‘Friday The 13th’ Actor Ari Lehman on First Jason, Acting, and Just Having a Good Time
Pat King
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Ari Lehman is a fun guy. His laughter is contagious and his enthusiasm is unparalleled. This is one of the most fun interviews I’ve had the pleasure of conducting. Lehman is, of course, the first person to have played the iconic Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th series. He appears on screen twice in the original movie. First, as the drowning Jason in a flashback, and second as the dead Jason who rises from the lake to attack Adrienne King’s Alice.
He has since become a successful musician, fronting his band called, appropriately enough, First Jason. They are a kick-ass horror metal band that rocks out horror conventions and nightclubs across the country and internationally.
I was fortunate to catch them live at Gettysburg’s Creature Feature Weekend in 2023, and First Jason tore the house down. So I was incredibly happy to get to interview Lehman about his upcoming CD, his time as Jason, his acting, and even his line of hot sauces!
Dread Central: So, as a kid watching the Friday the 13th movies, they didn’t really scare me except for that one moment. That one moment in the first movie where you jumped out of the lake. I have to ask, what’s it like being part of possibly the most iconic moment in Friday the 13th history?
Ari Lehman: Well, thanks, Pat. First of all, let me say how grateful I am to Dread Central, who has always been supportive and encouraging in my rather wildly independent journey.
I never take it for granted. Because I don’t think about it as me so much as being part of this amazing legacy. And I want to celebrate that legacy every day. Because somehow—and yeah, that scene was very scary and I’ll get to that—but somehow this has become part of American mythology, this character Jason. So, you know, little Jason, big Jason, it’s become part of mythology. It means so much to people and that means so much to me, man.
And so every time I get to meet people and share their experiences with Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees, it’s absolutely fascinating. Because the imagination and the enthusiasm and the dedication of Jason fans are absolutely amazing, and I’m very grateful for that daily.
Now, that mythos has empowered me as an artist with First Jason because, as I saw on the set of Friday the 13th, when you have a focus, when you have a topic, when you have a theme, when you have a story to tell, it just really drives your creativity. Because with Friday the 13th they had a limited budget and limited time, and somehow they made magic out of that. Tom Savini, Sean Cunningham, Barry Abrams, the director of photography, Harry Manfredini, the soundtrack composer, I think they all brought their A-game.
You know, Paramount had passed on the first project Sean sent to them, but they gave him a chance because he’s a great director. They passed on the first version that was sent to them in August of 1979 because it didn’t contain the final sequence where little Jason comes out of the water. And Paramount passed on that, as I can confirm—I worked with Sean in Germany about three months ago and he told this story to the crowd.
So when they delivered the version with the final sequence, the executives at Paramount got so excited that they distributed Friday the 13th in over 800 theaters on the same day. Which had never been done before. Usually, distribution was fifty theaters a day. They just loved that final sequence. Just so it didn’t get to my head, he pointed out that he also worked on Freddy Krueger. And so I said to him—and the Germans loved this—I said, “That’s like having a brother from another mother!”
DC: Well, they sort of came up together on the grindhouse scene. He produced Last House on the Left.
AL: Last House on the Left! Sean’s a unique person, and I’m so happy to have worked with him as a young man. He’s flexible and he’s practical. I think that in directing his strength lies in trying to make it feel real. Giving it an air of authenticity. And also he likes to have plenty of young people running around in bathing suits!
DC: You didn’t get to meet a whole lot of the cast, did you?
AL: Well, no, it was interesting because they had me on the set two times to do the drowning sequence. Because the first time they thought it looked too real and people would sympathize with little Jason. So, yes, I did get to meet Harry Crosby, and Kevin Bacon [etc]. They were all there.
Kevin famously—and I’ve told this story many times—he had gone off to take a piss in the woods, but, see, I was a very serious child. I would look at the lake. I was trying to imagine, to get into character. What would it be like to transform into little Jason? So he comes out and I think he might have gotten worried. This poor little kid, you know? And he said, “Hey Ari, what’re you doing?” And I’m like, “I’m getting into character, man.” And he just lost it. He thought that was so funny and he said, “You’re only twelve years old, man. Don’t be so serious!” And I said, “I’m FOURTEEN, Kevin!”
DC: Oh no!
AL: So I think that Sean knew who he was picking when he picked me to play little Jason. [Laughs]. And working with Tom Savini was such a great experience. He really gave me a deep respect for the legacy of horror. He worked with Dick Smith, and Dick Smith worked with Lon Chaney himself. And even in his studio! He has busts of Vincent Price and Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff and everybody right there. And he also brought a pet chinchilla to the set of Friday the 13th.
DC: Oh that’s adorable!
AL: Yes! His pet chinchilla named Peanut!
It was a fun set. I was the only kid, and we were in a summer camp! It was 1979, people were prone to enjoying themselves [Laughs]. It would be hard work all day, then at wrap, we’d all go swimming in the pond.
DC: Nice! So tell us a little about your band, appropriately named First Jason. You’re releasing a sort of greatest hits compilation CD?
