Indianapolis Interview
----------------------
by Christopher Lee Schneberger
Interviews 7/27/96
Part I
I was backstage just after the Misfits finished their show at the Murat
Egyptian Ballroom in Indianapolis, and while Jerry Only jumped in the
shower and Chud and Doyle were signing a few autographs, I sat down with
Michale Graves and talked about the his experience so far with the band.
"C" = me, Chris
"M" = Michale, duh
C - How's the tour going?
M - The tour's going very well. It started pretty much in March, we
went over to Europe and did three weeks over there, we came back and did
a small east coast tour about two weeks, and we've been on the road with
Anthrax a little over a month now. We just came off a two week break.
So it's going well.
C - You guys have some new material coming out soon?
M - Yeah, we've been working on some stuff. We have about five or six
songs right now. We're thinking about putting out a single, maybe in a
couple of weeks it's gonna come out. There's one song actually we had
mastered, but we haven't made the final decision on whether or not we're
gonna actually press it or not. But we're hoping, the latest is this
summer that we're gonna put ont a new album, the earliest is maybe this
spring, maybe March or April. We were shooting for Halloween, but
there's just not enough time. We're gonna come off this tour, it ends
August 29th I think. We're doing a show at Action Park in New Jersey,
which is within walking distance from where we practice so that's like a
homecoming show. We're gonna take like two months off, and maybe write
the album and go to Japan for Halloween.
C - What do think the response there will be for you guys?
M - I think Japan is gonna be really good because . . . like, when we
were over in Spain, y'know countries like Spain and Japan, they're so
starved for American music, and they look at American music as
something enormous, so when you go over there and play . . . like I
said, in Spain they're starved for this type of music, and the
acceptance is so great because they appreciate the music. They hardly
ever get it, ever get to see anything like that, so I think it's going
to be huge.
C - Do you think overseas audiences can appreciate the distinctly
American themes in your music, particularly the older material dealing
with J.F.K., Marilyn, and the whole B-movie horror culture?
M - They love that stuff. I mean they get all those movies over there,
and that's kind of like us watching Godzilla. Especially a country like
Japan is trying so hard to do American customs, especially the younger
kids. You walk around Spain and other countries and all around Europe,
everyone's wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt or Nirvana t-shirt, it's all
American bands. You rarely see a Sex Pistols or a Damned shirt over
there y'know, you see that more over here. So I think they're trying to
get the customs, especially the stuff like Halloween, which is perfect.
C - How do you think the Misfits fit in with the punk revival that's
going on right now?
M - I think it's unfortunate, well not unfortunate, I think it's more of
a coincidence that the Misfits kind of came back during this whole like
revival thing. I don't think . . . I try not to look at it as like a
punk revival, y'know because we're getting sucked into the whole
revival/reunion thing, and this is the soonest we could come out and
play, y'know this is the soonest we could get everything together, and
it just happened that when we started touring, this big revival kind of
blew up. And, I think it's really cool to be part of it because it's
not really a . . . I don't look at it as like a punk uprising, it's more
of like an underground uprising. Y'know I mean like Goldfinger doing
the ska shit, and Rancid. All the underground music is now just fucking
coming up in everybody's faces, and shit like Pearl Jam . . . which is a
good band, but, y'know I don't see them lighting the world on fire.
Y'know all the underground, the little bands are now becoming like
fucking . . . y'know Clutch and Prong and Orange Nine Milimeter, y'know
they're what's hot now, not the big corporate bands.
C - And what kind of stuff are you listening to these days for
influences or entertainment?
M - I find myself actually listening to Nirvana a lot lately. I like to
listen to Type O Negative, I like Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, y'know shit
like that. Lately for some reason I think y'know I'm hexed, but I'm
listening to like Nirvana and Soundgarden and like the new Stone Temple
Pilots album, which is fucking great. I listen to that a lot.
C - Do you think you're appealing to a different audience now as opposed
to in the the early eighties, touring with bands like Anthrax instead of
punk acts?
M - Yeah . . . I still don't know why we're playing metal-fests.
