Midwest BEAT Magazine

FEATURES

November, 1999

INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST...

AN INTERVIEW WITH HEAVY METAL'S DARK ANGEL...GLENN DANZIG

By Tom Lounges

With... his rippling muscles, mane-like hair and a powerful
omni-presence that speaks volumes even when he speaks not, the man-god of
heavy music - Glenn Danzig - is back!

Armed with his sixth album, "6:66 Satans Child", Danzig has plenty of
aggression to vent and evilness to spread on a tour that will find him
pulling double duty on stage each night.

Coming to Chicago on Nov. 21 for a concert at House Of Blues, Danzig
will be performing not only with his self-named group, but also with the
newly resurrected Samhain, the band that begot his now global success.

After a three year battle to win back his musical soul from the demons
of corporate rock, Glenn Danzig now holds tight the reins of his own record
label and comic book/model company. And as master of his own domain, he vows
never to be enslaved by "the suits" again.

   With an array of brand new, unreleased, and re-issued product to promote,
this dark warrior of the underground called to set the record straight on -
his battle with Hollywood, his thoughts on The Misfits, and the what's up
with the many projects he will soon bestow upon his loyal legions. Let the
saga begin...

BEAT: What have you been up to in the 3 years since "blackaciddevil"?

DANZIG: Mostly getting out of our Hollywood Records deal. It was a real
nightmare...I went from a dysfunctional label at American (Records), to an
even more dysfunctional label.

BEAT: Why'd you go with Hollywood? You're Danzig...they're Disney. That
would seem to be an oil and water mixture from the start.

DANZIG: There was kind of a bidding war on the last record and what made me
go over to Hollywood was that they had a whole new staff there....a lot of
people who I knew and knew of that was very impressive. On our deal, it
stated that the band would have total autonomy and our own label. They told
us that no one from Disney had any say so (at Hollywood) and that they were
committed to making it a totally real rock label. We were told Disney had no
active involvement in the label other than that they owned it. Bottom
line...It was all bullshit! Three weeks into the deal, Roy Disney found out
that this crazy Satanic or whatever kind of band is on their label and he
pulled the plug on us.

BEAT: You are going to re-release "blackaciddevil" on your new label this
month. Was it hard for you to get the rights back?

DANZIG: It wasn't really that hard. I had an iron clad contract with them,
so it ended up just being negotiations and back and forth legal crap. There
was a kink though, because they fired everybody we'd negotiated our deal
with. So there we were, about to get out of it, just waiting for the papers
to be signed. Then they hired a new guy and the new guy said - 'No one tells
me who's on my label and who's not. I feel Danzig is a very important part
of this label and they're staying! I'm looking forward to putting out their
next record!'
    By this point, I was like - 'Oh man... No!' We almost had a major
legal fight, but I guess Roy Disney read this new guy the riot act, because
about a month later, he sent us a letter saying we were free to go. The
summer of '98 is when we signed those papers and that's when we started
recording "Satans Child". Man, it's lucky we didn't start recording before
that, 'cause then they could have actually made a claim on it. That's the
story in a nutshell.

BEAT: So you have now regained control of all of your catalog correct?

DANZIG: Except for four records that Rick Ruben still has claim to. But I
did get back every piece of unreleased Danzig material in his Def American
catalogue.

BEAT: That's all going to be released soon on your new label, correct?

DANZIG: Yeah! The Unreleased Tracks record will have at between two to five
unreleased songs from every album session. Fans will really love it, because
there's some really good stuff there. I also got all the videos that were
never put out on a home video. You know, those MTV-style videos. There's even
a documentary movie that we did on Danzig. I also got back tons of live
recordings, so we're finally gonna have a 'Live!' album out after all these
years. After 'Satan's Child', we're gonna release a ripping double live
record. It's gonna be Danzig live from 1989 up through this current 1999
tour.

BEAT: So are you still working to regain rights to those four Def American
albums from Ruben?

DANZIG: No, not right now. I've got my hands full as it is.

BEAT: Tell me about your new label and it's relationship with E-Magine
Records?

DANZIG: Actually, everything is on my own new label, Evilive, which is
attached to E-Magine. Through them we have regular distribution through the
WEA chain and we also have major internet distribution too. They get us the
best of both worlds. We are doing the new internet way of distributing,
because that is an important part of the future. But you know I'd be crazy
not to have regular distribution at this stage. I want these CDs and tapes in
the stores.

BEAT: What's with the title of the new album? "6:66 Satans Child"... does
it have to do with the whole apocalypse/Y2k thing?

DANZIG: Yeah. First off it's the sixth Danzig record so it was too good to
pass up using the 666 reference. And yeah, it's not any coincidence that the
sixth record is coming out right along with the turn of the millennium. The
millennium is actually not until 2000 is over, so a lot of people don't
understand that until 2000 is over, the millennium isn't over (laughs).

