Words
by Justin Donnelly
There
are few artists that can claim to have achieved success
fronting three completely different groups within three
distinctly different musical genres, but then Glenn
Danzig is like no other.
Having
first announced himself onto the New Jersey punk rock
scene with The Misfits (Which Danzig fronted from 1977,
before disbanding the horror punk act in October 1983),
Danzig soon shifted his creative talents towards his
new act Samhain, which saw his advance beyond the thrash
based punk mould more towards a far darker and more
experimental sound that was far more gothic/metal influenced.
Although having only managed to produce two albums and
one E.P. throughout their four-year existence, Danzig
managed to develop a larger cult following with the
underground Samhain than what he had achieved with The
Misfits, which still remains to this day.
But
it was Danzig’s move to Rick Rubin’s newly founded Def
Jam Records (Later re-named American Recordings), a
change of name (To simply Danzig) and a new line-up
in 1987 that saw Danzig make one final genre transition,
this time towards a straight heavy metal sound, and
one that propel him from out of the underground and
onto worldwide success.
Over
the course of nineteen years, Danzig has weathered numerous
line-up changes and label moves to produce eight full-length
studio albums, one E.P. and a live album, with his last
release being 2004’s acclaimed Circle Of Snakes.
But
for all the extensive touring Danzig has undertaken
throughout his career as front man for all three groups,
he’s only managed to make it to Australia once (Which
was back in 1993 when his group featured the classic
line-up of guitarist John Christ, bassist Eerie Von
and drummer Chuck Biscuits) while in support of Thrall
- Demonsweatlive.
However,
all that is set to change, with Danzig making his almighty
return after a thirteen-year absence this month on what
will undoubtedly be his second and last visit ever here.
Speaking
from his office base in Los Angeles, I caught up with
the quietly spoken man in black about his upcoming plans
to release two new albums, his return to Australia,
his involvement in former The Misfits guitarist Doyle
Wolfgang Von Frankenstein new project Gorgeous Frankenstein
and his various other works in progress outside his
own band Danzig.
“I’m
always busy! (Laughs) I don’t even sleep anymore. Outside
of Danzig, I just finished working with Simon ‘Biz’
Bisley (Renown British artist) on a graphic artwork
adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost for my comic
company Verotik. That was amazing. Since then it’s just
been movies, which includes Ge Rouge (The voodoo zombie
Verotik comic book feature film that Danzig plans to
direct). I think that’s enough for me at the moment.
It’s crazy. We (Verotik) have so much shit going on,
I don’t even know where to start.”
In
amongst Verotik’s busy release schedule, Danzig has
managed to finally schedule the release of his two long
in the works projects, with the first being his follow
up to 1992’s Black Aria (Namely Black Aria II, which
is conceptually based around Lilith, the first wife
of Adam) due sometime in September.
“Yes,
that’s true. It was supposed to come out last year,
but I was switching distributors at the time, and I
didn’t want to give it to the old distributor. So basically
I waited. Now that my distribution deal is done here
in the U.S., it’s finally on a release schedule. The
album itself has been already been recorded for some
time. I started recording it at the end of 2004, and
into the beginning of 2005. But I’ve had the album written
since 2000, or early 2001! (Laughs) Finishing it was
really a matter of finding the time in-between tours,
making other albums and all the other crazy shit that
I do. I actually had to sit down and actually force
myself to do it! (Laughs) That’s really what I had to
do. Once the album was finished, it was more the question
as to whether or not I wanted to turn it in to my old
distributors. I simply decided not to. But what I’ve
since then was to spend a little more time refining
it a bit more. I went back into the recording studio
and recorded another track for it, which I would have
to say is very creepy. It’s all vocals. There’s no music
on it. There are so many layered vocals on it that it
almost sounds like there’s keyboards in there. It’s
just the way the vocals are layering and working with
and against each other. It’s a very creepy effect.”
With
fourteen years between the release of the original Black
Aria and the upcoming sequel, if not hard to expect
a few changes in style and sounds, and Danzig couldn’t
agree more.
“I
would have to say that this album is even creepier than
the other one. It’s a little more Eastern flavoured
because there’s a lot of drums on this one. That’s because
it’s all based around the time and place of Lilith.
