Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein: “Streaming Should be Fucking Illegal”
By Kelcey Alonzo
Photos by Mike Savoia
Misfits legendary Guitarist Doyle Wolfgang is one of the most recognizable figures in music today. Doyle replaced Guitarist Bobby Steele and has kept busy ever since. You’re about to discover why Doyle builds his guitars, his new collaboration with Dean Guitars, and how important health and fitness are to the punk rock legend. In this very candid interview, Doyle is relaxed, charming, and quite vocal regarding the current state of streaming services and his healthy vegan lifestyle. Trust me when I tell you, you will think twice the next time you hit that stream button on your smartphone.
Guitar Connoisseur: How are you, my friend?
Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein: Doing good, man. How are you doing?
GC: Living the dream, thank you very much for talking to me. I’m really excited to be doing this feature with you.
DWF: Cool.
GC: So, how have you been doing since the pandemic hit?
DWF: Well, about a year ago, we set sail for a tour with Life of Agony in the States. And I got about two miles from our storage facility after I flew all the guys out, paid for the bus bought, you know, $10,000 worth of Merch. Set the bus up, set my dressing room up in the back room. Taped everything down. Finally, lay down. Okay, let’s go. Got all my shit. You know, everything’s done. We drove two miles. My manager calls me up. He says, “Turn around; the tour is canceled.” I’m like, “Fuck you, man!” You know? (Laughs) He’s like, “I’m serious. It’s canceled”. I said, “Call the fucking driver. Why are you calling me?” We got two miles out and had to turn around and fly everybody home in a rush.
GC: Ugh, I’m sorry to hear that!
DWF: Yeah. It sucks.
GC: What project were you going on the road to promote?
DWF: Our second album, Doyle II: As We Die. Doing the protein which came out in May (2020). The pandemic has been good for me as far as getting all the songs I have written on my phone and in my head. I got like five more to go, and I’m done. I can’t wait to be done with this shit.
GC: What have you been doing to keep busy? We’ve all been locked down; you can’t go out, you can’t go to concerts, you can’t go to the movies, you can’t go to restaurants. How have you been keeping busy?
DWF: I just been tracking these albums. A song takes me like a week to do, you know. It’s a lot of playing it perfectly, which I hate. It’s just so aggravating. I like things live and whatever comes out comes out. This is just like, “Ughhhh,” I can’t stand it.
GC: Who’s producing your stuff? Are you the producer of your records?
DWF: Yeah, I’m the producer. I don’t need anybody to help me write or arrange fucking music. It’s so stupid.
GC: So, for those who don’t know, you grew up in Lodi, New Jersey. What was it like growing up there?
DWF: That was a long time ago, my friend. (Laughs)
GC: (Laughs) What do you remember about growing up in Lodi, New Jersey?
DWF: I remember the way it fucking smelled when we used to go to football practice. It smelled like fast fret, but it doesn’t smell like that anymore. I don’t know. I only lived there for about, 19 years maybe.
GC: And at what age did you start playing guitar?
DWF: I believe I was 13.
GC: Can you tell me how you went from being a roadie to replacing Bobby Steele in the Misfits? How did that come about?
DWF: I was graduating eighth grade, and my brother bought me a Les Paul from one of Glenn’s (Danzig) friends; it was like a 1965 Les Paul special, it was nice, a flat top, and started playing. Glenn showed me how to do the bar chords. Bar chords on the E and A string, Jerry (Only) drew me a piece of paper with the notes for the first two strings on it. And that was it. The rest I just did myself. And then I would rehearse with Jerry and the drummer and Glenn. So I would just rehearse with those guys. And I just got a real quick handle on it. You know? I learned how to get a really good tone quickly because it’s the easiest thing to do. What doesn’t hurt your ears? That’s the sound you want. You know what I mean? What isn’t harsh and abrasive to where you’re like, “I don’t want to hear that one more second.” You know, that’s the sound you want. So I was about 15. And they were doing the recording of the 12 Hits From Hell, which wasn’t released, they kind of tried to slip that by us and put that out without talking to us about it. So that’s why it got canned. That was the record where he (Steele) didn’t show up to the studio; I was in studio, he was going to use my guitar and my amps because it sounded better, and I had all my stuff there. He didn’t show up. And Glenn just looked at me and said, “Fuck it, you play it,” And I said, “Fuck Yeah, I will, and I did. (Laughs)
GC: Nice! I know you tour a lot. How would you compare touring in the early ’80s and ’90s to today?
