Interview With Glenn Danzig
by James Bennett
Online Exclusive / Posted December 26, 2007 More Exclusives
On a brief tour promoting the new Lost Tracks CD, Danzig made a stop in Salt Lake City. They played at the Great Salt Air pavilion—a concert hall built on the banks of the lake. Originally, the Salt Air was a sort of Coney Island of the west—a resort that offered swimming, roller coasters rides and carnival-style entertainment. Gone now are the pier and carnival booths. The main building has burned down or been flooded more than half a dozen times over the years. Its newest incarnation, a sort of exotic barn-like structure right off the interstate, is 20 miles from downtown Salt Lake. The receding shoreline of the lake isolates the building even further—really placing it in the middle of nowhere. If Glenn were to have me killed, no one would ever find my body. Opening for Danzig this night were Horrorpops and Gorgeous Frankenstein.
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Glenn Danzig (courtesy of danzig-verotik.com)
Halfway through the Horrorpops set, we (me and SLUG metal writer Gavin Hoffman) were led by Danzig’s assistant to the tour bus. We sat on the couch, next to a dining table decorated with a New Jersey sticker and half a box of Whoppers. There was a note posted on the mini fridge reminding people of set times and band order. The note was written in the same monster movie font used for the Misfits and Samhain band logos. The bus’s flat screen television was playing a CMT reality show where five guys with Jennifer Aniston hair are involved in some sort of tug-o-war battle. Has modern country music fallen this far? Hank Williams, we hardly knew thee. The assistant goes behind the curtain, where it is completely dark. A few moments later, Glenn emerges from the back. He’s not smiling, but he’s not scowling either. He’s wearing a form fitting, long sleeve black metal shirt and his dark hair is in its signature, shoulder length coif. His hair is a little thinner than it was the last time he came through town, but his age doesn’t show otherwise. He nods, walks past us, and immediately turns off most of the lights on the bus. This tour has been especially rough on him. He broke his shoulder in Baltimore, and when he performs later, he still seems to be in quite a bit of pain. And where injury and the trials of being on the road would give anyone ample reason to treat us like shit, he is much more pleasant than the rumors would have you believe. Older now, and touring with members of former bands and past Danzig line-ups, Jersey’s metal legend is in a good place musically. An anthology of rare tracks spanning from ’87 to the present day was just released, and Danzig’s touring career seems to have come full circle. He indicates that he’s ready to talk. Our poorly lit conversation begins:
SLUG: This James Bennett with SLUG magazine, here with Glenn Danzig. How are you tonight, man?
Danzig: Alright.
SLUG: Now we heard that there was a mishap earlier in the tour, what exactly happened?
Danzig: As far as what? Oh you mean breaking my shoulder? Yeah, well what happened was that the stage in Baltimore, the first night (the first show of the tour) was really slippery and like, metal, and I slipped and I hit the barricade and I broke my fall with my knee and my hand. I’m laying there in the pit getting ready to get up and this security guy comes over and thinks he’s helping me and he grabbed my arm and goes like this (Glenn makes a few upward jerking motions with both hands). I’m like, "hey" but the band is still playing…but he does it again. So I pushed him, jumped up on the stage. And I knew something was wrong, and I though I’d broken my clavicle, but actually what happened was I had dislocated my arm and had broken my shoulder in two spots. So I did the rest of the show, I came back and did the encore. And I knew it was fucked up, so I was doing all this martial arts and Chinese herbal shit and then I was like, "okay, something’s really fucked up." So I popped it back in place, and then, uh, I started doing all this crazy Chinese medicine that I do. I saw a doctor the next day in Philly, and he says, "yeah, it’s broken in two spots." When I get back to LA there’s this doctor that Todd (Youth) my guitar player knows who treats the Lakers and all these other people, so I get back to LA, I went out there and got a, uh, catscan, a 3-D imaging thing, and, he said he couldn’t believe how much it had healed—that it was healing better than a young person—so the herbal stuff I use really works.
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Posted on June 6, 2010 by Tiana
This is the best Danzig interview hands down, thanks for sharing.
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