Click to listen to the Misfits' "Shining"
The Misfits' blazingly fast, crushingly loud punk has held strong through three decades and countless lineup changes. The horror-punk vets will return on February 5th with DEA.D.ALIVE, their first proper live album since the 1980s. Here, the band revisits "Shining," a track off their 1997 album American Psycho – their first without founder and leader Glenn Danzig. The nitro-charged speed, dive-bombing drums and serrated power chords are all intact.
"'Shining' is one of those songs that grabs you by the throat. The drums are very aggressive and the guitars bite hard," frontman Jerry Only tells Rolling Stone. "When we first recorded it in the studio about 17 years ago, it ripped. . . but now it shreds!"
DEA.D.ALIVE features tracks recorded at the Misfits' Halloween show in New York and from their encore show in New Jersey. For it, the band chose to focus on post-1983 material. "There's a young audience for the Misfits; new generations discover us every day," says Only. "There's only so much ground you can cover on one album. We wanted to focus on the second and third wave of the Misfits evolution with DEA.D.ALIVE, because none of these songs have ever been included on a proper live Misfits album before."
However, there are plenty of old Misfits live recordings that may still see the light of day. "There are some great live recordings of the '77-'83 material that we performed together back in the day that remain unreleased, just sitting in the vaults," says Only. "Its not out of the realm of possibility that Glenn and I might evaluate some of that stuff in the not-too-distant future and consider bringing it to the fans in a joint effort."