This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits

by James Greene Jr.

  As for the drums, Eric “Goat” Arce from tour mates Murphy’s Law would fill in for the time being; in a weird stroke of luck, though, former Misfit Joey Image showed up out of curiosity to the Fort Lauderdale gig that followed the disastrous Orlando performance. After clearing the air with Only, Image happily took the stage to jam out on the material from his era.[22] It was an unprecedented but fleeting reunion; the future of the Misfits, who were just establishing themselves as a worthy Danzig-free entity, was still very much in doubt. Blame was already being placed at Only’s feet; Dave Brockie, whose band Gwar toured with the reunited Misfits several times over, certainly felt the bassist erred in his treatment of Michale Graves: “Michale Graves was basically beaten out [of the band]. Jerry wouldn’t let Mike be the star. Jerry wanted to be the star and he couldn’t stand it. He felt Mike was just some young, dumb kid. I mean, Mike could be a prima donna, but he was supposed to be! He’s the fuckin’ singer!”[23]

  Michale Graves and Dr. Chud channeled their frustrations over the crumbling of the Misfits into a new band called Graves. Joined by Empire Hideous guitarist Tom Logan and Fast Times bassist Left Hand Graham, the formerly famous monsters recorded their own excellent platter of mournful pop punk in 2002’s Web of Dharma. Driving, gnawing songs like “Tell Me” and “Casket” were the final proof that they were no slouches creatively.[24] The band splintered apart during work on their sophomore release due to disagreements between singer and drummer; Graves would go on to form a similar outfit in Gotham Road while Chud focused his efforts on the more cartoony project known as X-Ward (best known for the wacky track “Mommy Made Luv 2 an Alien”). It should be noted that the Phoenix-based horror rock act Calabrese, which launched in 2003, had no apparent affiliation with Dr. Chud aside from sharing the Italian surname.

  Fences between Michale Graves and Jerry Only were eventually mended enough that the ostracized singer would appear at a series of Misfits 25th anniversary shows that Only set up in 2001 in various parts of the country. Things stopped short of a full reconciliation, though,[25] which was just as well—Graves managed to make headlines all his own a short time later. On June 23, 2004, Comedy Central juggernaut The Daily Show aired one of its patented tongue-in-cheek interviews with Graves explaining the singer’s very real trials and travails in the punk rock community as a hard-line, George Bush–supporting Republican. In full Misfits regalia (including painted-on skull face), Graves sat across from correspondent Ed Helms, detailing how the majority of his left-leaning peers harshly judge him. “Punks cry,” Graves admitted, spurring a faux-sympathetic Helms to end the piece by taking Michale to play tennis at a haughty country club so he could be among more like-minded individuals.[26]

  Various solo outings would come from Michale Graves in the wake of his Daily Show spotlight. Fans swiped these releases up but eagerly awaited news of an American Psycho/Famous Monsters Misfits regrouping; in 2008, Graves revealed to Live-Metal.net that his fractured lineup of the band attempted to reunite several years earlier—shortly after the 2002 reunion with Danzig fell through—but various personal issues prevented it from coming to fruition. “The sticking point on why that fell apart was that Doyle [now remarried to Bellars] wanted to bring his wife out on tour and wouldn’t bend from it,” Graves told the website. “Because Gorgeous George . . . had to be a part of the Misfits. Jerry [also] didn’t even want Chud [back] in the band. Chud is a waste of human life, but he certainly deserved to be a part of the situation.”

  Graves was vague on his exact problems with Dr. Chud, saying only that he had “changed a lot” from the early days of the 1990s Misfits.[27] The pair eventually sorted out their problems, though, and in December of 2009 Michale joined his former drummer pal onstage with Doyle at New Jersey’s Starland Ballroom to perform a brief set of songs from the two records the trio made together. Doyle was there as a special guest of Starland’s headlining act that evening—Glenn Danzig.

