# The First Jason - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 8/29/26

An episode of [The Best of Coast to Coast AM](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1206175991), 30 Aug 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/61c1535a-56bb-431a-ad6b-ae2b00350f5c/7cbfbeac-b587-4b5f-915b-b4b600a107b0/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=b95f0c24-c199-4939-b52c-ae2b00350f65

Guest host Richard Syrett and actor Ari Lehman discuss life after playing Jason Vorhees in the original Friday the 13th. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
[0:04] Speaker 2: Why did you stop chasing Hollywood and pursue music, Ari?
[0:08] Speaker 3: Well, thank you for asking that, Richard. I was already
[0:13] Speaker 3: a budding jazz piano player when I was on the
[0:18] Speaker 3: set of Friday the 13th. You see, living in Westport, Connecticut,
[0:23] Speaker 3: I had met some teachers who had led me in
[0:27] Speaker 3: that direction. I was even drafted up to Bridgeport University
[0:31] Speaker 3: to work in Bill Finnegan's orchestra, who was like the
[0:36] Speaker 3: arranger for Stan Gatz back in the day. And so
[0:39] Speaker 3: I was already a little jazz piano kid. And I
[0:46] Speaker 3: kind of, you know, was trying to decide what I
[0:49] Speaker 3: wanted to do. I loved doing theater. Um, but, uh,
[0:55] Speaker 3: you know, I saw that that wasn't really a professional
[0:59] Speaker 3: path that I wanted to take. And then when I
[1:02] Speaker 3: did the movie thing, which I, I had done Manny's
[1:05] Speaker 3: orphans too, which was a lot of fun and I
[1:07] Speaker 3: had an 80 line role. So that was very intensive.
[1:10] Speaker 3: And I saw the whole process. Um, I was just
[1:15] Speaker 3: more drawn to playing music because the visceral experience of
[1:19] Speaker 3: being on stage, uh, you know, between a crowd that's
[1:24] Speaker 3: going crazy and a band that's just kicking butt, you know,
[1:28] Speaker 3: there's nothing like it in the world. That is a
[1:30] Speaker 3: sanctified space to be in. And as my piano teacher said,
[1:37] Speaker 3: you know, I think that my particular talents lie mostly
[1:42] Speaker 3: in music. And although I I think I'm a capable
[1:48] Speaker 3: actor as well. I wasn't really excited to join, let's say,
[1:53] Speaker 3: the world of auditioning to be in like sitcoms or
[1:58] Speaker 3: or I don't know, kind of be comedy like. I
[2:01] Speaker 3: wasn't drawn to that at that time. So, but, um, I,
[2:05] Speaker 3: I've always been inspired by, um, you know, great actors,
[2:09] Speaker 3: even as a young man, you know, the passing of
[2:11] Speaker 3: Tim Curry was, was recently. And, and, oh, wow. I
[2:15] Speaker 3: just used to watch all of like his Shakespeare and
[2:18] Speaker 3: Derek Jacoby, who I got to meet in England. I,
[2:21] Speaker 3: you know, I would watch that, but I didn't really
[2:24] Speaker 3: see that as, um, you know, maybe if I became,
[2:27] Speaker 3: I could do that academically, but okay. As soon as
[2:31] Speaker 3: I started, okay. When I got, I was given a
[2:34] Speaker 3: scholarship by the way, to go to Berkeley school of
[2:39] Speaker 3: music by Dr. Billy Taylor, who's one of the great
[2:44] Speaker 3: jazz piano educators of all time. And so, and, and,
[2:47] Speaker 3: and they had given that because I, I, I won
[2:50] Speaker 3: an award for, for, my pianistic excellence, as they said,
[2:57] Speaker 3: at this competition in Connecticut. So, yeah, I guess I
[3:03] Speaker 3: had showed a lot of promise in that area, which
[3:06] Speaker 3: I also just loved. When I got to New York,
[3:10] Speaker 3: I was there at the time when all of the
[3:13] Speaker 3: great jazz piano players were still alive. Okay, Richard, so
[3:16] Speaker 3: I could go downstairs for the price of a beer.
[3:18] Speaker 3: I could sit in Bradley's and watch Hank Jones or
[3:22] Speaker 3: Tommy Flanagan, or I could go see McCoy Tyner at
[3:25] Speaker 3: the village gate, or I could see like, like just
[3:28] Speaker 3: amazing musicians of that time.
