Glenn: We were in Germany in the summer of 95. And we came over in 98 for The Full Force Festival and the Bizarre Festival and the year after that for the shows with the Böhse Onkelz.
Rod: You tour America more often than Europe. Any reason for that?
Glenn: It’s a pain in the ass comin over (laughs). But we were supposed to come over for Satan’s Child, but our label at the time – Nuclear Blast – wanted us to headline their festival tour. That tour was put on and off and we needed to plan about three or four months ahead of time which just wasn’t possible. So finally we went out on tour in the US again. We were planning to do Roskilde that year the riots happened. We would have been on stage at the time of the riots and would probably have been blamed for them, so we were lucky we couldn’t be there.
Rod: You've had a lot of bandmember changes, especially recently with Johnny Kelly filling the drummer spot. Are you a person that is hard to satisfy?
Glenn: Oh no, actually for as long as DANZIG has been together we haven’t had that many changes. It’s been pretty steady. Joey had been in the band for a pretty long time, as was Chuck Biscuits. Considering that long period of time, I don’t think there have been too many personal changes. A band like the Misfits had many more changes. Drummers and guitar-players. So I don’t see it that way, but I’m sure the press does.
Rod: Every once in a while you get into fights with members of the audience. What makes you so mad in these situations?
Glenn: It depends. Usually I ignore them, but sometimes you can’t ignore assholes. In America it’s not so much anymore, but here in Europe there are still a lot of them in the audience. They yell shit from the audience and just come to the show to be an asshole.
Rod: You’re planning the “Blackest of The Black” Tour. Where and when will it happen? Will maybe Samhain be a part of that?
Glenn: No, not Samhain. The tour will happen first in America, we might bring it over here, but I think it will play Skandinavia before it plays Germany, because honestly I think the German Rock market is over. It’s too techno and girl/boyband. It’s sad because Germany used to be the big Rock market outside of America, but it isn’t anymore. We’ve been here for quite a while and the Skandinavian shows were sold out in short time, one even in a half hour. Germany is ok, it’s not bad, but not like it used to be. And not only for DANZIG. While here, I put on VIVA and MTV in the hotels and they don’t play any rockmusic whatsoever. Nothing. Even MTV America plays Rock music. Everybody here in Europe is very critical about the US market, but now the market really sucks here.
Rod: Your songs are full or sexual fantasies and dark eroticism. Do you sing about personal experiences?
Glenn: Personal experiences are not fantasies, are they? Some of them are indeed personal experiences.
Rod: Do you get to live them out on tour as well?
Glenn: Some, but not necessarily.
Rod: What wild things do girls on tour do to get to know you or impress you?
Glenn: Girls off tour or on tour are the same. The world is the same.
Rod: Any stories that you feel like sharing?
Glenn: You just wanna hear sex stories (laughs). You don’t wanna hear about violence and the craziness and kicking the shit out of the motherfuckers?! (laugs again). No, seriously, getting girls is for anybody, not just if you’re in a band.
Rod: But as you are very popular and well known don’t you experience that girls do different things to get in touch with you?
Glenn: No, I don’t think so.
Rod: A statement on Groupiecentral said that you are “very good at oral and like to give more than so receive."
Glenn: I don’t know about any of that.
Rod: Is it fun for you to read that kind of stuff?
Glenn: I don’t read it. You geaks read it! It’s all bullshit anyway. People make it up. You don’t know who said it, you can’t verify any of it. It’s like when Marilyn Manson went online and pretended he was somebody else and said that Manson’s dead. All the people believed it.
Rod: I don’t necessarily think it’s true, but your reaction to this is interesting.
Glenn: Well I don’t know anything about Groupiecentral.
Rod: Is it fun to hear rumors about you?
Glenn: It’s funny that people would even bother making up stuff, but it’s also sad because it means they have no life. And they talk on the internet and live on the computer rather than going out and experiencing the world. The world is a great place. Even though it is very fucked up, it is still the greatest place to experience. And internet is not the greatest place to experience the world because it is on the computer and not real.
Rod: How about the fans that communicate e.g. on www.The7thHouse.com?
Glenn: Some of them are cool, some of them are loonatics.
Rod: Talking of loonatics…what was the most bizarre thing that was ever sent to you?
Glenn: Oh it’s been so many (laughs). Of course blood-smeared things and one was drenched in blood. There were dead animals, fingers, the craziest shit.
Rod: Fingers…does that make you wonder about the image you present to the people that makes them act this way?
Glenn: No, cause it’s just one person. Now you want me to judge everybody by one person? That’s retarded. Do you want me to judge Germany because you had Hitler? You have one person who does something fucked up, it’s no big deal to me.
Rod: Your anti-catholic and anti-christian attitude…
Glenn: I’m anti-religion!
Rod: …developed during Samhain, while The Misfits were still a Horror/B-Movie type of thing.
Glenn: No, that’s not true. When I was a young kid I realized the hypocrisy of religion. Religion is the reason we have wars, the main reason.
Rod: There’s been rumors about a box-set or similar release of unpublished songs. You wrote about 15 songs for “I Luciferi” which weren’t included on the final album…
Glenn: Way more than that. But there will be no box-set. I’m planning to release a CD with all the songs that never made it on the albums.
Rod: You’re going to drop the numbering of the albums for further releases. Will that show in the music, will there be some kind of cut now?
Glenn: The next records will definitely be different than the last one. But you will have to wait and find out how. I’ve been writing songs all the time. But I can’t talk about any direction that they will go in, that will happen when I really go in the studio and work on them.
Rod: How do you judge Jerry Only’s M25 tour. Does this give credit to the Misfits history at all in your opinion?
Glenn: It’s not the Misfits. Not even Doyle. It’s just Jerry and a guy from the Ramones who wasn’t even an original Ramones and some guy from Black Flag who looks totally out of place. In America they are playing very, very small tiny venues. It’s sad.
Rod: Do you feel bad about this? Do you feel that the 25th birthday should have been celebrated with Glenn Danzig on vocals?
Glenn: No! I’m not gonna do anything with that guy. That’s retarded. There’s no contact at all. It’s rather theses internet kids that try to start a rumour that a reunion is going to happen. More than half of them weren’t even alive when the Misfits were around. It’s so stupid.
Rod: Isn’t it an honour for you that people still love the band and are so fanatical about it?
Glenn: When it’s about the old stuff, yeah. The new stuff, to me, is not the Misfits. Nowhere even near to what the Misfits were. There’s no attitude to it. It’s really dorky and should have been just called “The Jerry Only Band”. That is my opinion.
Rod: What music do you listen to these days, any CDs that you recently bought?
Glenn: I don’t listen to much new stuff at all, because it all sucks big dick. But I like some Black Metal like Marduk, Cradle of Filth, Immortal and Emperor. That’s about it. Everything else is fake and boring.
~THE END~
Interview by Roderick Usher