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YOUR FLESH VOL. 1 #11, Spring 1986
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Samhain

Photography by Daniel Corrigan

SAMHAIN was interviewed between their all-ages and adult shows at the Entry
on April 11th.  This happened to be their Minneapolis debut.  While they
weren't exactly cuddly, they were pretty friendly, contrary to what some
might think.  YOUR FLESH was Al and Hudley, er, I mean, Jimmy Johnson and
Byron... no wait, um, Gerard and Sheila?  Nay, nay... Peter and Mike, ah,
yes, of that I'm sure!  Brian (nope, wrong again, Dr. Doom I mean.  Now he'll
probably fling a vapor of death at me for that cuz, y'know, he's Dr. Doom)
sat around and played with the joss...

SAMHAIN
Eerie Von: E
Glenn Danzig: G

YF: First question - what took you guys so long to get here?
E: We heard you were here, then we didn't wanna come...

YF: Ur, um, we heard there was a MISFITS show booked a long time ago?
E: Yeah, um, snow as blowin' so hard it kept us all away.

YF: January or what?
E: No, March, you guys just have a lot of snow up here - like Detroit.

YF: Well, how do ya like it now that you're here and shit? (Grasping at
straws).
G: Tell ya after the next show!  For one, the stage is too small, too
slippery.

YF: Is this the first time you've had to play two shows in one day?
G: First time this tour, last time we played Phoenix, long ago.

YF: This band is a different entity.  How do you deal with, for example,
like today's show, with everyone screaming "20 Eyes", "Die Die" (MISFITS
tunes).
G: I've never heard it that bad before, not like today, it could be because
the MISFITS never played here.  Most places we go it won't be that bad, like
some asshole might yell out "Mommy" (in a real femmy voice) or something,
but that'll be it.  Not on this tour anyway, more on last tour...

YF: Do you still do "20 Eyes"?
G: Nope.

YF: What songs do you do from those days?
G: Well, whatever we feel like doin', whatever fits in, like, "Die Die" has
been in our set from the beginning y'know, we really like it.
E: It's just a really great song...
G: Plus we have the revamped version of "Halloween" and "All Hell...", plus
occasionally "Horror Business" plus once in a while "Bloodfeast".  Then the
other night we just did "Green Hell".
E: Yeah, like the old stuff we do now is what's similar to our current style,
songs that are just a whole lotta fun and not the real popular MISFITS ones.
G: Most of 'em will be played out after this tour.  We drop songs and move on.
E: We still got a lot of songs left.
G: Yeah, there's plenty left...

YF: Speaking of dropping, you dropped your last drummer, Steve Zing.
G: Yep.

YF: What was the problem there, he couldn't handle it on the road?
E: Yeah, he couldn't handle it on the road, he had to be home with his ma and
his security blanket 'n all that stuf... He just wasn't a road kinda person
y'know, when things got tough he couldn't handle it...
G: He was kind of an effeminate person.  I mean, he wasn't gay...
Rest of band: Gay? (laughter)
G: No, not gay, I've met guys a lot tougher... Y'know, just effeminate.

YF: Unequipped.
G: Right, exactly, so it wasn't happening.  He also didn't play loud enough.
E: He cheated a lot, didn't put out 100%.

YF: Took short cuts?
G: Exactly, took short cuts live and stuff.
E: Which is definitely not cool live.  I mean when you're dying you just
gotta reach back inside of ya and grab something and say "Well I gotta do it,
he's doin' it, he's doin' it.  I gotta."

YFL Ok, talking about former bands a bit, London, you were in REPTILE HOUSE?
L: Yeah...

YF: Is REPTILE HOUSE still around without you?
L: Yeah, they're a different kinda band now (this is where your interviewer
blew it big time and forgot to ask his SISTERS OF MERCY question).  Instead
of playing the same old stuff with a different drummer, they've like totally
found a different aim now, their style is changed, it's a whole different
thing.  I guess that had to do with me leaving, what they really wanted to
g on...

YF: Were you in any other bands, Damien?
D: Yeah I was in various New York -
G: Mourning Noise.
D: Yeah, real community hardcore...

YF: Weren't you on the "Meathouse" tape?
D: I wasn't, that was before me.

YF: Weren't ROSEMARY'S BABIES on that tape?
E: No, when I was in that band, I sent out shit to almost anyone that wanted
it.  I even sent the same shit to a couple people a few times over, so we're
on a couple but I've never seen any of it.

YF: Do you feel like that was kind of a wasted effort or kind of a stepping
stone or what?
E: It was something to do, y'know when ya start a band usually everybody's
got the same ideas, then as you go along, people start to lose interest, so
everyone started to lose interesst except me and I kinda got mad...

YF: Did you play outside of Jersey at all, besides Boston where I saw you?
E: Yeah, Philadelphia, New York once or twice, mainly the coast.  We didn't
do much really.

