Back in the first half of the 90s, when then second fiddlers Korn and Kyuss opened shows for them, LA quartet Danzig were top of the devil-rock fathers, so to speak. While the band’s profiled has dipped in the past decade, veteran metal ghoul and group nucleus Glenn Danzig has kept he show running with no plans to hang up the black gloves just yet.

Interview by Steve Tauschke | steve@staff.truepunk.com | with Glenn Danzig.

It seems like you’ve been around forever…what’s the secret to your durability?
I don’t know, you’d have to ask the fans. I just know that I do what I do and no-one tells me what to do. I don’t play the MTV game and The Rolling Stone magazine game, I just do what I do. I could never be somebody’s boy like that, like ‘you do what we say and you’ll make lots of money’. Fuck you - I don’t fuckin’ care!

Did that happen back in the early days?
Yeah, of course. Anybody who’s signed to a label will tell you that there are people at the label who try to steer you this way or that way or try to get you to do this or that. You’ve just got to stick to your guns and if that means not being on that label then that’s what it is.

I believe you actually retired from touring last year…have you just had enough?
I’m tired of doing it, I’ve been doing it my whole life and I’m tired of bouncing around on the bus, you know. It’s not being on stage that I don’t like, I love being on stage, it’s just the rest of the day and being away from your house for fuckin’ three months on end. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’ll still do local shows and there is talk of going to London to do one Blackest Of The Black show, which is a festival I’ve started so I’ll still hop on a plane and be away for a day and come back home and that’s fine. I’m not retired from playing, I’m retired from touring.

It’d be nice to simply materialize on stage each night I guess?
Yep, I’d love to just snap my fingers and be there and then snap my fingers and be home. If I could do that I’d do it forever.

You’ve been taking your former Misfits band mate Doyle on the road with you… how did you hook up with him again?
We’ve kind of kept friendly over the years and his wife is friends with my office assistant Craig and so we ended talking about a lot of stuff and he told me he’d left the Misfits a while ago. So he ended up sending me demos of his new band and he wanted to get back up on stage so it ended up happening. And we still crack each other up so it’s a lot of fun. He’s always been a really nice guy. I don’t know what else too say about him. Haha!

Has that reunion brought back any old Misfits memories?
No but it was a lot of fun being on stage together again when we did The Blackest tour.

Tell us about that Blackest Of The Black tour?
Yeah, I started it in 2003 and it’s just bands that get ignored by MTV and magazines, you know what I mean? We’re a on a darker slant I guess you could call it. It’s pretty cool but it’s also just who’s available at the time. I wish I could just go ‘ok, I want this band, this band and this band’.

How did you feel reforming Samhain for a tour back in 1999?
Well I had to do two sets a night, haha! We only did it in the States to commemorate the box that was coming out so we did a about a month and a half to two months in the States with Danzig and Samhain.

And you’ve released a Samhain doll too right?
Yeah, that’s the one based on the Samhain version of Danzig. The Three Faces of Danzig is one from the Misfits era, one is the Samhain era and one from the Danzig current era with the down cross and no shirt - it’s pretty fun.

I believe you’re a collector of rare Japanese dolls and toys?
Um, I used to be a long time ago but I pretty much got all I wanted back then. But a company in Japan approached us to do these toys and we just ended up doing it.

What’s happening with the album of dark blues songs you intended to record with Jerry Cantrell?
Yeah, we talked about it but right now he’s busy on an Alice In Chains reunion so maybe we’ll talk about it again when he gets back. If that doesn’t happen I kinda enjoyed working with Hank on this thing we just did. And his band are incredible so maybe it will end up just morphing into that, I don’t know.

Tell us about that collaboration with Hank III?
It was a lot of fun. I actually recorded it. We did a rehearsal and instead of wasting money on a rehearsal studio my friend has a (inaudible) studio hooked up so we all just went down there and while we were rehearsing we recorded the song - and it sounds good.

So is that available on the web?
No. I hate that. Haha! I hate people downloading songs. I like holding a CD or a record in my hands and looking at artwork. I hate that whole ‘put it on your Ipod’ thing. I’m a music fan and I like to look at bands that I’m listening to. I still like reading lyrics and seeing artwork.

When I last spoke to you in 1992 you had quite a bit to say about the negative impact of various religions …what are your thoughts on the situation in Lebanon and Israel right now?
Organized religion is the reason we have problems in the world and you can see it right now. You have the Muslims and the Christians flipping out and I don’t know who’s worse. I would have to say that at this stage the Muslims are worse.

Can you see a solution to what’s happening over there?
Kill ‘em all! Because to me it’s not religion, it’s fascism. I think all these kinds of crazy organised religions that try to push their religion down your throat are fascists and if you don’t buy into it they kill you or chop your head off and it’s retarded. Someone has to stand up and say ‘this is bullshit’. I just know I wouldn’t be fighting it this way. I’d just nuke everybody. So everyone should be lucky I don’t have a bomb, haha, because I don’t give two shits - I would just nuke ‘em all!

I’m sure you would …well, the consensus is that Danzig’s prime was the late 80s/early 90s and I wondered what’s become of that old line-up; Eerie Von, Chuck Biscuits and John Christ?
I have no idea! I’ve had so many band members over the years so .. Haha!

So who will we see on stage at the upcoming shows?
The band that’s been playing with me for the last year or so. Johnny Kelly from Typo is on drums, Jerry Montana (ex-Dead Lights) on bass and the new guitar player is Joe Fraulob who used to be in Deconstruct. For a while I was using Tommy Victor again, he did the whole Blackacidevil tours and everything including the first Ozzfest.

I assume you still delve back to the old stuff though right?
We won’t be doing any Black Aria stuff as I’ve always separated that from Danzig. I call it Glenn Danzig and usually I put a little disclaimer on it saying ‘hey don’t buy this if you think it’s a Danzig record’ because it’s classical kinda thing. But as far the Danzig shows, we’ll probably do what we’ve been doing for the past whatever years on tour here and in Europe. We got a good selection of everything from the first Danzig record up until now so people will get to hear all those songs - and there’s a lot of songs! It’s tough picking them but hopefully we pick the ones everybody wants to hear.

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!