Before Glenn Danzig will answer any questions, he has a few of his own he wants to ask.
"So, what’s this for? A website or a magazine?"
U-G: A website.
"So why aren’t we in your magazine?"
U-G: There is no magazine, just the website.
"Actually I hate all these guitar mags. So many f-ckin’ bands steal my riffs and Tommy’s riffs over the years and then we never get in any of these magazines. Then they talk how great these thief guitar players are. It’s annoying."
U-G: Is that true?
"Yeah, it’s true, motherf-cker. The people who read guitar magazines are noodleheads; people who don’t know to f-ckin’ play leads, they just learn scales and f-ckin’ G.I.T. crap. Anyway, go ahead."
Now that he’s got all that off his ripped chest, Glenn is ready to sing. Danzig has just released their ninth studio album titled Deth Red Sabaoth, a mix of goth and gloom metal and the type of dark riffs that have characterized the band’s music since their debut release over 20 years ago. It is the group’s first album since Circle Of Snakes, the 2004 album, and once again Glenn has teamed up with guitarist Tommy Victor to handle all the six-strings. And this time around, the singer has brought in newcomer Johnny Kelly on drums [though he has toured with the band.]
The singer/songwriter once again produced the album, played bass, wrote the songs, and even played drums on a track called "Black Candy."
Glenn Danzig doesn’t screw around when it comes to his music. He knows exactly what he wants and he knows how to go about achieving it. If you can’t deliver then it’s "move over Rover and let Danzig take over." He doesn’t suffer fools lightly and if a musician isn’t cutting it on a guitar part or even a drum track, he’ll simply do it himself. Here, he talks about all of that – yielding control and taking it back – and what it takes to still be kicking all these years later.
UG: Deth Red Sabaoth is your first studio album since Circle of Snakes back in 2004. Have you gone in a different direction as a writer and a musician since then?
Glenn Danzig: No, what I did with this new record was I just wanted to get a very old school approach like an early ‘70s kind of record. When you listen back to those early ‘70s you remembered the guitars the guitars were heavier than they actually really were you listened back.
That’s exactly right. Zeppelin never had huge guitar sounds.
I gotta have a heavy guitar; that’s one thing that differentiates the way I produce [as opposed to the way] Rick [Rubin] produces which was very clean, kind of AC/DCish guitars and very flat. I like big, loud guitars; heavy guitars. I wanted a really solid and big bass sound and you can’t get that with that new metal crap that all those fag bands play with now. You gotta go and get the old amps with 15s and 18s. I went out and got some old Kustom tuck and roll amps. The trick back then and I think even Sabbath did it was to get a really bassy guitar sound – not a bass sound but a guitar sound. You played through your bass rig, through the head and the cabinet. And I did that on most of my guitar tracks.
You were really looking for those classic guitar sounds from back in the day.
Yeah. I was looking for all old pedals and stuff ‘cause I wanted a really cool phase shifter sound but none of those Plug-ins on the computer sound like anything except crap. So while I was digging for all these old pedals and trying ‘em all out at all these different music shops, I found this box I’d been lookin’ for forever with the original Misfits. It was a distortion box I used to use which was a Dallas Arbiter fuzz.
That was a big part of Hendrix’s sound and even Clapton used one.
It looks like a pedal but it’s not. It’s got an orange and silver faceplate and you can’t find ‘em for shit. Once when I was workin’ on the Lost Tracks of Black Aria, I saw one on eBay and I had to go do a vocal track and it had a Buy It Now and I came back and somebody had already bought it for like $500.
But you did find one at a music store?
Yeah, so there it was sittin’ in this box and I’m like, “Does that thing work?” and the guy goes [in salesman’s voice], “Let’s plug it in and see.” And I plug it in and go, “Oh, hell, yeah; great.” I’ve been lookin’ for one of those for like 20 years. When I blew up back up in the day there was this guy that was fixin’ ended up beating a guy who used to hang out with Les Paul and George Benson and everything and he died. And all my stuff, my old Vox Super Beatle PA head and all this other stuff all got like in his estate and I never got it.