Whoever's pulling the strings, whoever's setting us up with . . . y'know
there's something wrong. I hate metal, to tell you the truth. I mean,
I don't enjoy it. Y'know, Cannibal Corpse, y'know they're a good band
and I'm not gonna slight anybody but . . . I don't know.
C - Like the rest of the Misfits faithful I was very eager to see the
new incarnation and I was impressed. Do you feel you've conquered all
the questions about whether the new guy is gonna fit in and how the new
band is gonna look?
M - I think I feel better about it. I don't think it's totally . . .
I'm past that because that question, I feel, has always been there from
day one. I don't know, it's like I said, I use to sit backstage and
just be like, y'know, everyone's gonna hate me, noone's gonna like me,
everyone's gonna compare me to Glenn and stuff like that but, y'know,
I'm doing my own thing. I read somewhere that . . . I think it was on
the internet, somebody said y'know it looks like he sat down and he
studied every (video tape of the Misftis for all of Glenns moves). And,
I mean that's bullshit because . . . first of all I'd never heard of the
Misfits, and second of all I made it a point never to watch any of those
video tapes, because I knew they were out there and I knew that I could
just easily just watch and go 'yeah, o.k., this is what they're like',
but . . . y'know I never . . . just to keep it completely out of my mind
so I had, y'know whatever mental picture I made up was my own, I never
watched any of the old bootleg shit. So what I do is what I do, I don't
mime anybody, I have no reason to.
C - Having seen a band like Bad Brains, both with and without HR, I
think the danger a new singer runs into has to do with insecurity
onstage. I can't exactly put a finger on it, but there was something
about the performance tonight that was very confident and absent of
insecurities. Do you sense this too?
M - I think I'm starting to feel more confident, I'm starting to have a
lot more fun onstage. I never used to have fun, I always used to . . .
it would seem like a job just because in my own mind, y'know I'm
thinking everyone in the audience is waiting for Glenn. So, y'know
honestly I felt almost like I had to prove something, but now from the
support from everybody that comes to see us, and from the band and
everything, I'm starting to have a lot more fun, y'know I actually get
excited to go out there and play.
C - Well it looked really good.
M - Thank you. (pauses and holds up a tiny black drawstring pouch) So i
think i'm hexed though, because (laughs) . . . I don't know if you know
anything about this shit, but I was standing up on stage and someone
threw this at me, and I open it up and it's a bag of rocks with like two
pennies in it, like those fucking crystal things.
C - Wow, it this some sort of curse?
M - I don't know. I'm really really superstitious though. Everyone's
like 'oh throw it away, throw it away', I'm like, 'what if the bus
fucking crashes or something?' So I'm gonna fuckin' hold on to this.
Anyone knows anything about it man, seriously, write to me and tell me
what it is.
C - What's on the front of it there?
M - It's an 'R'. So I'm thinking like, revenge, y'know what I mean, or
. . . (Jerry's son, Jerry jr.? speaks up from the other side of the
dressing room, "Rock!" and Michale laughs) Hey I'm gonna wake up and
there's gonna be a big rock! (laughs) Fuck, I don't know what it means.
C - Maybe it's a talisman, maybe it's a good luck thing.
M - Yeah, that would be cool. (Doyle at this point suggests that he
wear it, and Jerry appears from showering to do the interview)
C - Well, thanks a lot.
M - Thank you very much.
At this point Jerry, in his great New Jersey accent, says to me, "Me and
you are gonna go outside and sign autographs for kids while we do the
interview." I consider telling him that I don't sign autographs, but I
decide against it, thinking it better to not be a smart-ass. So I follow
Jerry, now clad in sweat pants, baseball cap, and a blue Indianaplolis
Colts number 28 Marshall Faulk jersey, and we walk down a hallway to the
back door where approximately 20 people are waiting for autographs. Most
of these fans weren't even born when the Misfits began playing, but they
are excited to meet one their heroes, and before I get to my questions,
they ask some of their own.
Fan - Why don't you post on the bible?
