Before my interview with Violent J from Insane Clown Posse, I asked readers whether they had any questions for him.

While @THE_matticus on Twitter and Aiwass on MySpace expressed their distaste for the horror-core rappers, @am_studios posed this question:

"What was the most effective thing they did to break themselves into the industry?"

Here's Violent J's answer:

"I would have to date it back to the first album, our first Joker's Card. We were basically nothing, nobody, we had no name at all. But we wanted all the record stores in Michigan to carry our album, so what we did was we went and we paid the two biggest stars in Michigan at the time, the two biggest rappers; one was Esham, the other one was Kid Rock. We paid them both to be on our album, to do a song with us. That way our brand-new album, which nobody had ever heard of the group or the album, we could say it features Esham and Kid Rock on it and they were both big sellers.

"So that was probably the best move we ever did because that got us in the stores and the record stores agreed to carry the album because it had them on it. That would be my suggestion if you're brand-new and nobody's interested in your album or who you are yet. A quick way around it is to put some stars on your album if you can do it because then people kind of accept you into the club."

Violent J went on to say that he still talks with Esham, and while their producer still works with Kid Rock, he doesn't talk to Rock anymore.

"He's too Hollywood now," Violent J said. "He's a big star, huge star."

Follow me on Twitter @S_DePasquale to submit questions to the other artists I interview each week.

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