Misfits – American Psycho – Interview

Misfits

American Psycho (Geffen)
An interview with bassist Jerry Only
by Scott Hefflon

When were the Misfits reborn, and what was the inspiration?
Doyle (guitar) and I have been doing this all our lives. Doyle was 12 when I was 17 and started teaching him to play. That’s when I recorded the Static Age album. Then Doyle was 13 and my mom still wouldn’t let him tour, so we entered the Bobby Steele era and released a coupla singles. Then Doyle turned 14 and he was in the band. From then on, it was me, Doyle, and Glenn (Danzig). But when I felt Glenn was putting his personal opinions above the music, we gave him the boot. We had to suffer for 13 years to get our name back, fighting all sorts of stuff in court, but that’s what we had to do. I see it as destiny in disguise. We ran into 19-year-old Michale (Graves, vocals) and he’s really good. A lot of the more popular songs off the album were written by him, including “Dig Up Her Bones,” which he wrote when he was 14.

Who used to write the majority of the lyrics and music?
In the old days, Glenn would write most of the lyrics, but often times when he would mumble, I’d throw him a line and he’d like it. Now we’ve got four guys who can really write, so we either write together or bring down stuff we’ve been working on individually. I really like this album. I think it’s as good as or better than Walk Among Us, which I’ve always thought is our best old one.

How do you feel the age difference affects the band?
Not much, really. I’m 38, Doyle and Chud (drums) are 33, both of them graduating in the same class as Eerie (Von, Danzig’s guitarist) – there are three of us from Lodi, New Jersey and Michale’s from Dumont – and the age difference really doesn’t effect us much because I still haven’t grown up yet. I have the experience of the business behind me, and I know how the band should function – what works and what doesn’t – but with Michale in the band, there’s someone excited about doing things I’ve done 100 times already. It gives me the enthusiasm to do all the stupid things all over again, and we always laugh and have a good time.

Michale is from a different era, a different generation of punk. Don’t you run into stylistic differences and lifestyle differences?
Oh sure, Michale listens to Bauhaus and a whole bunch of bands I’m not in touch with at all. That gives him a different angle for songwriting, a different spice to add to the meal. I’m kinda dead-set in my ways, and I don’t use any outside influences. While I’m a huge fan of Iggy Pop, and I like the Ramones, and I used to like Generation X, I try to write only songs that come to me, without letting them be influenced by what else is going on. I’m also really influenced by my kids. Like, they didn’t like a lot of the old stuff we used to play, so they wouldn’t let me listen to the box set. But the good thing is, they like the new album, so I’m starting to be a hero around the house, which is good after all these years.

How many kids do you have?
My daughter’s 14, I had her right before we did the Earth A.D. stuff, and my son’s 11, I had him about two years after we broke up. I always wanted to have kids when I was young. Even though I was into the music, I wasn’t going to let a family get away from me because I was chasing a dream. All the while I was in the first Misfits, and right up until now, I’ve been working in a machine shop so I’d have a steady paycheck. It paid the bills, kept the music alive, and paid for lawyers… I’ve still got to go buy a car. My friends are starting to ask me, “How many years are we supposed to drive you around?”

You’d mentioned the Ramones; what were your early impressions of them?
I saw them at CBGB’s the first time, and they really had their look down. We were still searching for ours. It always struck me what a team look they had going. Now when you look at the Misfits, you see a team. It’s not like, “OK, there’s the Ozzy, and I guess that’s his back up band.”

When you were crafting your look and style, the Ramones epitomized New York, Black Flag embodied Southern California, but was there a New Jersey sound for you to create.
Yeah, but then Bon Jovi came along.

You always sounded like dreary English countrysides, steeped in grisly legend, cranked up on amphetamines, aggression, and professional wrestling.
Honestly, I think our sound is truly original. And I think the subject matter is very important. When you look through entertainment history, many of the landmarks were science fiction. It all comes down to the imagination. There is no right or wrong, just a plot relying solely on the writer’s imagination and the director’s effects. Black Flag sung about the cops, and about social problems that come and go. In the ’60s, everyone was singing about the war. One day there won’t be any wars. But there will always be “Astro Zombies.”

It’s universal, so to speak.
Exactly. It’s timeless, too, and that’s why the songs have held in there for 20 years when others’ have gone.

What’s the deal with weight lifting and getting so incredibly pumped up?
In high school, we were all into sports. I played football and basketball for most of high school. My senior year, one of the reasons I started playing and formed a band was because the varsity basketball coach was an asshole. He’s actually friends with my dad, but I just wanted to avoid him. He was going to make me sit the bench because he didn’t like football players playing basketball – they weren’t out shooting hoops every day during football season. Being an athlete in school, you pick up the constitution of staying physically fit. I don’t work out so someone will look at me and say, “Wow, that guy’s got big arms,” I work out because it makes me feel like I’m staying on top of my game. I’m not just sitting on my ass waiting for things to come to me, I’m out there initiating it. Lifting for me is a mental thing. Everyday I wake up and go to the gym at seven and I’m home at nine. Anything I do after that is gravy: I do interviews, I work on my guitars when Chud and I practice, I try to write songs, I shoot some baskets with my kid, but I’ve done what I needed to do that day to preserve myself mentally and physically. As you know, the Misfits is a more physical band than about 98% of the bands out there. We’re one of the bigger, harder-hitting organizations in the industry, and we have the music and the image to back it up. Those three points form the triangle of success: you’ve got to have great music, you’ve got to look good, and after talkin’ the talk, go out and walk the walk.

