Jay Sosnicki: You've said that the government has interfered with your right to free expression, your lifestyle, but why should anyone be permitted to do anything they want? Why shouldn't you be held accountable if you knock someone around, or take a dump on stage and toss it at them?
GG Allin: When you walk into my environment, you are walking into my laws. The laws of the untamed animal. When I throw my body fluids at someone, they should feel honored to receive the communion of the rock 'n' roll underground's highest power. It's not just "tossing my dump," as you put it. It's a communion of souls, a shared gift of power. I drink as many bodily fluids as I possibly can, my own as well as others. It signifies a deep closeness beyond the flesh of which most human life cannot or will not comprehend. Also, if you should be someone I go after and force your face into my crotch, you should consider yourself lucky to have tasted the temple of the highest power.
Jay: What should the boundaries be as far as interference by Johnny Law in the work of performers?
GG:There can be no interference at all. I reject established laws or guidelines on my stage, morals and values are terminated. We come together for confrontation, self-mutilation, war, open sex, nudity and violence. A blood feast for our inner demons to be set out of control. Only then will I be able to tolerate a fucking world I deeply despise.
Jay: What do you get back from an audience when you perform?
GG: They are the target for my many moods and aggressions. I am the painter, they are the canvas and blood is the paint. When I look out at them as a whole crowd, I only see the enemy. A mass of people I would life to see fucking dead. I don't know them and I don't want to. I want to rape, beat and annihilate them. What I do separates the non-conformists from the phonies who are there just to witness a freak show.
Jay: Can you give me some background on your early years, the personal stuff? What is the root of your rage and alienation? Do you have many, or any, close friendships? Does anyone get close to you?
GG: I was born a soul out of control. A soul growing faster then my body could ever keep up with. My ancestors put the roots of rage in the Allin blood. My grandmother on my father's side was a full time whore. My grandmother on my mother's side was raped by her father as a child, she in turn treated my mother like a prisoner in her house until she escaped at age eighteen to marry Merle Allin, Sr. On August 29th, 1956, in cold dark poverty in the wilds of New Hampshire, I was born Jesus Christ Allin, named by my father. My very first memories on this planet were beatings, burning, being held at gunpoint, kidnapped. Merle, Sr. had dug graves in the cellar where he had been planning an Allin family suicide. That was the environment I was born into. What most clinicians would term as an onset of psychosis, I just knew as a way of life. But I do not to this day blame anybody for who I am. If anything, I want to thank them for creating a powerful individual in me at the very start of life. I was very withdrawn, I but always felt superior to others around me. Before rock 'n' roll became my weapon, I could feel the music being created in me from the built up rage. I had no desire for friendships, I only wanted to be by myself. I had to fight a lot, because when I blew up I was so out of control, it would take five or ten kids to hold me down. As for letting anyone get close, never completely. I was married once, I thought it was love. It was a mistake. But I learned at an early age not to do it again. I am not capable of love, which I look at as a very positive thing. Love, friendships and relationships are for the weak. I take everything I obtain in this world and invest it back into myself only. It makes me more powerful and a better warrior.
Jay: Talk to me about the penal system, life inside as opposed to life outside. What the sickest shit you've ever seen go down in there? What needs to change with regard to how the prison system works?
GG: I do not look at everything as being sick. It's all an orgy for the mind to grow on. In many ways there is not a lot of difference between prison and street life. It just costs a lot more to obtain the habits. I've seen heads get split open, beatings, stabbings, guys with tits and cunts sucking and fucking and so on. Nothing that I myself have not seen or been a part of many times in my life both inside and out. But the only way to change the current prison situation is to break down all the correctional facilities and let the prisoners go free again. You cannot deprive a man of his liberties. It will do nothing to correct him or conform him to a society he has nothing in common with. Prisons only cultivate criminals.
Jay: What books do you read? Is prison pure boredom, or do you keep active building up your body and mind?
GG: I do not read books in here, I prefer to write my own. I'm always using my mind to plot future revenges and strategies to use for the next time I'm released. I also continue my self-mutilation for inner toleration. Late at night when the lights go down and I'm alone in my cell, I then do my rituals of pain, power, strength and endurance. I cut myself with razors and drink the blood. It is very important that I never let go of that self torture, so as to keep my levels of tolerance high for the battles of the future.
