The Untold Truth Of The Misfits

Born Glenn Anzalone on June 23, 1955, in Lodi, N.J., Glenn Danzig, like many disaffected suburban kids in the 60s, grew up hooked on comics and horror movies. A self-described outsider, Danzig had little patience for his peers or their tastes. "Growing up, while everyone else was reading stupid s***, I was reading Edgar Allan Poe and Baudelaire," Danzig told The Stranger's Trent Moorman in 2013. "I loved horror movies, and I really liked underground comics."

After graduating from Lodi High School in 1973, Danzig developed an interest in music. As the Danzig frontman told The Stranger, his "hatred of everything" spurred his entry into music. With a taste for heavy music like Black Sabbath, the singer joined his first band, Talus, in 1975. By 1976, he was ready to realize a new musical vision, one that would incorporate his offbeat interests and obsessions. New York's rising punk rock movement seemed the perfect vehicle.

Naming his new band The Misfits after Marilyn Monroe's final film, Danzig recruited bassist Diane DiPiazza and drummer Manny Martinez. Failing to show up for rehearsals, Piazza was soon replaced by Jerry Caiafa.

With Caiafa, a 17-year-old high school jock turned punk, on bass (an instrument he had only been playing for a month), a guitarless Misfits featuring Danzig on vocals and electric piano, released their first single, "Cough/Cool," backed with "She," a paean to heiress turned SLA bank robber Patty Hearst, in August of 1977. 

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunB%2FkW9qbW9fqbWmedSnq6iklGLBs8HToWSonl2ptaZ5zKKqn6GkqHw%3D