DWF: The difference between the ’80s and ’90s, compared to today, especially in the United States, is that the crowds are nowhere near as into music as they used to be. The shows were awesome. The fans would really go off; now everybody’s just standing there. They don’t show up. Turnouts are a lot less. Hopefully, this pandemic will turn that around and make everybody realize that “Hey, man, live music could be taken away from us; we should really appreciate it and go to the fucking shows.” You know, I mean?, You’re playing dates, and if you’re not playing arenas, nobody comes to your fucking show.
GC: Do you have any favorite places that you like, either cities or venues you prefer, or that you enjoy performing in?
DWF: Well, I like playing in Japan. I like playing European festivals. I like playing arenas. I hate playing in pubs and bars. I hate that.
GC: I wonder why. (Laughs)
DWF: I hate when I get on a stage so small, and I can’t even move.
GC: I’ll bet. You’re a big guy.
DWF: I’ve had my tech tape squares on the ground where I have to put my feet on stage because they’re so small so that I have enough room to stand. And have room for the singer. I’ve pulled up to shows, and I’ve looked at the stage, and I’m like, “Our drums don’t fit up there; we’re leaving”
GC: Doyle. I really wanted to talk to you because not only are you an icon in the punk world, but you also build your own guitars. Early on, you were using an Ibanez Iceman. What did you like about it?
DWF: The thing I liked about it was I thought it was the coolest shape on the market. And it was black. (Laughs) It’s funny because there was a Paul Stanley one in the Sam Ash by my house in Paramus, NJ, and my dad’s like, “What do you want for your birthday?” I really want that guitar. It was like 700-800 bucks, and he was like, “That’s a lot for a guitar.” So I got the cheaper one. And it was funny because the kid down the street bought that Paul Stanley one, you know? And I bought it from him for like 300 bucks a couple of years later. (Laughs) But yeah, so I used the black iceman 100s? I think they were called? (Doyle is referring to the Ibanez PS 120). I changed the pickups out; I made my own pickguard on so it would look different. And it looked cooler than all the other guitars, I thought.
GC: But then, at some point, you decided this isn’t really working for me. We’ve talked to many builders, and I know it takes years to perfect the craft of building guitars. It’s also been well documented that you’re a skilled machinist. My question is, what kind of research did you do to build the now-famous Annihilator guitar? And, how many did you build before you got it right?
DWF: Zero research. I just started looking at Google over the last couple of years. When I was living in Vernon, NJ, my friend Jeff from down the street came in with this guitar like a soloist shaped like a fancier strat. He was building it, and he was routing out this piece on it. So he could cut it off. And I was like, What are you doing? It was him and a friend. His name was Rand (Havener). You know, this guy went to music school or something like MIT or whatever the fuck it is (Doyle is referring to Musicians Institute). I’m like, “Give me that fucking thing,” I put it on the machine and flattened the body perfectly. And we were like, “Whoa.” So I started working with this guy Rand. And we began making guitars. We bought a bunch of wood from Paul Reed Smith. And I had drawn on my high school books that your mom covers in a paper bag? For fucking school? And I used to draw on them all day, and I drew this guitar, and I saved it because it looked so fucking cool. And he was like, “That’s cool.” So I told Rand we should build it, and he was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So I put my Iceman Paul Stanley that I bought from that kid, I put it on the floor, and I put the drawing over the guitar, and it was to scale. I was like, “Oh my god, this is exact,” and then we just drew it up and started building it. The first one I made came out right, and Dean (Guitars) has it right now; they have it as a prototype that they’re making a prototype out of, which is awesome, but they’re copying it.
GC: Yeah, I do want to get to Dean guitars, but if we can just quickly backtrack back to your Annihilator, how many of those do you currently have and tour with?
DWF: I have 5, and they have one. So that one they’ve had since 2017.
GC: Dean has one since 2017?
