GLENN DANZIG - On The Record

*BLACKACIDEVIL* - Track By Track

7TH HOUSE - "I grabbed this old mic right in the studio - I borrowed it from the engineer and bought it from him later - and sat in the studio booth, just screaming into it. First take," says Glenn of this effect-laden opener. "I didn't want to have lead guitar on it, I've never liked long lead solos, so I started playing feedback against the speakers." The theme is "Sex and death. Two important things in life, or not so important depending on your attitude. Sometimes you care, sometimes you don't."

BLACKACIDEVIL - Rhythmic, tribal drums drive the album's title track. "That goes back to the stuff I used to do in Samhain. I tried to do it on Danzig IV but Chuck Biscuits didn't like playing that stuff. Joey likes rhythm and it's great, and he hits really hard," says Glenn. "It's just full out violence. It's a very aggressive song."

SEE ALL YOU WERE - This melodic number is Glenn's version of a love song, "But it's about love that's over," he says. Personal experience? "Some of it's drawn on it, from past stuff or whatever. I use it as reference but normally what I do is put myself in the mindset of whoever or whatever I'm singing about, so it's more of a literary thing. It's almost like method acting where I use what I've seen in life, I've been around the world many times, and from personal experience. I make it more objective, but there's always a piece of you in stuff you write or do." Musically, "Joey has a real good street rhythm and that's what I wanted to incorporate there."

SACRIFICE - "I wanted it to be real moody and a roller coaster ride, and it is," says Glenn of the album's lead radio track, which has a sort of split personality. "It's about exploration and things you have to give up. People will think it's about killing someone but when you sacrifice something of yourself, you are killing a piece of yourself. It's not something you'd normally do. It means something to you."

HINT OF HER BLOOD - "That's about a girl who can only get off when she sees blood, and I didn't say her own, either," Glenn describes this groove-heavy, dark and seductive song. "She's a pain freak. Musically, "I wanted a sex beat to it."

SERPENTIA - Combining an edgy, techno track with spoken vocals, this cool number is "about someone getting into really wild sex for the first time."

DEEP - This ominous-sounding song first appeared on "Songs In The Key of X," the X-Files soundtrack album. "I told them I thought I had something they'd like, and Chris Carter loved it and used it. He wanted it to be the first single and video but Warner Bros., because of my leaving American, told them they couldn't do it, supposedly, which would be Rick Rubin trying to make me starve. It's a personal descent or journey into your own hell," he describes. "Sometimes it's just literary stuff for me, taking myself and the listener on a little ride."

COME TO SILVER - This song was originally written around the time of Danzig IV but never recorded. "I wrote it for Johnny Cash because he loved '13' and he asked me if I'd write him another song, and I'm a big Johnny Cash fan. He liked it but I didn't hear from him and it was too good of a song not to do so I did it," Glenn explains. "It's about people I've seen, some of them musicians, but actors, businessmen, it's all the same, when someone sells what they do for money. Someone selling out for bucks. The money isn't going to bring you happiness. It's something you took, because you got over on somebody. It's easy to get over on people especially when they trust you. I see so many bands doing things just to make money and they're not happy, their lives are fucked up. The karma comes back and fucks 'em. It's a straight-ahead ballad and I added a soundtracky industrial kind of drum beat to it, and Jerry Cantrell did an incredible lead on it. I love the song."

HAND OF DOOM - "I changed Sabbath's song so drastically I didn't want people to think it's just a cover," says Glenn of this edgy, midtempo number. "I started improvising and twisted the words. The melody is still the same, with an industrial kind of groove to the beginning and then the chorus comes in and it's full on crazy, with the screaming vocals. Jerry's on that one too and his lead blisters." The idea for this came from a soundcheck in Tampa last tour, when ex-guitarist John Christ fiddled around with the song and Glenn chimed in on vocals. "I grew up in a band that was half original and half cover and half of the songs were Black Sabbath, they were a big influence on me when I was a kid," Glenn notes.

POWER OF DARKNESS - "Because people think certain things about me sometimes I like to fuck with their heads a little bit. You'd immediately think it's a satanic song, but it's about...maybe I won't tell what it's about!," says Glenn of this heavy, industrialized track. "It's full-on, it mixes a lot of techno and loud, crazy guitars. It goes back to stuff I used to do but I got to update it and add different elements into it," he adds.

ASHES - It's dark and moody, but Glenn differentiates, "It's not a depressing song, it's a melancholy song. It's happy depression, sad and happy at the same time. I don't like to say it's romantic but it is, everyone has different sides to their personality. 'Let It Be Captured' on the last record was a really sad melancholy song but that got heavy at the end and this is a mind trip, it doesn't."