You write, play, produce, sing, and have a hand in creating all the visuals and graphics for Danzig. How do you keep everything straight and not lose focus of these various job descriptions?
Since the Misfits, I have this thing where I always work on a budget. I think the only time that we didn’t really work on a budget was with Rick in the early days. And after I became producer on How the Gods Kill, we worked on a budget. When you’re workin’ on a budget, my attitude is you get one shot and maybe a couple of other shots for each song to do it. If you can’t do it, I’m takin’ the bass and I’m doin’ it. In Samhain it was the same, too. If you couldn’t do the drums, you’ve got a couple shots. If you don’t I’m hoppin’ on those drums and doing it because we’ve got to get it done. That’s it. A lot of people don’t understand when you’re on a budget and especially nowadays when no one’s buying records, you’ve really got to be budget-conscious.
"With this new record I just wanted to get a very old school approach like an early '70s kind of record."
With Tommy Victor and Johnny Kelly it’s easy; really with everybody it’s really easy. You go in and do your basics and then you start tracking the other stuff. I do all my basics in an analog studio through a board. We did this one at Grandmaster [24-track analog studio in Hollywood.] It has a killer drum room and actually some of the drum tracks were done out in the garage. They have a big garage with a giant ceiling and we did some drum tracks out there. They have three different drum rooms there. I made the garage a drum room but they have these other two drum rooms.
That’s a rare thing to record analog these days.
Yeah, it’s on everything. That’s what people don’t understand that every single one of my records including Danzig five [Blackacidevil] and other ones, I’m in the studio in the drum room and the whole thing and doin’ all the tracks. Nowadays once you do all your tracks it gets dumped into a hard drive but I’m still in the studio and my guitar rig or Tommy’s rig is out in the studio all miked and it’s comin’ through a board. I still go in the studio to record; I don’t sit in somebody’s living room and go right into a Pro Tools rig.
Obviously the analog aspect of recording is a huge part of getting those guitar sounds you were after.
Yeah, it had to be to get that early sound. You’ve got to use all the right gear and you can’t be using Plug-ins because they just don’t sound right.
Did you specifically listen to Sabbath records to hear how the drums and bass were mixed? To hear how Tony Iommi’s guitar sounded?
I know that shit already. To me, it’s like the first four Sabbath records were Sabbath. After that it was maybe Sabbath Bloody Sabbath but that’s Sabbath to me. And like I said some of that guitar I remember being a lot heavier than it actually was but it still have that vibe to it. So, yeah, I just wanted to make sure I captured that feel. I still wanted heavy guitars and it still had to sound like Danzig so once I found that little line where it sounded like that, that was it. I just walked it right down the end ‘til we were done recording.
“On a Wicked Night,” the first single, is pretty heavy but in a more ballady kind of way. There are cleaner guitars that turn into big electrics but there are also acoustics on this song.
Yeah, I like that a lot. It’s just all the shit I’m into. I remember a long time ago people would ask me, “Was it hard writing songs for Johnny Cash or Roy Orbison?” I’m like, “No” because certain kinds of music transcend timelessness and they have that thing that everybody likes. And that’s what I tried to do when I was writing that song. I mean I was trying to transcend all the different stuff so that anybody hearing the song would be like, “Yeah, I dig it.” And while we were doing the video shoot, people, not metalheads or anything, they were like, “Where can I get this song? Where can I get this record?” It was pretty cool.
What about a song like “Ju Ju Bone” which has that dark swampy Danzig-meets-ZZ Top thing going on.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to do kind of an early like Danzig kind of blues song but just make it really dirty and have Tommy there whose lead is just f-cking incredible on there. It’s like kind of cool, understated, very improv; it’s very cool. It almost sounds like ZZ Top to the 10th power; I don’t know. It’s pretty wild.
