Written By: CHARLES RUNNELLS
Meet the kinder, gentler Murder Junkies. Nobody flings poop into the audience anymore. Nobody picks fights with the front row.
But some things haven’t changed for the notorious punk-rock band, says bassist Merle Allin. For example, The drummer still drums naked.
It’s just his thing, Allin says.
“Dino plays naked whenever he can get away with it,” he says. “He’s just more comfortable that way.”
So there’s a good chance he’ll be naked for Monday’s show at HOWL in Fort Myers, too.
“He’s just the naked drummer,” Allin says and laughs. “He’s been naked since day one. He came to the audition naked, and we said, ‘That’s cool, whatever!’”
Other things haven’t changed, either. Even without infamous frontman G.G. Allin — who died of a heroin overdose in 1993 —The Murder Junkies still aim to offend everyone with their abrasive brand of punk rock.
“We sing about violence and sex and drugs and rape and serial killers,” says Allin, GG’s brother. “We’re basically out to offend every group that there is.
“Some people call us racist. We’re not racist. We just hate everybody — or almost everybody.”
Late Punk Rocker, GG Allin
The Murder Junkies rose to infamy as the backing band for GG Allin, who regularly performed naked, defecated onstage (and threw it into the audience) and beat up on people in the front row at the band’s concerts.
It was pure insanity, Merle Allin says. And sometimes the band feared for its life. By the end of the show, the audience would be furious, and The Murder Junkies would be eyeballing the exit for a quick getaway.
“Everybody was ready to kill us,” Allin says. “We didn’t make too many friends.”
GG’s been dead for 24 years, though, and the band carries on with new singer PP DuVay. Occasionally, The Murder Junkies plays songs from their GG Allin days, but Allin says they’d rather play their newer stuff.
“We got tired of just playing GG songs and just being a GG cover band,” Allin says. “That’s never what we wanted to be in the first place.”
Sure, they play some of those old songs sometimes. But only if the audience doesn’t ask.
“Nowadays, the more people ask for it, the less we play it,” Allin says and laughs. “We don’t give you what you want, we give you what you deserve.”
As for fighting, Allin admits, there are still some old GG Allin fans who occasionally show up and try to start a brawl. But the band doesn’t start anything itself.
That doesn’t mean they’ll just stand there and take the abuse, though.
“We don’t pick fights,” Allin says. “We end fights.”
Tickets for Monday’s show are $10 at the door (no presale tickets). The show starts at 8 p.m. with three opening bands, and The Murder Junkies are expected to take the stage at about 10 or 11 p.m.
HOWL is located at 4160 Cleveland Ave, across from Edison Mall in Fort Myers. For more information, call 332-0161 or visit howlftmyers.com.
(Source: news-press.com)