DWF: Yeah, I dropped it off on tour. They thought I wanted something else. And we just finally cleared it up a couple of months ago.
GC: And you tour with all four of them?
DWF: They have the one, I tour with the other ones, and I had one I used for this award show for revolver called the Golden Gods. Which we played with Metallica, and I hit it so hard. It just exploded. I couldn’t believe it; some of the body parts just disintegrated.
GC: Can you give our readers a quick walkthrough of your live setup?
DWF: I have homemade cabinets that I made with 4 Celestions. I think I have GT75’s in them right now, 16 ohms I believe they’re in series. This is why I have a tech (Laughs). I was using Ampeg SVT heads, you know with the tubes, but when I go on tour, they take such a beating then when I have Ampeg repair them, they’re like, “What the fuck, What the fuck” it costs them like $3,000 or $4,000 every tour to get them to work again, you know because with all the driving around like tubes aren’t made for traveling. So I stopped using those, and I’m using these amplifiers called Matrix, and I carried three of them under one arm and three of my preamps onto the bus under one arm. That’s the difference in weight; those SVT’s are about 85 pounds each. All my techs were like, “We love these amps.” (Laughs) The Matrix is like a 1600 watt amp. It handles all the different ohms and has two volumes on it, one for each speaker. And like say if you want to put the bottom cabinet louder than the top, so it doesn’t rip your head off. You can do it so you can hear the top, but it’s not loud. It’s cool. And then I have these custom-made preamps. I run that through a pedalboard, which goes through the effects loop, and that’s pretty much it.
GC: That sounds pretty easy.
DWF: Yeah! Until I have to set it up by myself. (Laughs)
GC: Oktober Guitars was building your guitars back in 2011. Are they discontinued, or do they continue to sell them?
DWF: Well, if they continue to sell them and I find out they’re in big fucking trouble.
GC: (Laughs) Okay. So safe to assume they’re discontinued?
DWF: It’s discontinued because they never made me a USA model, so I didn’t play them.
GC: Let’s get to the juicy stuff with Dean Guitars. They are now building an Annihilator guitar. How did your collaboration with Dean come about, and why is Dean the right company to build the Annihilator?
DWF: Well, if they can build a guitar for Dimebag, Dave Mustaine and Michael Amott, and Kerry King, I think they can make me one… that’s about it. (Laughs)
GC: Now, is this is a one-to-one model of what you play? Or is it modified in any way?
DWF: We’re working on it still; as soon as I go through the prototype, “I like this, I don’t like that, you know? I wanted to spend a week or two with them, sit there and go over every little inch of it with all my guitars. But the guy was like, “I’m just gonna copy this one. Let’s just make one, and we’ll go from there”.
GC: Are they using the same materials you use with the graphite center?
DWF: No! We’re gonna try and make them 100% out of mahogany. I don’t know if I’m gonna do a maple neck on the production model and ebony fretboard. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I have to see the sample.
GC: I’m a huge fan of ebony, A lot of guitar players like rosewood fretboards. And they say that it’s warmer. Do you have a preference in terms of fretboard wood?
DWF: I like ebony; I’m not too fond of rosewood. It’s too dry and grainy. I like maple, but I hate the color. I also don’t like the sound of maple. I had a guitar 100% made out of maple, and it sounds so shitty.
GC: Do we have a release date for the Annihilator Dean release?
DWF: Probably this year, I would say, I have to go over the prototype here.
GC: Have you talked about a price point with them? Are they going to be releasing an all the bells and whistles type and then a more affordable version? What’s happening with that?
DWF: I don’t know. I don’t know what they want to do. I would like to do three of them. I would like to do like, an under $500 or $500 tops, you know? A lot of people buy them and put them on the wall. They don’t even fuckin play them. They want it signed. And then a player’s model, like you said, for like $800. The big boy one $2500-$3500 as well, but as I said, I don’t know what they want to do. The point is I don’t want to make them anymore. I don’t need to be wasting my time doing that or getting cut doing it. You know what I mean?
GC: Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s talk a little bit about Monster Man Records. Are there any new developments going on with that?
DWF: The only development I have is about two albums worth of material right here that I’m working on.
GC: What’s the reason you wanted to start your own record company, and who are some of the acts that are on your label?
