Stop the presses! This June we'll see The Murder Junkies reunite for a tour in honor of the tenth anniversary of GG Allin's death.
I got a chance to talk with the foremost living expert on GG, his brother Merle. Merle is living in New Jersey and for the past few years had been fueling the GG craze with his website, trying to put the band back together and just living life.
Jesus Christ Allin aka GG first came to prominence in the 1980's with the band The Murder Junkies with their groin grinding music and sick lyrics. Onstage the Murder Junkies put on a unique show especially when GG would roll around in ground glass and human excrement, fight with his audience, urinate and defecate and often eat said waste.
While on tour GG, a heavy drinker and drug abuser, GG would be thrown into jail countless times for numerous offences including but not limited to, destruction of property, assault and drug possession. After a longer than normal stint in prison GG came out and was on the road to hell which ultimately ended in death by drug overdose on June 28, 1993.
Daniel Robert Epstein: So this June it will have been ten years since your brother GG died. What's that like?
Merle Allin: It doesn't seem like ten years. It feels like more sometimes. It's weird.
DRE: Were you surprised when it happened?
MA: Oh yeah. Well I was surprised at the time it happened. I wasn't surprised by the way it happened. I always it anticipated it happening in the late 80's when he was a mess.
DRE: What was he like in the 90's?
MA: Before he went to prison in 1989 he was basically just out on the road doing a show here and there and on the road endlessly. He was like the Chuck Berry of punk rock. He would get fucked up and beat up. Anything would happen. I would always hear these reports that GG died last night and people would call me up asking "Did you hear about your brother?" I was like, whatever. So back then I expected it, he was abusing himself more. But after prison he cleaned up his act a little bit, got stronger and came out with the intent to abuse other people than himself. If you've seen any of the live show videos from before prison as compared to after prison he was obviously a lot more angry. He was still abusive to himself but he was still apt to bust someone in the head.
DRE: Did he ever tell you what happened in prison?
MA: Y'know he never talked about that. I couldn't get anything out of him and I don't know anyone that did.
DRE: Was he a heroin addict?
MA: No man. Here's the story. GG was never a heroin addict. I don't know where everyone gets it.
DRE: Well when someone dies from a heroin overdose.
MA: GG's antics made people believe he was a heroin addict. He was more of a drunk than anything. I think the reason he overdosed was because he had cleaned up a lot since prison and hadn't done heroin that much. That's probably why the affect of him doing heroin that night, compounded with the fact he was doing cocaine all day and drinking. Throw on top of that being on top of the road all month playing every night. We went on the road of May until the beginning of June. We came home and played the Gas Station and then recovered. But GG stayed on the tour and never gave himself a chance to recover. I think the affects of all of that combined is what really killed him.
DRE: Would you rather him have done what he always said he was going to do which was kill himself on stage? Or of course not die at all.
MA: I would rather him not have died at all. I was never for one killing himself on stage. I was for it if he was into taking people with [laughs]. I always tried to talk him out of it but it was like talking to a fucking wall. So I was always like "if you're going to kill yourself on stage. I would prefer not to be there. Go for it if that's what you want to do."
DRE: From the videos and bootlegs you can see how he might be around people. But what was GG like when it was you and him?
MA: When we were alone we were just a couple of regular guys. We'd joke around and reminisce. We had our own language. I would say something and he would finish it and vice versa.
DRE: I have an older brother so I know what that's like.
MA: Right, when you have a brother that you're real close to you can just escape and just talk about things no one else knows about. I miss that. I miss my brother in all different ways. I miss the excitement that he brought whenever he was around. Anytime he was around you knew something was going to happen. I miss the music, the touring and I miss the fact of having a brother.
DRE: I read all sorts of crazy things about your dad.
MA: My dad was a fucking asshole. My brother picked up some of my dad's traits. I probably did too.
DRE: I wouldn't say that your dad is the direct reason GG became the way he did. But was he the start of it?
MA: Oh yeah. No doubt. He was a fucking nutcase. What kind of guy names his son Jesus Christ Allin [laughs]. That's the beginning of something there.
I was ten years old and GG was eight when my mother finally divorced my father and left. We lived in this fucken little log cabin with no running water and no real toilet. You had to throw water down the toilet to flush it. It was like living in the fucking woods. In the winter my father would let the snow go all the way up and cover the windows because he was such a recluse. GG was also sick all the time. He had asthma when he was a kid.
DRE: Was he a masochist or a sadomasochist or both?
MA: I'd say both.
DRE: When did all the glass crushing and the stuff with human shit start?
MA: That started like back in the mid-80's then it just progressively out of control. If he didn't perform for a long time you would see him do that kind of thing offstage too. But onstage he was totally different person.
DRE: It must have been incredible to see him perform live.
MA: It was the wildest thing to be on stage with him. I didn't care much seeing him from the audience.
DRE: What's the nuttiest thing you ever saw him do onstage?
MA: He put some chick in the hospital once. He head butted her and they ended up taking her out in stretcher while we were playing. Lots of shit. At the Space At Chase show [in New York City 12/7/91] he broke three kids noses that night. He nailed this underage kid right in the fucking nose busted right during the first line of Bite it you scum. That club literally closed two or three weeks after we played.
