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Faces Magazine, 12/92
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METAL GODZ 
  By Glenn Danzig

   I'm not the kind of person that sits well with this society. I think 
a lot of people don't really like the American society. It says one thing 
and it's actually another. You can only oppress people for so long. I 
think 12 years of Republican government is more than enough. And the 
Democrats aren't gonna be much better. It might be a little better, but 
the problem is we're not gonna have a real president in office ever again. 
And America doesn't mean what it should mean. And never will mean that 
again. And so people are confused. They say, "Hey, isn't this America?" 
Yeah. "Well, aren't you guaranteed these rights--life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness?" No. 
   I think your elected officials wanted to repeal the First Amendment. 
In the state of Washington you're not allowed to buy a stickered album 
if you're under 18. I think certain communities aren't going to make 
them available. Musicians and fans heard about the bill but didn't get 
together soon enough to try and stop it. It went right through. I've 
never watched news that much. I know there was stuff on there that was 
worse than our records. I didn't know how much worse. If that stuff can 
be on the news why can't what we have to say be on a record? And our 
records are tame compared to some records.
   Just recently I was watching the news and they announced all the 
censors were fired from the soap operas. That means all the people are 
half naked in bed on all the soap operas. They were showing clips on 
the news. There's more sexually going on on regular TV, than on records. 
I'd like to know what makes soap operas different? That's a visual medium. 
What's ours? Music.
   I always liked music that was angry and loud and quite rebellious. 
There are different kinds of angers. There's a frustrated anger. Of course 
when I first heard Sabbath, I went crazy. I'm angry at the way the world 
is and then having to try to exist in the hypocritical world. I'll start 
my own society. I try and stay away from the people that I think are 
very messed up because if I keep running into them, it will lead into 
the only thing that will lead to a real confrontation. And it won't be 
nice; it will be violent. I'm not out looking for a fight. As a matter of 
fact I will walk away from a fight if at all possible. I have walked away 
from lots of fights. I could just demolish a person in a matter of seconds, 
but I just walk away from it. If you can walk away from a fight, it's
better. I know inside what I'm capable of physically. Unless they actually 
put a hand on me--is it necessary to really damage this person? Again, I 
don't go looking for it.
   I've heard both nice and some some really tragic stories from my fans. 
The tragic stories are usually about people being misunderstood because 
they liked certain musics or believed certain things. And the problems 
they had were usually with the police, their parents or with friends.
Some are even more tragic. They go into everything from murder to suicides--
you name it. It's not like they're causing these incidents--it's like 
they're the victims. I know we recently had the riots here in L.A. and 
it spread across the country. But it mainly focused on blacks and Hispanics.
There's big, big discontent among the white youth and it's going unnoticed. 
But it's gonna explode.
   You almost never hear about the white youth. Rap music gets all this 
airplay on all the stations, and MTV has a show, YO MTV RAPS that runs 
twice a day. And there's nothing about angry, white kids who are really 
just fed up with things. Right now the media is just focusing on black
youth but the white youth are going to blow up in everyone's faces, and 
no one will be ready for it at all. 
   I went to concerts way before I even started being in professional 
bands. White kids would be beat up and killed constantly at shows by 
police. They'd shoot the kids in the back. There'd be a write-up in the 
newspaper but the cops would always get off. A typical example would be 
what happened at a Grateful Dead show in New Jersey a few years ago. 
Some kid was strangled to death in a choke hold by a security guard 
because this kid was on LSD or something. The police are supposed to be 
the servants of the people.
   Unfortunately it's gonna take an act of violence on the part of the 
youth. Look at the black people of L.A. The only reason they got any sort 
of reaction is because of the Rodney King riots. But that stuff was going 
on before Rodney King was even beat up; no one cared about it until it
became a revolution. It's gonna happen within the white community. You're 
gonna see it. Here's a kid who goes to a concert just to have a good time, 
and he ends up dead. And I'm not talking about him getting trampled on 
accidentally. I'm talking about a cop who killed him.
   Where I grew up back east, state troopers would constantly pull white 
people out of cars and beat the crap out of them. It happened to friends 
of mine. I've had more guns put to my head by police than I care to talk 
about. It's just you never ever hear about it in the press.
   In this country peoples' perceptions of evil are wrong. The failure 
with the Rodney King thing is they took it out on the wrong people--
themselves and their neighbors. And in the end the only ones that are 
gonna suffer are them! Instead they should have directed their anger and 
frustrations at the right people--the people in charge--President Bush, 
all their elected officials and the police force. That's where the anger 
should have been directed at not at the innocent people who are also part 
of this system and have nothing to say about it.
   Don't public servants, and even parents, remember when they were kids 
and used to go to rock concerts? Don't they remember when they loved loud 
music and, if it was angry, they were yelling and screaming? Don't they 
remember when they were totally into it? Then as they got older they had 
kids. Then they don't want their kids listening to that kind of music. 
Where's that person that he or she used to be? And doesn't that person 
remember that phase of their life? And can't they even relate--at least--
a little to what their kid is going through? What happened? Did that part 
of their memory just get cut out like a lobotomy? Why can't they relate 
back to what their kids are going through? They should have a better 
perspective to deal with their children.
   But they won't listen  cause they won't agree. Everyone thinks that 
white people are middle class and upper class. They don't even understand 
that there are white, poor people. And no one cares that there are poor, 
white people or white kids being arrested and beaten up. If you tell that
to someone in power they'll laugh at you. That's not to belittle the 
plight of black America either. I'm saying there's another America out 
there that's also being oppressed and it seems like no one cares.