Jay: Are booze and drugs becoming a bore for you? Are you into it for transformation or annihilation?
GG: If it were for a bore, I wouldn't continue to do them. But I thrive on a Russian Roulette lifestyle. Annihilation is a way of life for me. Booze and drugs can intensify your levels of terror and tragedy. It opens up dark, chaotic force in the soul to higher speeds of untutored barbaric action. So I am into it for transformation and annihilation.
Jay: How does media manipulation figure into what you do?
GG: I use media as a weapon against those who they represent and those who sponsor it. It's like stealing your father's gun and blowing your mother's fucking brains out. As long as it is to my own personal benefit and on my terms, then I'll use whoever I have to use to go wherever I have to go.
Jay: If you would whack anyone, who would it be and why?
GG: One person would never be enough for me. I would want to whack as many people as I could.
Jay: Your fans, are you in touch with many of them? Do they write to you about their problems? Treat you like some kind of guru? Any psycho fans you can't get rid of?
GG: I get a lot of mail from people all over the world. Sometimes it's hard to tell the sincerity of the person through a letter, unlike a live show where you can easily weed them out. But most of them follow me because they know that I'm fucking for real in a world full of frauds, phonies and imitators. I am the fucking terminator. Most of today's so-called alternative bands are only a stepping stone for their own capitalistic gains and commercial sellouts. Those are the very people I am out to fucking destroy. I will not fucking put up with fake imagery. They know I am the real motherfucker non-conformist who is not afraid to speak his mind and take the necessary actions to create my own alliance of violence against these corporate puppets. Those who know me or have had to guts to witness one of my rituals knows exactly what I'm talking about and just how brutally raw and honest I am. I'm taking rock 'n' roll back to the danger zone where it belongs and where it will continue to be a threat to out society and government as it is meant to be. The real fans know whey can put their faith in me because I am the voice of the real outcasts and rebels. And as for the psycho fans, I have much more in common with them.
Jay: What is truth? Family? Religion?
GG: Truth is the harsh conflicts of my rock 'n' roll mission for which I am willing to kill and die for. Family is me, myself and I. For religion, I am the master of the temple, the ruler of my body, mind and soul. I am God, Jesus Christ and Satan.
Jay: What role does fear play in what you do?
GG: You must be confronted with fear to face it and beat it down. I create fear in people because it demands reaction. Because only when you unconditionally seek death and enter each day with the reality that this could be your last, only then will you be in full power of yourself and defeat all the fears that in the past had crippled. People come to my performance who thought that they had seen it all. People who have been in third world countries as part of a military outfit have even retreated to the fear I project. A police officer in Georgia had to take a leave of absence from the force after being a witness to the GG Allin experience. The Ann Arbor police department said in a report that it was the most bizarre case they had come across in decades of police work. The Orlando police department said it was the most immoral and disgusting thing they had ever dealt with. New York city police said it held more fury than a murder scene. Milwaukee police did now know how to book it and Texas police were just plain baffled. Even the psychologists can not put it into perspective. People have had their skulls crushed, broken bones, assaults, rapes, robberies, puking, passing out and dangerous savagery beyond compare. But that is what exactly makes it such a thrilling, uplifting and exciting experience.
Jay: Are you getting tired of everything?
GG: No, I am tireless. Every incarceration opens more doors and wars in my head. Being locked up generates more animosity and vengeful feelings I have towards this society. My mind is always expanding and I feel with this next time out I am ready to take things even further. The music industry and the underground situations the way they are now is giving me my greatest challenge of all. Even as I am about to lead in a rock 'n' roll revolution that will determine who is for the real thing and who is to be fucking buried. As for me, I will be dead before I ever even come close to being tired. I'm an endless source of rage and fire. I'll know when the time is right for the last bloody mutilation.
Jay: Without outrage, without music, who is GG Allin?