[3:30] Speaker 2: Right. And, um, you know, you moved through a lot
[3:32] Speaker 2: of different genres. Um, you, you mentioned classical jazz, uh, reggae,
[3:38] Speaker 2: Afro beat, punk metal. Then in 2004, you create this
[3:42] Speaker 2: band called first Jason. So what, What made you finally
[3:47] Speaker 2: decide you were going to take this character that's followed
[3:49] Speaker 2: you since you were 14 and you were going to
[3:51] Speaker 2: turn that mythology into music?
[3:53] Speaker 3: Well, I had been in the world music scene. I
[3:56] Speaker 3: had gotten into a band from Nigeria, and we were
[4:02] Speaker 3: on Interscope Records and Tough Gone Records. I got a
[4:05] Speaker 3: standing ovation at the Apollo Theater. But see, okay, then...
[4:14] Speaker 3: I got invited to my first horror convention. And the
[4:17] Speaker 3: first horror convention was at the metal land. And there
[4:20] Speaker 3: was like a gazillion people there. Kane Otter was there
[4:23] Speaker 3: who played Jason seven through 10. Tom Savini was there
[4:26] Speaker 3: who I saw again after years. And I met Betsy
[4:30] Speaker 3: Palmer for the first time there. And lo and behold,
[4:33] Speaker 3: I looked around me and I thought to myself, Hmm,
[4:36] Speaker 3: you know, every metal head and punk is a horror fan. Okay. And,
[4:42] Speaker 3: And there's a definite connection between metal and punk. Not
[4:46] Speaker 3: so much reggae, world music. And at that time, there
[4:51] Speaker 3: was already kind of a decline in that scene, if
[4:55] Speaker 3: you will. So I just was inspired to create this idea.
[5:02] Speaker 3: And I took a manga cosplay sword, a huge... machete,
[5:09] Speaker 3: and I duct taped a Alesis Micron synthesizer to it,
[5:14] Speaker 3: creating the first ever machete keytar, which I put through
[5:18] Speaker 3: guitar effects, which is basically what I do. I put,
[5:20] Speaker 3: you know, synthesizers through guitar effects in order to get
[5:23] Speaker 3: the sound. Although now I use the Roland Synth Axe,
[5:26] Speaker 3: which is amazing and has great sound and looks like
[5:30] Speaker 3: a machete to begin with. And now it's actually painted
[5:35] Speaker 3: with machetes and Jason Massey by my drummer, Crumpy. But so, yeah,
[5:43] Speaker 3: one of the reasons that I found it was a
[5:45] Speaker 3: great idea, it's that when you're an artist and there's
[5:50] Speaker 3: so many avenues you could take to express yourself, you know,
[5:54] Speaker 3: having kind of come off the world beat thing, I
[5:58] Speaker 3: was looking like, what was I going to do next?
[6:00] Speaker 3: You know, for real. And boom, I saw this audience, Now,
[6:09] Speaker 3: I'm very grateful that the metal and punk scene gave
[6:13] Speaker 3: me the time to kind of change and get my
[6:16] Speaker 3: thing together. I had inspiration because when I was at NYU,
[6:21] Speaker 3: for instance, I met– a good friend of mine was
[6:25] Speaker 3: the singer of a famous punk band called Reagan Youth,
[6:28] Speaker 3: who was a total anarchist, wild punk band who people
[6:32] Speaker 3: should go and listen to because they– are completely amazing.
[6:36] Speaker 3: And so he would, I would take him to jazz
[6:38] Speaker 3: shows and he would bring me to the punk shows.
[6:41] Speaker 3: So I got to see, Oh, I got to see
[6:44] Speaker 3: like dead Kennedys. I saw bad brains. I saw white zombie.
[6:51] Speaker 3: You know, I saw a lot of these bands like
[6:53] Speaker 3: way back then when I was at NYU. So I
[6:56] Speaker 3: started drawing upon that and I met some great musicians
[7:00] Speaker 3: and first Jason came together here in Chicago and And
[7:03] Speaker 3: the first album, Jason is watching, you know, songs like,
[7:07] Speaker 3: you know, Jason Never Dies, Machete is My Friend.
[7:12] Speaker 2: Machete is My Friend. That's a romantic ballad, isn't it?
[7:15] Speaker 3: Yeah. That's a fan favorite.
[7:20] Speaker 4: And I know you're going to want some after hearing this.
[7:21] Speaker 4: This is an amazing story. We've got Stephen and Malachi
[7:24] Speaker 4: Gregory in Nelson, New Zealand. I understand that Malachi, who's eight,
[7:29] Speaker 4: almost nine years old now, was suffering with Not just
[7:33] Speaker 4: one or two warts, but I mean a significant outbreak
[7:35] Speaker 4: of warts all over his body. So significant it impacted
[7:38] Speaker 4: his ability to really function.
