G: You get a shorter set.
GD: We get 45-50 minutes. We usually do two hours. But it's good 'cause I can
go out there and I don't have to hold back my energy.
G: What's in the set list?
GD: Four new songs, "7th House," "Sacrifice," "Deep," and "See All You
Were." "Her Black Wings," "Twist of Cain," "Mother," "It's Coming Down,"
and we may switch off ending with "Long Way Back" or "Bringer of Death."
I'm forgeting something. Oh, "Dirty Black Summer."
G: What are your plans after the OzzFest?
GD: We're making nine Halloween instore appearances and headlining two live
shows in five days. After that we'll hang out for a bit or go to Asia or
Europe, somewhere overseas.
G: When will you be back here?
GD: January. We want to take Lords of Acid with us if possible. I'm a big
fan. I saw their show last year at the Palladium. It was probably the
wildest, most energetic show I ever saw, it was like a hardcore show.
There were three pits in the front and people going crazy in the back. It
was what a live show is supposed to be. They'll be the middle slot and
we'll take a third band.
G: Are you making videos?
GD: There's talk about "7th House" or "blackacidevil" as a video, and I think
"Sacrifice" will be a video. To do them to get played on MTV is bullshit but
if you can bring something different or do something that you want to do,
great.
G: Are you involved in the creative process?
GD: Yeah, that was a problem I had at American. It was, "Do it our way or
your video will never get made." American started off as a cool label and
then became a corporate label. You played their game or it didn't happen.
The home videos I wanted to do never happend. Our first home video went
gold and platinum. All the fans asked me about it. There are people who
support the band and want to have the stuff, and when they can't get it,
when MTV or the Box stops playing it, how are they gonna get it?
G: Is there more support from Hollywood?
GD: It's a new label and I'm excited. Bob [Pfeiffer] is behind it and I'm
happy to be at a label that's excited about putting out records.
G: Alice Cooper is on Hollywood now, too.
GD: Really? Black Sabbath was the first band I saw and Alice Cooper was the
second.
G: Isn't Hollywood corporate, too? It's also part of Disney. And is that
a problem considering their image and yours?
GD: No, after talking with them, they're way more adventurous than anyone at
American ever was. And Walt's stuff was pretty wild. Look at Fantasia.
Recently they were boycotted by a Baptist group. I'd rather be at Disney
than at Warner Bros. with Ted Turner, someone who didn't like 60 minutes and
thought he'd buy CBS to take it off the air. A little too much of an
egomaniac. Anyway Hollywood's been great so far. Dimension and Miramax are
Disney companies, and they've had Pulp Fiction and Dusk Till Dawn. I'm happy
so far. They knew going in that this was Danzig. There's also a lot of
misconceptions about what I do.
That might be from people in the industry who hate me and don't want me to
succeed, because I'll tell people to fuck off, I don't care. I don't play
the money game. If people ask me my opinion I'll give it to them but if
they don't like it they hate me.
G: Speaking of movies, you've been involved with soundtracks.
GD: I've only done two, The X-Files and Less Than Zero. I've talked to
people about it. What I've tried to do throughout the record is soundtrack
music. That's the stuff I'd like to in the future. I might be doing a movie
I'm bringing over from Japan called X, to Miramax. It's an animated movie.
I'll be picking the bands for the soundtrack, and there won't be any Pearl
Jam-sounding band, no jangly, boring, hippie music.
G: I hear you'd like to get involved on camera as well.
GD: Today I went on a movie casting. I've been looking into it over the past
two years but I haven't had anything I wanted to do. I went to see the director
for Prophecy 2. I want to be a bad angel that wants to kill the humans. I'd
have to fly out from the tour. I'm not interested in being a movie star but
I'd like to be a villian or an anti-hero. As long as it's fun. I can't do it
if it isn't me. My heart wouldn't be in it.
G: What about directing?
GD: I've been working towards directing a movie, in the next year or two. My
own script. I want to bring some of the comics to the movies and there's
another thing I've written. We're working on Satanika as an animated film
in Japan but I'm not directing that and I don't know if I want to direct
animation. I'm talking about live action. There are a few other scripts
ideas I have that I want to do eventually as films. I can do pre-production
on it while the other stuff is going on. I do like eight things a day.
G: What's going on with your Verotik comics?
