Jerry Only Ready To Take Latest Misfits Legal Mess To Court

Jerry Only in 1979. Photo by John Rynski.

“Danzig’s lawsuit can only be described as a sour grapes tantrum based on outrageous allegations, the majority of which are completely false,” Jerry Only announced yesterday in a statement to Alternative Press, continuing to say the accusations of breach of contract and trademark infringement brought forth by his estranged band mate are “ill conceived and grossly misguided and will be proven false in court.” Let’s start making bets on whether or not Only will show up for the trial with his devilock.

Jerry’s statement also claims Danzig’s lawsuit is packed with “falsehoods” and that the whole thing is born from the fact “[his] own product line doesn’t sell as well as he might like.” My favorite part is where Only refers to Glenn Danzig as “former co-founder” of the Misfits. Maybe this is semantics, but you can’t quit having founded something. You can quit being a member, which Danzig did, but creating something isn’t an ongoing process you can walk away from. If you shoot somebody, you can’t say, “Oh no, I formerly shot that guy. I’m not a part of that anymore.” You did it, that’s part of your life and everybody else’s.

A more important point: Jerry Only says he is “under no obligation, legal, contractual or otherwise, to obtain consent, or approvals of any kind, from former member Glenn Danzig in connection with their use of the Misfits name or logos.” This is true, technically, simply because Only registered himself as sole owner of almost all of the pre-existing Misfits marks circa 2000, ignoring the mid-’90s agreement between band members that said they share ownership of said marks. Forgive the U.S. Patent Office for not being terribly familiar with the ongoing saga of punk rock’s most ghoulish.

Maybe there wouldn’t be an issue with Danzig or other original Misfits if Jerry was mainly licensing images from the non-classic version of the band he’s been performing with since Clinton was in office; one look at the official Misfits.com store, however, and you can see that isn’t the case. The front page is laden with accessories boasting Danzig era artwork, including the classic stencil of the Crimson Ghost and the ’80s Fiend Club logo (there’s even a section of t-shirts on the site labeled “vintage series”—all with images created before 1994).

Excuse me for stating the obvious, but it will be very interesting to see how this all plays out and/or what facts further legal action uncovers. One would assume Jerry worked out some deal to use the pre-existing marks on the handful of Misfits albums he made in the late ’90s before getting his name on the logos in 2000. What’s Danzig’s story with that? There has always been an enormous amount of confusion over who owns what in this band, particularly in regard to the artwork. With any luck this case will actually go to trial and we’ll see the clearest picture possible of the imagery lineage.

Also worth noting: Glenn Danzig is not exactly an angel when it comes to business or his business relationships. You don’t have to go very far to find proof of that. He may have told Jerry one thing about these trademarks and decided he had another opinion later. As I’ve stressed since the publication of This Music Leaves Stains: yes, I have my own biases and opinions when it comes to the Misfits, but I try hard to look at all this stuff objectively, and as in any other matter I hope the truly wronged find their justice.

Meanwhile, Black Flag managed to settle all their legal issues, because summer’s coming and they don’t want to harsh that beach mellow. We really wouldn’t want any of those guys to have a [puts on sunglasses] nervous breakdown.

[cue Roger Daltrey scream]