Through The Eye Of A Psycho

Rip It Up, Issue 240, 1 August 1997, Page 16

Through The Eye Of A Psycho

The Misfits, the band formed by Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only in 1977, broke up in 1983, leaving behind two classic albums, Walk Among Us (1982) and Earth AD (1983); and a mythology for the next few generations of rock ‘n’ roll outlaws to aspire to. Their music - raucous punk rock with lyrics inspired by 50s zombie and sci-fi movies - has been covered by acts from the metal (Metallica, Guns ‘n’ Roses), and punk (Pennywise, NOFX) worlds; and their visual presence - cartoon evil ‘devil lock’ hairstyles, a death’s head logo (the ‘Crimson Ghost’) is etched into rock ‘n’ roll history as deeply as the Black Flag logo or Sid Vicious’padlock.

A couple of years ago, it seemed like all the loose ends left by the Misfits had been tied up. A coffinshaped box set was released, that contained, amongst other things, the previously unreleased first album, Static Age , (1978). Former vocalist Glenn Danzig had achieved world-wide success with his band Danzig, and the Caifa brothers - bass player Jerry Only and guitarist Doyle - were by all accounts busy running their factory in New Jersey, and playing in a band called Kryst The Conqueror (“our guitar clinic project”, according to Jerry). Then the news came that Jerry and Doyle had been fighting Danzig in court for nearly a decade, and finally won ownership of the Misfits name and associated logos. Thye got themselves a new vocalist and drummer, and took up where the Misfits left off. Before long, they were touring, and a new album, American Psycho , was released on Geffen. Next thing, Jerry Only was on the telephone to New Zealand. Contrary to his ghoulish image, Jerry is friendly and down to earth, and speaks at length about anything and everything in his workingman’s New Jersey accent. When you work for such a long time to get a band happening again, you wouldn’t want it to turn out as yet another undignified old guy reunion that destroys the credibility of your past. “Oh no. The thing was that I was totally against playing even one show without having new material because that would put me in the same category as everybody else who was coming back, either for the hell of it or for the money. So this was an attempt at greatness again - I thought we still had a lot to offer.” “You gotta realise something - that we had to actually cross through time to land in the 90s. That was the real challenge of the new band, not only to come up with the actual feel and rawness of the old band, but to bring it up to date and up to speed.”

When the rumours of a Misfits reunion first circulated, the word was that Danzig’s replacement was to be Dave Vanian (ex-Damned).What happened ? “He was the first guy I called, when we’d finally won the name in the battle with Glenn, He never called me back! [laughs]. He’s very lackadaisical about the way he handles things, and with me, I’ve gotta do everything now. I heard someone say that that’s the reason for time - so everything doesn’t happen at once [laughs]. But that was the problem with Dave. We toured with The Damned in 1978 doing their Love Song tour, and I thought Dave was a tremendous performer. His voice was really great, he looked really great, he moved really great - he had such charisma that I thought he was the band,

the rest of them could go the fuck home. And I always wanted to work with him, but he never called us back.”

And in the meantime, Michale Graves showed up. “Yeah. When Michale came down, I thought I’d rather have somebody who believes in what they’re doing, who would do nothing else even if they had the opportunity, and is very happy doing it. I’d rather go out and fail with someone who has that kind of constitution to him, than go out and succeed with someone who could really give a shit if they were doing it or not.” Has he contributed to the songwriting? “Yeah, the majority of the stuff is his. For example, ‘Dig Up Her Bones’ was written by him when he was 14, but he had these lovey-dovey words we had to change, but it had a very good melody and a very good hook to it. He’s very talented as a songwriter.” Danzig said that he wrote all of the old Misfits songs. Did nobody else have any input back then? “Glenn would have the hook, the melody, and I would come up with all the trim, and that’s the way we worked.

That’s why after he and I split up, you didn’t hear all those flairs in his music any more. You know, I’m really happy we got rid of him. You can’t put your ego above music, you’ve gotta put the music first and work with people to make it better. Four guys writing songs is better than one guy writing songs - and there you go:

American Psycho.” On the new album, the ghoulish subject matter and imagery of the last Misfits incarnation remains, but the title track deals with a very contemporary monster - the serial killer. “Actually, that’s from a book [American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis]. I don’t read books, but Michale does [laughs]. I thought that the title American Psycho had a lot of different meanings. One, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho - the most famous black and white horror film of all time. Not only that, you have the book, which people who are literary or read a lot can relate to. And then there’s just the fact that we’re out of our minds, so that also works”. “‘Psycho’ was a very good lead-off track. The Abominable Dr. Phibes intro is really cool and spooky and sets the mood, then ‘Psycho’ just knocks you on ya ass. It has every beat we’ve ever done, different beats we’ve been famous for over the years.” Of course, aliens still feature prominently in the lyrics. “Yeah - Doyle’s really afraid of aliens so it’s kinda funny we have so many alien songs on there [laughs]. The song ‘Walk Among Us’ is about them interbreeding into our race without us knowing about it - that’s why at the end it says, ‘We’re