AL: Killin’ It! Yes! That is a compilation CD coming out. Yeah, I felt that it was time to have something that was a definitive playlist, and people had been asking for CDs. I found for a little while that the interest in CDs was waning, but now it’s back. People like to have something that you can autograph.
I’m excited about the compilation largely because it includes a track that we did together with Twiztid, but also Alex Vincent, who played Andy in Child’s Play, did the programming. It’s a hip-hop song called “Killin’ it.” So I do a verse, Courtney Gains, who played Malachai in Children of the Corn [does a verse], and then Tim Capello, who played the sexy sax man in Lost Boys plays saxophone all over the track. And then Twiztid comes in and shows us all how it’s done. We’re having a lot of fun with all of that.
DC: So how’d you get all of them together?
AL: It was a crazy idea. I just happened to be in Florida and had a day off, so I went into Alex’s studio. At first, we didn’t know if we could get everybody. But then it really came organically through the process of being at horror conventions. So Twiztid invited First Jason to perform at Astronomicon, and that was an amazing show. I had the great opportunity to perform with Tim Capello in Manchester, England. We performed in front of a crowd of 3,000 people at For the Love of Horror, and that was amazing. Yeah, so I’ve found the conventions really facilitate those kinds of meetings.
For instance, this song is also on the compilation, it’s called “The Scapegoat.” Now, way back, Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills asked me to sing on “Thank God it’s Friday,” the acoustic version, which they put on The Silver Scream: FINAL CUT. So then I invited Spencer to sing on “The Scapegoat.” So the Killin’ It CD ends with the version where we have Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills singing with First Jason.
If you check out the video for that on YouTube, Spencer Charnas is actually in the video. It’s those kinds of collaborations that I think are so important. Because we’re all looking at this genre, which I think is a very real genre of music, and that would be horror-rock. Or even music that’s associated with movies. All these bands are associated with different movies, and it’s become a whole new thing.
Of course, First Jason’s approach is very heavy metal, kind of punk. You know, we love Motörhead, we love The Misfits, we love that kind of music. But I think the thing that makes us unique is that I play the keytar. Being a keytar player makes my approach more funky, more bluesy. So First Jason is kind of a sound unto itself. And, again, I’m super grateful to the punk scene, and the metal scene, and all the horror events that have welcomed us with open arms and open ears. People say what we’re doing is different.
Right now, we’re doing a power trio where I do a lot of pyrotechnics on the keytar. People love that format. And, admittedly, I’m looking to inspire new ideas. To bring together all of these elements, whether it’s from metal, whether it’s from hip-hop, whether it’s from horrorcore, horror-punk. You know, bring it all together. Because I think it’s a wonderful stew that’s going to bring out new flavors before you know it.
One of the reasons I did the Killin’ It compilation is so that I can say, “Okay, that’s what we did in the past seven years, and now I want to write a really great album that’s been inspired by what we’ve been doing all this time.” And present that within the year.
One thing that’s really cool about Killin’ It, also, there are two songs where I’m just playing piano and singing.
DC: Yes!
AL: I think those came out really good. One is “Power from the Pain,” and the other is “Dream Within a Dream,” which features words by Edgar Allan Poe.
DC: Yeah, [Dream Within a Dream is] one of my favorite tracks of yours. I like both versions, but the acoustic version is really powerful, actually.
AL: Thank you! That’s a good word to describe it. I owe a lot of that to Rob Ruccia here at Uptown Recording in Chicago. He does all the work for Nonpoint. Rob said, “Do you want to do this multi-track, or do you want to do it all at the same time?” I said, let’s do it at the same time, to get the feeling. He has a beautiful grand piano in his studio in Chicago. But he didn’t tell me there could be no correction! We couldn’t make any corrections. We couldn’t overdub anything. It was just do or die! So we got both songs in one take, which was amazing. Then he revealed to me, “Well, it’s a good thing you did that because I wouldn’t be able to change it anyway!”
DC: So how old is First Jason? When did you get the band together?
AL: Technically, our first album Jason is Watching! came out in 2009. We brought it out the same day that the last Friday the 13th. I can’t believe it, but it was the last Friday the 13th! Amazing to say that today, because we definitely would have thought there would have been more.
DC: There’s the show that’s coming out next year, I think.
AL: I’ve been talking to Sean. Now, I can’t really say everything that I know. But I do know that there is hope for a feature film. And yes, I do think there is going to be a series, as well. My personal feeling is that the story in Friday the 13th is more appropriate to a feature film. Because it’s like whoa, there’s all these dead people! Who killed them? Ah! It was Jason. That’s episode one. Episode two: DEAD PEOPLE! Who did this? Jason! You know what I’m saying? I like a feature film. I don’t want to discourage anybody over there.
People have asked me a zillion times: am I going to be in this, am I going to be in that? And my feeling is, most importantly, that whatever new project comes out respects the legacy of Jason Voorhees and the legacy of Friday the 13th. And my hope is that they don’t re-agendize this story to have any kind of a political bias or anything like that. I really hope that’s not going to occur. However, who knows? Every Friday the 13th had a little something different. But I’m hoping for the best.
