Guitar World   Sept. 1993

Danzig Riot Act
By Jeff Gilbert

   Last Halloween, Danzig took the stage at Southern California's
Irvine Meadows. "Man, all the crazies showed up - it was really
out of control!" says guitarist John Christ enthusiastically. "As
soon as we hit the stage, they started coming towards us,
smashing the barricade; it was like an old punk rock show!"
   The Irvine Meadows madness is documented, in part, on the new
Danzig EP, Thrall-Demonsweatlive (Def American). The seven-song
collection is perhaps the closest one can come to experiencing
one of Danzig's over-the-top shows without getting smashed in the
face by a beer bottle or losing everything - shoes, pants and
dignity.
   "There were hats, tennis shoes, bottles, cans, T-shirts and
chains all over the stage," recalls Christ fondly. "The stuff hit
us all night long. And in that mayhem we kept playing. The EP
captured the energy of the live stuff; that part I'm real
satisfied with."
   The four live Irvine Meadows songs ("Snakes Of Christ," "Am I
Demon," "Sistinas," "Mother") are accompanied by three new studio
tracks, of which Christ speaks with slightly less visceral
enthusiasm. "We spent a lot of time getting guitar sounds on How
The Gods Kill, making it all perfect and polished-sounding," he
says. "With the new stuff, we just went in, tracked it all live
and banged it out in one day. What you get is what you get."
   For those who missed out on the chance to spill blood and
break bones at the now-legendary Irvine show, Christ says the
band plans to release it, along with their next single, on home
video. "We shot footage for 'Sistinas' and a couple of other
songs, and we just finished filming a video for 'It's Coming
Down,' which I doubt MTV will ever play. It's a heavy song with a
lot of underground visual things going on. It's one of those
things where if you haven't seen that kind of stuff before, it
can shock you a little bit."