Whatever the reality concerning its sales figures, Walk Among Us would eventually rise above its arbitrary numbers to be revered as one of the most invigorating and vital releases in punk history, an entity that forever married casual gore and hard rock, providing the template for a succession of spookier, more aggressive horror rock acts. White Zombie, a lo-fi punk band formed by Parsons School of Design students Sean Yseult and Rob Cummings in 1985, mutated the basic Walk Among Us vibe into a heavy metal beast that grooved along on crushing riffs and undead shlock for a decade-plus (earning the seal of approval from pop-culture giants like MTV). Cummings, who later christened himself Rob Zombie, and Yseult have both admitted to openly worshipping the Misfits in their youth; guitarist Jay Yuenger, a punk rock veteran from Chicago who joined White Zombie in 1989, asserts that Walk is “the definitive statement” from the Misfits, a record of “a dangerous sound with sweet melodies . . . it’s just so unique, and so uniquely American. It made a huge impact on everyone I knew.”[22]
Further south in Virginia, the influence of the Misfits helped transform what began as a low-budget horror movie production merged with a comical band called Death Piggy to form a space-suited rock n’ roll opera about aliens called Gwar. Gwar didn’t sing about monsters because they presented themselves literally as the monsters, a cadre of creatures from a distant planet (adorned in homemade foam rubber costumes) who came to our planet to conquer the human race one profane concert at a time. Rather than douse their fans with faux poison Kool-Aid, this band preferred to build an enormous penis cannon to soak attendees in fake ejaculate as their ears were similarly pummeled by songs such as “Slaughterama” and “Sexecutioner.” Gwar singer Dave Brockie, whose stage persona is that of rugged interplanetary leader Oderus Urungus, singles out Walk Among Us as a nearly perfect album, hailing the Misfits’ imagery in songs like “Skulls” as “spot on” and simply “classic.” “They were a huge influence,” says Brockie. “They were the punk rock Kiss, but they were a million times better than Kiss! They never made any shitty music!”[23]
Walk Among Us also found devotees in the straight-laced pop world, a testament to the album’s unshakable melodies. Cases in point: the beautiful acoustic cover of “Skulls” recorded by bubblegum grunge stars the Lemonheads in 1990[24] and the Nutley Brass’s equally touching instrumental reworking of the same song finding its way into Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg’s 2007 daredevil farce Hot Rod.[25] Unfortunately, at the time of their debut album’s release in 1982 the Misfits were still relatively unknown and in desperate need of money, so much so that they’d soon sacrifice a band member over a financial matter that amounted to less than a dollar.
“Seeing [the Misfits] live, I realized they were more of a comic book,” says Ian MacKaye. “I don’t mean that dismissively. They simply had a shtick. I had no idea what to make of them before. When the Cramps played, it was clear they were not in costumes. The Misfits were more like Kiss.”[26]
Glenn Danzig has always vehemently denied any link between Kabuki-faced hard rock titans Kiss and his own band despite the similarities in visual execution and general bombast. Countless interviews find Danzig dismissing Gene Simmons et al. as a poor recreation of the New York Dolls, a band he truly did admire. Jerry Only, on the other hand, openly admitted his appreciation for Kiss, having won the group’s first album in 1974 at a carnival game during a trip to the Jersey Shore with his parents and seeing the band in concert a year later on the Hotter Than Hell tour.[27] Kiss’s stage energy is visibly incarnate in Only when you watch videotaped performances from the halcyon days of the Misfits—like Simmons, the bassist expends a great deal of energy trying to menace the crowd, thrashing his instrument about, curling his lip into a sharp sneer and staring into the darkness ahead when he isn’t screaming along with Danzig. Only also made sure to adorn the sleeveless leather jacket he wore onstage with enormous spikes protruding from various angles. Fans were often afraid to approach the bassist lest they accidentally receive a gaping flesh wound.