DC: You have been doing a little bit of acting these past few years.
AL: That’s so nice of you to call it acting!
DC: What was it like taking such a long break? According to IMDB, at least, you didn’t do any acting from Friday the 13th until the mid-2000s.
AL: That’s absolutely correct. It’s a crazy story because I’d gotten into music. I went to NYU where I studied jazz music, and then I started working in world music when I got out of school. I was involved with a band in West Africa! So I even traveled to West Africa on one of the few Sunsplash tours that ever went to Africa! I really wanted to learn about African music, Latin music, and music from all over the world.
Then after all those years, what happened was somebody emailed me and said, “Did you autograph this photo?” Well, no. But he said, “But you’re Ari Lehman, the guy who played Little Jason.” I said, “Yes.” “Well, I just bought this for 50 bucks on eBay.” We found out who did that, the person was nice enough to return money to people. But that’s when I attended the first horror con I did, which was at the Meadowlands, Tony Timpone from Fangoria magazine invited me. So, after that, I think I went over to one person who I knew was a director, and he was talking about a movie. And I said, “You should put me in a movie!” So he had a new movie coming out called Hell-ephone. So yeah, he put me in that, and so began my independent film roller coaster ride.
Now, of course, everyone knows Clown Motel and the character Psycan. But I would say, if anyone would look at, okay, The Barn, where I play Dr. Rock. It’s basically myself. And in the first Barn I’m only seen on TV. But in The Barn Part II, this is I think my best job so far, I play Dr. Rock again and Dr. Rock pleads the case of Halloween so that they don’t close up because of the impending zombie attack.
I said, “No, you’ve gotta let people have their Halloween.” Which was oddly prophetic, because that film was released right around when everything was shutting down. So the director Justin Seaman, and I don’t know if you know this, but he built his own soundstage in West Virginia on his land. He built a soundstage and it’s absolutely amazing! His ingenuity, his originality, his determination. I really think people should pay attention to Justin, because he does a lot of great stuff.
It’s fun doing independent films. I like it because they allow me to just claw the scenery and go wild, and do things they would never let me do on a feature film set.
DC: So you’re kind of a renaissance guy. You actually have a line of hot sauces, too. How’d you get into the hot sauce business?
AL: We have three hot sauces! Oh yeah! I love those. And you can get those from Gemini Crow. Yeah, we haven’t been doing that as much. Recently we’ve been doing more T-shirts and that kind of stuff. But yeah, we love the hot sauces. That’s nice of you to say—renaissance man! Well, nowadays, you look at the social media experience and people are tuning into you on a regular basis, so you’ve got to come up with different angles and different approaches to the same brand almost each and every day, certainly several times a week. Yeah, and during quarantine, the hot sauce was a very top-selling item.
But when you look at the social media thing, it’s like, why do people get recognition? We get recognition hopefully because we’re creating content that’s of great quality. So way back, 44 years ago, I jumped out of that lake. And it became a myth. So it’s absolutely mind-boggling. It’s a wonderful thing to play with, so I love playing with it as an artist. It’s very surreal. And I think that we need to keep challenging ourselves every day to come up with new ideas, new content. I mean, gosh, look at where horror is today. It’s become so mainstream you never would have imagined it back in 1979, when we made Friday the 13th.
I think artists out there, we’ve got to challenge ourselves, and the audience should be ready to challenge the artist. Because what’s the point in being famous and more famous just because you’re famous already? I say, come up with something. Poetry, art, music, whatever it is. And nowadays people have more and more capability to come up and create content. So what can I say? It’s a very exciting time. You know, we’re almost always driving across the country in our van to get to a different amazing event. But, I’ll tell you what, it’s our pleasure. Because when we get there the enthusiasm and the encouragement that we receive is overwhelming. And I’m very grateful for it.
DC: What has it been like being able to do what you love for a living for all these years? Not everybody gets to do that.
AL: No, I never take that for granted. And I’ll be frank: It’s a challenge because of the world of today and the way they look at an independent artist. But if you’re willing to be flexible, if you’re willing to change as much as you can with the times, it works. For example: we used to do a lot of shows where it was just rock shows with random bands. And that was very popular at the time.
But I noticed in my travels that a lot of the venues were doing trivia night, they were doing karaoke night, or they’re doing burlesque night, or drag night, and people are coming out for this stuff. They’ll always ask me, “What time do you go on?” They don’t necessarily want to see three bands they’ve never heard of before, and stand around and rock out. That was more popular in the past than it is today. So we devised movie night with First Jason. An evening with Ari Lehman in which we rock out, sometimes alone, sometimes with a couple of bands, everybody has a few drinks, and then on a little screen, we’ll screen Friday the 13th doing a comedy commentary with anecdotes from me, and a drinking game, and a trivia game.
So we rock out and we do this thing, and people have just been loving it. Because they get to participate, they’re asking me questions during the movie, everybody’s hooting and hollering for Momma, and I jump up at the end. But we basically talk over the thing and have a lot of fun with it. So that’s been opening up new doors in small theaters and we’re very excited about that.
Categorized:Interviews