I tried to inject that flavour in there. But there are
also some similarities to the original. You’ll hear
it. I’m pretty happy with it.”
When
asked as to whether people will understand the premise
of Black Aria II compared to his other work in his solo
band, Danzig remains confident that history will to
some extend repeat itself.
“I
think those who enjoyed and understood the original
Black Aria will like this one just as much. I mean,
Black Aria did really well here in the U.S.! (Laughs)
I wasn’t expecting that. It seemed to be very well received
by the fans, and there were a lot of people who wouldn’t
otherwise normally buy Danzig albums who went out and
bought it. So I was pleasantly surprised. I think we’ve
passed the Gold status, and approaching close to Platinum.
That’s still a huge shock for me.”
The
second planned release this year from Danzig is the
long talked about compilation album Lost Tracks Of Danzig,
which compiles a host of previously unreleased material
from Danzig’s early beginnings, through to the present
day.
“Lost
Tracks Of Danzig is old stuff that dates right back
to the first Danzig album (1988’s Danzig) right through
to now. I was only able to start work on this album
when the court case was finally sorted out. When I left
American Recordings in 1994, Rick Rubin (Label founder
and renowned producer) sued me and I sued him. I ended
up winning all my unreleased material back. Anything
he never released, including any live shows we recorded
that he never put out, I won back and own. There was
some stuff that he has yet to turn over because he can’t
find them, well he says that he can’t find them, but
I have most of the recordings. He still has the rights
to the albums that were released through his label,
but we’re trying to get them back now because he hasn’t
been accounting back to us properly. So we’re trying
to get those back from him. But that’s a whole other
story. We actually just shot a video for one of the
songs on this new album just last week. That’s called
Crawl Across Your Killing Floor. That was a song that
didn’t make it onto Danzig 6:66 Satans Child (1999).
This album wasn’t planned as a way of clearing out the
vaults just for the sake of getting new material out
there. It’s something that fans have been asking me
for. I always get questions from fans as to how they
can get a hold of this track or that one. There are
a lot of old second-rate demo cassettes of songs that
were half finished floating around out there. So I just
sat down and sifted through the songs and just seeing
which ones were good enough to be on an album, and which
ones weren’t. So far there’s about twenty-six or so
songs.”
While
a lot of the songs to feature on Lost Tracks Of Danzig
have rarely been heard outside the recording studio
(Namely the covers of David Bowie’s Cat People and Marc
Bolan’s Buick Mackane), the tracks that have been in
the hands of fans for some time are generally the unfinished
versions that have managed to mysteriously find their
way into the hands of bootleggers.
“God
knows how they get a hold of those. Sometimes I would
leave the studio with a cassette and you would loan
it to a friend, and they would borrow it and copy it.
And then they would give it to their friend, and so
on. So all the fans have tenth generation copies of
the songs that weren’t even complete. Some of those
songs didn’t even have the right lyrics. Those songs
were all at different stages of completion. Some needed
guitar tracks, some need bass tracks or some even needed
lyrics/vocals. A lot of the stuff that I did with the
original line-up was primarily just Christ and I going
in and doing the bass and guitar tracks ourselves. So
some needed proper bass tracks.”
The
compiling of Lost Tracks Of Danzig hasn’t been without
its dramas, with time and engineering mistakes making
the putting together of the album a challenge from the
word go.
“Some
of this stuff was so old that I had to have the tapes
baked. What happens is that when tapes get really old,
it will no longer play on the machine. It slides all
over the place, and all the actual sound recordings
on there start falling off. So you have to take it to
a special company, who will then bake those tapes in
a special oven. It’s then that you have one play to
transfer it to another twenty-four track, or in this
case, all onto the hard drive. We’ve had to go through
some thirty-two tapes in the baking process so far,
and I think we’ll have to start doing some more next
week in order to finish the album. The other problem
we’ve had is engineering problems. We found this out
when we were trying to put together the acoustic version
of Come To Silver from the recording sessions for Danzig
5 - Blackacidevil (1996). The vocals on the original
were sung through an old ‘40’s/‘50’s microphone to get
that creepy/weird sound. We were experimenting a little
with the song at the time, and I ended up recording
an acoustic version that had this nice straight vocal
on it. So when I went in to remix it with my current
engineer for this compilation, we found out that the
old engineer that worked on that album didn’t think
that we were going to be using it, and went and wiped
the track. So I had to sing the whole song again. You
just never find out about this stuff until you put the
tape up on the machine! (Laughs)”
Looking
more towards Danzig’s future, he admits that there are
no definitive plans for a follow up to Circle Of Snakes
any time soon.
