JUICE MAGAZINE, 4/96
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The Return of the Misfits
  by Jeff Jobes (jpj5165@uncwil.edu)

 The Misfits were together originally from March 1977 to October 1983. After
the breakup the members went their own ways with singer Glenn Danzig starting
Samhain and then Danzig, and bassist Jerry Only, with his brother the
guitarist, Doyle, working on a separate band project. With the idea of
starting the Misfits back up, Jerry and Doyle waded through extensive legal
muck and reformed the band in late 1995. They've replaced Glenn with Michale
Graves, a 21 year old singer who never listened to the Misfits before
auditioning. On drums is Dr. CHUD, the Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground
Drummer. With months of intense practice completed, the band booked a
European tour for the month of March and a United States tour to start in
late April. They've written several new songs for the tour to go along with
all of the classic Misfits tunes, and as you can see, they have not lost
their look nor their attitude. Shunning all conventional forms of publicity,
the only ways that the band has promoted their return have been on the
internet and through the revival of the Misfits Fiend Club. 
 
Juice: How did the band start back up and did you have any legal problems?
Jerry: We had tons of legal problems. We didn't get exactly everything we
would have wanted to get going forward, but the thing is, all we really
wanted was our name and a chance to come back out and play as the Misfits. So
we've got that, now the rest is up to us. If we want to succeed, we've got to
come out and do well.

Jerry: Who were the legal problems with?
Jerry: Basically with Glenn and Caroline Records. The thing was that they
were making tons of money and nobody was talking to us, and everything was
coming out just by Glenn's O.K. I don't know if you've heard the new box set,
but everything before it that Caroline has put out is trash. If you really
want to hear what the Misfits is all about, buy the box set. The rest of it
is garbage. 

Juice: Why was Glenn opposed to the band getting back together?
Jerry: Well, because his new band really sucks. What happens now is that with
the Misfits back out there, Glenn is no longer important. 

Juice: Everybody seems to have left Glenn's ship lately.
Jerry: That's because Glenn's ship is a fucking submarine. The only person
who gets to see or breathe is Glenn. I have no problems with Glenn, I just
wish he would stop being a baby. We actually went to see him after the
settlement, within like a month, when he was playing in New Jersey. Me and
Doyle went there and he had the security throw Doyle out. We were actually
going to ask him if he wanted to do the first comeback tour. We felt that it
was in the best interest of the fans, because the people kept us alive. I
mean, people may think that Glenn kept us alive, but Glenn kept us in a box.
Glenn would only let out what made him money and after that, he wouldn't put
any money into advertising, he wouldn't put any money into mixing or
remastering stuff the way it should have been. I mean, Glenn did the minimum
amount that he could and still make money with the products. The people kept
us alive, it really wasn't Glenn. Glenn may take the credit: 'If it wasn't
for me, those guys wouldn't be around.' The music lives without Glenn. I
mean, he was just a pawn in the band. Maybe after he left the band, he got a
big mouth and he'll tell you that the whole band was him, but the band was
never Glenn Danzig, believe me. So me and Doyle, being that we're not a bunch
of egomaniacs, and that we care about our fans, we said 'Look, we can stand
here and say Fuck Glenn, we don't want him.' But we said 'Look, it would be
nice if Glenn did the comeback  tour with us.' So we went to ask him, and he
threw us out. So we took that as a no. 

Juice: Why have you been so low-key with the comeback?
Jerry: We have been offered positions to come out on a higher plateau. [The
Misfits turned down the opening slot for Ozzy's next U.S. tour, according to
their manager.] I don't want to come out now and try to step into a higher
level than our new line-up deserves. Our new line-up deserves to work for it.
And I think that the true success of this band is going to be based on
starting from the beginning again. We've had lots of different offers from
different record companies and managers and people saying 'You've got to play
your hype to the masses." Fuck my hype! Fuck Caroline Records, fuck Glenn,
fuck 'em all! The thing is, we've got some really good guys in our band. The
new singer [Michale Graves] is twenty years old, and he's better than Glenn
was when he was twenty, and by the time he's twenty-five, he'll be better
than Glenn ever will be. I've got something to prove, and I don't have it to
prove to anybody out there on the street, I just want to prove it to myself.
Me and my brother [Doyle] are a team, we've always looked out for each other.
The drummer we've got now [Dr. Chud] is the hardest working drummer we've
ever had. The singer is a little bit young, he's a little bit green, but he's
willing to make the sacrifice to be the correct singer for the Misfits. Let
me tell you, when you're in a band, the band has got to be first. It's about
sacrificing your personal problems, it's about sacrificing your musical
standpoint in some aspects to blend in as a unit. So I think we're starting
from the bottom, and it's not going to take us long to get to the level where
people wanted us to start from.