DWF: I have no idea what acts are on my label (Laughs). I’m telling ya! I don’t know. I don’t follow it. I wanted a label because I’m only going to sell X amount of records. I might as well keep all the money. You know, I’m the producer, I say when it goes out. I say what the artwork is, and I say what songs go on it. And I have no deadline. I don’t want to work like, “Oh, you got to make an album in three months.” How’s it gonna be good? If you give me that fucking time limit? It’s not gonna be good; I got somethings that I’m working on that I’ve been working on for fucking 12 years.
GC: I hear you on that. I mean, that’s why I started Guitar Connoisseur. I was like, “I’m just gonna do what I want, I’m gonna talk to the people I want to talk to.” I want to give people the kind of stuff I want to read; many other magazines weren’t giving me the type of content I wanted to read. So, I hear you. It’s incredibly liberating.
DWF: Yeah, I can’t have somebody telling me, “Oh, we’re gonna put a record out in March. No!” (Laughs)
GC: Right! You haven’t written anything, nor do you have anything prepared. But they want you to pull 12 songs out of a hat.
DWF: Yeah, that’s not gonna happen; It’s not gonna be any good! It’s ready to go when it’s ready to go. That’s when it’s good.
GC: So this is something that we chatted about in our previous conversations. And I think our readers need to hear your thoughts. How do you feel about the current state of music publishing today?
DWF: Oh, boy. Streaming is criminal! It should be fucking illegal. It’s fucked up that anybody agreed to do it. If I was rich and famous enough, you know what I would do? I would do just like Lars (Ulrich) did; I would get everybody together, every label, every band, every fucking artist to pull their shit the same day at the same time and tell all these motherfuckers to go fuck themselves. We get like .000003 cents a fucking play? FUCK YOU! Fuck you, man! Do you want a glorified radio station? Pay us radio station fee prices per play, or here’s a great idea: Say you have a membership which is $30 a month for fucking streaming, right? You want Misfits catalogs? Cost you a quarter! You want the Black Sabbath catalog? Cost you a quarter. Per month! You want the Beatles? It’s a quarter, and that quarter goes to the fucking bands. The fucking membership fees can go to fucking Spotify. This way, when you get 7 million plays, you make 7 million quarters. Not fucking 700 bucks.
GC: I read an interview with Alex Van Halen on outsider.com recently, and he said, “It’s a bunch of ones and zeroes. In the old days, you’d get a dollar a record, and now you get 50 cents for 275,000 streams.
DWF: Oh, God!
GC: It’s terrible; I like talking about this stuff with artists. And I think it’s imperative we bring this discussion to light because many artists read the magazine. I’m just curious. At least from your perspective, what do you think happened? Because we have streaming television, we have Netflix, we have Prime, we have all that stuff, but actors and directors, they’re still making pretty good money. Why do you think that musicians are not as well compensated as other streaming services?
DWF: Because all these jerk-offs think music isn’t a job, and it’s one of the hardest jobs you can have. Touring and writing songs, you’re making a puzzle for each song out of 12 pieces. It has to be different than every other one in the fuckin world. Think about it.
Guitar Connoisseur: Yeah, absolutely.
DWF: I mean, people don’t think it’s a fucking job. They think we’re wandering minstrels playing for a fucking meal. You know what? No! And, they don’t realize that the more streaming you do, these bands are gonna have to go get jobs. Guess what; there’s not going to be any more music. There’s not gonna be any fucking bands because nobody could do it.
GC: I think even with touring, people say, “Oh, I don’t want to pay this much money to go to this show. Because it’s too expensive, I don’t think they realize how expensive it is. You got all this gear; you got travel and lodging; you got staff that has to make sure you’re safe. Make sure everything works. You aren’t just going to see the four band members; there’s a team behind them. That’s a lot of money.
DWF: The last tour I did in Europe cost me personally $30,000 to do it. All my guys got paid. I paid $30,000.
GC: If you just think about the kids today trying to “make it” in the music industry. Getting there is extremely hard, let’s say, you’re going to do a show, at your local pub, or whatever it is. You got to rehearse for it. So you need studio time. You got to buy strings; you got to buy chords; you got to buy pedals, amps, guitars, and all this stuff. And then at the end of the night, you got four people splitting 100 bucks for playing two hours, right?