J - I don't know, are you on the bible? (the fan nods) Why didn't you
post up tonight? (fan assures Jerry that he will)
Fan - Is there a new album coming out soon?
J - Well there's a 45, and we also wrote a song called Mars Attacks for
the new Tim Burton movie, so I'm kinda hoping that they pick it, and
we'll be rockin'.
Fan - Is that from the old comic books?
J - No, well it's actually a card set from 1964, but yeah, which is
really cool. So I'm hoping the movie lives up to the cards.
Fan - What's your favorite horror movie?
J - Crawling Eye.
Fan - Cooool!!!
Fan - When are we going to see Chiller Theater?
J - It's called the Fiend Club now, the guy with the Chiller Theater name
gave us a hard time so we had to blow him off.
C - Is the Fiend Club still going?
J - Yes.
C - And what does one get if one applies to the Fiend club?
J - Well right now it's just pretty much postcards and stuff. I just
sent out about 6,000 packs that had stickers and membership cards and
stuff like that.
C - How do think the tour's going?
J - So far it's going really well. I mean, because y'know the kids are
liking it, we're having a great time, and y'know it's right. We didn't
try and step over our heads. A lot of people wanted us to come out and
try and make a lot of hype, an like build the hype and then step on the
plateau that the hype created, and I just thought that was out of
character. I thought that the Misfits should be . . . y'know should
start from the bottom where it belongs to start. This is a new band
y'know, we're not trying to live up to the old hype of the old band, and
we're not trying to come out and be a bunch of rock stars, we're just
really coming and trying to play really hard every night, and we're
playing places like this (Murat Ballroom had maybe 800-1000 people that
night). We started our tour in a place that held like 300 people, and
then we've been working our way up. Y'know, you gotta earn it, we didn't
want to come out and try and step up and try and play the same places as
Glenn and shit like that, (we) figured, fuck it, let us come out work our
way up and everything will go, and it's been going. There's been bery
little negative energy in the crowd, everything is pretty positive.
Fan - Tell us about the old days.
J - Ahh (almost pained), the old days were good, it was a little harder
than it is now.
Same Fan - Yeah, tell us about the time you got arrested.
J - Ah . . . no fun, don't get arrested, that's the moral of that story.
Fan - What about haunted houses and stuff?
J - Well the thing was, we uh . . . the haunted house thing for the
Horror Business record was a bunch of bullshit. What happened was we
were in the studio and I was listening to the Horror Business recording
while we were mixing it, and i heard this sound and I said, 'what the
fuck is that?' So we rolled the thing back and we started listening to
it, and we couldn't find it on any of the tracks but it was still there,
and it was just like the wierdest fuckin' thing. We didn't have the
money to re-record it, I wanted to re-record it, and Glenn said, 'oh well
we're not going to re-record it, we're not going to put up the money,' or
something like that, and I said, 'well, if that's the case, let's say it
ws recorded in a haunted house y'know, and everybody will say how cool it
is.' And then y'know, I read interviews with Glenn years later and he
says, 'oh we walked into the house and there were snakeheads and blood.'
(laughing) Yeah, I mean fuck that y'know.
C - Yeah, I think that was in Flipside. (issue #31, April 82)
J - Yeah, o.k. there you go! I mean if you're gonna make up a story, you
don't bring it back up and elaborate on it, (laughing) you kinda like let
it go. So, it's kind of funny.
C - Is there still a skull collection going?
J - Yeah, we use 'em. We get all our skulls that we put in a pile on the
table for our tv show, so we still got it going. We really don't collect
them no more. Out by us in the country you find a lot of skulls. If you
go out in the Spring after the snow, you find all kinds of skulls, deer
skulls and woodchucks and shit like that.
Fan - You got any human ones in the collection?
J - Yeah, we got about four human ones. I got one that I bought for 110
bucks, that's the best.
C - Are these from opening bands?
J - (laughs) Well yeah, bands from the old days.
C - In the liner notes of the box set, Eerie Von describes you guys as a
punk band. Do you feel you still fall into that category?