Guitarist Tommy Victor worked on the last record, Circle of Snakes and you decided to work with him again.
Tommy is an incredible guitar player and so much fun working with him and playing on stage with him. He’s great.
You talked about Tommy’s abilities as a guitarist but you said earlier if a musician can’t cut it, you do it yourself. How much freedom do you allow the players in your band?
When you’re the songwriter you bring it down, play the song for the guys and teach ‘em the parts. And then as the producer you say, “What about trying this here? What about trying that there?” That’s what a producer does. I mean Tommy gets it because Tommy usually I’m pretty sure he produced most of the Prong stuff and if not he was involved in it. You know what I mean? So he gets it. Then when it comes to leads, I’ll just let Tommy start riffing and I’ll go, “Oh, that was cool.” You know what I mean. And Tommy kind of does leads the same way I’ve always done leads. He’ll do a whole bunch of different leads and then he’ll make like a mashup kind of chopped together version and then he’ll try to beat it. And that’s what I’ll tell him. I’m always like, “Tommy, that was incredible; I think you can beat it tough.” Things like that. So then it just takes off.
You tend to work with just one guitar player in your band. You rarely bring in second guitar players to do the twin-guitar thing. Why?
I just dig it: Zeppelin, Sabbath, and you could even say the Ramones. I like a four-piece band onstage; I don’t like 80 people. I mean it’s cool if you go see James Brown but if you hear their stuff there are six people that are totally unnecessary at least. So, I like that thing and to me that’s like a band so that’s what I go for. It’s compact, streamlined, and very effective and if you have good musicians then you’re fine. And I have good musicians so I’m happy.
On “Pyre of Souls: Incanticle” and “Pyre of Souls: Season of Pain” you book ended two songs together to create this little mini-suite.
I’ve never done that; I always wanted to do a two-part song and so it was cool. What I did was I just wrote down the song and I said, “OK, we’re gonna play this acoustic right now” and so the guys are like, “Oh, OK” and played acoustic and really it was me and Tommy because there are no drums on it.
You’re playing some acoustic guitar?
Yeah, actually Tommy and I are playing. Tommy does a really nice walking/moving around bass track on that song that’s cool. And then grabbed Johnny and said, “OK me and Tommy are gonna do the electric. And do a four count and kick in with your snare beat and then pop in.” And that’s it.
On the first part, “Pyre of Souls: Incanticle” you’re singing a lot of dark chanting kinds of ahhhs and stuff. Did you listen to Native American music? Gregorian chants?
I always incorporate Gregorian chants. I actually even did some on that track that with Melissa. I did a song with Melissa Auf Der Maur [“Father’s Grave”] and so I actually put a bunch of Gregorian chants on the background vocals.
There’s also piano on “Incanticle.”
There’s piano on the whole record; actually there’s probably piano on every single record I’ve ever done. I actually showed [Rick] Rubin how to do the piano hits on every guitar chord to make ‘em more powerful. You hit the I and the V [root and fifth notes of a chord] and you hit it all over the keyboard and it just makes the first chord of the chorus gigantic.
"I wanted a really solid and big bass sound and you can't get that with that new metal crap that all those fag bands play with now."
I write on everything. My process is that I could be writing a song on piano; I could just be singing a vocal or melody line; I could be playing guitar; I could be writing a drum pattern first; or I could be in my driving and just pounding on the steering wheel and singing into a micro cassette recorder. I have no set pattern and however it comes to me that’s how I do it. I just don’t sit down and say [in an intentionally dumb voice], “OK, I’m gonna write a song today.” I don’t do that.
“Left Hand Rise Above” has a very moody Danzig vibe going on. There’s sort of a “Riders on the Storm” influence there?
I don’t know about that [laughter.] “Riders on the Left Hand Storm.” It’s just a cool, powerful epic track to end the record. So when I’m getting down to tracking out the record and you putting it in order and making it flow, I always wanted to end with “Pyre of Souls,” the B part? And I was just like, “You know what? It’s gotta end with this crazy epic “Left Hand Rise Above.” It’s so dramatic. I like doing that. I did a song once called “Without Light, I Am” [final track from the I Luciferi album] and it was so dramatic at the end and I like that shit. I still dig it.