GG: I do not set out to outrage just for the sake of outrageousness. I'm out to live my life the only way I know how. The music, stage and rituals are the balance that keep me from going out on a fucking killing spree. Without these outlets of music and performance I would be like a walking atomic bomb waiting to explode. Nobody ever knows what mood I will be in, because just like a snake, you cannot read me. You had just better hope that when you do come around me that you don't pull the wrong fucking triggers. If you do, you will more than likely get a show right on the spot and right in your fucking face, and it will only cost you your flesh and blood.
Jay Sosnicki: GG? Are you screening calls?
GG Allin: Yeah. Who's this?
Jay: It's Jay, bro.
GG: Hey, what's happening?
Jay: Doing the thing, man.
GG: Alright. So what's up with the zine, is that fucker ever coming out, or what?
Jay: Yeah, man, in April.
GG: Yeah, we're gonna be playing there, somewhere. We couldn't get a gig, no one would book us, they were all too fucking scared. But fuck it, I don't care where we play as long as we're playing.
Jay: You sound pumped, kind of like you're glad to be out of jail. (laughs)
GG: I'm fired! I got out of that motherfucker yesterday and I got three million fucking things I'm trying to do. It's pretty amazing. I'm out and I'm ready.
Jay: You're not wasting any time getting out there, that's cool. I think it would blow people away to see how on top of your business shit you are.
GG: Whoa, whoa, whoa, we gotta back up. The thing is, I've never done a tour before 1989. My tours consisted of a Greyhound bus, no band and maybe three fucking shows. So it wasn't like I was on the phone booking these gigs. You know, kids would write to me and say "I can get you a gig at Al's Shithole." That's cool, get me a band, I'll be there. As far as the tour that I did in 1992, I didn't book it, I didn't have anything to do with it. I tell my people, call me, let me know where we're playing, put me in the fucking van and let's go. I don't want the responsibility of that.
Jay: Well, who handles it all, then? The catalogues and such.
GG: My brother does it, he's my bass player. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't even be doing this tour, believe me. I'm not a good public relations man, I can't talk to these club owners, I'm not gonna kiss their ass. If I call them up, they're not gonna book me. So I'm on top of what I gotta do, yeah, but I don't give a fuck about being on top of the business part of it. It doesn't concern me.
Jay: Have you made a living doing what you do?
GG: Well, I've been in prison for four years!
Jay: Yeah, but from your records and merchandise?
GG: Well, I don't pay rent, I live with people, I buy bus passes and sleep on the Greyhound. I can make a living because I don't put myself in a situation where I have to pay out a lot. I don't have any bills, all I've got is my suitcase and I can up and go. So I can make a living on fifty dollars a month, I mean, what do I need? I steal whatever I gotta get, and I'll tell you one thing. If someone's gonna make some motherfucking money off me, then they're gonna pay me something. When I was on Homestead, I had to walk right into the motherfucking office and throw Gerard up against the wall and say "Look, you owe me, you pay me." It's not out of greed, it's because you fucking owe it to me. I'm not gonna let someone else make money off me. Fuck it, give it to me, I can buy some whores, you know.
Jay: Has there ever been a time when you were tempted to settle down? Get married again, have kids?
GG: Not at all. I've been married, I got a kid, I have no desire for that at all. The one thing I exist for right now is my band and my mission and what I gotta do. I got girls all over the place. When I do this tour, I'll be fucking getting sucked and doing whatever with whoever. But I've got no desire to stay with one person.
Jay: What kind of women do you usually get?
GG: I like real sleazy ones. I like to go to sidestreet bars or a strip joint or a whorehouse. You know, the younger the better, because I gotta find the right woman that's gonna let me do whatever I wanna do.
Jay: Do you get a lot of princesses? Rich girls who think your lifestyle might be dangerous or exciting?
GG: I get them all. The problem is, a woman will want to be with me until she's with me for a little while and then she'll realize "Well, maybe I'm in over my head." Because I tell them straight out, don't get fucking near me unless you're serious. Because I want blood and I want it all. Once you come in, you can't go out until I get what I want.
Jay: Is your kid a boy or a girl? Are you in touch?