already one’. You know, at first I said I didn’t wanna have any songs with titles that related to the old stuff, to be using our past as a crutch to get through the future. I just wanted to come out of the box and blow everybody away with a new outlook, new concepts, new guys and a totally positive attitude about the whole thing. The fact that it is the title of one of our old albums - the hell with it, it’s a

good song. I’m not gonna cut off our nose to spite our face just to appease anybody or their viewpoint.” Interesting connection though - American Psycho has more in common with Walk Among Us than the thrash album that followed it, Earth AD. “Well, I’ll be honest with ya. The Earth AD album was a far cry from what it was supposed to be. One of the reasons was that when we recorded it, Glenn slept through it, and when we broke up, Glenn mixed it. It really lost all it’s balls. We tried to make it like the Misfits meet Motorhead, make it really aggressive and the most powerful thing of all time. But it fell into his hands, and everything he touches turns to shit [laughs]. “But to be honest with ya, I think this [new] album is better than Walk Among Us - there was more to be proved, and our balls were on the chopping block. If we came out with a shitty album, we wouldn’t be talking now.” There’s a track that really stands alone on the new album -’Day Of The Dead’. One question comes to mind -big Elvis fan?

“Doyle wrote it! But, in either case, big Elvis fan. I remember in the old days, we had ‘American Nightmare’, a very rockabilly kind of song recorded at the same time asWalk Among Us, but we didn’t put it on the album. I told Glenn, ‘Listen, let’s play a goof. Let’s make a 45 of it and just write ‘Misfits, American Nightmare’ on it in standard type, not all the ghouly letters, and send it to all the country stations and see if they wind up playing it’. And we never did that. “When Doyle wrote ‘Day Of The Dead’ I was very happy about it. One thing that does is that it keeps you from being categorised. It shows that you don’t have one stupid style you push down everybody’s throat, song after song. We try to cover a whole spectrum when we come up with material - you can listen to ‘Some Kind Of Hate’ if you’re into 50s music, ‘Halloween’ if you’re into punk, ‘Death Comes Ripping’ and ‘Wolf’s Blood’ if you’re into thrash -1 think this new album did it too. We try not to get into different categories. It’s like pin the tail on the donkey - once they pin the tail on you, game over.” That dramatic Las Vegas ending is a great rock’n’roll moment. “I know -1 really like the laugh at the very end. I told Andy Wallace, the guy

mixing it, ‘You’ve gotta blast that laugh’, and he wouldn’t do it, you know. So I said, ‘Get outta my way, gimme that knob!’” Recently there’s been two Misfits tribute albums released, with mostly hardcore participants, but in the 80s it was heavy metal bands that picked up where the Misfits left off. But it wasn’t all tributes and respect-there was a rumour that Metallica actually stole a song from you. “Well, they didn’t steal my song , but they stole my idea of ‘Wherever I Roam’. When I went to see them, I brought a guitar for Kirk Hammett, I brought Lars the ‘Horror Business’ drum skin, and I brought them the full Kryst The Conqueror album, and they totally let me get hassled by every security guard and bouncer in the place. I almost got thrown out while I was giving the guy the guitar. What wound up happening was that they were in the back dressing room with Glenn and Eerie [from Danzig], all

laughing about our Kryst The Conqueror record. Then, on their next album, there it was - ‘Wherever I Roam’, or ‘Wherever I May Roam’. Excuse me, they threw a word in the middle, there is a difference [laughs]. Every time I opened a magazine they were roaming here and they were roaming there, and it really, really pissed me off. Their biggest thing was my fucking idea! [laughs].” With the violent reputation the Misfits had in the old days, ripping them off would seem to be a very bad idea. But times have changed - either Jerry has mellowed over the years, or people confused the Misfits intense on-stage persona with the real people underneath. Now,, when he speaks of how the Misfits communicate to “the kids” - who, incidentally make up 85% of the audience and were probably just being born in the heyday of the band - it’s an entirely

different message than what you would expect. “We try and send a positive vibe out to the kids. I know that in the past, rock ‘n’ rollers were supposed to be reckless, and they were supposed to be drunks... druggies... womanisers. But we’re very family oriented, and very down to earth. There’s no reason why they have to think that the people they admire are above them. “The only reason the Misfits ever existed was ’cause we had jobs to get it off the ground in the beginning. There would riever have been a Misfits if me and Doyle hadn’t busted our ass every day in the machine shop paying for guitars and amps. And yeah, kids have to understand that — they wanna be a guitar player and make their living that way, and they think they don’t have to go to school and they don’t have to get a job. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

TROY FERGUSON