In the last four decades of music, few bands have invaded the popular consciousness the way the The Misfits have. The original group were only around for a relatively short time, but left an indelible mark on music with their angry, infections hardcore punk. They broke boundaries and helped define the genre of early East Coast, US hardcore, and along the way influenced many other genres too. It’s hard to see that in the sea of ubiquity that is their logo on shirts, patches, stickers, tattoos, and even songs heard in liquor commercials now (‘Where Eagles Dare’), but that is because their brand lives in people’s minds as much as the songs do. Glenn Danzig branched off with his own legendary solo career, but his former band mates like Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein, stayed in the life, and has played Misfits music non-stop since 1977. Armed with a new album, Abominator (Monsterman Records), we caught up with Doyle by phone while he was on the road as a special guest of the Danzig 25th Anniversary Tour, doing a set of songs from the band he and Glenn helped bring to life in the first place.
Doyle, who is still the same guy he always was, has changed little over the years in his demeanor and style. He tells it like it is when he speaks to you. While he has been happy to reunite with Danzig for these shows, as he has done over the last few years, he is far from sentimental about it. He talks about being a part of Glenn’s tour and fights about choosing the relatively small set list (7-8 per night) out of dozens of songs:
“I’m the first one to complain! He don’t want to listen to nobody, man! I say “Let’s do this one”… “nope!” “Let’s do that one.” “nope!” “Let’s do this”- “nope!” (laughs) There’s is no talking to him!”
“To me it’s just like going to work. It’s like packing a lunch, and punching a clock. It’s exactly the same as it always was. To me it’s no big deal. I mean, it’s cool for me to hear Glenn sing them again, but to me it’s all the same. I could probably play all of these songs blindfolded and riding a unicycle, and I’ve never rode a unicycle before. (laughs)”
“I have a lot of fun on the road with these Danzig shows man. The crowds are great and we have a lot of fun. Of course, I’m on the road so much, I can’t remember where I was last night! (laughs) I am playing just with Danzig set for a Misfits set, only, on this tour. It’s a lot easier than playing with my old band. We have the new Doyle band now. We’ll plan a tour with my band, some place warm during the winter months. The big shows in Europe with Danzig were pretty cool. Like huge crowds of over 100,000 people. It’s insane!”
Speaking of the legendary strife and split that broke up The Misfits in 1983 and led Danzig to first form Samhain, and then his own band, Doyle is very candid when it comes to talk the prospects of his brother Jerry Only and Glenn someday patching things up.
“To me I wish those two would stop smashing their heads together, patch things up and reunite. Then we could make an album, go on tour and blow this motherfucker up! We could shove that shit down everybody’s throats if we wanted to. “
Still, Doyle is focused on the present and future, as much as he protects his own history. He spoke at length between the difference between his past attempts at having a band and the current group comprising the Doyle band now, the process he goes through to create new music, and having to cut himself off from making too many new songs at once:
“I have a real writing partner now, writing with me in Alex Story (Cancerslug). When I am done writing songs I give them to him. I write all the music, I write all the songs. It’s not all music, it’s called songs, because they are mostly complete. He puts melodies and lyrics on them and they are done. That’s actually how he got the gig. I called him up and he was walking into a Danzig show in Houston. I said “hey man I have these twelve new musical compositions, I’d like you to work on with me.” He sent me back the songs in like two days and that is exactly how you hear them on the record. He’s great. He writes really killer lyrics.”
“See, I write all the music in my band. That is my rule in my band, I write all the music. If you come in to rehearsal with a song, you go home with that song. I write the riffs in my band. I write all the songs. I play all the guitars, drums and bass. I programed all the drums, before Dr. Chud came in and recorded them. I basically put it all together and hand it over to you. Here’s the blueprint of it! Then I tell Alex to do with it whatever the fuck he wants after that. I have it worked out how it should go in my mind, but I give it to him to finish because he’s a genius. He works at his house, I work at my house, and that is it!”
“We started writing in 2008 and we stopped in 2012. We actually recorded it ourselves, in our own studio. We went out and bought all the gear, learned how to use it all, learned Pro-Tools and everything. Chud did the drums. I did all the bass and guitars, and Alex did the vocals. We wrote 38 songs, and we have over three albums worth of material in the can. We’re back in the studio to go back to recording. They are just waiting on me to finish my tracks and then we will have the second album all done. Then when that is done, I might just do some more writing to give the third album to get more of a different vibe going. I kind of have to stop sometimes. I write all the time, so I really need to stop myself. I stopped, because I wanted to finish this new record first. It kind of drives me nuts, but I don’t like to start something else until I finish off the last thing. Once we get off the Danzig tour, I’m gonna map out the rest of the songs. We have four more new ones completed and a bunch of others ready to go.”
One thing Doyle takes great pride in, is that many have tried but few can replicate his classic guitar tone, that really, other than some volume and some improvements in EQ, hasn’t really changed much in all these years. The guitars on Abominator sound as crisp and killer as ever. Of course, everyone in music that Doyle meets asks him how he does it. He shares his secret with us:
“You know what it is? Everybody asks me how I get that sound. James Hetfield asked me. Scott Ian asked me, “what the fuck do you use?” It’s not what I use., it’s how I hold my guitar. If Eddie Van Halen played through my rig, he would sound like Eddie Van Halen. If I played through his rig, I would sound like me. Everybody holds the guitar the same way, but I hold the neck and my pick differently. I hold the guitar neck so high and so hard, my fucking left hand always bleeds. Whoever is playing it, that is how they sound if they hold it that way. One time Johnny Thunders plugged into my brother’s bass rig and he sounded like Johnny Thunders. He was like, “what the fuck!?!” But that is what it is. Most people just sound like themselves.”
When discussing his decision to create his own record label, Monsterman Records, Doyle cuts right to the chase about why:
“My theory is that everybody should be out for themselves when it comes to record labels. You wind up making 7 cents a record for the whole band, for over ten years, until you recoup. You spend the rest of your life paying those guys back for nothing. Now you put it out by yourself, and you make seven dollars a record right now. You don’t even need to sell a bunch bunch of records to get paid. And that is why we put out the record ourselves. And the labels did this to themselves. It’s their own fucking fault!”
Keith (Keefy) Chachkes