Doyle, Friday, Nov. 16, 7 p.m., $18–$50, The Maywood, Raleigh, www.themaywoodraleigh.com
A little more than a year ago, Doyle, the band led by erstwhile Misfits guitarist Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein, released its second album, Doyle II: As We Die. This being the age of immediacy, it’s almost reflexive to ask Doyle, midway through his cross-country World Abomination Tour 2018, what he’s working on now. A few songs are in progress, he says. A few are complete. But that’s not the point.
“I’d like to tour this album if everybody doesn’t mind,” Doyle says. “Everybody, as soon as it came out, was asking: ‘When’s the next one coming out?’ Keep stealing music and there won’t be a next one.”
One could be forgiven for assuming Doyle, who long ago cemented his icon-status in underground music as the statuesque guitarist of punk-rock idols The Misfits, might have a leg up on the hungry hordes of indie bands starting from scratch. But, according to Doyle, the path to success in the music industry is still a mystery.
“I’ve been doing it forty years, and I don’t know,” he says. “It’s really fucked up. You need a ton of money to promote everywhere possible, but I don’t have that.”
On tour, he says, it can be a gamble.
“It all depends on the fucking promoter, man. If they don’t promote, nobody comes. They think, ‘Oh, you were in the Misfits, I don’t have to promote,’” he says. “You’re full of shit. I don’t think more than five percent of Misfits fans even know I have a fucking band.”
Doyle isn’t even the guitarist’s only post-Misfits venture. The Misfits’ original, classic lineup dissolved in 1983, briefly reuniting in 2016 for a handful of high-profile, one-off shows. Doyle and his brother, Misfits bassist Jerry Only, formed the short-lived metal band Kryst the Conqueror and later reformed a version of The Misfits with singer Michale Graves in the mid-nineties. In the 2000s, Doyle formed Gorgeous Frankenstein with his then-wife, Stephanie Bellars, a.k.a. Professional wrestler Gorgeous George, and toured with his former bandmate Glenn Danzig’s eponymous band Danzig. By 2013, Doyle had emerged as a band, with the guitarist teaming with Cancerslug vocalist Alex “Wolfman” Story to add lyrics and vocal melodies to his compositions.
“I put ads in all the places, or the papers, that you put out to get band members, and his was the only audition CD that I listened to every song because they were all great,” Doyle says. “I had some famous people send me shit too. Of course, I won’t mention their names.”
In 2013, the band debuted with Abominator, following it with As We Die last year. On both records, the chemistry between Doyle and Story is immediately clear. Story moves easily from a raw croon into full-throated bellowing, in the same way Doyle shifts between chugging punk-rock riffs and sharp metal solos. Songs like “We Belong Dead” evoke the ghoulish, fifties-informed punk of the Graves-led Misfits, while “Show No Mercy” wouldn’t feel out of place next to Deliverance-era Corrosion of Conformity. “Blood on the Axe” finds its groove against a crossover thrash riff, while “Run For Your Life” shifts from a tumultuous death metal intro into fist-pumping melodic punk. That versatility and volatility, Doyle says, keeps the band from fitting easily into any stock categories.
“I don’t look at anything as a genre,” he says. “I just write whatever’s comfortable in my hands. If I like it, then it’s good for me. If it’s good for me, then it’s good. If people don’t like it, they can go fuck themselves. I gotta like it first.”
Even as the materials marketing Doyle are quick to cite his legacy in the Misfits and his influence on horror punk—the band’s official bio describes Doyle as “the poster child and originator of the genre”—Doyle himself is reluctant to associate himself with the genre.
“As far as horror-punk, I think pretty much a hundred percent of horror-punk bands suck because they’re all just shit imitations of what the Misfits did,” Doyle says. “And the Misfits really wasn’t one thing. It was rock ’n’ roll, it was thrash metal, it was punk, it was fifties music, it was rockabilly, it was all kinds of shit. I don’t think we sound like anything but ourselves.”
But making a living from songs is an increasingly difficult prospect in the digital age. As digital piracy continues to cut into sales figures, and streaming services cut out traditional album sales revenue, bands—even those with significant legacies to bolster their efforts—struggle to turn art into business.
“The thing that sucks about the Internet is everybody thinks the music’s free because we’re so used to getting instant gratification with this fucking computer that’s in our hand all fucking day,” he says. “You come in and take our product, which is our songs, and don’t pay for it, that should be a crime. The Internet needs to police that and make it a hefty fucking fine, because we’re doing the world a service by entertaining them and keeping them all fucking sane. What do you think, it’s free? That we don’t have to eat? It’s fucking bullshit. These tours cost me money. I don’t make fucking money on this shit.”
Story, Doyle says, sums up the situation the best: “We’re just a traveling T-shirt company with jingles to sell the fucking shirts.” So the group stays on the road, playing their songs to anyone eager to hear them.
“Kids travel far to see the show, so you gotta give them a show,” Doyle says. “If there’s one kid at the fucking show, you’ve gotta give it to ’em.”
Plenty has changed in the business of rock ’n’ roll, but the power of a good show is timeless.
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