QUESTION OF THE WEEK: DON’T WE LOVE GLENN DANZIG?
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The time is now half-past bongload on Friday afternoon, and hey it’s great to see u back here for another classy, totally not pointless MetalSucks Question Of The Week, a (sorta) weekly survey of our staff on a recent hot-button issue that’s rocking our metal planet. Thanks for coming. Did u bring your famous Oreo dessert?
Fearless. Controversial. Half-baked. We give it to you straight every Friday afternoon. Okay not that straight. Here’s this week’s topic:
Inspired by MetalSucks’ Defending Danzig series by D.X. Ferris and persistent, widespread mockery of its subject Glenn Danzig (The Misfits, Sam Hain, Danzig), we asked our staff the following question:
Do you wish for an end to the open season on Glenn Danzig?
Wat u think? The MS staff’s expert answers after the jump!
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SATAN ROSENBLOOM
I’m not saying that Glenn Danzig has done nothing to stoke the blazing troll furnace, but can’t we pick a more deserving target? The dude is a temperamental grandpa by now, for sure. But at least he’s as legitimately cantankerous and irritiable as ever. He 
hasn’t become a caricature of himself or an inoffensive puffball like Hetfield, Ozzy, or Johnny Rotten. Plus, any man capable of inspiring this isn’t worthy of derision.
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LEYLA FORD
Never! I thought Wednesday’s post about his cat album was factual until I read its first sentence. See, this is Glenn Danzig we’re talking about, and to us it’s normal — hell, expected — that he would do something that nuts. He’s got something to say — he fed his kitties today! It’s already funny that he, Glenn Danzig, is doing menial stuff but then you add his insane jibber-jabber? We just have sit back and let that crazy train steam ahead.
So, as long as he keeps yelling about bricks and outing Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, then I say everyone else just keep up. Guys like Danzig and Axl Rose are so out of tune with what we’d call Real Life that we can’t help but giggle at their shenanigans. And by “giggle” I mean mercilessly dogpile on them. It’s better than pitying them, right? Plus, if we couldn’t playfully poke at metal’s hard-asses, then there’d be no gems like Henry & Glenn Forever. I hear there’s a sequel too.
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JUSTIN M. NORTON
The reason there is an open season is Glenn Danzig keeps acting like a world-class tool. All of the criticism heaped on him has come after his poor decisions. His musical legacy is untouchable, but it’s sad to see a 56-year-old guy picking fights, behaving like a diva, and getting dropped after going off like Razor Ramon.
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COREY MITCHELL
No. I need more tales of French onion soup and Wendy’s chicken sandwiches to help me make it through another dirty, black Texas summer.
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SAMMY O’HAGAR
Absolutely the fuck yes. First, it’s one thing for a fan of the Misfits and the first four Danzig albums to rip on Glenn Danzig; it’s different coming from a 17-year-old fuckface in a $130 hoodie who thinks music began with Suicide Silence, or a scruffy-bearded bike messenger with a Beach House shirt and an ironically-purchased 30-pack of PBR. But more than that, it’s that the snickering at Danzig (Danznickering?) is getting louder than the due acknowledgement of how fucking great he is at his job. Sure, his discography is far from perfect and we can state objectively that he’s a ridiculous person. But while Metallica and Ozzy sold out and let their music suffer, the only thing Danzig has done is be Glenn Danzig. And you must be new here if you think a 4’11” New Jersey native with jet black hair and a 12-hour weekday gym schedule will ever possess the self-awareness to avoid being an easy target.
So now it’s time to come to terms with his incredible silliness and remember why we ever noticed it in the first place: Danzig has one of the great voices in rock — not just in metal — and his punk, metal, and rock records are some of the best ever. If you love Danzig, you can mock Glenn all you like.
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VINCE NEILSTEIN
I believe that Glenn Danzig has no idea he’s become a meme. He’s the type to isolate himself and remain aloof, intentionally and unintentionally. Even if it has reached his attention, he wouldn’t understand what’s so funny about him crossing the street carrying a box of cat litter, or the big deal about moving his motherfucking bricks. I just don’t think he gets it. And he seems like a guy who, like Axl Rose, surrounds himself with legions of yes-men who dare not speak ill of him.
But I don’t feel bad for Danzig. I mean, just look at the guy! He’s a friggin’ cartoon character. It’s just too easy.
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ANSO DF
Super yes! And it’s an easy fix: At first there was charm in Glenn Danzig’s failure to veil his totally natural creeping insanity. Now I wish that, in our reports of that madness, we preserve a baseline respect for the man’s music, performances, influence, art and aesthetics, and brazen Satanism. Like, me and my sister reserve the first minutes of each family gathering for “humoring the old folks,” a brief suspension of logic and a generous tolerance of unvarnished racism that prevent flare-ups of grouchy martyr syndrome in our clan’s near-deads. The party benefits from that little sacrifice. Likewise, metal people will all do better to actively engage Danzig, give him a measure of attention, and nod like zombies at his every gripe. Grant him his due — he has thrice conjured singular brilliance from thin air.
Instead we give Danzig cause to pout by using super-flimsy gossip to do what’s tantamount to judging Glenn Danzig, the man, whom we do not know personally. Fuck that. Especially heartless are the jeers of snide youngs not privy to both pre- and post-Glenn Danzig life. It’s weird cuz the go-to joke for this annoying demographic used to be Ronnie James Dio, another Italian-American short stack. But the internet justly canonized the super-cuddly Dio, and then his untimely death earned him zero-tolerance protection against jibery. Now Glenn Danzig is in the crosshairs but via a few displays of good humor and humility, he can slyly swing our gun barrel toward a lesser talent/larger twit/non-Italian like Lars Ulrich, Dave Mustaine, or Blackie Lawless. Everybody be cool!
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AXL ROSENBERG
No. First of all, Glenn Danzig doesn’t get it worse than, say, Ozzy Osbourne. How long has it been since anyone with any sense said a kind word about that guy? He’s been a punchline for decades. Danzig is a public figure who does a lot of dumb shit in public. As such, he is subject to ridicule — same as Ozzy, Axl Rose, Dave Mustaine, Fred Durst, or any other (in)famous musician with a doctorate in acting like a dolt.
And I don’t think he gets it any easier than those dudes, nor does he deserve to. Why should we cut him slack? Because of his contributions to music? But … so what, y’know? Just because Glenn Danzig is a twit doesn’t mean I don’t love The Misfits song “Attitude” — and my distaste for Dave Mustaine the man doesn’t make his jam “Ashes In Your Mouth” rock any less. We laugh at Danzig because he does laughable things, and those laughs temporarily alleviate our pain at the fact that life is short, meaningless, and followed by nothing. If poor lil’ Danzig wants us to stop the clowning, he should stop acting like such a buffoon all the time.
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Hmmm berry interesting. So is it the duty of the pack to correct an decrepit omega’s aberrant behavior via taunts? Is Glenn Danzig diss-proof on the strength of his like 85 awesome jamz? Is it simply that he’s paid his debt and it’d be bigger fun for us to whale on the men of Trivium instead? How about Corey Taylor? Geoff Tate?? Tell us what u think!