GD: They're out there. A lot of kids have trouble finding our comics since
some stores don't carry them but we're in Tower Bookstore and Virgin and
Border's with our perfectbound stuff. They can also write to us or to the
website. We have a Verotik website and we get the wildest letters. It's
great. The great thing about the Internet is it hooks kids up every day,
the bad thing about it is rumors go across the country in a second.
G: Do you go online?
GD: Well in the beginning, I went on the Internet through American while I
was on tour, American Online or Compuserve would come to the hotel while I
was on tour and set it all up for an hour. I did it twice. Of course we
have computers at Verotik, everything's on Zip drive. Now we have a new
Verotik website and there will also be a Danzig website, run by us.
G: How many comics are you doing now?
GD: So many. Most are bi-monthly. I design some of the characters. I pick
colors for the logos, make sure they match. I write the stories for half
the books, there are some I don't write. I don't write Sunglasses After
Dark, that's Nancy Collins. I don't write Verotika, but occasionally I do a
story for it. It's two erotic horror stories per issue, written by people
who do horror novles and hard covers. They're not from the comic book world.
We adapt them to the comics and give the correct artists the stories,
[people] whose style fits the tone of the stories. Verotika is an adults-only
book, erotic horror. I do Satanika, Death Dealer, which comes out twice a
year. It's a pain in the ass even though it's only twice 'cause it's an
epic book. So every month or every other month I'm doing roughly six comics,
possibly more, plus Death Dealer and any special one-shot or mini-series
that come up. I work on book a week.
G: Where do find time when you're on tour?
GD: In my hotel room. I put the tracing paper over the artwork and I put the
balloons so they don't cover the artwork and I put the words in. I did all
the Satanika on the Danzig 4 tour. I send them the letter. The computer
people scan it all in. The only problem is I don't have all my stuff there
for reference but I have a pretty good memory. I have a very big library
room where all the walls are shelves for books. I live in Los Feliz and
sometimes it gets so bad with people banging on my gate. I'd like to move
but I don't have the time.
G: No wonder
GD: Even in Samhain and the Misfits, I booked the band, did the artwork, ran
the label, picked up the records, dropped them off at stores, did the
photography. If I didn't do it it didn't get done.
G: Are you writing for the next album yet?
GD: Yeah, I never stop writing. I throw out a lot songs. Maybe a few years
from now I might do a record of stuff I've done for other people, you never
know. I'm always writing. I want to do something better that what I did the
last time, I don't want to repeat it. American said they wanted another
song like "Mother," and I said "'Mother' was on our first record and if you
promoted it right you would have had something." Six years later it became
a hit. I could have easily written another song like "Mother" that progressed
the way it did and it probably would have gotten a lot of airplay but that's
not what I'm about. I try to be true to myself and be true to what people
expect from me, not so much a musical direction but integrity that they always
want on a Danzig record and they know they'll get it. I just do what I do,
and if people like it, great and if they don't they can go to hell. I'm happy
being on a big label. If it's an indie label it will probably be mine. I've
always had my own label, Evilive. This does come under my imprint at
Hollywood, I took it there from Caroline. In the beginning with Danzig I was
supposed to have total autonomy but it became less and less of that as Rick
[Rubin] became less and less involved with the label and wanted it more
corporately run. It was a drag being there, it wasn't what I wanted.
G: Can you pick a favorite of your albums?
GD: Probably the most recent one I've done because it's the most current and
exciting.
G: Is there one song you're proudest of?
GD: Not really. I'm into growing.
G: Is there anyone you'd like to collaborate with in the future?
GD: I'd like to write a song for Ozzy, a heavy kind of Sabbath song. I usually
don't like meeting people I used like because they turn out to be assholes.
I won't meet certain people. I'd rather not know them. I was lucky that
Frank Frazzetta [artist] - this guy meant so much to me - I met him and he's
a really nice guy. Very down to earth. He's a rarity, most people are jerks.
He'll tell you straight out how he feels. Johnny Cash is like that. They're
the exception to the rule, a pleasant surprise. Getting to work with both
of them was an honor to me, they both deserve whatever success they've had.
G: Do you want to do any other cover versions?
GD: I used to do Elvis' "Trouble," it's on the Thrall record. I have
versions of it since Samhain, with industrial soundtracky kind of keyboards
on it. I'm thinking of doing a cover record at some time, with all different
kinds of songs from all time periods, and it won't be traditional versions.
To me, unless you're gonna bring a whole new meaning to the song, why bother?
G: Any final thoughts for your fans?
GD: Get ready, Im not mellowing with age!
THE END