Glenn Danzig and Misfits’ infamous grave robbing arrest
Since Screamin’ Jay Hawkins first enchanted listeners with his spellbinding performances, rock and roll has harboured a longstanding fascination with the strange and eerie. Among the bands that propelled this convergence of horror and frenzied sonics into popular culture were the punk heroes Misfits. However, one fateful night, toward the end of the band’s first chapter under the leadership of Glenn Danzig, their career would take an exceptionally macabre turn.
Interestingly, this strange moment occurred when the band started experimenting with heavier hardcore and metal textures, consolidating their style. Their love of the dark side became more prominent in everything they did, and in September 1982, the group set off on a national tour and played at Tipitina’s in New Orleans, Louisiana. After the show, a friend of the band suggested that they explore a nearby cemetery, but they were soon arrested after local residents alerted the police to strange comings and goings from the necropolis.
The members were arrested on charges of grave robbing, and it was reported after the incident that they had been attempting to locate the grave of enigmatic 19th-century voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau, whose life is surrounded by legend. Laveau died at 79 in 1881 and is generally believed by locals to be buried in plot 347, the Glapion family crypt in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, one of three Catholic cemeteries of the same name in New Orleans.
Much conjecture surrounds the arrest of the Misfits, who were accused of attempting to exhume Laveau, but one fact that constantly crops up is that they were in the wrong place. In what seems like an easy mistake to make, reports suggest they were actually in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 2.
A report from the time in The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate states: “Four members of a punk-rock group and 14 of their fans who claimed to be looking for the tomb of a voodoo queen [named Marie Laveau] were arrested early Monday morning at a downtown cemetery, police said.”
Some sources claim that Ohio’s early hardcore outfit, Necros, who supported Misfits on tour, managed to escape arrest by convincing the authorities that they weren’t part of the group looking for Laveau’s grave. As for Danzig, Jerry Only, Doyle and Robo, they were undeterred. They skipped bail and pushed on to their next show in the sunny clime of Hallandale, South Florida.
Speaking to Miami New Times in 2013, founding bassist Only recalled the grave robbing incident: “We had just played Tipitina’s, and we were with our friend Sky, who is about six-foot, eight-inches tall, and weighs 350 pounds. He used to kill people in Afghanistan for money. He used to have us do stuff like unload guns to see who was the fastest with a revolver and shit.”
He added: “We weren’t bein’ destructive, just curious. But they weren’t playin’. They locked us all up. They stole my German daggers. They took all our cameras and left our vehicles open like we’d been robbed by locals. We spent the night in jail and got the fuck out of town. MTV had just started, and the next day, we got a call that we’re on TV for grave robbing in New Orleans.”
Following the end of the tour, the band released seven songs from a November 1981 show at Broadway in San Francisco as the Evilive EP. It was also during this period that Danzig had become increasingly discontent with Misfits and started writing music for a new project. In June 1983, he confided to Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins that he planned to quit. The following month, Misfits finished recording another EP they had been working on, and at the last minute, Danzig opted to record two of his fresh compositions that were intended for the new project, turning it into the December 1983 album Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood, their darkest offering yet.
Notably, by the time the album arrived, the group in this form had played their disastrous last show in October. During their annual Halloween performance, Danzig proclaimed to the audience that they were finished after new drummer Damage was too drunk to play and had to be escorted off stage by Doyle, with Todd Swalla of Necros standing in at the last minute. When they got home to Lodi, New Jersey, Misfits were done. Danzig’s next group was Samhain, a more metallic and grisly unit altogether.
