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.