GLENN DANZIG rips bands who return to performing live after completing “final” tours: “it's kind of a scam”
12-03-2025
In a new interview with Radioactive MikeZ, host of the 96.7 KCAL-FM program “Wired In The Empire”, Glenn Danzig was asked if he would ever consider playing one big final show before calling it quits, like Ozzy Osbourne has announced he will do in early July in Birmingham, England. The 69-year-old singer responded: “Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I remember when DANZIG went out with Ozzy, that was supposed to be his final tour. (Laughs) And then he’s done a bunch of final tours since then. So I don’t know.
“If it’s gonna be final, it should be final,” Glenn added. “If you say it’s gonna be final… You’ll see all these bands announcing what they say will be the last tour, and then they’re back again two years later. And it’s kind of a scam, I think. So, when it’s final, and if I say it’s final, it’ll be final.”
Referencing DANZIG‘s upcoming string of live shows on the U.S. West Coast, which are set to take place in late March, Glenn said: “Right now, pretty much what I’ve said is kind of what I’m doing. I don’t really tour anymore. I’ll do a string of shows, which I don’t consider a tour. If it’s, like, you know, six to 10 shows, I don’t really consider that a tour. When I used to go out on tour, we would go out for three or four months at a time, come home for a couple of weeks or a month and then go back out again for another couple of months. That’s touring, where you’re hitting every city in the United States or in Germany or Europe or Scandinavia, wherever you’re going. That’s a tour. I mean, this is just a small string of shows here on the West Coast.”
Asked if he would ever want to do that one final show and have it be a big celebration where he would play with both DANZIG and MISFITS, Danzig said: “Uh, I don’t know. (Laughs) I’m not thinking about that right now.”
During a recent appearance on Full Metal Jackie‘s nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn spoke about DANZIG‘s upcoming West Coast shows, set to take place in late March. Support on the trek, which will include cities DANZIG has not played in many years, will come from DOWN, ABBATH and CRO-MAGS.
Asked if the upcoming dates will be all that DANZIG will do this year, Glenn said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I don’t really like going on tour. As you can see, I’m only doing six shows. So just trying to get me to go and do a bunch of shows — I don’t mind doing a one-off here or there or whatever, but doing a bunch of shows, riding around on the bus, I’ve said it before… I know that we had to make up a Phoenix show last time that had to get canceled because we there was a bus shortage. And so basically in order to get a bus, we had to move all our first dates on the tour to the end of the tour. And there wasn’t an available venue in Phoenix that time period. We’ll make up the Phoenix show. And then we had a lot of fans asking why we haven’t come up to the big Northwest and San Francisco. So we’re trying to make that up. And it’ll be it for a while.”
Danzig also talked about the changes in touring since his early days, saying: “Well, everything’s more expensive. The last time I went out — I think it was 2022 or 2023, again just a handful of shows — and prices on buses and gas had just gone [way up]. And then this last time we went out in 2023, they went up three times what we normally pay. And this time it’s even crazier. So, I think it’s also become really hard for a lot of bands to go out there and tour. I’ve said it before — a young band just going out there, they would have to go out in a van, well, kind of how we did back in the day with DANZIG and SAMHAIN and the MISFITS. I mean, we would go out in a van. It was all we could afford.”
Asked if he enjoyed touring in a van at that time, Glenn said: “No. No one loves being in a van with a bunch of other people and a limited amount of space. I’d have to be driving, too. A lot of times we’d have the stick shift, and me and maybe one other person in the van would know how to drive a shift. So I’d have to drive most of the time also. You’re driving and you’re loading equipment in and you’re doing everything, pretty much.”
He added: “But anyway, I’m looking forward to these shows. It’s been a while. And hopefully all the fans will be digging it. And I’m sure they’ll have a great time. The lineup is insane. So, I don’t know what else we can do except come out there and knock you on your ass.”
Asked if there is any new DANZIG music on the horizon, Glenn said: “No.” He went on to clarify that he is “not even focused on touring,” explaining that he is “just doing six shows. And if that’s touring, then what I used to do must have been mega touring,” he said. “I mean, we used to go out for three, four, five, six months at a time.”
Circling back to the possibility of new music, Glenn said: “The whole music thing and recording and everything, it’s just changed dramatically where people really don’t buy physical product anymore. They just wanna download it for free online. So there’s really no incentive to new music, unless I’m in the studio and I do something and I wanna give it away for free to everybody. I don’t know if that’s a great business model.”
Asked if he still enjoys writing music, Glenn said: “Yeah, of course. But I write lots of different stuff.
“I don’t see the music industry changing at all. So I don’t know if I’m ever gonna record again, at least DANZIG stuff,” he admitted. “Maybe at some point. I don’t know right now.”
DANZIG tour dates with DOWN, ABBATH and CRO-MAGS:
March 21 – Las Vegas, NV – The Virgin Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas
March 22 – Lincoln, CA – Thunder Valley Casino Resort
March 25 – Seattle, WA – Wamu Theater
March 26 – Portland, OR – Moda Center-Theatre of the Clouds
March 29 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum
March 30 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre
DANZIG‘s latest album, “Black Laden Crown”, came out in May 2017 via Evilive Records/Nuclear Blast Entertainment.
Danzig released a collection of Elvis Presley covers, “Danzig Sings Elvis”, in April 2020 and has been focusing on making films, including “Death Rider In The House Of Vampires” and his feature film directorial debut, “Verotika”.
When it debuted at the Cinepocalypse festival in Chicago in 2019, “Verotika” was compared by some reviewers to Tommy Wiseau‘s “The Room”, the so-bad-it’s-amazing drama which is considered one of the worst movies ever made.
Glenn has been talking about the end of his touring career since at least 2015. At that time, he told Cleveland Scene: “I love being on stage and that’s the great part of touring. I’ll always do that. It’s the bouncing around on a bus. That’s the part I hate.”
When DANZIG, the band, grew out of the MISFITS/SAMHAIN lineage in 1987, Glenn went into the new project with even grander ambitions and a long-term design. Between 1977 and 1987, the MISFITS‘ horror-punk morphed into the darker, occult-steeped SAMHAIN. When producer and record mogul Rick Rubin showed interest in signing SAMHAIN to his Def Jam label and producing their first record, the band yet again evolved, and DANZIG was born.
Social media