Danzig Fosters Image Of Devil-Rock Bad Boy

First it was Alice Cooper, then it was Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio. Now it’s Glenn Danzig’s turn.

Danzig has been tagged a rock ‘n’ roll incarnation of the devil, a Beelzebub of bop whose leaden songs and sinister imagery send the God-fearing into a righteous rage. That’s to be expected when you title albums “How the Gods Kill” and write songs such as “I Am Demon,” “Long Way Back From Hell” and “Bringer of Death.”

But unlike Cooper, Osbourne or Dio - who dismiss their musical personas as characters - Danzig’s dark side is spun into his offstage life. Until recently, he lived in a menacing Los Angeles house ringed by a 10-foot-high iron spike fence and dungeon-like stones.

His decorating included candles, a stuffed wolf and bookshelves filled with volumes on the occult, black magic, demonology, serial killers and all forms of religion. And “Looney Tunes” memorabilia.

“I’m purposely setting out to shock,” the muscular, 35-year-old New Jersey native acknowledges.

“It’s always been a sincere endeavor, but there are people who always take it too seriously. The problem is, it seems like if I talk about it, I did it,” says Danzig. “If I talk about a murder, then I’m a murderer. If I talk about the devil, then I’m the devil. It’s guilt by association … and, excuse me, I didn’t create the devil. The God you worship every night created the devil.”

It’s shtick, and it isn’t. Danzig professes to be a serious student of these and other matters. He can quote black-magic magus Aleister Crowley and offer analysis of the Bible - New or Old Testament. He’s familiar with the philosophies of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, though he doesn’t completely embrace them.

Danzig can also tell you who drew the “Spider-Man” comics.

By turning all this into music, Danzig says, he’s been subject to a “very, very powerful but covert censorship” by the media and others, which mostly takes the form of not taking him seriously. The Rolling Stone Album Guide lauds Danzig as “one of the few acts in devil rock that’s actually in on the joke.”

“They treat it like a joke,” he says. “They hope it will go away. But I haven’t gone away yet.”

Danzig began his music career with punk band the Misfits before moving on to Samhain and to his own band since 1987. In 1994 he had his first hit, a live recording of the song “Mother” that was pumped relentlessly by MTV’s “Beavis and Butt-head” program. His popularity led 20th Century-Fox to woo Danzig to play Wolverine in an upcoming film based on the “X-Men” comic book, though he’s still waiting for the script to be finished.

Danzig has also become a comic entrepreneur. In January 1994 he launched Verotik Publishing, whose lavishly produced but decidedly adult-oriented books mix elements of horror, fantasy and unrestrained erotica.

“The comic market has definitely changed. … All our books are sellouts,” Danzig says. “I’m just trying to bring original ideas that haven’t been done before.”

Danzig is negotiating with movie and TV producers to take these comics into another realm as well as with merchandisers who want to make toys, T-shirts and other items from his characters.

Musically, he’s writing new songs, which he describes as “pretty heavy stuff,” and he has a summer concert swing planned. But then he may take a two-year break from touring to focus on his other projects and to get his bearings after a steady diet of road work since he formed the Danzig band.

“Some people get so absorbed in it that they never take a break and lose their perspective,” Danzig says. “I don’t want that to happen to me. The break I get doing this other stuff makes the music seem even more fresh.

“I’ll always be a musician. I’ll only stop making music when I don’t have anything left to say musically … I won’t just put out an album to make money. I have other ways to make money.”