Shticky as the Misfits may have been—particularly during the Walk Among Us period, as their hairspray-soaked devilocks grew to obscene lengths and the Crimson Ghost logo spread across all their equipment and Mad Max–inspired garb (Danzig in particular was taken with the Mad Max film series, bragging to Flipside that he saw the trilogy’s second entry The Road Warrior in the theater on at least five separate occasions[28]). Sometimes the violence surrounding the band was all too real, though. Consider the first West Coast date of 1982 the band played on April 10 at San Francisco’s Elite Club. The support acts included Desjardin’s band the Flesh Eaters, California gloom rockers the Undead (not to be confused with Bobby Steele’s band of the same name), hardcore pranksters JFA, and an early incarnation of alternative superstars the Meat Puppets. The concert promoters made the unwise decision to sell canned beer at the gig and not enforce any strict ID policy, leading to an impossibly rowdy atmosphere—especially when the Meat Puppets took to the stage with a set list comprised of medium-paced country and western–leaning material. “The kids were not hep to that,” Desjardins recalls. “There was a virtual storm of beer cans thrown at the stage, but the Meat Puppets refused to stop playing, to their credit. They were batting the beer cans back into the audience with the guitar[s]. It was crazy. I’m surprised that none of them got badly hurt.”[29]
The Misfits were certainly not wont to put up with this kind of abuse. Five songs into their set, Arthur Googy leapt out from behind his drum kit and, with the aid of middle Caiafa brother Ken (traveling with the Misfits as a roadie), physically attacked one particular audience member who was repeatedly attempting to peg Doyle in the head with beer cans. A concert-stopping fistfight ensued. Doyle, in a moment of teenage non-clarity, decided to try and separate the violent attendee from his band mates with the pointy end of his pointy Ibanez guitar. Miscalculating distance and speed, Doyle swung down too forcefully, smashing his aggressor square in the head and breaking his instrument in the process. The audience member crumpled to the floor. Aghast, the crowd was now beside itself with rage. A full-scale riot nearly broke out. “I remember Doyle telling me they ran up the stairs backstage really fast, but everyone followed them,” says later Misfits road manager Tim Bunch. “They were standing at the top of the stairs, and all these kids were coming up one at a time to fight them. Doyle just stood there, [and claims he was] punching them out one by one.”[30] “You know, we don’t take that kind of shit,” Danzig would tell Flipside that December. “If we don’t want people throwing shit at us . . . what do I give two fucks if that makes us rock art or something? We don’t care. Maybe [what Doyle did] was [necessary], maybe it wasn’t, what would anybody else do in that situation? It’s a split second thing.”[31]
A longstanding and completely false rumor is that Los Angeles punk provocateurs Fear were also sandwiched on the bill between certain bands for this infamous Elite Club show. This seems reasonable considering the general time frame and Fear’s reputation for being present at or even directly responsible (via their fierce crowd-baiting) for outbreaks of untamed punk rock violence. Desjardins, who personally booked the evening’s acts, says Fear was absolutely not there and were never even considered for the show; a freak appearance by Fear on NBC’s Saturday Night Live approximately six months earlier at the behest of super fan John Belushi—wherein the destructive actions of Fear and their cadre of slam dancers is said to have caused several thousand dollars’ worth of damage to famed Studio 8H—had increased that group’s concert draw to the degree they could no longer be considered an opening act.[32] As Fear drummer Spit Stix put it years later explaining the SNL effect, “We were industry mud for about a year, but we were kings on the street.”[33]
The Misfits escaped the Elite Club with their lives intact that wild April night but a with slightly injured reputation—punk rock periodical MaximumRockNRoll would later depict the band in crude cartoon form, penises sprouting from their foreheads in place of devilocks, thrilled at t
he prospect of cracking concert members’ heads open for money (Doyle, apparently flattered by any artistic representation, would later deem said cartoon “cool”).[34] Two weeks after the Elite Club fracas, Chris Desjardins was contacted at the Slash/Ruby offices by the San Francisco police department. The victim of Doyle’s attack had fallen into a coma, and now the cops were looking to get a hold of the Misfits to possibly file charges against their eighteen-year-old guitarist. Desjardins informed the SFPD that the Misfits had long since returned to New Jersey. Luckily, the audience member in question recovered and the matter wasn’t pursued.[35]
On April 14, 1982, an equally legendary but more lighthearted incident occurred when the Misfits invaded the famed Whisky-a-Go-Go for their official Los Angeles debut. As the story goes, Mötley Crüe front man Vince Neil sauntered into the bar with a friend during the band’s soundcheck. The band began heckling the aspiring glam rocker almost immediately, who then did a quick about-face and exited the Whisky. The Misfits would later brag that they followed a visibly frightened Neil outside the Whisky to chase him down the street (“We just went running out,” remembered Glenn in 1999. “And they were just scampering up the hill or the street or whatever”[36]), but little evidence outside the band’s own boasts suggests there ever was any interaction between the horror punks and Vince Neil.
