Singer Michael Graves joined the Misfits in 1995 replacing the group’s iconic leader Glenn Danzig, who had long been estranged from the band he created decades prior. Graves recorded two well-received albums with the band before things eventually imploded by the late ’90s.
Since then, Graves has remained fairly active, and he’s been in the spotlight, though not always perhaps for the most flattering reasons. Graves is an outspoken conservative, and he testified on behalf of five Proud Boys members in 2023 for their part in the storming of the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021. Despite that, he has denied advocating for “racism, violence or the exclusion of anyone based on race, religion, gender or identity.”
In a new interview with the Nothing Shocking Podcast, Graves talked about pivoting to Christian-based music, and how the punk world “has rejected me wholeheartedly.”
“I’m sure that you know, in the punk rock world, I’m not well liked and I am certainly not well received anymore,” he explained. “It’s just been an awful, awful time for me in that world. And the hatred and the loathing that has come out of that scene had been just unbearable. And the collapse and the calamity of the European tour really forced me into making a hard pivot, because there’s certainly no punk label, there’s no hard rock label that is interested in me. And even if they were, they couldn’t sign me, they couldn’t work with me because the punk rock world hates me and has rejected me wholeheartedly.”
One of the interviewers told Graves that “it’s heartbreaking when fans turn on artists because of their political stance.” Graves replied: “I don’t like it either. I don’t like it either. I’m gonna say it’s heartbreaking, it’s soul-crushing. It’s been awful, because I’m not like that. I wasn’t raised that way. I didn’t come up that way in the scene, with the Misfits. The scene that I was in, the community that I was in was very diverse, it was very accepting. Nobody got canceled or attacked. I’ve gotten physical threats. My family’s been threatened. It’s just been an awful thing. And I’m not like that.”
He continued: “There’s this Michale Graves that’s been built in the media that is so opposite of who I am. I’m supposedly affiliated with this person and I… It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I’m a lover, not a fighter. And I love the music. The music should bring us together.”
Graves’ full interview can be heard below.
