Glenn Danzig’s spooky collection of evil books
Rock stars like to think of themselves as intellectuals, and Glenn Danzig is no different.
The Misfits frontman has long since been something of an outlier in the world of punk frontmen. Leaning less into the world of politics and anger and more into occult-laced counter-culture.
He’d almost work better as a frontman of one of the harder-edged goth rock groups of his era, like Sisters of Mercy or Fields of the Nephilim, yet he became one of the most influential punk frontmen of his era, with a cult of personality to match.
It’s true, Danzig went from the frontman to a jobbing punk band to an icon to (please excuse the pun) misfits everywhere. Thus, people wanted to know even more about him than just whether or not he was “A God-Damn son of a bitch”. See Misfits’ banger ‘Where Eagles Dare’ for confirmation of that fact. If anything, this cult of personality intensified after he ditched the ‘Fits to go solo, having a genuine, bona fide hit in the form of ‘Mother’ and making him a celebrity.
In 1990, his record label Def American Recording decided to capitalise on his celebrity by releasing Danzig, a VHS collecting all the music videos he’d released in his new solo band, along with a number of live performances. Also contained on the video were several specially shot interview segments. Including one that I would be good money haunts him to this day. Not in the fun kind either.
What is in the book collection of Danzig?
In a three-minute black and white segment, we see Danzig, crouched by a bookshelf of his and giving his best smoulder to the camera. “Welcome to my book collection”, he says with lip-smacking relish, aiming for Aleister Crowley but landing on Garth Marenghi a decade and a half early. He talks about how reading is one of his favourite pastimes and, to be fair to the lad, he’s not kidding.
This is a guy whose key influences are as much Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allen Poe as they are Black Sabbath and Johnny Cash. However, those are not the tomes he picks out for this interview. He begins with The Werewolf by Montague Summers, a collection of Werewolf encounters that Danzig hilariously states are “all documented, all true.”
He then moves on to a book about the occult roots of Nazism, saying, “Every schoolchild should have this book.”
The sheer edge of it all. He finishes up on a book about “The lost books of The Bible” about all the things “they” omitted from the Christian holy book. If this all sounds like I’m being fairly dismissive of some quite interesting counter-cultural literature, then it’s because I am. After all, it’s difficult to take it that seriously when the guy telling you about it all won’t put a God-Damn shirt on, for Christ’s sake.