GG: I haven't seen her for like four years. I kind of had a restraining order out on me by the mother and her mother. It was just a really bad scene. When she was born, I was living with them, but the cops were coming over every night and they threatened to take her away. You know, here's a kid in the middle of fucking combat, shit flying everywhere. It's was just a mess, you know.
Jay: Was this your wife?
GG: No, I met her at a show, got her pregnant, she had an abortion, then she got pregnant again when she was eighteen. She just said "Fuck it, I'm gonna have it." So I said "Fuck it, go ahead."
Jay: Do you pay out support and stuff?
GG: Well, you know, it might be kinda cool to see her, I guess she's six now. But the correspondence is just, uh, not welcome. Fuck it, I got my life to live. She's got the blood of GG, she'll be alright.
Jay: Getting back to the letters, you talked a lot about your rock 'n' roll revolution, but you never really elaborated on what it was.
GG: Well, what has rock 'n' roll become? I had to get out of prison! There is no underground anymore. I am it. You've got to go out there, you gotta fuck up the music scene because the music scene is so fucking lame right now. This is why you gotta be an army.
Jay: Well, OK, let's say you have an army of followers. What the fuck can you realistically do with that?
GG: You can do enough damage to get the word out. You can go out there, fly a fucking helicopter over Lollapalooza and drop bombs, that'd be cool.
Jay: Come on, man.
GG: Why can't you do it?
Jay: You could do it, but how would that further your cause?
GG: I could send somebody out to do it for me. And so what if I do it and they send me away?
Jay: Because then you wouldn't be out performing or making records anymore!
GG: Are you kidding me? I made more records in prison than when I was free. I made records over the phone, but I'd rather be out playing live, because I can fuck more people up.
Jay: Realistically, honestly, would you just arbitrarily kill someone?
GG: I think I could. I definitely could.
Jay: But would you? And why would you want to?
GG: If I played a tape for an A&R man and he told me he wouldn't sign me, I would have no problem blowing his fucking brains out.
Jay: Why haven't you done it yet?
GG: Maybe I will. I haven't reached my peak yet, Jay. Give me a little time here.
Jay: OK, OK, let's move on. What are the bands that you respect right now?
GG: I don't know, because the only thing I've heard in the last few years is slamming doors. I read the zines, people send me shit, I know what's going on. There's really nothing that I've seen. Most of these bands will tell you right out that they're singing about fictional things. They are into it for the shock value. I'm in it for real. To me, it's not just the tour, it's the way it is. It's life. When one tour ends with the band, I got on to something else. It's always a tour. I can't stop.
Jay: How long has your brother been with you?
GG: Merle's just been with me in The Murder Junkies, he hasn't been with me in the last ten or twelve years. Like I said, before 1992 there were no organized tours, just three or four shows. We got lots of shows booked for this tour, and there's a good percent that we're not gonna play. For one reason, I'm probably gonna be in jail at least seven or eight shows, I'm probably, realistically, gonna be in the hospital at least twice. So there's always gonna be a cancellation. You take it one show at a time. When I'm out of jail, we pick it up where it is.
Jay: Don't you think to get your message across, it's better not to end up in the slammer? This seems kind of unproductive.
GG: Like I said, I don't want to compromise, and I want it to be lawless. They gotta let me out, right? I'll get some bail money.
Jay: You know what I'm saying. If someone comes out who's a real hardcore fan it sucks if they don't get to see you. Those are the people who are keeping you out there.
GG: Well, if they're a real hardcore fan, then they're gonna understand they better see me when they can. I'm not gonna say "Well, tonight I'm not gonna do this because we need to be here tomorrow." Whatever I feel at a certain time is what I've got to do. Most of my people understand that. When we were out in San Francisco on the last tour, I ended up in the hospital. We stayed in town, the doctor told me I wouldn't be out of the hospital for two weeks. I just pulled the fucking plugs out of my arms, walked out of the hospital and we did the show. It was four days late and I had a fever of 102, I'm drooling and puking all over myself. But I said the show's got to go. We played and the tour went on.
Jay: There's a real parallel here between what you do and the original blues guys. That whole notion of lifestyle being indistinguishable from the music.
