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If there's one thing you can say about Glenn
Danzig, it's that he does things his own way—not
because he's some Gothic Satanist or
scythe-wielding demonic brute, as his detractors
make him out to be, but rather because he's
intelligently examined his options and decided not
to pay attention to mainstream dogma simply so he
can blend in.
This attitude has served him well throughout
his career but has also gotten him mistakenly
labeled and pigeonholed. In fact, his music is no
more Satanic or lascivious than an old blues tune.
In some parallel universe, Danzig was right there
beside Robert Johnson on that old Mississippi
road.
Recently, the “Godfather of Punk,” as he is
sometimes known, sat down to reflect on his
upcoming projects and give his thoughts on a
variety of subjects from zoning ordinances to
numerological theories. Initially, Danzig had
gotten tied up and missed the original time for
the interview but was kind enough to call back.
I had to deal with a bunch of shit
and had to miss the interview by about 20 minutes.
I've been dealing with the city on a bunch of crap
like yard clean-up or something like that.
Somebody wants to buy my property and they keep
screwing with me. I've been trying to move but I
keep getting sidetracked because of touring and
recording, you know what I mean? I definitely want
to get out of here. It's pretty tough.
I'm just tired of it.
I've been doing it since I was a little kid, you
know? So I just want to take a break and do a lot
of stuff I haven't done yet. I don't know if that
makes sense. I've pretty much been doing the same
thing for a really long time. I just want to take
a break and maybe in a couple of years I'll get
whatever is in my system out of it and maybe I'll
come back and maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just do
records and not tour. I always said whenever
touring wasn't fun anymore I wouldn't do it and
it's starting to become not fun anymore.
First I just put a list
together of the bands I like. I call certain
people and see if they're interested, and if they
are interested, if they're available during that
certain time period. A lot of times, people are
interested but they're scheduled to do something
else. So you really have to do that and see what
happens. I'm not going to be on next year's, but
we're already planning a bill for next year.
I'm pretty familiar
with all of them. I haven't seen Agony Scene yet
but I like their record a real lot and I think
it's a band that people should hear. It's pretty
much like on a Danzig tour, I'll take out bands
that I like and that I think people should hear.
But on this, it's more like it has to be darker,
and more extreme in different ways. Bands that
have a really good following and I think people
should hear, you know what I mean? I think that
bands on this maybe don't get a lot of publicity
or mainstream media.
I wish there would have
been. No one would take us out -- Misfits,
Samhain, or Danzig. I think when we went out with
Metallica in Europe, we had to pay to be on that
tour. That's the way it was. It's not like that
anymore really, but back in the day, nobody would
let the Misfits open up for them, not the Ramones,
not the Cramps, nobody. We were just a young band
starting out and I think they were scared.
(laughs)
Because they would have
to go on after us! (laughs) It's the truth. I
can't think of any other reason. And I've always
vowed I would never do that. I know a couple of
bands -- people I know -- and I know they won't
take out really good bands because they don't want
to be showed up as headline bands. I've always
felt like I have nothing to worry about and in
fact, I want my bill to be great. I want people to
go, “Wow, what a great bill.” We always try to
take out good bands. It may not be everyone's cup
of tea, but we always think that there's going to
be something on that bill that you're going to
like. Some of the acts I've taken out over the
years were White Zombie, Soundgarden, Marilyn
Manson, Type O Negative, Disturbed. There's other
bands, too. Godflesh, Six Feet Under. Lot of
different bands. Opeth, they were on the first
year (of Blackest of the Black); they're great.
We didn't have the year
off. What happened was last year we were scheduled
to go out and we had the bill announced and then I
had some problems with my manager and the booking
agency that was doing it and I decided to just
fire everyone when they screwed everything up. I
hired new management -- I actually went back to my
old booking agent who had off and on handled
Danzig for like 10 years. And now it's back on
track and hopefully it will stay back on track. I
got new management and it's going great. That's
what happened there.
It's going to stay
pretty much the same. It's going to stay dark,
heavy, and extreme. Hopefully we'll have a nice,
eclectic mix of those sort of acts every year and
hopefully we'll get enough support from the people
who like this kind of music that we can become a
yearly thing and grow and prosper in the face of
mainstream adversity. So hopefully we'll become
not just my festival, but a festival for fans of
this genre of music. That's really why I created
this. For all of the bands like Danzig, Slayer,
and Cradle of Filth who don't get any play. It's
no coincidence that up until we did Blackest, the
Ozzfest wouldn't touch any of these bands. And
then the year after Blackest, all of a sudden half
the bands we had on Blackest were on the Ozzfest.