J - Well if you were to pick the top ten punk bands we would probably be
named. So, in that respect, we are kind of a punk band, but in another
respect, I think we're far beyond your standard punk band, because we got
songs like 'American Nightmare', and the stuff we're writing now is way
up there. You got songs like 'Come Back' which isn't a punk song, songs
like 'Some Kinda Hate' which are more fifties oriented, which I really
like, and 'Astro Zombies' falls into that category. Then you've got
stuff like 'Green Hell' which isn't really punk, it's more thrash. So
y'know, musically we kind of spanned a very wide spectrum, and I think
that's the real beauty of this band. I mean, there's something in this
band for everybody. We don't cater to markets, we don't care what people
are selling. We're not here to sell, we're here to conquer, and I mean,
it's a much different thing that we're doing. Y'know, I like it. I'm
real happy with the energy that we got going. Y'know, my goal is to go
out there and play for two hours without stopping. Y'know, the equipment
breaks down, that's the only thing that slows us down.
C - And where do you see the music going from here?
J - Forward. Yeah, I think that we're going to write some of the best
songs in the next five years, y'know, classic songs. I think that
they're going to be a lot better than the stuff like 'Martian'. I think
that they're not gonna be as thrashy as the 'Earth AD' stuff, but I think
we're gonna find a happy medium between the 'Walk Among Us' kind of sound
and the 'Earth AD' kind of sound, and I think you'll find maybe one or
two 'Theme for a Jackal' type songs on an album, and then you'll also
find maybe two songs like 'Queen Wasp' or 'Green Hell' or 'Death Comes
Ripping' or something like that. Y'know, we're gonna stick to the image
of what we got and just pump it.
C - No 'Spook City, USA' tonight?
J - Not at all, no I always hated that song.
C- Really?
J - Yeah.
C - Oh, I love that song!
J - That song is a cheap 'American Nightmare' that's why. I mean, songs
like 'American Nightmare', I think 'American Nightmare' is great and the
reason I like 'American Nightmare' is because if you play it without the
lyrics it doesn't really make much sense, the music, but when the lyrics
are on top of it, all of the sudden it's a classic. I liked it from the
minute I heard it. I thought 'Spook City' was always weak, I thought the
lyric was weak. I thought that it was just too rockabilly. I think he
(Glenn) was just trying to write a rockabilly song, so he found something
that came up rockabilly and then tried to push it down everybody's throat.
Fan - What about 'Theme for a Jackal'?
J - 'Theme for a Jackal', we do it. We do it with Doyle on guitar which
is really cool, he plays the riff with me.
Fan - With Henry Rollins on 'Evilive', have you ever thought about
working with him again?
J - Nah, me and Henry I don't think see eye to eye anymore.
Fan - What is the true meaning behind '138'?
J - '138' is like people being treated as androids where you have a
number instead of a name, so it's like the human number would be a 138.
Fan - Was that in a movie?
J - Yeah . . .
C - George Lucas's first film?
J - Yeah . . . so, I forgot what it's called.
C - 'THX138'.
J - There you go. But I mean, it's taken from that and that's pretty
much what it is. We had buttons made once, they were robots with '138'
that looked like half human android kinda things, long before your
Terminator or stuff like that. It's a really good song, I mean, '138',
it's great all the way around. They like that a lot, and 'Last Caress'
everybody likes, Imean, we do that, which is a good song. Technically,
'Last Caress' is a very intricate song, and it's got a lot of fifties
kind of chord stuff in it, and I mean, the melody is great. Y'know, I
like songs that progress, that it's just not a verse and a chorus. Like,
if you look at 'Ghoul's Night Out', o.k. it starts, it's an A-B-C-B-A, it
goes up and back, hits the middle and then comes back the other way. And
I always liked songs that were along those lines.
Fan - You guys cover 'Angelfuck' yet?
J - We do it. We didn't do it tonight, but it wasn't in our set and we
exchanged it for 'Return of the Fly'.
C - So at this point, do you have a set list that youstick with, or do
you mix it up from night to night?