GG: That's cool. I think a lot of true believers of their own music, you have to live it. I have to feel it. a lot of times I won't have any lyrics, I'll have a Budweiser box and I'll be writing down lyrics while the band is playing. Just whatever comes into my mind. I never want to plan anything, I just want to take it as it comes.
Jay: Let me ask you this. You said in your letters that there's no one in your life that you depend on.
GG: Absolutely.
Jay: Well, what about your brother? That's gotta be tight. He takes care of your business.
GG: Well, if my brother calls me up tomorrow and says he's quitting the band, fuck it. I don't know if he's gonna be in the band next week, or if there's gonna be another tour. I don't depend on anybody.
Jay: Yeah, but is he the do or die person in your life? The person you're closest to?
GG: Well, I guess we're close in a sense, but not like a lot of people might think. If he's on tour and I get arrested, he'll make sure he gets me out of jail. If I'm in the hospital, he's gonna make sure he waits for me. You know, it that sense, yeah. But it's not like, let's get together or whatever, he's married, he's got his own thing, whatever. Outside the band we don't communicate much.
Jay: Yeah, but you love him, though, right?
GG: Well, I don't think it's important to have to love anybody. That word, really, what is it, you know? The only person I really love is myself. You got parents, but that don't mean you gotta love them.
Jay: Well, OK, but we're talking right now, you seem like a nice guy, we're communicating.
GG: Yeah, it's happening.
Jay: So I just find it hard to believe there's no one in your life that you love, you know?
GG: Yeah, but I might stab you in the back if you got five dollars I want. Basically, I'll do whatever I have to to get what I want. If I gotta be a nice guy to get something out of somebody, fine. If I don't, I can fight. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you. If not, then I'm gonna be an asshole.
Jay: Are you in touch with your mother and father? Are they up on what you do?
GG: Well, they read the newspaper, they see TV, so they know what I'm up to. Of course, they don't like it, but I don't care. Merle's in touch with my mother, anyway. My dad, he lives in the woods somewhere, I don't know what he's doing. But I don't feel the need to be in contact with them.
Jay: OK, check this out. I met this dude whose brother was in jail with you, and he says that you insisted on being in solitary.
GG: Nah, that's bullshit. I mean, I got put in the hole a few times for fighting.
Jay: Well, the dude was like "GG is a wanker, he wanted to be locked away where he'd be safe."
GG: (pissed) Why don't you call the Jackson State Prison right fucking now and you ask them how I left. I was in the main population this whole motherfucking year. In fact, when I left, motherfuckers in there made me a cake in the shape of a fucking bomb. Every fucker in that rock was standing in line to say goodbye to me. So why don't you tell that motherfucker if he wants to call me a wanker, I'll take him on anyplace any fucking time and I'll kick his motherfucking ass. Because that's bullshit, anytime someone calls me a wanker, he's an insecure son of a bitch, because anyone who says that shit don't know me.
Jay: In one of your letters you told me you prefer writing books to reading them. What books have you written? Complete books?
GG: Uh, well, I've written a lot of short stories, I've written a lot of things. Basically, I'm working on my autobiography with another guy right now. So it was mostly just things from my past. But I wrote about two albums worth or material, things I'd been through in here and before. I mean, for the eleven months that I was on parole it was just nonstop. It was jail, hospital, etc. It was a pretty intense eleven months before they sent me back.
Jay: Can you be a little more specific about the ways that you're fighting the system? This is another thing you talk a lot about in the letters, but you don't seem to be making any changes. You keep ending up back in jail.
GG: Well, what are you saying? That I shouldn't do it? I should compromise?
Jay: Not at all, I just don't see what you do as fighting the system. I call it being stubborn.
GG: Yeah, but I don't run. Anybody that's outspoken, they're always gonna try to put you down. That's why you gotta build up an army. I'm not gonna compromise just because they're gonna put me in jail. That's what they want me to do. I'll do my time, get back out and get back into it. Just because I'm in prison don't mean I'm broken. It doesn't mean I can't say "Hey, I've got a voice, I'm gonna use it." They're gonna have to put me in the fucking electric chair to shut me up, because in prison or out, I'm still gonna be the same person. I'm more pissed off now than I've ever been. This tour is it. This motherfucker is gonna be brutal. And they think every time they put me in prison that that's gonna change me?