Juice: I know that Henry Rollins was a huge Misfits fan, have you heard from
him since you got the band back together?
Jerry: Henry Rollins is a big star now. I think he's in Glenn's league. I'm
pissed at Henry, to be honest with you. I expected more from him. Robo
[ex-Misfits and Black Flag drummer] had a problem with SST Records. He was in
the gutter for awhile, and he needed money. I ran into Greg Ginn [SST Records
owner and ex-Black Flag guitarist] in Manhattan at a music convention and
threatened his life in an elevator. I told him 'Look, if you don't pay Robo
his fucking royalties, I'm going to kill you.' So he never came back to New
York, needless to say. He ended up burning Robo in the end. Greg Ginn is a
fucking cocksucker. He's a fucking lying bastard too. He says he's not a
millionaire, and he's so full of shit. He burned the Meat Puppets on their
publishing. He keeps all of the fucking money. He treated Robo like a peon.
Greg Ginn needs his fucking ass kicked. 
 There was a point in the road where Henry Rollins was doing a show in
Pennsylvania, and a buddy of mine called me up to say that he would be
interviewing Henry. So I Fed-Exed him a letter that said to Henry that Robo
was in a bad way and we didn't have money to lend him. I told him 'Look, if
anybody is getting paid from the Black Flag stuff, it's got to be you. I
figure you've got a manager, you've got agents, you got publicity agents, you
got lawyers, you got cash. I know Greg Ginn wouldn't be able to fight you off
if you came looking for your money. What I need from you is all the
information on that.' He never fucking called me and he sends me this letter
about nine months later that says 'Oh, I think Robo should go out and get a
good lawyer.' Thanks for the fucking brainstorm, Henry! He's a fucking
hypocrite. Fuck him. I don't want a friend like that. Henry's not welcome in
my camp. If he's got a problem, let him bring it to me.    
 
Juice: Besides the internet and the world wide web, what have you been using
to promote yourselves?
Jerry: Our main weapon is the resurrection of the Misfits Fiend Club. Our
fans are going to be our sword, they kept us alive when we were stuck in
hell. There was so much money coming to the other side of the fence
[Caroline]. And it aggravated me because we had laid out all of the money in
the beginning of the band. If it wasn't for me and Doyle, there wouldn't have
been a Misfits. And there wouldn't have been a Samhain, which really didn't
do shit, and there wouldn't have been a Danzig. However, the bottom line is
that the fans kept us alive. What you're going to find is that the fans are
going to tell us where we should sell our shirts, and the fans are going to
tell us where we should play, and the fans are going to buy our records.
We're not going to need a record company. We don't need a boss. It doesn't
make any sense to have a record company try to lead this band because we work
harder than they would make us work anyway. So what the fuck do we need them
for? We did it before, and it was a good idea, but we had Glenn at the reigns
and Glenn's street goes one way so that was the problem we had. Now we're a
team. We don't argue about publishing. If you read the credits on a Misfits
record you see that Glenn wrote this and Glenn wrote that, you know, like if
it wasn't for Glenn the sun wouldn't come up in the morning. But he didn't
write all that shit. We let the publishing go to get the name back. He's
worried about how much money is coming in and we weren't worried about the
money end of it at all, because the person that can perform the songs is the
person that actually owns the songs. Let him keep the money from the
publishing of the music. I know what I wrote, I don't care if you know it or
if he knows it. This band was not formed for me to get people to pat me on
the back.

If you want to get latest Misfits news, tour info, and more pictures, hop on
the web and check out Misfits Central (just do a search for it). Mark runs
the best 'Fits page around. Special thanks for their help on the article goes
to Billy Milano, Jerry, Kenny, Sal B., and Ken Kriete.

Misfits Fiend Club     
PO Box 310     
Vernon NJ 07462
(with your name, address and phone number)