J - We memorize our set list because I wear glasses and Chud wears
glasses and we can't see without them. So we memorize like the first
like thirty songs and then usually after we get to our encore is 'Green
Hell', 'Devilock', 'Bloodfeast', 'Mommy', and then we kind of ad lib it.
We kind of do 'Come Back' which y'know, everybody . . .
Fan - That's the best song!
J - Well we got a pulse going for it which is really nice, you can see
everybody bobbing their heads. So y'know, a lot of people come to see us
and they stand there and they watch, and y'know, it's harder when an
audience stands there and watches you then when they participate, because
when they participate it kinda takes your mind off of getting tired or
running out of wind. People are jumping all over, things are going,
you're in it, you're watching it, you're singing it, and you don't think
about what you're going through. When everybody stands there like this
(folds his arms), you're like, 'what do you want me to do, a backflip?'
(laughs) Y'know, I can't do one. It's good, I'm happy with the whole thing.
C - Do you prefer touring with bands like Anthrax and Cannibal Corpse
over the old punk bands?
J - Well I never really toured with any of the old punk bands, so it's
hard for me to make that call not knowing the other side. I think that
the whole punk thing is a double bladed sword for us. I think that if
the whole punk thing collapses like it did the first time, I don't think
we deserve to get sucked down with it. Y'know, we're too vast. You
listen to our box set, you listen to the 'Static Age' album, that was
recorded in January in 1978. You're listening to it almost twenty years
later and the thing still kicks ass. So what's that tell ya? I mean
y'know, you put it out today and people listen to 'Static Age', the
original version, and they go, 'that's great shit'. We were doing that
when the Ramones were doing their 'Sheena is a Punk Rocker' thing.
'Sheena' will be gone eventually and noone will know about it but 'Last
Caress' and y'know, 'Return of the Fly' and whatever y'know, 'Teenagers
from Mars', is gonna be around for many many years. That's what I think
the difference is between us and the punk thing, I don't think we're
gonna die, and I don't think we're catagorizable. But y'know, if you did
name the top ten punk bands, we're gonna be in there.
Fan - Twenty years from now, do you think the spirit of the Misfits can
continue with just like Chud and Michale?
J - Sure.
Other Fan - The fans won't let you die.
J - No, and y'know, I wouldn't let it die either y'know. For a long time
I was . .
Fan - You're gonna be onstage when you're eighty.
J - Yeah, well y'know, God willing. I mean, I would do it, it doesn't
matter to me. I really enjoy playing, it's great.
C - Cool, thanks a lot.
J - You got it!
Fan - I never expected to see the Misfits.
J - Well, I never expected to get jammed up for thirteen years.
C - Hey, the (Marshall) Faulk shirt, where'd you get that?
J - I'm a big Colts fan. I was a Colts fan from about 1965. So when
they moved to Indianapolis . . . in my family, when you like a team,
you're not allowed to switch, because then Doyle liked the Giants and for
like all his childhood the Giants sucked, and then they went to the Super
Bowl and we went and all kinds of stuff like that so it was pretty cool.
So when the Colts came to Indianapolis so did I.
I thanked Jerry again and hurried off to my friends who were waiting for
me. I have to say, after listening and reading back over these
interviews, I am surprised at the candidness of them. For all my
expectations of the Misfits and their scary image, I thought they would
be very intimidating, but instead I thought they were very warm and
friendly. It was also a study in contrasts, with Jerry being like a
Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson, coming out of retirement to have another
trip around the court, and Michale Graves being like a high school kid
drafted by a big pro team with lots of expectations and judgemental
press. Jerry clearly wants to move forward with the band, and sort of
has a resistance to the glory of the old days. And yet, at the same
time, I think he realizes now, perhaps more than ever, how revolutionary
and ahead of it's time the Misfits were and are. Michale seems to still
be slightly uneasy with his role, but that's certainly fading fast. He
certainly has the vocal talent and stage presence to continue the
tradition of this band, the question will be whether or not he can
contribute to it in a way that is substantially his own. I can't wait to
find out.
Chris Schneberger
cschnebe@ucs.indiana.edu