Longevity was never something on the mind of Misfits bass player and vocalist Jerry Only when he joined the group in 1977.
But now he finds himself looking beyond the band’s impending 40th anniversary, pondering 50 years fronting what is arguably one of the world’s most influential punk rock acts.
Formed in New Jersey in 1977 by singer and songwriter Glenn Danzig, Misfits are regarded the founders of the horror-punk genre, due to lyrics and imagery laced with classic sci-fi and horror fiction references.
The music itself is something quite different to the rest of the punkers of the time, melding rock stylings from the 50s with raw energy and speed.
On Saturday, December 12, 2015, Only and his Misfits cohorts, including son Jerry II, stormed Sydney’s Manning Bar, for what could only be described as a history lesson.
On the night, the band played its classic debut album Static Age from start to finish.
They then followed it up with more than 20 cuts from their classic vault.
Static Age includes some of the finest Misfits tracks, among them Teenagers From Mars, Spinal Remains, Hollywood Babylon, TV Casualty and Last Caress, which was famously covered by Metallica, and Attitude, covered by Guns N’ Roses.
While it was the first Misfits recording, it sat on the shelf for 18 years before being released, due to among other reasons, a law suit.
‘‘Our guitar player had a copy of it in a safe deposit box, that he’d never played, so when the law suit was finished between us and Caroline Records we decided we were gonna put that baby out, because it was way overdue,’’ said Only.
‘‘We couldn’t find the tapes. What happened was Frank went to the bank and got his copy out of the safe deposit box and that’s how we did Static Age. Later the tapes popped up, but in the beginning we had to go with the cassette version.’’
Only said being forced to hold onto the album for so long was frustrating.
‘‘Over time it didn’t bother me, but in the beginning when it was done and it had to sit there it was like, ‘man, what the hell’, and we played it for everybody — Sire Records, Chrysalis — and nobody got it,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s kinda funny that today it’s like this classic cornerstone of where punk started to go into a different direction.
‘‘When we recorded it, it was kind of a grind because of the reason that it was done in January and if I recall it was pretty sloppy and it was very snowy and we had to go from New Jersey into Manhattan every day up to 57th Street and it was never an easy endeavour, but I think we had about 20-something hours of time that was allotted to us and then we went over a little bit. We had to go back and redo some stuff. One song changed lyrics. Spinal Remains was a song called NY Nursery and it was redone to what it is now. It was an experience. We were ready.’’
Only said the sci-fi and horror imagery by which the band is so well defined started when he and Danzig set about creating posters for upcoming gigs. Starting with images from films like Teenagers From Mars, the band is most clearly defined by its adopted moniker, the cloaked smiling skull of the Crimson Ghost, the villain of a 1946 film serial of the same name.
‘‘We were into horror and we said, ‘to hell with it, everything we do is just gonna get scarier and more Halloween’, and that was pretty much the catalyst that made us realise that there was more to playing music than trying to fit in,’’ he said.
‘‘We gave up trying to be one of the crowd and I think at that point we developed an identity. And I think that’s one thing with the band that stands out quite a lot. Even people who don’t know the music know the imagery. It’s like a pop culture icon now.
‘‘I think we’ve done well for a band who really hasn’t had any support from the industry whatsoever. We inspired the 80s metal scene and then in the 90s we came back and reinvented ourselves with a little more production and a little bit more pizzazz. And I think the second wave of the Misfits is inspiring people who will become big now, that are going to say, ‘I listened to American Psycho or I listened to Famous Monsters or The Devil’s Rain. That’s coming, I see it in young bands. They’re more inspired by our newer material than our older material.’’
Only said that incorporating fantastic themes in the songs also kept the material fun and in a way, timeless. ‘‘They don’t get tiring,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t get bored listening to this stuff. It’s aggressive, it’s fun, it’s intellectual in some sense. I think our advantage is that we have concepts for each song. It’s not just some crazy bizarre party I was at and some guy was dressed like a hotdog, we have a moot point of a certain invasion from Mars or a zombie or a vampire — there is a story behind each. Each one is like a mini novel and in that sense they’re really cool.
‘‘And the one thing that I really like about the band is that we’re not really a punk band and we’re really not a metal band and we’re not a rockabilly band, but we have rockabilly songs and we do thrash and we do death metal and we do ballads. We do a song like American Nightmare, which could easily be a Johnny Cash or a Elvis song. We’ve managed to intergender the different genres and mix it all together with one Tales From The Crypt type attitude and then we locked onto Halloween. The only thing more powerful than Halloween is Christmas and I think in terms of rock music you’re better off going for Halloween than Christmas. I don’t think we made the wrong choice.’’
Only said he believed the band’s seemingly underground status served to maintain its appeal.
‘‘I think the band not being this big commercial conglomerate and all bling bling — we’re still working class assholes grinding it out — that’s what keeps the reality in perspective,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s hard to write about how difficult it is on the chaingang when you’re sitting in the penthouse in Manhattan; it’s another thing to be chained to the line with a pick in your hand.’’
Only, 56, said that he was proud to officially welcome his son, who opts for the family surname Caiafa, into the fold. He was called in on guitar to replace Dez Cadena, a longterm Misfit and former Black Flag member.
‘‘My son, he’s 30 now, he was in college for two years and he goes, ‘dad, I really want to be a sound engineer’ and at the time I was in the machine shop and I was trying to understand what to do here, it was like, ‘well shit, should we keep the business going or should we focus on the band? His decision to go into sound engineering really made me put the band out in front in terms of trying to get things done,’’ Only said.
‘‘He went to sound engineering school and then he worked for the band as our stage manager and then our tour manager and front of house guy and monitor guy — he was doing eight different jobs and he was like, ‘Jesus Christ you’re gonna kill me’. Unfortunately Uncle Dez got sick and he stepped in and he’s doing great and we’re writing together. He earned it from the bottom floor and worked his way up. He’s already a 10-year veteran and this will be his second run. He did a run with us last year with Dez. This year it’s just him.’’
Only has big plans for his son, with whom he’s currently writing the next Misfits album.
‘‘We want this to be our best album, especially as my son’s on it,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re shooting for 40 years; well 40 years is in my grasp — I’m shooting for 50, and I’m hoping after that my son is in a position where he’s writing and he’s got a good band nucleus around him, so if I decide I’m only going to play here and there that would be fine, they could still go out and do shows. I am confident that the Misfits future is brighter than its past. For every good thing that we’ve done, I’d like to do two more going forward.’’
