Danzig Readies Elvis Covers Album, Intimate Live Shows

Gary Miller/Getty Images

Danzig Readies Elvis Covers Album, Intimate Live Shows

Gary Miller/Getty Images

In the past few years, Glenn Danzig has played festival and arena shows with his reunited old band the Misfits, and he’s directed a reportedly-terrible horror movie. (Verotika is out now, if you’d like to investigate it for yourself.) And now Danzig is pursuing a longtime passion project: He’s finally coming out with his album of Elvis covers. He’s playing a couple of Elvis tribute shows, too.

Danzig was always an Elvis guy. Within the ranks of the punk and hardcore heroes of the ’80s and ’90s, his gargantuan moan and bluesy leanings always led him back to the rockers of a previous era. He wrote songs for Presley’s Sun Records contemporaries Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash, and he covered Presley’s “Trouble” on the 1993 EP Thrall: Demonsweatlive. he’s been talking about the possibility of an Elvis tribute album for years. Last year, Danzig announced that he was finally getting to work on Danzig Sings Elvis. (He was hoping to release it last fall, but that obviously didn’t happen.) Now, as Blabbermouth reports, Danzig has unveiled the LP’s cover art, and he’s announced that it’ll arrive next month.

The tracklist for Danzig Sings Elvis leans heavily towards Elvis’ early Sun Records period, though it also dips into the early-’70s comeback era, as well as the soundtracks of the cheesy movies that Elvis made in the ’60s. (The mere idea of Danzig singing a song called “Pocket Full Of Rainbows” is pretty great.) Danzig mostly avoids Elvis’ best-known songs, and some of the tracks, like “Always On My Mind” and “Lonely Blue Boy,” are probably more famous for other singers’ versions. There’s no “Hound Dog” or “Heartbreak Hotel” here. That’s potentially interesting.

Danzig’s Elvis tribute shows are also potentially interesting. Danzig has announced two shows in smaller venues — a 4/17 set at Bimbo’s 365 in San Francisco and a 4/22 one at the Roosevelt Hotel Grand Ballroom in Los Angeles. According to a note on his website, Danzig “wanted these to be small Special Vegas-Club vibe.” So expect table seating, and maybe jumpsuits. Below, check out the Danzig Sings Elvis tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Is It So Strange”
02 “One Night”
03 “Lonely Blue Boy”
04 “First In Line”
05 “Baby Let’s Play House”
06 “Love Me”
07 “Pocket Full Of Rainbows”
08 “Fever”
09 “When It Rains It Really Pours”
10 “Always On My Mind”
11 “Loving Arms”
12 “Like A Baby”
13 “Girl Of My Best Friend”
14 “Young And Beautiful”

Danzig Sings Elvis is out 4/17.

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