Danzig 4p - Music and Recording

Music and Recording

Danzig 4p was recorded at Ocean Way and Sound City studio in California.

During the song writing process for the album, Glenn Danzig recorded his basic ideas onto a microcassette. The process continued with Glenn Danzig and John Christ working on guitar parts, before the next stage of Eerie Von and Chuck Biscuits jamming to it.

The album is more experimental than its predecessors, and Glenn Danzig described it as “A very challenging record, philosophically, vocally and musically.” The band introduced different instruments and used a few industrial sounds in the background of some tracks. Christ explained “We wanted to introduce some new textures into the band, so we experimented with several older, exotic acoustic instruments, including a harmonium, a recorder and wind chimes.”

Christ also experimented with his guitar sound: “The big difference on this album in terms of my playing is how I use sound and texture. I experimented with several different types of stereo chorusing and pitch-shifting. For example, my tone on "Son of the Morning Star" constantly evolves throughout the song.” Christ explained the song structure of "Son of the Morning Star" in more detail: “We actually start out with jazz chords and a funky jazz beat. All of a sudden, we kick into this heavy riff pattern. Then we come back to the original jazz feel, but in a rock version.”

Biscuits preferred the drum sound captured on Danzig 4p to the drum sound on his previous Danzig recordings: “I've had problems with the drum sounds on previous records. They've been too flat, too controlled. In the past, Rick has been into that dry, tight AC/DC sound. This one was looser, with more spaces, more noise.”

The lyrics to the song "Cantspeak" provide a depiction of helpless desperation. Inspired by accusations that their songs contained hidden Satanic messages, the guitar tracks for "Cantspeak" are those of "Let It Be Captured" played in reverse, as Christ explained: “Eerie Von had the idea of playing one of our songs backwards...we recorded whole guitar solo and drum parts backwards in the songs on this record. In the end we were so obsessed on this that we were trying to really play the whole song "Let It Be Captured" backwards. Therefore a new song was created - "Cantspeak".”

Glenn Danzig has stated that the song "Going Down to Die" was written about “knowing you're gonna die and dying....some people know they're going to die. They sense it, and they do die. I've known when other people are going to die, and they died.” He also revealed that at one point there were plans for the song to be included on the Natural Born Killers film soundtrack.

"Until You Call on the Dark" appears on the 1996 compilation album Big Ones of Alternative Rock vol. 1. The black metal band Behemoth recorded a cover version of "Until You Call on the Dark" for their 2005 EP Slaves Shall Serve.

The CD release ends with an unlisted hidden thirteenth track. According to an interview with Glenn Danzig, the track is titled "Invocation" and is “about a demon fucking somebody.” "Invocation" includes a Gregorian chant, and instrumental tracks that are unique to the song, but reversed, as is Glenn Danzig's spoken introduction: "All right, let's hear it back". The track has been described as sounding like a demonic ritual, and Christ described the motivation behind the recording: “People give us a hard time about the 'Devil thing', so we figured, 'Let's give them something to really talk about'.” There are several blank tracks before "Invocation", so that it is numbered track 66. CD players that display the "current track number" and "total disc time elapsed" in minutes thus read 66 61:38 on the display as the final track starts. This is perhaps an intentional reference to The Number of the Beast and the song "We Are 138" that Danzig wrote during his days in the Misfits. "Invocation" is not included on the cassette or vinyl versions of the album.

Although the songs "Crucifixion Destruction" and "White Devil Rise" were mentioned in interviews and articles throughout 1994, with Danzig even discussing the latter in some detail, neither song was included on the final version of the album. Along with another outtake from the same sessions, "The Mandrake's Cry", these were finally released in 2007 on the first disc of The Lost Tracks of Danzig (with "Crucifixion Destruction" under its correct title, "Satan's Crucifiction").