“We’ll
see. I mean eventually there will be another album,
but not right now. I’ve really been concentrating on
releasing Black Aria II and finishing up this Lost Tracks
Of Danzig compilation. I have to have this done by the
end of August if I want it to come out in late November.
That’s what’s really been taking up my time of late.
I’ve also been writing scripts for movies and a few
other things as well. So my life is a little crazy at
the moment. I know that eventually I want to do this
blues album that I’ve been talking about doing for a
while too. I’m hoping to work with Alice In Chains’
guitarist Jerry Cantrell (Who in the past guested on
Danzig 5 - Blackacidevil) on that album when he gets
back from tour. If that doesn’t work out, then I’ll
talk to Hank Williams III about doing it with him. I
just did a show with him, and we recorded the rehearsal
at my friends recording studio live, and it came out
really good. We were both kind of really happy. Perhaps
that’s maybe the way I’ll end up going. We’ll just have
to see what happens.”
Of
course, the whole point of this conversation is Danzig’s
impending return to Australia after thirteen years,
which is something the man in black and fans both agree
is long overdue.
“I
think the reason for me being away so long was a combination
of timing and promoters. I had a management company
back in 1996 that received an offer for us to come back
over there, but I didn’t know that until I fired them
and got all the files back from them. That offer they
turned down was for a tour of seven cities. That did
piss me off a little. It would have been nice for us
to have gone back down there after three years away,
and especially with the prospect of playing seven different
cities. I mean last time I was there I had a good time.
I mean I don’t have any bad memories of the place! (Laughs)
There were a lot of old bookshops there, and I managed
to find a couple to add to my collection (For those
who don’t know, Danzig is keen book collector). But
besides that, since then I don’t know that we’ve actually
had any real offers that made sense in the timing, or
at least not that I’m aware of. I’m pretty much the
one who O.K.’s the touring side of things for the band.”
Although
having been rumoured for some time, Danzig confirms
that following his visit to Australia, Danzig plans
to retire from life on the tour road and focus solely
on his creative output.
“That’s
true. I’m not touring anymore. This Australian tour
means that I’ll be able to do these three shows and
be back home in five days. That way I don’t have to
bounce around on the bus. The only other plans I have
at this stage is one more show in London, where I’ll
be playing on my own festival Blackest Of The Black.
So that’s it. I’ll stop touring after the Blackest Of
The Black show. If I can hop on a plane and be somewhere
and be home that night, or the next morning, then sure,
I’ll do that. I’m just not going to do the long endless
tours of the U.S. or Europe anymore. I’ve been doing
that my whole life, and I’m just tired of doing it.
It’s just the travelling. It’s not the shows on stage,
because that’s what I love. But that’s only two hours
of every night. The problem is the other twenty-two
hours of the day when you’re not at home but on some
bus somewhere. It’s fucked. I just don’t enjoy it anymore.
There was a time when I was a kid and I enjoyed it,
but I have always said that when I stop enjoying it,
that’s when I’ll stop doing it. I stopped enjoying being
on the bus. I enjoy being on stage, but I just don’t
enjoy being on the bus.”
Prior
to his touring retirement, Danzig will be doing three
shows here in Australia, which he promises will make
up for his absence.
“I
guess last time we were there you only saw songs being
performed up to Danzig III - How The Gods Kill (1992)
and Thrall - Demonsweatlive (1993). So we really only
had three and a half albums worth of material to showcase
from. Fans haven’t seen anything from 4P (1994), Danzig
5 - Blackacidevil (1996), Danzig 6:66 Satan's Child
(1999), Danzig 7 – I Luciferi and Circle Of Snakes.
I mean that’s a lot of albums to choose from. We’ll
put together a set list that’s a combination of everything
from the first Danzig album right up until now. We’ll
try to add a bit of everything so that way people get
to hear all sides of Danzig.”
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