GLENN DANZIG Discusses Touring Plans, Infamous 'Punch' Video

Peter Atkinson of KNAC.COM recently conducted an interview with Glenn Danzig. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

KNAC.COM: I keep hearing stuff about you retiring, or at least really scaling things back. Obviously that's not the case at the moment.

Danzig: I probably won't do much, if any touring, after this. I know I've said that before, but I've really cut it back the last couple years and I can see a time where I just don't do it at all. I really just don't like to tour. I love performing, but I've been doing this for so long that all of the traveling and everything else that goes into doing a tour is not something I enjoy. It really does wear you down, especially when you're as involved in as many aspects of a tour as I usually am.

The Blackest tour that's coming up should be OK because, for one thing, it's real short, 10 shows in two weeks, and some of them are near enough to where I live that I can come home at night after the show. If I could do that all the time, I'd tour forever, but that's just not possible.

KNAC.COM: Will you at least try to put together an East Coast leg of the Blackest tour?

Danzig: I don't really know. Since everyone else in DANZIG now lives on the East Coast, and that's where I'm from, it would make sense. But Johnny and Kenny will be touring with TYPE O NEGATIVE, probably for the next year, and I don't really want to have to put together a whole new band again just to do a few shows. We might do a show in New York or somewhere near there around Christmas because I'll be coming to New Jersey to visit my mother then. But that might be it.

KNAC.COM: But you'll continue to make music?

Danzig: Definitely. I don't think I could stop doing that if I wanted to. But before I start on anything new, I've got all this other stuff to put out. The second "Black Aria" just came out and in a couple months there'll be "The Lost Tracks of Danzig", which is a double album of unreleased DANZIG tracks that does back to the beginning of the band, so I'm pretty excited about that.

It was cool getting all that material together and revisiting all those songs. There's some really cool stuff on there, some of the most evil shit I've done (laughs) that I think the fans will really dig. It was like putting a puzzle back together, because some of the stuff hadn't been properly mixed and some of the songs needed parts rerecorded here and there.

And there was one song, an acoustic version of "Come To Silver" from "Danzig 5" ["blackacidevil"] that I had written originally for Johnny Cash, where the vocal track was missing. When we went back in to mix it, we found out that the vocals had been wiped out by the old engineer. So I obviously had to do the vocals over.

KNAC.COM: You're probably sick of talking about this, but has "the punch" video that was all over the Internet for a while had any impact, for better or for worse, on you professionally?

Danzig: No. What would have is if I had hit back. There's always some asshole who wants to provoke you into doing something they can sue you for, and I'm not gonna let that happen.

I know they (the NORTH SIDE KINGS) milked it (the video) for all they could. But that was two years ago. I don't know how much good it ended up doing for them. Are they even still around? The only people who keep bringing it up are you people (music hacks). And, yes, I am sick of talking about it. But the people who have always liked me probably still like me, the people who hate me probably still hate me. It didn't change anything.

Read the entire interview at KNAC.COM.