41 years ago today The Misfits released “Walk Among Us” in March of 1982. The only album they ever released while the Lodi, N.J., natives were still a functioning unit with the line up of Glenn Danzig on vocals, Jerry Only on bass and Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein on guitar.
Clocking in at only less than 25 minutes, with the majority of the 13 tracks two minutes or less, Walk Among Us is full of head bobbing sing-a-longs. The happy, cheery catchiness of the songs belie the twisted lyrics about hacking heads off little girls and hanging them on the wall (“Skulls”), destroying the human race (“Astro Zombies”) and having brains for dinner and for lunch (“Braineaters”). A large part of the Misfits’ appeal was precisely that contrast between sick and sweet.
“The songs were pretty much all about being in your face and over just as quickly,” Danzig said years later, adding that he played most of the guitars and drums on the record along with handling production.
The production was lo-fi, common at the time for punk rock of all deviations, and the songs were meant to grab the listener straightaway. The only time it slows down is for the briefest of seconds on a live version of “Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?” taken from a New York show the previous December and inserted into the middle of the track listing. Leading into the chorus, the band stops playing as Danzig poses the title of the track as a question before diving headlong into a frenetic churning of sonic speed.
And though Walk Among Us was officially the first full-length Misfits release, timeline-wise it was third recorded behind Static Age (1978) and 12 Hits from Hell (1980). Like the numerous singles and EPs before it, the album was initially to be released on the band’s own label, Plan 9, but there was a sudden interest from independent labels on the West Coast, and it ended up on the Slash imprint Ruby Records.
“I.R.S. [Records] heard that we were doing the record and approached us about putting it out through them,” Danzig said. “And then we got a call and a letter from Slash Records saying they wanted to release it and that we should not do the deal with I.R.S. because I.R.S., they felt, were terrible and wouldn’t pay us. While if we did the deal with Slash it would ensue that we would be paid. But in the end, it was all bulls— anyway.”
Danzig was also unhappy with the cover art, which depicted the trio (as well as drummer Arthur Googy) sporting the patented devil-lock, with the rat-bat-spider from The Angry Red Planet and spaceships from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, two late-50s science fiction B-movies. Despite the pink and later purple variations having taken on iconic status over time, the pressings were intended to look quite differently.
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