Danzig On Cover Songs And The Wasteland Of The Internet
By Michael Cerio
Glenn Danzig is tired of waiting.
"I'm glad to do some interviews because I'm bored out of my **** head" he says with disgust from a hotel room in North Carolina.
The calm before the storming of the stage has always been the worst part for Danzig who returns to Philadelphia at Electric Factory on Friday October 16th. As the sixty-year-old singer anxiously waits for that night's show, he recalls his long history with Philly.
"It's probably one of the first cities that we ventured out to play aside from Detroit and Toronto, outside of the New York area" remembers Danzig. He talks of dealing with "street scum" on a late night trip for food and fighting with a fan during the Misfits era, careful not to say too much or implicate anyone involved in an old chapter of punk rock history. He considers it just "east coast kind of stuff".
The Misfits founder and Danzig frontman is set to release a new album of covers on November 27th called Skeletons - a collection of songs he has wanted to do over the years, including cuts from Black Sabbath, The Rascals, and The Everly Brothers.
"I've wanted to do a covers record for so, so long and just finally said I'm gonna do it" explains Danzig. "I just really tried to pick songs that I thought I could do something really cool with - so then I had an idea for an arrangement - and then songs I thought people should hear maybe in a different light and they may have written off or maybe didn't even know about."
Danzig's opinions have varied when he has heard cover versions of his own music. "I'd rather not name the people or bands that I don't like their version. I'm honored that they would do it, but I like the ones that come out good" he says with a laugh. "There might be artists that I cover. They might not like what I do with it. I'm hoping they do but ultimately, I try to stay as faithful as I can to the song while still giving it a new dimension, making it exciting for myself and the people listening to it."
Not a cover, but a mashup of Danzig with the unlikely pairing of Drake has been making its way around the internet again the past couple of weeks, coupling the vocals from the hit "Mother" with Drake's beat from "The Catch Up". On this, Danzig is far less compromising. "Don't they have to get permission to do that?" he asks.
"Yeah they do but obviously they don't because the internet is just such a big wasteland of *** illegal activity so, who knows" answers Danzig. "I'm not allowed to do it. We have to get permission to do stuff, so I would just assume they would have to same thing. And if they don't, then...you know...I don't want to go off on everybody."
With that, there's not likely to be any Drake featured at the Danzig show Friday night, but you will hear "Mother" which was originally banned from MTV until the song got too big to ignore. "A lot of people don't realize now that MTV back in the day was very political and they could make demands of artists and record companies and they would threaten you with like 'if you don't do this we're not gonna play your song'. They were very fascistic" describes Danzig. "Now they don't really much matter. They don't even play music anyway. But back then it was much different."
Danzig plays Electric Factory in Philadelphia on Friday October 16th. To hear more from Glenn Danzig listen to the full interview below.