DRE: I read a lot of stuff like that especially with clubs in Florida.
MA: At Club Space Fish.
DRE: Also some underground television show you were on there was some trouble.
MA: Yeah the Morbid Underground. I know there were some clubs that closed and even in Nashville we supposed to do a show and the fire department closed it down so we couldn't play. Then there were clubs where we would play and then we'd hear about them getting shut down. One fucking club owner in San Antonio paid us in advance and the show lasted five minutes because GG destroyed the sound system and threw it everywhere. The guy came to get some of his money back with a pistol is his hand so we did give it back [laughs]. Then we heard they found that guy floating in the river about a week later.
DRE: Did you ever get tossed into jail with your brother?
MA: No man I had to stay clear so I could get him out. I would be the one to maintain a little order. That was his thing. I was just into playing and having a good time watching him get crazy. But there always had to be somebody to bail him out so we could get to the next show.
There was one time when Dino [The Naked Drummer] and GG played The Skate Club in Georgia. 16 people got arrested because all these underage kids were there with alcohol. Dino got arrested with GG and we didn't have enough money to bail them both out. So we had to bail GG out to go to the next show. We picked up a drummer, did the show and had to go back to Georgia to bail out Dino then go to the next show in New Orleans.
DRE: So from looking at your website it seems like there's still great interest in GG.
MA: Nowadays it's almost cool to be into GG. Over the last few months I've hung out with Hank Williams the Third. He's a big GG fan. I went to a show he played in New Jersey; I just wanted to meet him. I knocked on his tour bus and he invited me back after the show, we hung out. He had the Freaks, Faggots, Drunks & Junkies shirt right in his bus. A couple nights after that we hung out again in Manhattan and he wore his shirt onstage.
eople like him are into GG. Then there's band cKy. Chad, the guitar player, is my buddy now. They just played at Irving Plaza and we hung before the show. Then I got up on stage and played Bite it you scum with them. All the kids knew the words and they drew a big fucking crowd. Chad was calling me and I was kind of blowing them because I didn't know who they fucking were. Then I heard they opened for Guns N Roses. A whole new generation of kids are starting to know GG.
cKy said that if we get The Murder Junkies back together we could open some shows up for them. So I got in touch with [Bill] Weber and the rest of them and told them we have to make it happen.
DRE: When you look back on the Todd Phillips documentary [Hated] what do you think?
MA: It was a good thing except nobody fucking paid us. Not that we did it for money but we did it because we thought it would be cool. I think that was one of the things that helped get GG's name to a higher level. I'm glad we did but I'm pissed at Todd because he promised me a part in one his fucking movies and now that he's a big Hollywood hotshot I never hear from him anymore. That cocksucker. I remember when he was working the counter at Kim's Video and he wanted me to hook him up with GG. I'm sure one day I'll run into him and confront him about it.
There is another full length documentary in the works. It's going to have footage that no one has ever seen including me. There was some videos from 91-93 and there was another cameraman following us around. He's from Chicago and he's putting the documentary. Its going to be the story of GG's life as opposed to Todd's little timepiece.
DRE: From that maybe someone would do a narrative movie.
MA: I would love to see that happen. I would be all over that.
DRE: Maybe Howard Stern would be interested.
MA: I think Howard likes to talk about GG as a novelty thing to get a laugh or something. I always wondered what it would have been like if GG had gone on his show. GG wouldn't have taken any of his fucking bullshit.
DRE: You were in Tromeo and Juliet. What was the Troma experience like?
MA: It sucked. It was cool to work on it but these guys who took us out there to work on it were fucking assholes. They thought they were so fucking important. He wouldn't let us eat some food. We had to wait for leftovers. That kind of shit. He wanted to drop us off in one fucking spot. I told him that he was going to drive us where we had to fucking go.
DRE: So what's coming up?
MA: Well when the band broke up we were rehearsing and had written a whole bunch of new songs that we were ready to record but it didn't happen.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
I got a chance to talk with the foremost living expert on GG, his brother Merle. Merle is living in New Jersey and for the past few years had been fueling the GG craze with his website, trying to put the band back together and just living life.
Jesus Christ Allin aka GG first came to prominence in the 1980's with the band The Murder Junkies with their groin grinding music and sick lyrics. Onstage the Murder Junkies put on a unique show especially when GG would roll around in ground glass and human excrement, fight with his audience, urinate and defecate and often eat said waste.
While on tour GG, a heavy drinker and drug abuser, GG would be thrown into jail countless times for numerous offences including but not limited to, destruction of property, assault and drug possession. After a longer than normal stint in prison GG came out and was on the road to hell which ultimately ended in death by drug overdose on June 28, 1993.
Daniel Robert Epstein: So this June it will have been ten years since your brother GG died. What's that like?
Merle Allin: It doesn't seem like ten years. It feels like more sometimes. It's weird.
DRE: Were you surprised when it happened?