Writing about that evening’s Whisky show in the Los Angeles Times, Craig Lee noted the Misfits’ “muscular necro-metal pose” masked what amounted to a “speeded-up version of the Ramones . . . in Kiss clothing.” Lee went on to call Danzig’s voice “gutsy,” registering surprise that it “actually cut through the feedback.” Apparently on the fence regarding the whole affair, Lee ended his write-up by dismissing the band as “corny and disposable” but praising the “shocking, visceral” song “Bullet” as “one of the most jolting punk songs ever written.”[37] David Chute of the Herald-Examiner had kinder words for the band, announcing that the Misfits “growled their way through a tight and infectious set” while “mak[ing] the morbid nihilism of hard-core punk seem playful and ingratiating . . . the boyish dress-up games and gleeful grossouts [sic] suggest a refreshing larkish attitude toward the standard pose.” Chute also took care to note that Walk Among Us “seems to signal [the Misfits’] real arrival,” particularly because the “Superfreak” himself, crossover funk star Rick James, was in attendance that night.[38]
Financially, the Walk Among Us tour had not proven very successful. Stiffed consistently by sleazy concert promoters who knew they could get away with ripping off no-name punk bands, the Misfits had not recouped the $3,000 Jerry Only borrowed from his father to fund travel for this stretch of California dates.[39] Mid-April found the tired and frustrated band members looking forward to rounding out the final three dates so they could return home and begin work on the follow-up to Walk, the already titled Earth A.D. Unfortunately, a meal stop at a Los Angeles McDonalds would torpedo all those plans while simultaneously bringing an end to what many believe was the most classic of Misfits lineups.
About a year before Walk Among Us, Glenn Danzig released his first solo record, a dizzying single dedicated to the murder of his favorite actress. “Who Killed Marilyn?” spun around on a sloppy two-chord riff as Danzig recounts Dragnet-style the facts surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s sudden 1962 expiration, surmising by the chorus that her death is “no mystery” to him. The flip side, “Spook City, U.S.A.,” was a crude anthem to an unnamed American haunting that leans ever so slightly toward Christian Death in its employment of background moaning and basic atmospheric frights.[40] “Who Killed Marilyn?” was a project encouraged by Misfits booster George Germain and spurred by a break in band activity when it appeared the Caiafa brothers were more interested in partying than rehearsing. Danzig is credited with performing all instrumentation on the single, though others have claimed there were outside musicians involved who, to this day, remain unidentified.
