outlandish things in my interviews because I truly didn’t care. I was a young kid, getting shine doing something I loved. I felt it made reading those articles much more interesting. Plus, you don’t forget the face of some guy with a mask. Knowing my growing popularity I tried getting away from the dark scary beats and more into a sound normal people could listen to. Same lyrics, just better, well-rounded production and catchy choruses.

It worked. I quit Black Market Records and went into business for myself after a huge investment offer came into play. I was so excited that I wrote and recorded the album in a week. West Coast production, horrorcore lyrics, and the first edition sold out two weeks before its release date in pre-orders within three hours. Distributors came calling. The national release was just as crazy. My first check was $27,000. For one week’s work? I didn’t know what to even do with it! Some horrorcore fans said I was a piece of $#!+ for rapping about rape and killing babies, some said I was crossing the line. Some said my beat choices made me gangsta rap and not horrorcore, some gangsta raps artists said I was too crazy to play their shows anymore. Secretly I loved all the mixed feelings. People were starting to talk. Good or bad, that’s still good.

One of the people who bought this CD was Jeff Weise. At this time he was the second biggest school shooter in America. He was a fan of mine. He was also Native American and somehow thought he was a Nazi. Either way he was crazy as !*(%. The media picked up on his interest in horrorcore music and I did my first TV interview. What was the actual connection? Nothing really. It just made for a better story. People wanted to know what the music was all about. So now instead of having to explain myself to my family, I was explaining myself to the entire country. In a mask I might add. CD sales went crazy and normal people were pissed off, and people who would have never heard of me before started buying my CDs. When another fan committed another terrible act I did more: defending our style of music, comparing it to horror movies, and other forms of entertainment. Blaming the parents that raised them. More newspapers, more magazines, more TV segments. All shunning horrorcore.

Unmasked but incognito.

What they didn’t realize they were giving the entire genre exposure because these idiots did something stupid. I told radio shows I would do their segments if they played my radio singles a certain amount of times that week. They did. I advertised. I sent street teams out. I booked tours. I learned how to market myself. I learned the business and my numbers grew. I was being asked to tour with Insane Clown Posse and other big groups I used to dream about in sold-out venues all over the country.

Everyone wanted to know what the hell is wrong with me? What kind of person raps about things like this? I must be a sick person if I can come up with all of these stories and scenarios. Why do I wear the mask? Some people said the only reason I made it as far as I have is because I wear the mask and rap crazy. Some people said I would be bigger if I stop wearing the mask and rap about normal stuff. I’m a weird dude. I like weird stuff. Am I responsible for all the bad things in the world? No. I do what I do because I have fun doing it and their are people in the world who enjoy being shocked or just likes the novelty of weird $#!+.

I’ve seen the world. I’ve banged porn stars. Companies send me their clothes to wear every month. I’ve been on stage with my favorite artists in some of the biggest and smallest venues all over the country. Getting paid to rock crowds. I’m dating a model! I’ve partied with celebs and made friends with icons. Being a weird kid and doing my own thing, and being different, and taking a risk got me where I have been in life. Silly me.

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When the Oakland Tribune and the surrounding newspapers ran a front page story on where I grew up, I thought to myself, This is for all of the naysayers, the ex-girlfriends, the teachers and “grown-ups” and everyone who told me I was wasting my time. While my girlfriend’s family was still figuring me out, if I was an actual serial killer or not, again, I got an email from my uncle. He was at my teenage “music intervention.” He told me he was proud of me for never selling out. That he works the same job every day, day in day out, and I’m out doing my thing, getting fame, making money and seeing the world. To keep doing what I’m doing regardless of what anyone says. That e-mail meant the world to me. Finally somebody gets it.

Halloween is today. More than half of America will celebrate what I do for one night, and knock on their neighbor’s doors and scare the $#!+ out of each other. In retrospect Halloween was always my favorite time of the year. You get to dress up and be whatever you want. Escape from your normal life and live out some fantasy for a few hours once a year. You go to parties, you meet new people. It’s fun. This is what I do every other day of the year and it drives people crazy. This is my job.

But more importantly I’m a father. I spend the rest of my time encouraging my son’s dreams and interests, no matter how weird they might get. In life there are people who will not want to see you live the life you want to, because they stopped trying years before and ended up normal everyday people. It was taught that this is the standard. That is not a quality I want to instill into the next generation. Go ahead, dare to be weird.

Mars is working on a highly anticipated mixtape called Locked Up A Broad, due out early next year on Mad Insanity Records. It is hosted by DJ Clay and features Necro, Irv Da Phenom, Kung Fu Vampire, and Insane Clown Posse protégés Boondox, Axe Murder Boyz, and more. In December he’ll be heading out on his 14th national tour, “The Road To Redemption Tour.”

Follow him on Twitter @Mars and check out his music on iTunes. 

If you like your rap a little less shocking but no less playable in front of grandma, try check out Lil Dicky: The Skype Interview.

The only man who can get away with calling his fans Dickheads.