[7:40] Speaker 5: Yeah, he was having trouble even holding a pencil to write.
[7:44] Speaker 5: It was Ty's book actually that got me thinking about it.
[7:47] Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. It is an amazing immunomodulator. And so
[7:50] Speaker 1: I can see that it would work.
[7:52] Speaker 4: And so at what point did you see that there
[7:55] Speaker 4: was actually improvement? It was really going to work?
[7:57] Speaker 5: Well, look, we really started to notice it around 12
[7:59] Speaker 5: weeks later. you can see these things actually getting smaller
[8:04] Speaker 5: and smaller and then going down to where they're just
[8:07] Speaker 5: little red marks. The whole things are gone. And we're
[8:09] Speaker 5: talking about one the size of a walnut. I thought,
[8:12] Speaker 5: no way that's going to.
[8:13] Speaker 1: Wow.
[8:13] Speaker 5: It's just been miraculous to see him get into a
[8:16] Speaker 5: pair of shoes.
[8:17] Speaker 1: Yes. How wonderful.
[8:19] Speaker 5: It's great to see him so happy and confident.
[8:22] Speaker 4: Absolutely wonderful.
[8:23] Speaker 5: Our friends that have seen it, they're just blown away.
[8:25] Speaker 1: Ty, this is awesome. Yeah, this is awesome.
[8:27] Speaker 6: Another amazing story.
[8:29] Speaker 3: Why?
[8:29] Speaker 6: We're talking about carnivora. Call them to awaken your immune
[8:32] Speaker 6: system and protect yourself now. Call 1-866-836-8735. That's 1-866-836-8735. Or
[8:41] Speaker 6: visit carnivora.com. C-A-R-N-I-V-O-R-A. Carnivora.com.
[8:49] Speaker 2: You mentioned something interesting. You said most metal fans are
[8:53] Speaker 2: also horror fans. What's the connection?
[8:56] Speaker 3: Well, I think there's that wonderful... I mean, we've got
[9:03] Speaker 3: so many... I mean, both... both horror fans and metalheads
[9:08] Speaker 3: love that dark side, that dark storytelling. I mean, come on,
[9:12] Speaker 3: he goes back to Alice Cooper, but I mean, it
[9:14] Speaker 3: goes even back further to like screaming Jay Hawkins and
[9:17] Speaker 3: you know, Like there's been that horror side of rock
[9:20] Speaker 3: and roll since the beginning. And there's, there, there's people
[9:23] Speaker 3: who just love that. And even, you know, just the
[9:27] Speaker 3: use of that kind of imagery has, it just, it's there.
[9:30] Speaker 3: And then as time developed, you have artists like Rob Zombie,
[9:34] Speaker 3: Marilyn Manson, a much more conscious involvement. Now you've got
[9:39] Speaker 3: bands like Ice Nine Kills where every song they do
[9:42] Speaker 3: is about a different horror franchise, or I don't know,
[9:46] Speaker 3: a band like sleep token, where it's like, he is
[9:49] Speaker 3: actually saying he's personifying some, uh, other worldly sleep, uh, demon,
[9:55] Speaker 3: you know, uh, it, it's, I think that all along, um,
[10:01] Speaker 3: it's a fantastic way of focusing your energy. And who
[10:07] Speaker 3: better than myself to say, look, I can take everything
[10:13] Speaker 3: from the Boy Jason thing scenario, whether it's about life
[10:19] Speaker 3: and death, it's about good and evil, it's about a mother,
[10:23] Speaker 3: it's about a devotion of a son. All those things
[10:28] Speaker 3: I find that they just make people feel, that gives
[10:30] Speaker 3: them the feels, man.
[10:32] Speaker 2: I want to get into the psychology of fear here
[10:34] Speaker 2: a little bit. Why do we voluntarily terrify ourselves? I mean,
[10:37] Speaker 2: we spend good money, we sit in a darkened room
[10:39] Speaker 2: knowing somebody is going to try and scare the hell
[10:42] Speaker 2: out of us. What is the psychological need that what
[10:45] Speaker 2: psychological need does that satisfy?