DWF: Yeah, dude! You gotta look at it this way, too. You know, what a bus cost per month? $40,000. The bus company makes more money than the band.
GC: So this is a labor of love.
DWF: Oh, I haven’t made money in a long time.
GC: Sounds like you’re pretty much just maintaining.
DWF: That’s why I’m making protein and hot sauce. You know?
I’m also working on a Strings and Pickups and an amplifier company. Hopefully, this year, I’m going to start it. Cause musicians cant sell music anymore.
GC: Can you tell me how you’ve used your social platform for self-promotion? And is it an additional revenue stream for you?
DWF: There is no revenue, but it is the only promotion we have because venues don’t promote anymore because they think you have to do it on social media. And that’s it. You know, if I don’t say I’m playing somewhere, nobody will ever know.
GC: Oh, wow.
DWF: There are no ads; There’s no more posters up in town. It’s just; it’s up to you.
GC: So, maybe it’s not a direct revenue stream. But you use that to keep your fans informed for album releases or tours or anything that’s happening. And people come out because of it. Yeah?
DWF: Yeah, a couple. (Laughs) But I have gotten really good stuff. I got guitars from people, chords, pedals, things like that. I meet people on social media, and they’re like, “Yeah, I’ll send you that, check it out,” you know? But I don’t make any money with it.
GC: I’ve been seeing a lot of this Vegan Monster Protein on your Instagram. And before we get into the protein itself. When did you become a Vegan?
DWF: 2013.
GC: How did you initially get into Veganism?
DWF: The food was just so fucking good. I couldn’t take it. That’s what it was; it was the food. My friend Toby from H20 told me about it back in like ’99. We were on tour in Europe. He was like, “I gotta get me some fake baloney.” I’m like, “What the fuck is fake baloney?” He said, “I’m vegan.” What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about? We don’t eat meat or this or that. So I said, “Wait, you don’t eat meat but you want fake baloney. And I didn’t get it. I could tell, now in hindsight, how he didn’t want to explain it one more time. So then I started dating my girlfriend in 2013. And she had flown out to New York to see me, and we were running around in the city and had to get back to the airport. And we were starving, looking for something to eat. And she said to me, “If we can’t find me, something, we’ll find you something to eat. And I was like, “Fuck that! I’ll never eat anything in front of you that you don’t want to look at.” And, I never did. And every time we would go out to eat, I would take a bite of the food because I didn’t know what anything was. So she ordered everything. And I would take a bite, and my mouth would drop, and I’d be like, “Oh my god, this is fucking so good.” And all the food was so good. That’s what sold me, the food! Later on, I was informed of all the fucking animal abuse happening, farming and all the horseshit and videos and all that shit, but it was the food. I mean, it’s so ridiculous.
GC: So it’s partly how good the food is. But then it also doesn’t hurt that animals aren’t being harmed; at least you’re not contributing to that market where they’re killing animals.
DWF: Yeah! Once you realize you’re paying somebody to kill that thing, then it’s like, whoa, wait a minute. You’re right. You know, “Oh they are killing it anyway.” But no! You’re paying somebody to do that.
Guitar Connoisseur: What’s the biggest misconception people have about being vegan?
DWF: That it’s not real food, it is more real food than anything else. Because it’s just natural fucking food. Fruits and vegetables and grains, and it’s just real shit. The only thing I had to change that I was eating was whey protein and chicken breast. And I didn’t want to eat the chicken breast. I was eating it because I was working out. I’d have to cover it in fuckin hot sauce and honey and all kinds of shit just to swallow it. The switch was easy because everything else I was eating already was vegan.
Guitar Connoisseur: So let’s get back into Monster Protein. Tell me about the formula. How did you go about developing it?