That's great. We helped to change something, and
that's fantastic. But I would still like to keep
this for acts like Mortiis. He rarely comes over
to the United States.
There's a lot of
resistance because they're not corporate bands, so
they're much harder to control. So a lot of these
bands don't come from that nu-metal corporate
world. Eventually people have to start recognizing
bands like this or otherwise they're going to get
left behind. And I think that's why the Ozzfest
started to add some of these bands. They don't
want to look like they're out of it, that they
don't know what's going on out there.
I'm in the middle of my
third draft of the script. If you know how movies
go, you hand in a script, the producers make some
comments, you agree with some, you don't agree
with others. And then you go back and do another
draft, so I handed in the second draft and got
some more comments, I went back and did a couple
of other things, and added some stuff that I
wanted to add, and so I'll be handing in the third
draft in a week or two, and hopefully that will be
the one and we can go into pre-production,
casting, set design.
They did some horror
movie with John Ritter before he died and a movie
with one of the guys who was in Swingers. John
Favreau, maybe? They're a young company. So what
they do is go around and get distribution. They've
been talking to Lion's Gate and some other people.
Everything looks pretty promising.
Yeah, it'll be a
theater release.
Yeah, there are some
people that I have in mind for it. Actually, my
producers know one person that I have in mind for
the main bad guy, the villain.
Yeah, how did you know
that! And we've told this person that the part was
actually written for him. So he's very excited and
he wants to see the script so as soon it's done,
we're going to get it to him.
Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs. He's in Cooley High, which
is one of my favorite movies, and Welcome Back
Kotter. He was also in the Jacksons mini-series;
he played Joe Jackson, the dad.
I've added a bunch of
stuff that's not in the comic to the movie. It's
going to be pretty wild. There's an intro scene
that's just really creepy. The only way I can
explain it is that it's just really creepy.
We'll film some of it
in New Orleans, obviously, because you can't
recreate those streets. I don't think there's a
back lot here in Hollywood anymore that has those
streets, like a French Quarter. There's not many
(things filmed in New Orleans). There was one Anne
Rice thing, Feast of All Saints, that was kind of
a disappointment. It was a Showtime series. It was
really bad, the voodoo was just thrown in there
for like three seconds and it was so un-voodoo-y.
It's really some kind of love story about the
Creole balls. It was very unsupernatural.
It's just stuff I've
been interested in my whole life. Supernatural,
different theologies. I've been involved in that
since I was a kid. It's just part of what I do. So
obviously, you should always write about stuff
that you know about as opposed to what you don't
know about. If you don't know about it, go and
research more about it. God, I probably have about
30 books on New Orleans. I've been down there many
times. I almost moved down there a few years ago.
Have you ever been there?
Go, because it's a city
in America that's not like any other city. Walk
around in the daytime in the French Quarter and
eat and experience. At night, it's a little
dangerous. There's a bunch of bars down there that
have absinthe. Actually, I know a guy down there
and when we play, he brings me a couple of bottles
of absinthe because you can't buy it and I get him
into the show.
Some I like and some I
don't. Obviously, he was at the forefront of a lot
of stuff, but once he starts getting bogged down
in all the dogma, it starts becoming stupid to me.
That's exactly how I feel. It's the same thing
with Anton LeVay and the Church of Satan, you
know? As soon as it became some kind of church and
rules, it became stupid.
No. You have to take
that from the source. Most of those people don't
have the brain of an earthworm. If a little kid
comes up and calls you a name, are you going to be
upset? No, because it's a little kid. And that's
how I see it. You look at them, and their brain is
the size of an infant and what they're saying is
exactly what an infant would say and you laugh
because it's stupid. You can't argue with stupid
people because they're stupid! It's not an
argument! You can try to be rational, but they're
irrational. You're going to have to step down to
their level, and then you're going to be stupid.
You just look at it and realize that these people
don't know anything about anything.