BEAT: Where was your head while recording this album? It's pretty angry and
dark, even by your standards.

DANZIG: You're right. There was a lot of pent up aggression that came out
when I was making this record because of all the bullshit I was going through
with the whole Hollywood Records thing. But that turned out to be a really
good thing for the album, because that's always what I use to write. It just
happens that there is a whole LOT of extra aggression and anger on this one.
Josh Abraham engineered it and Jay Gordon and Amir Derakh of Orgy to mixed
seven of the tracks.

BEAT: How'd you tie-in with Jay and Amir?

DANZIG: My drummer Joey C. has known Jay forever. Jay's been around for a
long time...way before Orgy. I remember when on the second leg of the
'blackaciddevil' tour, we took Coal Chamber out for about three weeks and
Josh and Jay had done their first record and I liked what I heard. Then I
got an advanced copy of Orgy record and I really loved the sound on it. So
when it came time for mixing my new album, I talked to them. They wanted to
do it and I felt confident that they could bring something else to it.

BEAT: Tommy Victor was with you on blackaciddevil, but he is now gone. What
happened with him?

DANZIG: Tommy was never actually in the band. Tommy was just a fill in guy
and he did it for us because he loved Danzig and we all thought it would be
great to work together. And it was. Tommy's band, Prong, had just gotten
dropped from their label. They were actually supposed to be on the OzzFest
tour that we did, in the opening slot. Then they got their tour support
pulled and Tommy came in and worked with us on the album and then did the
subsequent next tour with us, but that was it.

BEAT: Speaking of tours. Tell me about the new tour you kick off this
month. You pull double duty playing with both Danzig and with the reunited
Samhain.

DANZIG: Right now it is just a U.S. tour. We will go overseas sometime in
2000, but Samhain won't be on that tour. But to answer the first part of
your question...Yes, this tour will feature Danzig and Samhain, which should
be a lot of fun for me and for the fans.

BEAT: How much of "Satans Child" will you be playing on this tour?

DANZIG: A lot of it actually. I think we'll probably be doing... 'Five
Finger Crawl', 'Unspeakable', 'Lilin', 'Belly of The Beast', and a maybe even
a couple of the other tracks.
BEAT: My personal favorite on the new CD is, "Thirteen"?

DANZIG: Yeah..that's actually a song I wrote for Johnny Cash. I don't know
if we are gonna be doing that one for you, Tom. Well...(pausing)...you know,
we may do that as an encore. We'll see...

BEAT: You wrote for Johnny Cash and also for Roy Orbison. How did you come
to work with those early rock 'n' roll pioneers?

DANZIG: Basically, in both situations, they each asked me to write songs for
them. That's pretty much how it happened. Sorry that there is not a better
story behind it all...

BEAT: Are you writing for any other artists at this point?

DANZIG:   No, but I did my first ever panel appearance. That's noteworthy,
because generally I really hate that kind of stuff. But I went out as a favor
to an old friend and I did my first panel at CMJ and I got to be on the panel
with Ronnie Spector. She's my favorite female singer..ever! The Ronettes
were great. Oh man, it was real heavy that day. Ronnie started crying right
there on the podium, because we were talking about how artists get ripped off
by the labels.
    We were talking about how unfair it is that artists do all the work, do
all the records, do all the touring, do all the interviews and press...and
yet, it's the artists who wind up getting screwed. We're the ones that don't
get any sleep...you know? We're the ones bouncing around in the bus for
months and months, but in the end, it's the record companies that make all
the money. They never give you any of the money, they own your
masters...it's the biggest rip-off in the world. And the sad thing is that
they are getting away with it!
    Anyway, to get back to your question...I'm not writing for anyone right
now, but I would absolutely love to work with Ronnie Spector. I'll go on
record with that!

BEAT: In interviews I've read, you've gone on record claiming both Johnny
Cash and Elvis Presley as being big, early influences. How'd those early
influences lead you to the type of dark, doom rock you are now know for doing?

DANZIG: Those early guys were inspired by the blues and they had a lot of
energy. I immediately tapped into all that. They were also the earliest
punks when you think about. Early rock 'n' roll was really white guys doing
the blues speeded up. Anyone who knows about the blues knows that there is a
lot of evil shit like voodoo and juju and making deals with the devil in
there. That's some of the real underground music of it's time.
   Johnny, Elvis and others tapped into that and because they did, they
weren't playing at the Grand Ole Opry and Radio City Music Hall... they were
playing in the back woods roadhouses and small clubs. I strongly related to
all that when I got started in punk, because we (punks) were like they were
way back then, unaccepted on radio and it the 'real' clubs. So we crammed
into little dives and did what we did with the same kind of spirit those
early rockers had...
   But as far as my music... One of the records that really changed my life
was the first Black Sabbath record. I think that is where a lot of my music
and my sound started from...

