NIGHTBITCH: IF DANZIG HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR

 
Any song that kicks off with a full-blast Danzig riff followed by the line, “Down in the workshop, baby, all dressed in black…” is total tits in our book. Somehow, Connecticut wolf-runners NightBitch suspected this all along and wrote “Chainmaker” just for us. And, okay, the other handful of Danzig fans who have a sense of humor. (Danzig not included, obviously.) Their new 12-inch single—which they better fucking send me a copy of, hint hint—is named after the song, and also includes smoking-hot stripper jam “Disrober” and a cover of Deep Purple’s “Into The Fire.” We recently harassed NightBitch’s unfortunately named guitarist, Ryan Adams, to find out WHAT IT ALL MEANS.

How did you settle on the name NightBitch, and what was the runner-up?

It was an especially fiery practice session when we sat down to discuss names. The haze of intoxicants lifted and “NightBitch” was the sleaziest thing we had been able to come up with. There were no other contenders or runner-ups; it was unanimously settled upon.

Your mission statement involves “wicked women, unholy passions, and fire nights.” Please lay out your ideal scenario that involves all three.

Imagine if you will, the scene from Fashionistas where Sasha Grey is levying the mother of all queenings upon Rocco meets the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut… transported back to 1970 for Mr. Jesus Franco to shoot. There would be top-shelf libations, cryptic sigils on lavish tapestries, strange vestments, suspicious tobacco and the most expensive crab rangoon you could conceive of. Peculiar furniture, lavish mirrors and hardwood apparatuses for restraining the most depraved of the participants. The set may be on loan from a Hammer Production and Nick Cave would be presiding over the organ. I would be wearing Cerruti. There would be several redheads. Terribly sapphic, yet eagerly receptive to my darkness. In the night.

Discuss the film Caged Heat and how it informs Nightbitch’s aesthetic.

Amazing timing on this. I actually hung out with Mark last night and watched this movie with him at 11:30. When I was about 11 or 12, I saw this movie on Showtime After Dark while sleeping over my best friend’s house. It left a welt on my Catholic-school adolescent psyche, that’s for damn sure. I’ve grown to celebrate the women-in-prison, white slavery and nunsploitation genres. Fancy that. That said, Caged Heat, being a late-’80s movie, is a bit past the “golden age” of sleaze that our aesthetic is dialed into. We’re much more in tune with the Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, Mario Bava, Euro-sleaze occult erotica bondage/kink vibe of the ’70s and early ’80s. Ilsa flicks, exotic locales and total muff enchantment. 42nd Street eternal.

What inspired the song “Chainmaker”?

Old W.A.S.P., Judas Priest, David Coverdale, craft beer, reprobate movies like Justine de Sade and Eugenie, mind erasers, sour diesel and utter contempt for nowadays heavy metal.

What about “Disrober”?

Danzig III, Woodford Reserve, shitty occult exploitation flicks and an idea about a Satanic ritual that compels its nubile participants to take their clothes off.

You cover Deep Purple’s “Into The Fire.” Did you choose it because it’s your favorite song on In Rock, or because it fits NightBitch thematically? 

We worship Deep Purple on a level that’s just stupid, so it could have gotten really ignorant bickering over which song to do. Pretty hard to fuck with those riffs, though, and say “I’d rather…” to anything else without being a right cunt. That said, FUCK, I’d love to do “Demon’s Eye.” RIP, Mr. Lord. Randy is jamming with you now while Soledad Miranda perches nearby.

How sick are you of Ryan Adams jokes at this point?

I sincerely want him dead.

Try to say three positive things about Connecticut.

New Haven pizza. Connecticut Hardcore. Hartford Whalers.

Your top 5 Danzig songs and why. Go.