I see two retarded
political parties in our country that don't
represent the masses. The Democratic party has
gone so far to the left that people just can't
relate to it anymore and the Republican party is
trying to go totally to the right. And I think
that both parties are retarded. And it irritates
me that there are only two parties vying for the
presidency in this country. People don't realize
that they're being played by the Democratic Party
and the Republican Party, but more so by the
Democratic Party because the Democratic Party does
not want another party in there. They tried to
discredit Ralph Nader this time, by saying you'd
take a vote away from John Kerry. Who cares? There
should be FIVE parties! People should have a real
choice. If you're meant to win, you're meant to
win -- no whining! When somebody wins, they win.
If they don't, they don't. That's the way this
country was set up; it's called a democracy! If
George Bush would have lost, the Democratic Party
would have been so happy that we had an Electoral
College. When they win, they're happy, and as soon
as they lost, they said, “Oh, we have to get rid
of this Electoral College.” The bottom line is
that both parties are in agreement about one
thing: They don't want a third, a fourth, or a
fifth party in there. They want it Democratic and
Republican. Both sides are corrupt, both sides are
pieces of shit.
I wish the Libertarian
Party would get more play in the media but they
don't. I think the Democratic Party has picked a
lot of the wrong candidates, the kind that Middle
America, or people who are more down the middle
and more rational, can't side with. I think that's
been the problem.
As far as other
countries go, I cross the world all the time and
if you think it's bad here, go to other countries
because it's really fucked up there. I'd say the
only place that's maybe less fucked up is Japan.
They don't have a lot of Christianity and a lot of
Islam or any of the other crazy religions that
have caused the wars. Wars have always started
over religion. Name me a war that hasn't started
over religion. Bosnia? What was that about?
Muslims vs. Christians. Every war, you know what I
mean? Israel. World War II. Name it, name me about
a war. It's all about religion, but what can you
do? You just sit back and watch it.
I do a lot of stuff.
I'll base something on some kind of fact,
theology, or something I've read about it. And
then I'll just go off with it. It's no real set
thing with me.
The classical stuff is
easier because there's no vocals. Well, I
shouldn't say no vocals because there are vocals,
there's just not words. So writing a song is much
harder than doing a classical piece for me,
because in a classical piece, I can just let the
mood dictate what's going to happen. But when you
get to a song, not only do you have to do a vocal
melody, you have to write words and not be
redundant and make some semblance of a story.
I just try to put a new
slant on it and expand on what I've already done.
First, I try to stay true to myself and then I try
to stay true to what people expect. Sometimes it
works and sometimes it works better! You never
know until it gets done.
That's how I wrote it.
Now, I don't know if they're so connected, but the
first seven records are a numerological journey.
777, that's why the second record has 777 on it,
just a hint of what's coming. When I tell people
that I had it planned out from the beginning --
777 was actually written before the second record
came out and we played it on the first tour. But
it was always my plan to have the records come out
like that and stop titling them like that after
the seventh record. With Circle of Snakes, some
people are calling it Danzig 8 but it's not. It's
Circle of Snakes. The next record I'll do of more
material is a dark blues record.
I think so. I don't
know if his schedule is going to allow him to do
it. We both want to do it, so I'm waiting a little
while longer, but then I'll probably do it with
someone else. I'm waiting for Jerry's schedule but
I can't wait much longer. If that doesn't happen
I'll maybe do it with someone else. I have a bunch
of material written. Originally we were both going
to write some material and then write some
together. So I kind of stopped at a certain amount
of songs, but now I'm going to start writing some
more songs. I know that I'm also going to be doing
this lost tracks of Danzig record, which will have
material from Danzig I up until now on it.
Yeah, but it's not
really B-sides because they've never been
released. I don't know why people are saying
B-sides.
My vocal style is very
bluesy. There's nothing I can do about that;
that's the way I like to sing.
No. I learned just by
singing. I never had anyone come in and teach me
how to sing. I just started singing when I was a
kid and here I am. When I was a kid, there was
Elvis, and as far as my phrasing, that's Willie
Dixon. There's a couple Jim Morrison things, Ozzy.
That's my favorite band. To me, there is no Black
Sabbath without Ozzy.
People ask me all the
time about a Misfits reunion. I can't see that
happening. The thing I'm doing with Doyle is about
as close as it will be. We're going to take it
across the country and that's the closest people
are going to get to it. The band going crazy, it's
very pure, very simple, the energy on stage will
be great. There won't be some guy in a crimson
ghost mask or cape running around on stage. The
music speaks for itself, you know what I mean? And
I think that's what people like about it. We had a
blast last time. Doyle is a nice guy, easy to get
along with. When I'm on stage, I love that time.