BEAT: You're putting together a boxed set on Samhain. Tell me about it?

DANZIG: It's gonna be a really cool package and it's basically for the real
Samhain fans and for people who haven't been able to get our old stuff,
because I pulled my whole catalogue from Caroline about four years ago.
     It's gonna be all the records, plus tons of unreleased tracks. You'll
get to hear things like the Danzig song called, 'Twisted Cane' in its
earliest form. That song started out as a Samhain song. The same with
'Possession'. So you'll get all those versions plus other unreleased tracks.
There should be two live CDs in there also, and I think we're going to be
putting a bunch of video footage in there too. It's gonna be a real boxed
set, not some record company rip off crap.

BEAT: How many discs total?

DANZIG: I'm really not sure yet. Probably be four discs of the regular
stuff and probably two or three of unreleased or live stuff. Then some video
stuff... We're still deciding all that.

BEAT: When will it be released and what is the title?

DANZIG: Don't have a title yet. I'm hoping it will be sometime in January
or February.

BEAT: Do you have the final say on everything going on with that release?

DANZIG: Yes! I'll be involved with everything on this set. To set the
record straight, I had nothing to do with the Misfits boxed set, which
sucked. Anyway, I'm real involved. I think I might hire somebody to do
liner notes other than me and then I'll do my commentary on stuff and maybe
get all the other guys from Samhain to do their commentaries too.

BEAT: Another new project is the re-release of "Black Aria" and you have a
second installment of that project coming as well. Tell me about it.

DANZIG: 'Black Aria' actually did really well. We didn't give out one promo
copy and we didn't take out one advertisement for it, but it still went to
number one on Billboard's classical music chart. We sold, before I pulled it
from Caroline about four years ago, about 300,000 copies of it. It just
started out as a labor of love because I love classical music, which goes
back to when I had piano lessons as a kid. Black Aria was just something I
did for me. I just released it without out any kind of fanfare. I think the
fans loved it, because I had used some of the tracks that were on the album
as introduction pieces at Danzig shows, so they knew them and wanted them.
'Black Aria' ended up becoming some very collected, or respected, or
something kind of record. I don't know why exactly, but I am very happy that
people accepted and supported that kind of album from me.

BEAT: What is part two going to be like? Is is just going to be called
"Black Aria: Part Two"?

DANZIG: I don't know yet. I don't think I'm gonna call it part two.
Because I might throw some Eastern influences on there, I might give it a
Japanese title.

BEAT: When can we expect it?

DANZIG: Probably next Christmas. Not this one coming up, but next
Christmas... Christmas 2000.

BEAT: You were the Misfits in a lot of people's eyes, so I have to wonder
what you think of the new Misfits CD, "Famous Monsters"?

DANZIG: You know what...you have to take it with a grain of salt. I mean,
these guys tried to do another band in the late 80's, some Christian metal
band that didn't cut it.   This (Misfits line-up) would have a little more
validity if it was called by another name. It's so clearly obvious that
they're just using the Misfits name for recognition and to make money and to
get people to come see them. It's pretty awful for that reason, ya know? To
me and I guess to a lot of older fans, judging by our hotline and e-mail,
some people are actually offended by it.

BEAT: What prompted you to break-up The Misfits? The band seemed to be
doing good.

DANZIG: No! Not at all...The Misfits were not doing good. No! The Misfits
were really just a big disaster. I mean we rarely played in front of a lot
of people. We had (geographical) pockets here and there where we could play
for a lot of people, but I remember a lot of nights playing in front of
almost nobody.

BEAT: Here in Chicago, there's a huge Misfits contingent of fans.

DANZIG: Yeah, now there is. But it wasn't like that way back then. What
happened was... The Misfits never made money and those guys wasted so much
money. Dissolving that band was one of the real freeing up processes of my
life. I didn't leave the band...the band dissolved...and I had another band
going at the time as well. Those guys just stopped doing music all together
until the late 80's. Now when I say 'those guys' the only original guy from
the real Misfits is Jerry. What he has got today touring as The Misfits, is
kind of like this piece-meal thing put together for the money and it's kind
of insulting.

BEAT: So once The Misfits gained a cult following, Jerry saw a means of
making money on the name?

DANZIG: Well yeah... After Metallica covered the two songs on Garage Days
and a couple of other bands like Guns 'N Roses gave us credit as being a big
influence, that's when these guys really decided they were gonna go out as
The Misfits. They asked me if they could use the name and I'm like - 'Well
I'm not using it...' If I wanted to use it, I would have used it instead of
using Samhain, which went right out on the road as soon as The Misfits broke
up. There was no Misfits for like almost 12 years...there was no band. They
weren't rehearsing as the Misfits or playing or writing. There was no
Misfits. People should know that they put it all back together solely to
make money.