So you’re even aware of song sequences on the Danzig albums?
Song sequence is really important and actually that was a cool thing about working with Rick. Because at the end he realized how important song sequence was for a record and taking people on that ride. How I do the live set is the same way with the records: taking you on a ride. And that ride has to take you to the end. You know what I mean? You can’t have the end at the beginning; it won’t work. People will be like, “Hey, where’s the ride?”
After hearing you talk about Rick Rubin, it sounds like he may not have been your first choice as a producer for the early Danzig records.
Uhh, you know what? Because so many labels were jockeying us at the time, when I first met him I remembered he burst into our dressing room when we did this New Music seminar show where they had bands representing all different areas like Celtic Frost representing Europe and [bands from] New York and Canada. And so we were backstage and I was talking to friends and the labels were there that wanted to sign us and he just came bursting in the dressing room and he was like, “My name is Rick Rubin and I want to sign you guys.” And I’m like, “What?” And there was this big, kind of heavyset guy who looked like he was in ZZ Top or something you know. He had a beard and everything and he was like, “Whoo, you know people I know; you know this guy and that guy.” And so I called him and he was like, “I know the Beastie Boys.” I remember calling people who knew him and they said, “Yeah, this guy is for real. He’s produced for Run DMC and all these other bands. He has Def Jam Records with Russell Simmons and he just signed Playa last year.”
Rick Rubin impressed you.
His label wasn’t gigantic yet; he was just starting it. His enthusiasm though and we started talking and “Where do you see Danzig?” And so, “This is how I see it” and kinda how I thought and I thought, “OK, this is cool.” He was completely enthusiastic back then and really into it. Really into changing music and also doing great records. And so I ended up working with him and I liked working with him back then.
What do you remember of the sessions from the first Danzig record?
We recorded it in three different studios. Tons of tapes, probably like 42 or maybe 45, 2” reels. Yeah, a lot. It was a waste and I was like, “This is a waste. If you [Rubin] don’t like the stuff here, let’s just record over it. This is a waste.” There’s probably at least eight to 10 takes of every song from each studio. It might even be more than 45 reels of 2” tapes; it might be more than that.
That process sounds like it’s exactly opposite of what you described earlier about knocking the songs off in one or two takes.
I remember it just being a long drawn out process and he was just trying to get a certain sound. It was tough on the band and we kept on wanting the record to come out and it was taking forever working with him. But I guess in the end it worked out OK.
“Mother” and “Twist of Cain” did come from Danzig.
Yeah, a lot of cool songs on that.
As the first Danzig record, do you think you set the stage for the music to come? Was it a promising first step in your mind?
I would have liked the guitar to be a little heavier but that’s just me [laughs.] Yeah, I thought if the guitar was a little heavier it would have been much more to my liking. But I still liked the record; I don’t hate the record.
By the time you started the second album, Danzig II: Lucifuge, had the process gotten easier?
That was a little more difficult of a process because Rick was starting to hang out up at the Rainbow [rocker’s club on Sunset Boulevard] and other places and he wasn’t showing up. In the beginning it was me and Jim Scott [engineer] there at the studio and all of a sudden one day after the drums are done and we’d done some tracking, I came in and Jim Scott was gone. No one told me and this guy, Brendon O’Brien was there. And I was like, “Who are you?” He goes, “Oh, my name is Brendon and I used to be in the Fabulous Thunderbirds” or one of those bands. I go, “Get out!” I’m pretty sure I wasn’t impressed because I hated the band whatever their name was. I forget what the band was called. They had this song where they’re playing guitar on the back of a flatbed truck [“Keep Your Hands To Yourself.”] He’d either just been kicked out or fired from the band. The Georgia Satellites, that’s who they were.