I've always said that this wouldn't be my last
tour if I could just mysteriously pop onto stage
for my set and then be home. But that's not the
reality. The reality is that you're on stage for
two hours every night and the other 22 hours of
the day, you're bouncing around on a bus or
sitting around in a hotel room. It's boring and
it's a drag and I'm kind of tired of it now.
We kind of do that here
in L.A. every three or four years. At the Whiskey.
We usually don't advertise it, or just put the
skull in the slot. One year we advertised it as
Black Acid Devil was playing. You let some of your
fans know about this private, little show. We do
that kind of stuff. It was $6.66 to get in or a
couple of times it was free at the Whiskey. We did
it in New York once, where we did a show at Irving
Plaza for $1. The first people that got in, got in
for $1. Usually if you give back to your fans,
they'll remember it and support you.
Yeah, he has a band
called Gorgeous Frankenstein. He played me a bunch
of the demos and it's really cool. He's
auditioning singers, and he's not really happy
because he's really picky, but eventually he has
to decide on one and then he can start on those
tracks and mix it and get it done. The cover's
already done; I had Simon Bisley (Verotik comic
illustrator) do it and it's incredible. I'm hoping
that next year, his band will be on Blackest of
the Black. He's married to a female wrestler; her
name is Gorgeous George. And so she'll be on the
stage doing all this crazy stuff.
I'm in the middle of
switching my distribution. It's been done for
awhile now. I'm just waiting to find out who I'm
giving it to. Everything stays on my label now so
if I'm happy with my situation, I stay, and if I'm
not, I just leave and go somewhere else. So I'm
not happy where I am now for distribution so I'm
talking to a bunch of other people. I'm hoping it
comes out before Christmas, that would be the
best. The first one, at least one movement on it
was based on Paradise Lost and the rest was Celtic
stuff, but this one is based on (the Biblical
story of) Lillith. It's a little different than
the first one. It's still dark and everything, but
it's a lot more tribal; it has eastern drums on it
and different stuff on it here and there.
I like old Italian
horror movies and old and new Japanese horror
movies. Especially the Japanese stuff because
their stuff is so creepy. They have such an
aesthetic for horror. It's more creepy. Some of
the stuff is so truly suspenseful and terrific.
The new stuff, and even the older black-and-white
stuff is so slow and creepy, just builds this
dark, creepy feeling, whereas in America some of
the stuff is not so creepy. It's typical of the
American market, it's just like a product, churn
it out. Everything's the same except maybe they
have a different monster. I like the
blood-guts-gore stuff, except I like the indie
stuff not the studio stuff.
I haven't seen the new
one, but the first one was definitely Rob's homage
to that kind of stuff with his own twist on it.
That's my opinion. You can see in there all the
old horror movies that he loved; they're all in
there. But yeah, he's doing good. He's doing what
he wants to do and there's nothing better than
that.
This movie isn't just
going to be some gore-fest, but it's pretty
gruesome. It's also my take on Once Upon a Time in
America meets New Orleans voodoo, so I'm
approaching it from more of serious level than a
schlocky level. There's definitely going to be a
ton of violence in it, but it's going to be real.
I want people to see the movie and I want them to
either love it or hate it, but I want them to say,
‘It's pretty real,' there's nothing hokey about
it. I'm hoping it turns out half as good as I'm
thinking it will; if it does, then I'll be happy.
Sometimes. Some of the
videos I don't direct, you know, and some of them
I do. And then unfortunately, the ones I get to
direct, I'm always under a budget constraint. If
it's one I direct, then you're only seeing about a
tenth of what I wanted to do. I try to do
something that's interesting and that's with the
budget I have. When we let Fred do the Cantspeak
video, we talked about a lot of stuff that was
going to go on in there and unfortunately, some of
the stuff I wanted to do CG, he wound up doing
claymation, and I thought it didn't look as good
as I thought it would have with CG, and it wound
up costing way more with claymation. But anyway, I
was still happy with the way it turned out and it
wound up being a lot of people's favorite
video.
Interview by Sara
Farr for UnRated | 