  Glenn Danzig’s popularity started to wear off following the release of his fifth album, 1996’s Blackacidevil. Parting ways with powerhouse players John Christ and Chuck Biscuits, Danzig took his band in a new direction by embracing the industrial sound so prevalent in rock at the time.[28] 1994’s 4 LP had toyed with synthetic noises on intense tracks like “Cantspeak” and “Sadistikal,”[29] but on Blackacidevil Glenn took it full bore. Electronic drums dominate the album to such a degree that Glenn is at times nearly inaudible. When he is, often it’s clear Danzig has layered numerous effects upon his vocals.[30] Fans were perplexed as to why Danzig would want to ape Nine Inch Nails while simultaneously masking or hindering his powerful snarl, and sales reflected that. Blackacidevil was Danzig’s first and only release on Hollywood Records; the band decided to leave American Recordings after a royalty dispute ended with Rick Rubin inviting Glenn to sue him as casually as one might offer someone over for tea. “He said it matter-of-factly,” Glenn remembered years later. “Like it’s no big thing . . . he said, ‘I have no control over that kind of stuff. It shouldn’t interfere with our working relationship. You’ll just have to take me to court.’” The band declined to take Rubin up on his offer.

  Hollywood, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company trying to build rock n’ roll cred with obscure alternative artists like the Dead Milkmen and Seaweed, lured Danzig to their label with promises of creative freedom and boatloads of capital. Unfortunately for both parties, Blackacidevil didn’t generate enough revenue to salve the complaints that poured in over Mickey Mouse’s affiliation with these alleged devil-worshippers. Hollywood dropped the band just three weeks after Blackacidevil’s release.[31]

  That same year Glenn would be sent up by Canadian comedy giants the Kids in the Hall in their first feature film Brain Candy. KITH member Bruce McCulloch based his brooding rock star character of Grivo in the film on Danzig, right down to the hairy chest and shoulder-length locks (it didn’t hurt that the actor was both as diminutive and lantern-jawed as his model). “[My fellow troupe member] Scott Thompson was obsessed with the idea of Grivo being this Trent Reznor-like character,” McCulloch remembers. “‘Do him like a punk purist!’—and I was like, ‘Well, no’. . . and then I thought of little Glenn, who has a quiet evil. [The character] is not a parody, though. It’s a loving tribute. I’m really trying to do him. I think he’s remarkable.”[32]

  Loving tribute or not, within the context of Brain Candy McCulloch’s faux Danzig is hilarious in his titanic grumpiness, holding an open contempt for everything in his orbit. If the public at large held an opinion on Glenn Danzig, this was it—eternally sour rock star incapable of humor. This attitude changes for Grivo once he gets hooked on Brain Candy’s fictional antidepressant Gleemonex. Suddenly the character is inspired to abandon dissonant heavy metal for dippy, disposable pop music. Grivo’s first post-Gleemonex single, the saccharine “Happiness Pie,” propels him to new heights of fame and fortune while disgusting his original fan base.[33] If Glenn Danzig himself was moved, humored, or even offended by Brain Candy he never let on, focusing instead on his new industrial-tinged sound. In 1999 his band released 6:66 Satan’s Child, which further explored the territory staked out on Blackacidevil. While the songwriting remained relatively strong during this period the rock community at large was still turned off by the lack of organic sound. The returns were diminishing.[34]

  Four years later Glenn Danzig took another loud knock from an über-cool trend-setting pop culture vessel: droll genre-blending folk singer Beck Hansen, whose funky acousti-rap shuffle “Loser” had by that time become the defining anthem of Generation X and whose deadpan, unaffected attitude became cooler than Morrison-like swagger or pentagrams. In a cover story for the December 1999 issue of Spin magazine, Hansen took their reporter around his Los Angeles neighborhood, pointedly commenting, “Everything’s going upscale around here . . . except Glenn Danzig’s house.” Referring to a bit of clutter in Danzig’s front yard, the detached wunderkind added, “He’s had that stack of bricks there for about eight years now. I
think it’s a statement.”[35]

  Not one to engage in protracted wars of words (even for the sake of publicity), Danzig curtly responded to Beck’s public teasing that same month, telling an interviewer, “Yeah, [the bricks are] a statement that I ain’t Beck. And I ain’t ‘going upscale.’ How’s that?”[36] The lingering effect of what some lightheartedly refer to as “Brickgate” was Danzig’s humble Los Feliz residence suddenly becoming a tourist attraction. Beck fans, Danzig fans, and those simply aroused by rock n’ roll lore began routinely seeking the singer’s abode out in the wake of the Spin article, snapping their photos near the famed pile of bricks and Danzig’s black Jaguar (or as close as they could get, anyway—a wrought iron fence provided firm division between the yard of Danzig and curious interlopers).