BEAT: Since The Misfits were kind of a bust for you, how well did Samhain
do in those early days?

DANZIG: Samhain worked real hard for success. We stayed on the road all the
time and eventually we started getting courted by major labels. We went from
selling a thousand or two thousand records to selling like 40,000 records per
album.
   That's when the labels started taking notice 'cause we were doing it all
on a shoe-string budget. We went from playing to like 100 people to
thousands of people per show.
    So all of a sudden it became a big thing and that's really the band that
Rick Ruben signed when we were talking to major labels. Technically, Rick
Ruben actually signed Samhain, he did not sign Danzig.

BEAT: How did that evolve into Danzig as a band?

DANZIG: Well, I'm a firm believer that when people leave a band, it isn't
the same band anymore, which is one of the reasons the whole Misfits thing is
a big joke to me. Anyway, two of the guys were replaced and I said this
isn't really Samhain anymore. Rick thought we should call the band Danzig
anyway and he asked if I would have a problem with that. I said no, so
that's how we came to use my name. We were actually gonna call the band
Danzig at the beginning, but we thought it would be too much like Billy Idol
or something you know, so we went with Samhain. By calling it Danzig, it
was like if members came and went I would never have to change the name
because it was my name.

BEAT: Explain about Samhain, a pagan deity that has something to do with
Halloween.

DANZIG: Actually...Samhain is pronounced Sallum...it's Celtic by origin. The
Feast of Samhain was actually the the original Halloween...the season of the
dead...you know the different Sabbath... It's the original name for Halloween
before the Christians took it and tried to get everybody to believe their
stuff.

BEAT: You are heavily into comics and have your own company, Verotik. You
are involved with models too aren't you?

DANZIG: Yeah. We have moved away from the resin kits and into doing cold
cast porcelain...you know fully assembled...fully painted.
   We did resin kits for a while, but that got really expensive. Now we can
do 'em in full color boxes, fully assembled and fully painted for less than
it costs to do the resin. So we're doing the cold cast porcelain. We also
just got started doing vinyl.
   We have these that we called 'Super D's'... they are all characters done
in the Japanese 'super deformed' style where they have the really big head
and the squashed little body. So we call the super deformed line, Super D's.
We just did our second set of those.

BEAT: So now do you design those?

DANZIG: No. Actually, they come right from the characters in the comic
books. We have a lot of Japanese artists that work for us so... everything
comes from our comics.

BEAT: You had the world famous Frank Prosedo with you. Is he still with you?

DANZIG: Well...we had his 'Death Dealer' character, but we're not doing
anymore new issues of 'Death Dealer' now.

BEAT: Any new line of stuff coming out?

DANZIG: We might do a Danzig line of the cold cast porcelain models I was
telling you about. One of the Verotik artists happens to be Simon Bizley who
did the 'Thrall Demon Sweat Live' album cover artwork and the cover for the
new album, 'Satan's Child'.   So we might be doing two cold cast porcelains
based on those pieces of artwork for Danzig fans. It will be really limited
and there's an internet cover on the new record that is by Marty Emond,
another Verotik artist. Marty also did a limited edition blackaciddevil cover
for me and I think we're maybe gonna do a statue of that too.

BEAT: Are these available through comic stores?

DANZIG: I think so. Also on our website and stuff...

BEAT: You started to get into film work and had a major impact as the bad
ass fallen angel in the film, "Prophecy 2".   Can we expect to see you on
the big screen anymore in the future?

DANZIG: I hope so, because it enjoyed it, but there is nothing coming up in
the near future.

BEAT: What about the rumor that you were going to play Wolverine in the
upcoming live action "X-Men" film?

DANZIG: Actually, I went down to meet with the people doing the 'X-Men'
movie. They were interested in having me be Wolverine, but they wanted me
for like 8 or 9 months if I got it.   I told them I couldn't do it under
those conditions because I was just leaving for a tour in Europe at the time
and then we had this new tour coming up to support this new record. If I had
taken the part, I wouldn't have been free until June of 2000 to tour and I
told them that was impossible. They asked me to read for the part anyway, so
I did. I'm like if you want me for like 9 months and I can't take a month
off here or there to tour I can't do it. It would have been cool to do, but
it's just not in the cards. I wish they would have made (the picture) it
when I had all my down time.

BEAT: So then, is acting something you would like to keep as a future
option?

DANZIG: Yes, as long as I can make sure I have the free time to dedicate to
doing it. I would want to dedicate at least a good amount of time to
preparing for a role so that I could do a good job.   I don't want to just do
it to have my face up on a screen, you know? If I do it, I want it to be
good. Just like with my music and everything else in my life, I want what I
do to be the best it can be...