DWF: I was, trying to do it for years, I was contacting all these different companies and getting samples, and I couldn’t find anything I liked, and then I met these guys on Instagram, conscious muscle, and started sponsoring me. I called them, and I said, “Hey, send me some of the shit. So they sent me some. And I said, “Will you sponsor my tour? Can you send me, like, a dozen cans? So I don’t have to go by it. And I’ll post about it. We started doing that. And then I said, “Where do you guys get your stuff made? I want to do the same thing.” And they’re like, “Oh, we can’t tell you that.” And then I said, “Okay, I get it.” And then maybe the next day, I’m like, Did you guys want to private label, and then they were like, let me talk to my partner, you know, and then they started, they called me back. And I told him I didn’t want the same flavor they had because I wanted it to be different. I didn’t want people to be like, “Oh, that’s just the same product with a different label on it,” which it is not; it’s a different formula. And “I said, I wanted it to taste fucking great because I want all these, cow-sucking titty milk-drinking fucks to fucking taste this and be like, “Oh wait, This is good.” Because the whey protein ones, they are fucking good because they taste like fucking milkshakes. I said, “I wanted to taste like a milkshake.” And I want more protein than you guys have. And I want it to be a bodybuilding formula. And we worked on it, we worked on it, and we finally got it; I don’t know how many samples we got. And then I got the sample. And I tasted, I was like, “Oh, my God, this one’s fucking great. You know, we’ve been trying to make vanilla for over a year. And it’s so impossible to make good. So we’re trying other flavors right now. And I’m waiting on a few samples. Many people really want vanilla, but if I cant make a good vanilla, I’m not making one.
GC: Obviously, what kind of stuff goes into it is important, but would you say the most important component would be the flavor?
DWF: For selling it? Yeah. If you’re gonna, sell it, and it’s gonna taste like fucking hay, nobody’s gonna rebuy it. You know what I mean? No matter how good it is for you, a lot of people won’t drink it if it doesn’t taste good, even if it’s great for you. I mean, I will. I’ll down it. I mean, I drink my shake in like three seconds. The whole thing. But, you gotta sell it, man. It’s gotta be really good; this one’s so good. I love drinking it. It’s fucking great, man.
GC: I gotta say, you’ve piqued my interest. I’ve been thinking about it for the last six months. I noticed that sometimes after I eat meat, I don’t feel good.
DWF: Oh, no, You won’t feel good after that.
GC: What would you say to someone who’s considering the vegan lifestyle? Because it is a lifestyle, right?
DWF: Yeah, at first, it’s tough because you don’t know what’s vegan and what’s not. Now you gotta go to the supermarket and everything you want to buy, you got to pick it up and read it. Because a lot of times, there will be milk in it or fucking honey in it. You know, or eggs, and you’re just like, “Fuck, why is milk in this? it doesn’t need milk.” But yeah, it gets easy. And then, it’s really easy, man. It’s so much easier than you think. And now, there are so many vegan options, like when we travel on the road, there are so many great restaurants, man. It’s easy. It’s hard at first, cause you don’t know, but you can Google a lot of it and just learn the products that aren’t vegan, you know, your milk, your eggs, your fucking beefs, your fish oils, all this horseshit. The same thing with shampoo, shaving cream; all this stuff is tested on animals. So, there are also vegan products like everything else, toiletries, clothing, everything, you know.
GC: Is there anything you want to tell our readers? Anything you’d like just to get out there?
DWF: Yes, buy music! Don’t fucking stream it, man. You’re killing it. You’re killing the industry. There’s gonna be no music soon. You’re gonna have these corporate fuckin record labels making these bands up. You hear these songs on people’s Instagram posts and you’re like, “Who the fuck wrote this garbage? What the fuck? How is this even a song? Why would anybody even listen to this?” That’s what you’re gonna have? We’re the artist’s man; this is why you listen to it. That’s why you’re a fan because you like what we do. And if you take that away, which is being taken away by fucking streaming, I mean, listen to what Alex Van Halen said. He’s right. What the fuck is that? I mean, if we do a new Misfits record, I’m gonna fight for it to not even be on streaming; you’re gonna have to either buy a hard copy or buy it on iTunes, or you’re not getting it.
GC: Yeah. I have to say, I remember, when I was a kid, back in the ’80s, I grew up looking at records when me and my brother were kids, we had Motley Crue, and Ozzy, you remember that? The albums that opened up?