Arthur Googy’s name comes up a lot during the debate over “Marilyn’s” credits; while the jury’s still out on his participation, the drummer was equally frustrated in the autumn of 1981 with Doyle and Jerry’s slipping dedication to the Misfits. Coming together over this issue, Googy and Danzig briefly considered dumping their band mates to form a new project.[41] By April of 1982, though, the bond between drummer and singer was broken—relations between the pair had become openly hostile. A Touch and Go interview from shortly before this period finds Danzig and Googy never missing an opportunity to take a swipe at one another. Googy curtly declares to the magazine his disapproval of Danzig’s “Who Killed Marilyn?” solo single, the very piece of music that spurned their discussion of a new band (“I think it sucks, myself”). Meanwhile, Danzig chides Googy over his repeated requests to meet “nice girls” (“Enough about fuckin’ horniness, Arthur!”). The petty squabbling continues over whether Walk Among Us was intended to have thirteen songs, where the “Horror Business” single was recorded, and Googy’s unhip love of pot (Googy: “I lit up a joint [outside Club 57] and they started saying, ‘Aw, reefer sucks!’ and all this shit. . . . ” Glenn: “Good, they should have killed you”).[42]
Another thorn in Danzig’s side was Googy’s assertion in the Misfits tour van that he would happily perform fellatio on himself if he were limber enough. In a letter to Meatmen singer Tesco Vee circa this time period, Danzig highlighted and condemned this sexual desire of his band mate’s as simply too bizarre to sit with (“Everybody in the van went, ‘What!!!,’” Glenn wrote. “And so he repeated it and we kicked him out of the van.”).[43] The singer clearly construed Googy’s statement as a homosexual desire, which, as several pieces of press from the era prove, is something for which Glenn Danzig had little tolerance. Case in point: a 1982 interview with Flipside that finds the Misfits leader calling San Francisco “fucking Homo Land” where “everyone’s pushing [homosexuality] on you.” (“You go to the supermarket to use the phone and it’s, ‘Oh, yeecch,’ [makes kissing sound]. ‘Fuck you, leave me alone for five seconds!’”)[44] In his letter to Vee, Danzig speculates further on Googy’s sexuality, noting that the groupies his drummer consorted with were “old . . . fat and ugly.”[45] Disheartening sentiments from a member of an allegedly more liberal-minded musical revolution but not terribly surprising considering the time period and geographic location in which the Misfits were bred.
At any rate, Googy’s days with the band were numbered, and had been since shortly before the 1981 studio sessions that would later make up the bulk of Walk Among Us. A few clandestine Misfits rehearsals were held at this time with a former Lodi High School football buddy of Jerry Only’s, Jim Murray, on drums. Though band members have never confirmed or denied his story, Murray claims he asked to replace Googy and would have, had his girlfriend not strongly objected to his participation in a demonic punk rock band. A confrontation between Murray, his girlfriend, the girlfriend’s parents, and the Misfits is said to have broken out one afternoon on the Caiafas’ front lawn, just as the band was leaving to go log some time recording their debut album. The tense argument ending with a sullen Murray slinking away from the band, leaving punk rock history in his rearview mirror and forcing the Misfits to fall back on Arthur Googy.[46]
The Danzig/Googy feud reached its climax on April 15, the band’s day off between California tour dates. Dining at McDonald’s (a favorite eatery of the band), the famished drummer demanded a meal of two cheeseburgers instead of the single burger he was to be allotted for the day. Danzig refused, citing the band’s dire financial straits. Within moments, a fistfight had broken out between the two, frightening neighboring diners and annoying the Caiafa brothers. “Me and Doyle said, ‘Hey, you two guys better just sit down,’” Jerry Only later recalled. “‘This sucks enough. You guys are fightin’ over cheeseburgers—I gotta go back and tell my old man I blew three grand!’ . . . [in the end] pretty much Googy told [Glenn] to kiss off, and I don’t blame him a bit. If Doyle wasn’t in the band at that point, I probably would have packed it up to
o, y’know?”[47]
Showing some mettle, Arthur Googy toughed it out for the final three gigs of the Walk Among Us tour before flying back to New York City, making good on his McDonaldland resignation. Googy later joined New York hardcore band Antidote, whose platform was the spread of peace and unity among warring punks; still, Antidote’s approach was rage-heavy, and their blistering 1983 EP Thou Shalt Not Kill (which clocks in at a mean seven minutes) is considered to this day to be one of hardcore punk’s finest recordings. In a slightly more ironic post-Misfits career move no one other than Bobby Steele has been able to verify, Arthur Googy allegedly appeared in a nationally broadcast television commercial for Burger King circa 1984, happily consuming a Whopper that may or may not have been his second hamburger of the day. Googy’s work in a Levi’s ad from the same time period is stuff of similar legend. “Just to put it in the simplest terms, this guy was a wacko,” Bobby Steele later said of Googy, who played with the drummer during his final months with the Misfits. “This guy was just like so hyper . . . when I was driving him home, after his audition [with us in 1980], he admitted to me that he had never played an entire song [on the drums] before, in his life, y’know, and it was like the guy was incredible. [He] always seemed to be like the kind of guy that he sets his mind to something [and] he does a great job of it.”[48]
This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits Page 9