  That same year—perhaps prompted by his mainstream stumbles—Danzig appeared to be looking back, or perhaps coming to terms with his own legacy. That November, to promote a forthcoming box set of all their material, Glenn reconstituted Samhain for a stretch of his titular band’s Satan’s Child tour. Fan excitement was staved off by the absence of both Pete Marshall and Eerie Von. According to Marshall, Danzig decided to put Samhain’s name on the tour dates before vetting any other member’s availability. By that time Marshall had graduated to playing in Iggy Pop’s backing band the Trolls and had prior commitments booked with that act. He was more than surprised to hear from Glenn mere weeks before the alleged reunion. “He called me at my day job,” Marshall remembers. “And he says, ‘Hey, we’re doin’ a Samhain tour, it’s these dates.’ I was like, ‘What? When were you gonna tell me?’ ‘Uh, right now.’ ‘Well, I can’t do it, I’m sorry, I’m playing with Iggy.’ And of course he got all huffy, like, ‘Ah, whaddya mean ya can’t do it?’”

  Unable to wrestle Marshall away from Iggy Pop, Danzig plugged the guitarist from his own band, Todd Youth, into his place. Von decided he would decline to participate—after all, it wouldn’t be a true Samhain reunion if one member was missing. Yet Danzig didn’t bother inviting Von to this reformation as the bassist had apparently already crossed the point of no return with the finicky singer (Steve Zing and London May ended up sharing bass duties during the reunion shows; Zing would play the instrument while May drummed through a set of songs from his era in Samhain, and vice versa).There has been much speculation over the years concerning what drove Danzig apart from his most frequent collaborator (they appear together on nine releases and toured side by side for a solid decade); Glenn claims that Von’s affinity for southern rock like the Allman Brothers interfered with the dark, semi-industrial sounds he was interested in, and he took umbrage at a handful of unflattering remarks the bass player made about the singer once his tenure in the band was over. For his part, Eerie Von has never fully explained what fractured his relationship with Glenn Danzig.[37]

  Glenn’s throwback mood continued with I Luciferi, the Danzig band’s seventh full-length released that May, a satisfying if not full return to the organic heavy metal sounds that garnered the outfit so much acclaim at the dawn of the 1990s.[38] Several months later Glenn took acute aim at his own humorless image by lending his voice to the Cartoon Network’s bizarre superhero farce Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Rendered with a perpetual scowl and limited movement by the program’s animators, Danzig plays himself in the episode “Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future” in which he purchases a home haunted by a menacing robot from the future. After one night together, the robot visits his neighbors (the titular crime-solving team comprised of sentient fast food menu items) to complain he “cannot live with that [Danzig] guy, he is so annoying, he is so frightening, and he doesn’t wear a shirt.”[39]

  In the wake of the Samhain reunion and I Luciferi’s harkening to Danzig’s original sound, many wondered if some sort of Danzig-sanctioned Misfits reunion could be around the corner. For years Glenn had steadfastly denied a reunion would ever take place, with enough furor in his statements to make it clear interviewers shouldn’t bother bringing it up. Privately, however, the singer began to reconsider the Misfits—not simply for nostalgia’s sake, but for profit. Financially, Danzig the band had plateaued, earning a profit only because Glenn purposely budgeted himself accordingly. Jerry Only’s version of the Misfits had proven it could be a viable touring act, and the receipts were only growing as the new millennium rolled on. Jerry Only, in a stroke of genius, ensured the continued interest and monies of Misfits zealots by drafting a series of punk rock all-stars—including Black Flag guitarist Dez Cadena, drummer Marc “Marky Ramone” Bell, and his own former skinsman Robo—to help reconstitute the band in the post-Graves era. The results creating a name-studded gigging machine even the naysayers ended up clamoring to see.

  Another more personal event might have played into Danzig’s softening on a Misfits reunion. In May of 2002 Glenn’s father Richard, who had grown enormously proud of his rock star son and happily showed off ephemera to fans who occasionally stopped by his home, passed away at the age of 76. When the singer flew from his home in Los Angeles to Lodi for the funeral he was surprised by the attendance of both Jerry Only and Doyle. Even more surprising, the trio engaged in an armistice that day, despite the litigious and press-based attacks they had inflicted upon one another. Commiserating over the loss of a parental figure, pretenses were dropped. If for just one afternoon, Danzig became Glenn Anzalone again, the Caiafas Gerald Jr. and Paul. Security escorted no one out of the funeral home. Perhaps they didn’t despise each other as much as they thought.