Jay: If you want a lawless environment, yeah, you're free to do it, but you can't expect not to get busted.
GG: Well, who are they to say what's right and wrong? Who are they to say their values are right? Who are they to set laws anyway?
Jay: This isn't a moral issue, though. I'm talking about taking responsibility. You already know what the consequences of your actions will be.
GG: Don't I have freedom of speech? Freedom of expression? Why can a stripper get up onstage naked and not get arrested? Is it because I'm ugly or because I'm a fucking freak?
Jay: Well, probably because there's potential for people to get hurt.
GG: People come to my show for confrontation. Fuck the cops. I've gotten hurt as much as anyone else, self-inflicted or not. If a motherfucker is coming through a door and there's a sign that says "Enter at your own risk," that's exactly what the sign means. I don't feel that the police have the right to enter that club anyway. That's not their place.
Jay: How do you deal with the skeptics?
GG: Anybody who doesn't believe me, I'll tell them one thing. Come to the show. See for yourself. Believe me, they will believe when they're gone.
Jay: OK, hypothetical question. If some big record company dropped a shitload of money on you for a contract tomorrow, what would you say?
GG: I'd take it! Why wouldn't I?
Jay: I'm not saying you shouldn't. But how do you think that would affect your lifestyle?
GG: Not at all, because I don't know how to live any other way. Maybe I could fly somewhere, instead of taking a Greyhound. Wouldn't matter, I'm still gonna have my own seat because I'm still gonna stink if you sit beside me. I'd take the money, probably get a higher class bunch of hookers, that's all, or maybe a better set of drugs. I might even give some of it away, I don't give a fuck.
Jay: Why did rock 'n' roll become your weapon?
GG: I grew up in a small town. At an early age, I was beating on chairs and wrecking things around the house, it was just uh... rock 'n' roll. I was into The New York Dolls, MC5, Screaming Lord Such. I listened to so many different things. My father was into old country and western, my mother was into Nancy Sinatra or whatever was on the radio. I think the very first record that I ever heard was a Johnny Cash or Jerry Lee Lewis record. But I've been in bands as long as I can remember. I think even in the third or fourth grade I was in a band, only it wasn't a band, it was just a bunch of guys-
Jay: Banging on shit.
GG: Fucking shit up. That's what I thought rock 'n' roll was. I never got involved for the money or the chicks or the fame, I got involved because, hey, here's a chance for me to get up on stage and fuck shit up because I feel like it. Because I don't like these fuckers and here's my way to do it.
Jay: Would you make a country album?
GG: I did.
Jay: A country record?
GG: Well, I was in Florida last year, and my intention was to go into the studio with a guitar and do this kind of sit down thing. And all these motherfuckers were bringing all this equipment in, and I said "No, this isn't going to work. Fuck all this." So I went out and got drunk, picked up some bitch, came back a while later and just started playing. I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's a lot of different influences in there, but it's very different from what people would think. But it doesn't matter, because I'm not gonna put out the same record every time.
Jay: I haven't heard any of that stuff. I've just heard live tapes of your shows and they're all hardcore.
GG: If you go back and listen to, say, Eat My Fuc, you'll hear the most deranged sounds, the shit just comes out of nowhere because everyone's fucked up and no one knew what they were doing. I don't think any of my records sound the same at all. I've always had a different band, always going through different things. I've always had the same attitude, but I think every record has it's own personality. Mine.
Jay: OK, man, I think we got a pretty complete interview here.
GG: Yeah, I think between our letters and our conversations, even though we may not agree on everything, I think we got some issues out and hopefully it'll enlighten people.
Jay: Yeah, the article is called "Maximum GG Allin".
GG: Well, I wanted to come up with something different too. I do so many interviews and people ask the same fucking questions and it's like, come on! Let's get somebody who can provoke something. Let's talk about something other than "Why do you shit onstage?" It goes beyond that. So I think we probably do have something and I'm looking foreword to it.
Jay: Me too. Pleasure talking to you, man.
GG: Alright, Jay, I'll see you.
Jay: Later on.
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