What was it like working with Brendon O’Brien?
It ended up being OK working with him. Unlike Rick, he knew what a Hammond B-3 was. It worked out fine. But Rick was M.I.A. and we’d be callin’ him saying, “Look, you’ve got to come down here” and he’s like, “Just play me something over the speaker phone.” I was like, “No, you’ve got to come down here and hear this shit!” So he wasn’t even really there so that’s why he got fired from the next record and I produced How the Gods Kill. On Thrall [Demonsweatlive] and 4 we shared producer credits.
Then on Blackacidevil you made another left turn?
Not really. I guess it’s a pretty misunderstood record; actually it’s one of my better-selling records. But I wanted to do like an underground American record and a lot of people thought that Nine Inch Nails was like this whole industrial thing or whatever it was. But really it was a takeoff on American underground music which at the time is what Samhain was doing. It’s really just an extension of that. It’s all analog; a lot of people think it’s all like computer and everything [but] it’s not.
"I still go in the studio to record; I don't sit in somebody's living room and go right into a Pro Tools rig."
The distorted vocals is just like the way the Beatles used to do it: they’d grab an old microphone and sing through it. I mean it’s nothing really new; people want to pretend it’s new but it’s been done by a million classic bands before. So I don’t really understand what the big excitement was.
Actually I got to work with a really cool guitar player on that record: Jerry Cantrell. And hopefully we’ll be doing a record together one day.
Talking about guitar, you had some pretty major guitar sounds happening on 6:66 Satan’s Child with songs like “Belly of the Beast.”
Yeah, well onstage we’d always tuned our guitars down and so I just started even playing with it even more. I started doing it on Danzig 4 and Blackacidevil but really tuning ‘em way down for certain songs [began with Satan’s Child.] Actually I think there’s a song on Circle of Snakes that Tommy and I tune our guitars down to A. It goes out of tune real quick.
No kidding. Then there’s the 7:77: I Luciferi album that represents the end of the seven-album cycle. Did you really know way back when you recorded the first Danzig album that there would be seven records in this first kind of phase one of Danzig?
Yeah, the end of 7 ends the whole cycle; I planned it all out. A lot of people don’t understand that. Even when I do my comics, Satanika, I plotted 21 issues in a row. Like everything; what’s in each issue. And then once it’s done, you go from there. That’s what I did with Danzig 7: I plotted each record out early on.
Sometimes when you create this sort of self-imposed framework, you force pieces to fit and create an unnatural project.
It was restrictive but it’s what I wanted to do. And I had a certain idea of what it had to do. There was a lot of things other than musical which people won’t get and I’m not gonna expound on it here. But it did what it was supposed to do.
Does Circle of Snakes represent the beginning of this next cycle of music for Danzig? Phase two?
I don’t even know if it’s phase two; I think it was just more like a freeing up. I mean you could call it phase two, I don’t really care. It’s just basically like, “OK, now I can just put any song I feel like having on the record. It doesn’t matter.” Before certain songs would be great but they just didn’t fit my pre-conceived thing I had that I needed to do. So you’ll see stuff on Lost Tracks and you’re like, “Why wasn’t this on the record? Why wasn’t ‘Bound By Blood’ on anything?” And things like that. There’s a reason.
If we do call Circle of Snakes the beginning of phase two then Deth Red Sabaoth represents the second album in this cycle. How does it stand up for you as a document of Danzig here in 2010?
I think it came out better than I was hoping. Normally Danzig comes in on CMJ’s Album Radio and we’re in the top five for a week or two. This time we’ve been in the top three for six weeks and for the last three weeks we’ve been number one. We knocked Ozzy out of the top spot. That’s pretty astounding and actually I said this to my manager the other day. I don’t know if this has ever happened to Danzig where we actually stayed at the top of Album Radio for three weeks in a row. It’s kind of cool; it means that people dig the record and that’s great. We worked really hard on it and I hope everyone digs it.
Interview by Steven Rosen
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2010
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