  The bottom line for Danzig was money, and the Misfits bass player seemed to be raking it in. Impressed, Glenn seriously considered for the first time how financially beneficial a full-fledged Misfits reunion could be, a reunion that would bring both of their fan bases together in one massive profit share. Surely he and Jerry could put aside their differences for a few weeks in favor of living more comfortably. With that in mind, Danzig bought the Caiafa brothers plane tickets to Los Angeles for a meeting.

  Intrigued, Jerry and Doyle flew across the country for their first meeting with Glenn Danzig in years that wouldn’t involve lawyers. The tale that follows is another one of legend among Misfits fans: From the airport they were ferried directly to Danzig’s residence. Upon entering, they found Glenn lying sideways on a couch, facing a flickering television. The Caiafas took their seats. Glenn spoke first, saying he was ready to let bygones be bygones for a tour and an album on the condition that Jerry not perform with his new Misfits for at least one year prior. A reasonable request—the absence of the band would create a public demand. Jerry, however, balked at this notion, complaining that he’d lose $250,000 if he called off all his planned Misfits activities for the coming year. An awkward silence commenced. Doyle’s head sunk into his hands. Glenn, unwilling to argue with someone who couldn’t see the potentially larger fortune at stake, simply rolled over to face away from the Caiafas, as if to take a nap, and said, “Fine, no deal.”[40]

  And thus, the first shot the world had at an honest Misfits reunion was dashed. Doyle would confirm this long-standing rumor in 2008 during a rare interview granted to the Cleveland Free Times. The tight-lipped guitarist outed his brother as the one who “put a fuckin’ monkey wrench” in the negotiations with Glenn, but the younger Caiafa refused to elaborate or give specific details. “So let all the Misfits fans put that in their pipe and smoke it,” Doyle was quoted as saying, aware that he was dropping a potential bombshell.[41] Danzig denied any and all stories about a reunion with Jerry, which is not surprising when you consider the following quote from a 2004 interview: “Until the contract is signed, nothing is real.”[42]

  Issues with Glenn aside, the real hurdle of the 2002 reunion could have been mending fences between the estranged Caiafa brothers. A year earlier Jerry and Doyle experienced a major falling out stemming from Jerry’s maneuvers regarding Doyle’s legal rights to the Misfits name. The bitter divorce from his first wife that freed him to marry Stephanie Bellars had left Doyle in a financial hole,
and the guitarist was desperate to purchase a home in New Jersey within reasonable distance of his young children. Doyle adored his kids far more than his life as a corpse-painted Misfit and by all accounts would have done anything to remain a part of their lives. The youngest Caiafa turned to his brother Jerry, who agreed to foot the bill for the home in exchange for Doyle’s legal share of the Misfits brand. Doyle signed off, perhaps figuring he’d still at least get to perform if not contribute silently to larger decisions regarding the group. His optimism proved misguided; Jerry dumped Doyle from the band in favor of Cadena shortly after acquiring his Misfits ownership percentage in May of 2001. Doyle allegedly learned of his firing via a handwritten note Jerry stuck under the windshield of his truck one afternoon while the guitarist was at work.[43]

  When asked about his brother’s departure from the band, Jerry Only would cite the emotional toll of Doyle’s divorce and a nagging elbow injury.[44]

  Despite retaining two of punk’s most charismatic and talented players in Dez Cadena and Marky Ramone, the Misfits appeared somewhat directionless in the early part of the 2000s. The trio toured the globe extensively, churning out a set of not just their own songs but Black Flag and Ramones classics at both small gigs and festivals,[45] but they were slow to release any new recordings. This struck many observers as a waste of resources. When the Misfits finally did get around to recording something in 2002, it was a cover of Balzac’s sing-songy “The Day the Earth Caught Fire” for a split single with said Japanese horror punk band.[46] In July of 2003 the Misfits followed this obscure piece of vinyl with an entire record of covers.