[10:48] Speaker 3: It's emotional. Again, that's what it is. We know that
[10:52] Speaker 3: when we have a significantly emotional response to something, it
[10:59] Speaker 3: causes a transformation within us. And all too often in
[11:04] Speaker 3: the world today, where we were just having mundane and
[11:08] Speaker 3: kind of blase emotional responses to daily activity, um, to
[11:16] Speaker 3: be able, that's one aspect of it. One aspect is
[11:21] Speaker 3: the emotional thrill ride. Okay. But I believe, honestly, there's
[11:27] Speaker 3: more to it than that. It's an emotional thrill ride
[11:29] Speaker 3: where you know you're safe and you're taken to bizarre heights,
[11:34] Speaker 3: whether it's, you know, there's so many different levels of it.
[11:38] Speaker 3: But I think if we look throughout history, the reason
[11:44] Speaker 3: for horror storytelling is because there's a lesson to be told, right?
[11:48] Speaker 3: It's when there's an overindulgence in, say, ego or greed.
[11:54] Speaker 3: That's when these monsters come up. In the storyline, the
[11:58] Speaker 3: monster doesn't come up for no reason, right? The monster
[12:02] Speaker 3: gives the hero a pivotal point on which to become
[12:08] Speaker 3: a hero, but more than that, it's specifically designed to
[12:14] Speaker 3: destroy a negative aspect of human consciousness and it could
[12:20] Speaker 3: be depression itself it could be there's so many things
[12:25] Speaker 3: there's so many monsters I mean throughout history and I
[12:28] Speaker 3: mean I can enumerate this but what would it be
[12:31] Speaker 3: with little Jason with little Jason it's it's righteous vengeance
[12:36] Speaker 3: it's the fact that we have this feeling that that
[12:41] Speaker 3: somehow justice will be done, even if it has to
[12:46] Speaker 3: be a little boy coming back to life and becoming
[12:50] Speaker 3: what you call a vengeance ghost, right? There's a whole
[12:52] Speaker 3: tradition of vengeance ghosts for that very reason.
[12:55] Speaker 2: Is there an important distinction, though, do you think, between
[12:58] Speaker 2: exploring evil through art and actually glorifying it?
[13:04] Speaker 3: Again, I think that we're not.
[13:10] Speaker 3: Either condemning or glorifying. Okay, let's look at a specific demon.
[13:15] Speaker 3: Let's look at a Hindu demon named Raktabija. Raktabija, every
[13:23] Speaker 3: time you cut down Raktabija, his blood would fall on
[13:27] Speaker 3: the ground and another Raktabija would come up from each
[13:30] Speaker 3: drop of blood. So the armies came to attack Raktabija
[13:35] Speaker 3: and armies came up from the blood, okay? And they
[13:39] Speaker 3: didn't know what can they do? What could they do
[13:41] Speaker 3: if every drop of blood becomes another demon? So it
[13:45] Speaker 3: was Goddess Kali. Goddess Kali with her enormous tongue, okay?
[13:50] Speaker 3: That's why her tongue is so big. She came and
[13:53] Speaker 3: she covered the battlefield of the universe with her tongue
[13:57] Speaker 3: so that every drop of blood was absorbed by Goddess Kali, okay?
[14:03] Speaker 3: So that Raktabija was defeated. What is this?
[14:08] Speaker 1: Well.
[14:09] Speaker 3: It's talking about the overindulgence in greed, in desire, when
[14:14] Speaker 3: people have gone mad with overindulgence. Because if they're greedy
[14:18] Speaker 3: for one thing, it's not satisfied, okay? They become greedy again,
[14:23] Speaker 3: like the blood of Raktabija becomes more greed, more desire.
[14:27] Speaker 3: The only way to get rid of it is Mother
[14:31] Speaker 3: Kali herself has to come and cut it off at
[14:34] Speaker 3: the root by absorbing all of that blood. And only
[14:37] Speaker 3: the great goddess... can do that. And that's why she herself,
[14:42] Speaker 3: when we look at Goddess Kali with her garland of
[14:45] Speaker 3: skulls and her skirt of hands, which is about karma,
[14:50] Speaker 3: by the way, but she looks like a demon, very
[14:53] Speaker 3: much so. It takes a demon ass like that. And
[14:56] Speaker 3: all of those Hindu goddesses, one of their names in
[15:00] Speaker 3: their thousand names is the killer of such and such demon. Indeed,
[15:05] Speaker 3: even Lord Shiva, even Lord Shiva, It's called Bolinas, the
[15:10] Speaker 3: destroyer of, like, he's the one who has destroyed a human.
[15:16] Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
[15:19] Speaker 1: 1 a.m. Eastern and go to coasttocoastam.com for more.

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