I have to tell you how much I fucking love this question. If I may extend it – I have a game I like to play at Internet jukeboxes called “Five Dollars of Danzig.” It is no secret that the men of NightBitch are given to wanton excess and wholesale ignorance, but I’ve found myself spending more money at the Internet jukebox than on my bar tab lately. There is no greater pleasure than subjecting a roomful of happy hour buttdarts to Carnivore, Rainbow, Trouble, Celtic Frost and Mercyful Fate! Hail Satan. Hail $1.50 pints.

Five dollars gets you seven tracks if I recall, so here are my seven favorite Danzig tracks in loose order of most goodest:

1. “End of Time” – probably the best song Glenn ever wrote, by my own estimation.

2. “Evil Thing” – Satanic blues. Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi reconciled on Walpurgisnacht 1970.

3. “When Death Had No Name” – if you don’t own the two Danzig VHS tapes and watch them regularly, just fucking kill yourself.

4. “Killer Wolf “- Kang woaf.

5. “Snakes of Christ” – riffs. Huge, Satanic riffs with pinch harmonics that would influence me tremendously.

6. “Do You Wear the Mark?” – Danzig simultaneously taught me the power of riffs and darkness at the time when a young man is most impressionable. The seed is now germinating. I can only hope the Master finds my offerings acceptable. Supplications before a nakedlady altar.

7. “Left Hand Black” – “I’m gonna stand at the top of the world and challenge the heavens.” I saw Danzig on the How The Gods Kill tour at the Palace Theater in New Haven on a school night in 8th grade with Kyuss opening. White Zombie was supposed to play but cancelled. Local legend has it that’s the show Rob met Sheri. Chuck Biscuits savaged his rack tom during the transition to the heavy riff in “How the Gods Kill” and it fell eight or so feet to the stage from the giant skull drum riser with the flashing purple eyes. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen up to that point and my mom took me to Clash of the Titans the summer before. I still have the bootleg cassette from Phoenix Records (RIP) somewhere. I saw the original lineup two other times – once in NYC with Type O Negative and Godflesh opening. It was magick but nothing quite like that first time. It’s safe to say that show ruined my life.

Danzig songs like “She Rides” and “Her Black Wings” are longtime stripper favorites. How high does that sort of achievement rank on NightBitch’s list of goals?

NightBitch has actually played the nudie bar three times so far. We were supposed to play there again this year on Halloween but we got hit with that motherfucker of a storm and the club was without power for at least a week after. We’ve had quite a few extreme-weather related cancellations – the most recent was the first attempt at throwing a release party for the Peculiar Worship cassette single. Jehovah obviously gets butthurt that all the fly bitches come to see us on a Saturday night and then get too hungover and/or banged out to make it to church the next morning, so he fucks with us. Traditional heavy metal and naked ladies go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Chicken soup for the reprobate rock hound.

As for a particular song, “Disrober” was strategically composed for women to take their clothes off to. “Father below, calling you to disrobe… Nude for Satan. Nude for the Beast.” I dated a stripper for eight years. If I can account for “Girls Girls Girls” getting a few less plays at the titty bar, I honestly feel like I’m giving something back.

If you could ask Danzig one question, what would it be?

Oh, man. I’d probably just LARP the Pushead Thrasher tapes with him. Ask him all manner of bullshit minutiae pertaining to Samhain that me and six other dorks would even care about. Danzig’s first three albums are sacred to me, but they were accessible, human; there is a mystery and an atmosphere that is simply black and impenetrable around Samhain. When I was a kid and I heard “Initium” and “Diablos ’88” for the first time, I felt like I was doing something wrong. I went to Catholic school and there was something very real that I got from that music back then. I’d just geek out and ask him something about Samhain but try to work it like “Oh hey, and what kind of litter do your adorable little fuckers like? I’ll come change that shit and you can regale me with further tales of drives to the Jockey Club.”

By many accounts, Danzig and Ritchie Blackmore are two of the biggest pricks in rock n’ roll. What do you think would happen if they met? Could their egos even fit in the same room together?

World would collide. Realities would collapse. Oh, to be a fly on that wall. An earnestly masturbating fly.