Revenge of the Vegan Monster: DOYLE Returns to the Road

Doyle and Alex Story of DOYLE

How many guys do you know are three years shy of 60, in better physical shape now than they were in their thirties and have the balls to go on tour during a pandemic?

Welcome to the world of Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein – legendary Misfits guitar beater, devout vegan and one of the most no-bullshit guys in music. While some acts are still reluctant to return to the road, Doyle and his eponymous solo band are currently blazing through the east coast of America and have upcoming dates planned in Spain and London. In addition to keeping his entrepreneurial ball in the air via his own lines of hot sauce and protein powder, Doyle will soon jump in the music equipment game with the official launch of his new company, Von Frankenstein Monster Gear. That’s a helluva lot of plates to spin, but such a hefty work ethic is nothing new for a blue-collar guy from Jersey who was already recording and gigging with The Misfits by the time he was 16.

Anyone who ventures into a Doyle show in 2022 will witness someone who has kept healthy – and stayed built like a brick shithouse – in the age of COVID-19. A vegan for years, he passed his lockdown-imposed time off the road by maintaining his daily workout routine and strict no-animal diet.

“I haven’t been sick since – fuck, man – 2017.”

Although Doyle is always ready to pummel audiences from the stage, fans shouldn’t expect to chat with him after the gig this time around. Meet-and-greets – a long-running staple of Doyle tours despite the guitarist’s outspoken discomfort with the practice – are now off the table in favor of social distancing.

“I like it better, honestly. I do them after the show, and now I don’t have to. That’s so great!”

When not hitting the stage or his weights, Doyle (joined in his band by singer Alex Story, bassist Brandon “Izzy” Strate and drummer Wade Murff) is prepping his first music since 2017’s Doyle II: As We Die. Twenty-five new songs are currently in the works, but the listening public will have to put up or shut up if they want to hear them.

“I think we’re going to do a Patreon and just put out singles,” he reveals. “We’ll do an album after we put out like maybe 10 [songs], and put two more on and put it out, but you’re not going to get our stuff [unless] you buy it on Patreon. I’ve had enough of this streaming bullshit. We don’t make any money with streaming – like, nothing.”

At a time when fewer music sales means less gas in the tank to make the next gig, Doyle sees crowdsourcing platforms as the way to go.

“[Patreon] is a good idea because, number one, you’re gonna get paid for it. Number two, you can just keep touring while you’re putting the singles out because you have a new song out, you know? And if you don’t join the Patreon, you don’t fucking hear it. So, there you go.”

When Doyle rolls into Poughkeepsie, NY this Saturday to play at The Chance on a bill pairing him with the fantastic Wednesday 13, it will be his latest performance at a venue that has a more significant place in Misfits lore than some may realize. On the night of October 30, 1995, Doyle joined his brother, bassist Jerry Only, there for the first onstage appearance of The Misfits since 1983. The historic moment occurred during an encore of a Type O Negative show and also served as the official introduction of then-new Misfits singer Michale Graves. The surprise performance was incredible (as were the backstage antics that followed – read my recollections here) and kickstarted the second phase of Doyle’s career. Nearly 27 years later, the man’s coming back to the joint to show the rest of us how it’s done.

Forty years after the release of The Misfits’ Walk Among Us, Doyle is still charging ahead with enough musical and physical muscle to stay at the top of his game. Few people can say they’ve survived the music industry for 42 years and have gone from playing Punk dives to headlining Madison Square Garden. In Doyle’s mind, success comes down to never giving up on what he was meant to do.

“It’s just a drive; you never feel like you’ve made it yet. You keep going and going and going. It’s fun.”

More on Doyle:

Green Health: A Vegan Misfit's Guide to Horror Punk Survival

Never Enough Horror Business: A Conversation with DOYLE

Doyle's Official Website

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REVIEW - Killing Joke: Lord of Chaos

Surely, I'm not the only one who's noticed that the growing sense of dread currently felt in certain parts of the world coincides with the release of new Killing Joke music.