YF: Just to back track a little bit more, what was the story with Lyle
Preslar?
G: (Obviously weary of the subject) He's a guitar player....

YF: Well, yeah, but he was supposed to be in the band and then-
E: He was, he was in the band.  He did one shot with us and he did some
recording and we didn't like it so we never called him back.  Y'know, he just
wasn't our kind of guitar player.

YF: Glenn, what happed to your movie review column in Flipside?
G: I stopped doin' it.

YF: Never again?
G: Well, I don't like their editorial policy these days.  It's changed a
whole lot and I just don't like their magazine these days.

YF: So you started the band under what premise originally?
G: What do you mean, what premise?

YF: What was in your mind when you started up?
E: Somethin' different...
G: Smething different.  I thought a lot of the energy had been drained out
of the music scene.  It seemed like any thirteen year old could start a band
with no ideas, get a record out, and a lot of people would think it was
great.  All these silly little fanzines with their record reviews, "this
record is great!  That record is great!  This is great!"
E: Never a bad review...
G: No real criticism or anything, all these little Johnny Hardcores with
those mindless bands, all over the world, that were worse than heavy metal
bands (gasp!), then they switched to metal - at least that way they could get
more complex, maybe a little melody.
E: Maybe...
G: Things were just getting so generic they had to do somethin'.

YF: And a lot of metal is getting stagnant now, too...
G: Well, yeah, a lot of those bands are shit, but they fall by the wayside...
So what Eerie and I wanted to do was start a band, we decided early on not to
fall in that pit...
E: Yeah, we started out emphasizing slower paced material to make sure.
G: Everybody knew what we were doing...
E: Right, we used to do some of the songs really slow just do bum people out
and say hey, this is the way it's gonna be, get used to it.
G: Either come see us or don't come see us, either love us or haste us, don't
go "Uh, they're great" and not really mean it.  If you're gonna be that way
then stay away...

YF: Do you feel a compassion to out-do what comes before?
G: I've done that with every record since the first one, if I can't out-do
what I've done before then I don't wanna do it, there's no sense in doing it
either, it has no progression.

YF: Will you be using keyboards live in the future?
G: We might, a lot of the places we play on this tour it's not really
possible, but a lot of places are, like the Ritz, Graystone, Metro... We're
kind of sick of this kind of tour, too, it will probably be the last.  In
the future, it'll just be the major U.S. cities and that's it.  Last four
tours have been banging the head against the wall.

YF: Eerie said that METALLICA are trying to get you to tour Europe with them.
G: It's a possibility, both bands wanna do it.  It's a matter of their
management coming together with our management, we'll see what happens, but
right now we both really wanna do it.  I know their manager, he fronted the
money for the "Unholy Passion" EP and the "Legacy Of Brutality" stuff, he's
the guy that discovered RUSH, Cliff Burnstein...

YF: Has "November Coming Fire" come out one on compact disc yet?
G: No, not yet.  Caroline just had a big meeting about their CD's, they have
a place they're gonna do 'em now, "Legacy" will come out, possibly a
greatest hits type thing.

YF: You can't make a collector's CD though...
G: (laughs) Yeah you can!  Three extra songs on all our CD's, they hold
seventy minutes worth of music.

YF: You've always had an affinity for collectibles, what's that stem from?
G: Being a collector, I'm into it.  I go searchin' for all that stuff.

YF: Are there any limited pressings of "November Coming"?
G: There will be, the "Legacy" colored vinyl came in when we were on the
road, um, 500 red, 500 white, and there's an interim number of swirls, about
40, and they said they found five actual pink ones.

YF: So you have friends at a pressing plant?
G: No, we just give 'em specifically what to do, like after 500, don't clean
the machine out, just put the new vinyl in, and this way you get the swirls.
On "Initium" 100 are white, 50 are marbled, and then there's a bunch, like
15 or 20 with black records and thin white streaks...

YF: What's the deal with METALLICA wanting to do "Green Hell"?
G: Yeah as a 12" b-side, it hasn't been recorded yet... it'll be UK only,
Pushead might be doing the cover.

YF: Boy, oh boy!  Walt Pushead!
G: Yeah, the new METALLICA shirt he did is pretty slick, like the skull is
anatomically correct.  We had to look twice to notice it was Pushead.

YF: You mean the "Damage, Inc." ones?
G: Yeah, those.

YF: Didn't know that was his... I can see him getting into animation, y'know,
Walt Pushead World, the whole trip...
G: Yeah, in Death Valley!

YF: Glenn, read any good Henry Chinewski lately?
G: Who?

YF: Er, Charles Bukowski...
G: Uh yeah, he's my favorite author (how can he be when he doesn't even know
who Henry Chinowski is? -Ed.), not much lately though, I've just read a
couple things...

YF: What inspires your song writing these days?
G: End of the world.

VF: End of interview...