Do you share a kindred spirit with another well-disciplined punk from the early days, Henry Rollins?
Well, Rollins is a very intense performer. We’ve been friends for years, but we had a falling out, but not a falling out directly. I needed him to help Robo (former drummer), and he really didn’t do it for me. Robo was a founding member of Black Flag – Robo, Greg, and Chuck – and during their heyday, Black Flag went to England and Robo got stuck there. The band left him flat and kept going. At the time, Googy (Arthur Googy, then drummer) had quit the band because he and Glenn were fighting, so we picked Robo up at the airport and took him on as our drummer. Robo had been in Black Flag since about ’75, they’re a year or two older than us, and he’d gotten burned by the guys at SST Records and Black Flag. They sold a shitload of records he was on, but they never gave him any of the money. I gave Robo his share of the money for working with us, and I told him to go try to collect some of the Black Flag money. He was on one album with us, Earth A.D., and he got paid, and he was on, like, 17 records for them. He had a son, and he wanted to retire from playing music. So I told him not to walk away from it, SST owed him enough money to put his kid through college. SST just wound up countersuing and tried to bleed him dry. I turned to Henry for help saying, “Robo’s in a jam here. If anybody’s getting paid from Black Flag, it’s got to be you. Help me! Give me the information I need to give Robo some bullets.” And Robo was in Black Flag long before Henry joined. So Henry writes me back this letter saying, “Tell Robo to get a good lawyer.” I like Henry and I don’t want to talk bad about him, but if there’s a time you really need your friends, it’s when you’re down. Anybody can be your friend when you’re up on top – everybody wants to hang, to have good times, to eat with you, and drink with you – ’cause it’s no skin off their tomato. But when you’re in the gutter and somebody’s kickin’ you in the face, your real friends will come and help you out.

Um, actually I was just asking about the hard-work ethic…
Oh, well, oops, sorry ’bout that. Yeah, the discipline is important. I try to instill that in my guys. Michale is young, ya know, I’ve had problems getting him up for sound check at one in the afternoon, but that comes with the territory. You get a 20-something-year-old kid to do the job, he’s going to be a little lackadaisical about working like a dog ’cause he didn’t have to work in a machine shop 12 hours a day, then lift at night and practice, putting any leftover money away to buy and modify guitars. He came in with a bit of a silver spoon, but he’s really good and we really enjoy working with him. Glenn was always a pain in the ass.

Speaking of friends that stick by you, how do you feel now that the Misfits are back, the album is out and now everyone’s flocking around you saying they’ve supported you all along?
I’m sure you could sit down and list off ten problems that you need to overcome in your life, but that’s your cross to bear. Doing what I had to do was my cross to bear, and I accepted that responsibility. Obviously we got no support from Glenn, we got anti-support. I wasn’t looking for any help from Henry, other than to help me help a friend I was powerless to help because I didn’t have the necessary information. I really didn’t want any of that anyway. Part of this battle, for me, was to do it myself.

With a little help from your friends at Geffen.
When kids come up to me and say we’re on Geffen so we sold out, I’ve gotta tell them, “The Misfits paid for half that poster in the CD.” All those people do is sell it for me. This album is the result of the struggle of the last 20 years of my life. As you know, in the beginning, no one thought the Misfits would amount to anything. Everyone was watching the next British band or something, and there we were in the gutter smashing it up every night. Eventually, the legend grew simply because we didn’t give up. And when I had to take money out of my grocery money every week to pay lawyers so we could keep our name, no one I know would’ve gone through all that. The funny thing is, we did shows with, like, 50 people in attendance and we’d totally kick butt, then 10 years later we’d go back to the same town and say, “Hey, how many of you guys were here 10 years ago when we played?” and about 300 people wave their hands. Everyone wants to’ve been a part of what went down, but most of them don’t understand how really lousy it was the first time around.

So what made you keep at it?
I really like putting on my gear, and I like building my guitars, it’s all fun. But if the music stunk, there would be no reason to try it again. That was the whole point of this record, to show that the Misfits were not some titanic stepping-stone for Danzig, they are one of the vertebrate of the background of modern music. Guns N’ Roses and Metallica picked up on it, so now I’ve got millions of people thinking we’re some kind of heavy metal band. That’s the problem I’m faced with today. But, to me, that’s not a problem. When they come and see us live, they’re going to get it. They’re going to understand what we’re doing. They’re going to realize the Misfits write great songs and always have, and now we’re back like Godzilla.