New Jersey’s schlock-rockers The Misfits are back promoting their reformation album American Psycho. Truepunk caught up with founding bassist Jerry Only.

Archival October 1997 Interview by Steve Tauschke | steve@staff.truepunk.com | with The Misfits’ Jerry ‘Only’ Caiafa.

You thought about putting the Misfits back together in the mid-80s but couldn’t due to legal reasons. I’m assuming Glenn Danzig was your main obstacle?

Yep, he’s just a very stubborn individual. The thing is, he didn’t want to have anything to do with the band, even in interviews and things like that. He wouldn’t talk about the Misfits, it was his own very well kept secret.

So you don’t get along with him at all then?

No. Not at all!

You mentioned he’s stubborn … how was he to work with back in the day?

He was OK. When we were in the band together ad working together for the same goal he was actually a very good guy to work with.

Do you feel uncomfortable performing a bunch of songs he wrote?

No!

Does he still earn Misfits royalties?

He gets publishing royalties from the records. Other than that, no. In a live performance situation he doesn’t get anything.

I suppose the purists out there with scoff at this line-up. Was there much of a backlash when the reformation album came out?

Well, a little bit but I gotta tell ya it’s maybe one tenth of what I thought it would be. I tried to dodge some of that because the first thing I did was take the Misfits to Europe and give Micheal (Graves - new singer) the opportunity to work himself into the band and feel himself out.

We’d only been to Europe once with the original line-up and that was only to the UK so when we went to Germany and France this time they were all open arms. They couldn’t care less who was singing for the band. Then when we got home Michael was already established as a very predominate force in this new band. He’s a very good performer, he’s young, he’s got a lot of energy and a lot of spunk, as they say.

And how was he received?

Based on his enthusiasm, he won over just about 98% of the crowd. You do get your purists like you say but I think they are just people not open to change more than they are people who really know what they’re talking about. I mean, Michale’s from Jersey too and the thing about him that I was interested in was that he knew who we were but he didn’t know the old Misfits material. So he wasn’t a Glenn (Danzig) clone and that’s why I was really excited about working with him. He could kind of bring a whole new life to this old material - the old stuff just gets a bit stale otherwise - and it wound up working really well. He could do the old songs incredibly.

So looking back how do you reflect on the Misfits’ enormous legacy. What do you put it down to?

Well, I think the actual honesty behind the music has a lot to do with it. The Misfits were never jaded in any way. We were never manipulated by record companies and told what was selling or what we should do. We always created our own style of music and own high level of energy and I think the lyrics being based on science fiction rather that politics or social dilemmas, I think that withstands the test of time and gives you more of an abstract feel. I think if we were a band that was politically or socially-oriented, trying to sing about everyday problems by the everyday individual, I think they wind up being dazed and losing their appeal. It’s also the strong image of the band, I mean we do have a very visual image.

What was the appeal of science fiction at the time?

I was just weaned on that. My favorite movie is the original Frankenstein. I do like the Mummy movie, I thought that was good. I thought the new Dracula was pretty good too and Mars Attacks I kinda liked. But I have children now so science fiction is something we can enjoy as a family. It’s very exciting, when we were kids we used to build Aurora monster model kits and we used to watch the Saturday night monster show, you know, Creature Feature, or whatever. We were also in sculpting, making monsters and dinosaurs in high school, in grammar school. That’s what’s kinda funny about Jurassic Park because T-Rex is a big hero now but he was always my hero when I was a kid.

Speaking of movies, did you see Ed Wood?

No, I haven’t seen it but it’s funny because I saw an interview with Bela Lugosi Jr. and some of the questions were about the Ed Wood movie and the questions to Bela Lugosi’s son were rude. I thought they were nasty. I didn’t see the movie but I would be aggravated if people asked me those questions about my father based upon somebody’s movie. He said it wasn’t an accurate depiction of how his father was. But everyone tells me the movie’s good so I gotta rent the damn things and watch it.

Have you heard the Misfits tribute album Violent World?

Yeah, at first I was a little aggravated with it because I thought the timing was kinda bad for our new album. Caroline (Records) had released Earth AD on CD with a new bunch of old Misfits product which, when we put out the new album, detracts from the new thought and the new band.

I would have thought a tribute album would help promote the current band?

Yeah, in a way, haha! There have been five new Misfits releases this year. It’s a good year for the Misfits. I mean I was kind of against the tribute album at first but looking back on it I’m really happy that the bands on it think highly enough of us to go out there and cover it. I think the music’s come back to catch us and I think that’s one of the lucky breaks that a lot of bands don’t get, to come out with something ahead of its time.

By the time the world catches up the band has already gone and doesn’t have the chance or the resources to come and put it back together. We’re fortunate enough that we hung in there all these years and we stayed in physical shape. We do a lot of weight lifting and we build our own guitars and things like that. After we took care of Anthrax and Megadeth (on tour), the only thing left is Metallica. And we’re gonna give them a run for the money!