Although Killing Joke has been far from prolific in the 30-plus years since its first comeback via 1990’s Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions, the band always seems to reappear just as the world takes another bleak turn towards oblivion. Extremities landed mere months into the Gulf War, while 2003’s eponymous album – released after a seven-year hiatus for the group – arrived during the early months of the Iraq War.

Killing Joke is always a cathartic and life-affirming experience. This writer will never forget seeing the band live in Boston less than a week after the Marathon bombings. “We want to be part of your healing!” announced singer Jaz Coleman from the stage during the most blistering Killing Joke set I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty confident that everyone in the club felt the band’s notorious “white heat” that evening. In a city still suffering the aftermath of unfathomable loss, Killing Joke was there – right on time as always – to be a beacon of light amidst the madness.

Now, at a time when people are struggling to exist amidst everything from economic decline to an invisible mass killer, the band’s original quartet – Coleman, guitarist Geordie Walker, bassist Martin “Youth” Glover and drummer Big Paul Ferguson – gift us with its first new music in seven years.

When Killing Joke last appeared on record with 2015’s absolutely molten Pylon, the decades-old band effortlessly shattered any notion that time had diminished its notorious fire. Now, 43 years after the outfit's debut EP, that same unmistakable Killing Joke rage is felt on Lord Of Chaos, a four-song release featuring two new studio tracks and two remixes of past material (and once again packaged in evocative artwork courtesy of longtime collaborator Mike Coles).

At his angriest and most incendiary, Coleman can be a venomous monster at the mic – an unhinged, face-painted opera phantom spewing proclamations of doom with a throaty growl. While he delivers plenty of pre-apocalyptic bile this time around, his greatest moments on the EP come when he showcases the softer feel he first mastered on 1985’s Night Time and 1986’s Brighter Than A Thousand Suns. Musically speaking, the title track finds Killing Joke continuing the overall sonic direction of Pylon – certainly one of the heaviest albums in the band’s discography in spots – while embracing touches of the band’s more melodic moments. (Think Night Time’s “Darkness Before Dawn” meets “Corporate Elect” off 2012’s MMXII.)

This duality is also felt on the EP’s strongest moment, “Total.” Everyone (particularly Geordie, forever Killing Joke not-so-secret weapon) is firing on all cylinders, resulting in the finest four and a half minutes Killing Joke has put on disc since the original lineup reformed in 2008.

The word “remix” often indicates a groan-inducing mixed bag for me. In my long (and, to be honest, often reluctant) experience with the medium, results have ranged from awe-inspiring when the task of reimagining another artist’s song is placed in the right hands (the work of Justin Broadrick and Jim Thirlwell immediately comes to mind) to dead-weight filler when clearly dumped on a release to drag out its runtime. (Let’s think back to most remix EPs released by major Alt-Industrial acts in the ’90s, slap ourselves awake and swiftly move on, shall we?) The dancey “Motorcade Mix” of the Pylon track “Big Buzz” won’t set the world on fire but is fine enough (mainly because the original track’s melody is go damn great), while Youth wraps up the Lord Of Chaos EP with a seven minute-plus Dub interpretation of the Pylon number “Delete.” Look, Youth is Youth – a lovely chap and a master at what he does – and this track is certainly Youth-y. That said, Dub mixes have never really been my bag despite my deep respect for the man’s many talents in this and many other departments. (I probably just need to take in the tune over a good spliff!)

Al Jourgensen of Ministry once joked that his band always makes its best music whenever a Republican is the leader of the free world. Killing Joke always generates its most striking sounds of exorcism and healing whenever mankind descends into darkness. Considering that conflict and struggle are forever intertwined with the human experience, don’t expect these lads to stop showing us a way forward any time soon.

Order Lord Of Chaos

More on Killing Joke

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