They've also had to come to terms with the fact, as much as they'd like to, they can never take off the makeup. The Juggalos, apparently, don't want that.

"We've had our conversations about our artistic integrity, where we didn't want to believe that we sell just because of the makeup," Madrox says. "We made the educated decision not to fight what we don't have a say in. They made us. What we are and what we have we owe to them. We tinker with other stuff and leave shit like that alone. We acknowledge the fact if there was no them, there's no us. We'd just be doing it for the hobby."

The road to success for Twiztid is littered with compromises, and the two are fine with that. If the fans want the makeup, they'll wear the makeup. The tradeoff is that Twiztid will, within reason, do what they want musically. Take the new album, Heartbroken and Homicidal, a record that's quite a different beast from the previous album, W.I.C.K.E.D. While that album dealt almost exclusively with fictitious subject matter (demons and the like), this time they're tackling real issues and, they say, saving lives in the process.

Wait, what?

"We've had people tell us that we've saved their life," Madrox says. "There are a million and one introductory statements you can make to a person that are not, 'You saved my life. You let me know I wasn't alone in the world.' That's no smoke up our ass. That's a real motherfucker about to kill himself and then he heard some dumb shit we did and it changed his mind."

Hey, if Twiztid have saved even one life, then they've already more than proved their worth, right? Who's to argue? And, thanks to ICP, they have a built-in fan base. As long as they stay true to what has already been given the seemingly always-topical Juggalo seal of approval, those fans will be on them forever, and Twiztid care little for the many who joke at the Juggalo phenomenon. If anything, the two thrive on the animosity aimed at them.

Still, the animosity is misguided. The two men of Twiztid are actually anything but twisted. They play their onstage psycho roles well, but scratch the surface even slightly and you'll find two family men who are anti-homophobic, anti-racist, anti-sexist and are appalled by the violence that really goes on in the world.

Twiztid's Heartbroken & Homicidal is out now on Psychopathic Records.

Twiztid's life-changing albums

Jaime Madrox
1. KISS: Rock and Roll Over
2. Black Sabbath: Paranoid
3. Michael Jackson: Thriller
4. 3RD Bass: The Cactus Album
5. 2Pac: Strictly 4 My Niggaz

Monoxide
1. Dogg Pound: Dogg Food
2. Dr. Dre: The Chronic
3. Tupac: Me Against the World
4. E-40: In a Major Way
5. Bing Crosby: White Christmas

> Email Brett Callwood