DWF: Yup! All my albums open up because of that. I do two albums in it. Even though it’s one album, and I do it at 45 pm so the sound is better. I do four songs on the side. It’s true because I don’t have records or CDs anymore or any of that stuff. It’s all on my phone. I don’t know the names of anybody’s songs. I don’t know the names of the fucking albums. You know what I mean? It’s lame; there’s such a disconnect now. I used to sit there and listen to the Kiss Alive! album and look at the album’s pictures. For hours, while I listen to it.
GC: I remember the first W.A.S.P record and Iron Maiden records I got when I was a kid. Me and my brother would just sit down on the couch and just look at the pictures. We’d be like, “Oh, look at that” they had the BC Rich Warlocks and the makeup; it was great. I think we’re missing the whole tactile experience. You had the record itself; you’d open it up, you’d play it, you’d read the liner notes, this person playing lead guitar, this person singing, this one on bass, all that stuff, who produced the record where it was recorded? Now that’s gone, we don’t have any of that. All we have is the song on our phone. Even the whole experience of going out and buying records. Me and my friends. When we were in high school, we’d go to Tower Records right there on, you know, on the eighth street in Greenwich village. We’d spend the whole day there, just looking at stuff. We don’t have that, and to this day, I miss it.
DWF: You know why we don’t have it? Because of these goddamn phones, we have everybody needs instant gratification. Everything has to happen within two seconds. It’s like you push a button on your phone, and you’re like, “Fuck c’mon, this took a second to turn on; what’s the fucking problem? (Laughs) Everybody’s got this instant gratification, and everybody wants everything for free. Because you just touch something on your phone and it gets delivered to your house. You know what I mean? It’s different than if you buy it? It’s nuts, man. That’s why it’ll never be like that again.
GC: Unfortunately, I don’t think it will. I think the machines have gotten too big. And I think we are to blame; we interviewed an artist a few years ago. And, he was talking about the same thing. And he said, “I just miss records. I miss going to the store. Now that I’m an artist, I can’t escape but listening to music on your phone, and I have to say that even as an artist, I have to stream stuff to get it to listen to something. And it really sucks”, so I don’t think it’s coming back.
DWF: I won’t stream anybody’s shit. I’ll buy it. If I have to hear somebody’s stuff, I’ll buy it!
GC: I think we need something to happen. I mean, I like the fact that people are putting out vinyl again. And hopefully, record stores do come back. Everybody’s complaining that restaurants are not going to be the same and the workforce isn’t going to be the same, but we need music to really come back, and like you said earlier in this conversation. We took shows for granted. I miss shows. I miss music. I miss seeing artists, and now everything is just like you said, instant gratification, with YouTube, live streams, and streaming music, so it sucks.
DWF: Well, I have to apologize to the world. Because since the Misfits got back together, the world kind of ended. (Laughs) We did like 10 shows, and the world stopped. (Laughs)
GC: So when things do get back to “normal”, are the Misfits going to pick up where they left off?
DWF: I sure hope so. I hope we do a fucking record. That’s what I’m hoping for; I hope I’m involved in writing the music or some of it. I would love just to give everything I have here to Glenn. You know, either way, I’m using all this shit I got. It’s really good.
GC: Doyle, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me, man. I’m glad we finally got to get together and talk. Even if it’s like this, it would have been great to come out to a show and meet you and talk to you in person, but…
DWF: Maybe there’ll be a show someday. Who knows?
Guitar Connoisseur: When things get back to normal, and you do come out, I’ll tell you what; I would love to come out and see you and get a chance to meet you. And, just shake your hand. I miss the interaction with people; I miss hugging people and miss shaking hands. Everybody does the fist bump, or we just wave at each other. It’s weird I’m still not used to it. We’re living a life with our faces planted into a monitor. Everything is virtual, and I hate it. Especially with my kids, they do the virtual thing in school. It’s terrible.
DWF: They’re going to have no social skills; all these kids, you know, with these fucking phones, nobody’s going to have social skills. You know, it’s just, it’s fucking insane.
GC: I already told my kids, you know, my girls are six and eight years old. And I said you guys are not getting phones until you’re at least 16, at least.
DWF: (Laughs) They’re gonna hate you! (Laughs)
Guitar Connoisseur: LOL. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I’m really excited to put this out. Thank you so much.
DWF: Take care, pal.