MA: Oh yeah. Well I was surprised at the time it happened. I wasn't surprised by the way it happened. I always it anticipated it happening in the late 80's when he was a mess.
DRE: What was he like in the 90's?
MA: Before he went to prison in 1989 he was basically just out on the road doing a show here and there and on the road endlessly. He was like the Chuck Berry of punk rock. He would get fucked up and beat up. Anything would happen. I would always hear these reports that GG died last night and people would call me up asking "Did you hear about your brother?" I was like, whatever. So back then I expected it, he was abusing himself more. But after prison he cleaned up his act a little bit, got stronger and came out with the intent to abuse other people than himself. If you've seen any of the live show videos from before prison as compared to after prison he was obviously a lot more angry. He was still abusive to himself but he was still apt to bust someone in the head.
DRE: Did he ever tell you what happened in prison?
MA: Y'know he never talked about that. I couldn't get anything out of him and I don't know anyone that did.
DRE: Was he a heroin addict?
MA: No man. Here's the story. GG was never a heroin addict. I don't know where everyone gets it.
DRE: Well when someone dies from a heroin overdose.
MA: GG's antics made people believe he was a heroin addict. He was more of a drunk than anything. I think the reason he overdosed was because he had cleaned up a lot since prison and hadn't done heroin that much. That's probably why the affect of him doing heroin that night, compounded with the fact he was doing cocaine all day and drinking. Throw on top of that being on top of the road all month playing every night. We went on the road of May until the beginning of June. We came home and played the Gas Station and then recovered. But GG stayed on the tour and never gave himself a chance to recover. I think the affects of all of that combined is what really killed him.
DRE: Would you rather him have done what he always said he was going to do which was kill himself on stage? Or of course not die at all.
MA: I would rather him not have died at all. I was never for one killing himself on stage. I was for it if he was into taking people with [laughs]. I always tried to talk him out of it but it was like talking to a fucking wall. So I was always like "if you're going to kill yourself on stage. I would prefer not to be there. Go for it if that's what you want to do."
DRE: From the videos and bootlegs you can see how he might be around people. But what was GG like when it was you and him?
MA: When we were alone we were just a couple of regular guys. We'd joke around and reminisce. We had our own language. I would say something and he would finish it and vice versa.
DRE: I have an older brother so I know what that's like.
MA: Right, when you have a brother that you're real close to you can just escape and just talk about things no one else knows about. I miss that. I miss my brother in all different ways. I miss the excitement that he brought whenever he was around. Anytime he was around you knew something was going to happen. I miss the music, the touring and I miss the fact of having a brother.
DRE: I read all sorts of crazy things about your dad.
MA: My dad was a fucking asshole. My brother picked up some of my dad's traits. I probably did too.
DRE: I wouldn't say that your dad is the direct reason GG became the way he did. But was he the start of it?
MA: Oh yeah. No doubt. He was a fucking nutcase. What kind of guy names his son Jesus Christ Allin [laughs]. That's the beginning of something there.
I was ten years old and GG was eight when my mother finally divorced my father and left. We lived in this fucken little log cabin with no running water and no real toilet. You had to throw water down the toilet to flush it. It was like living in the fucking woods. In the winter my father would let the snow go all the way up and cover the windows because he was such a recluse. GG was also sick all the time. He had asthma when he was a kid.
DRE: Was he a masochist or a sadomasochist or both?
MA: I'd say both.
DRE: When did all the glass crushing and the stuff with human shit start?
MA: That started like back in the mid-80's then it just progressively out of control. If he didn't perform for a long time you would see him do that kind of thing offstage too. But onstage he was totally different person.
DRE: It must have been incredible to see him perform live.
MA: It was the wildest thing to be on stage with him. I didn't care much seeing him from the audience.
DRE: What's the nuttiest thing you ever saw him do onstage?
MA: He put some chick in the hospital once. He head butted her and they ended up taking her out in stretcher while we were playing. Lots of shit. At the Space At Chase show [in New York City 12/7/91] he broke three kids noses that night. He nailed this underage kid right in the fucking nose busted right during the first line of Bite it you scum. That club literally closed two or three weeks after we played.
DRE: I read a lot of stuff like that especially with clubs in Florida.
MA: At Club Space Fish.
DRE: Also some underground television show you were on there was some trouble.
MA: Yeah the Morbid Underground. I know there were some clubs that closed and even in Nashville we supposed to do a show and the fire department closed it down so we couldn't play. Then there were clubs where we would play and then we'd hear about them getting shut down. One fucking club owner in San Antonio paid us in advance and the show lasted five minutes because GG destroyed the sound system and threw it everywhere. The guy came to get some of his money back with a pistol is his hand so we did give it back [laughs]. Then we heard they found that guy floating in the river about a week later.
DRE: Did you ever get tossed into jail with your brother?
MA: No man I had to stay clear so I could get him out. I would be the one to maintain a little order. That was his thing. I was just into playing and having a good time watching him get crazy. But there always had to be somebody to bail him out so we could get to the next show.
There was one time when Dino [The Naked Drummer] and GG played The Skate Club in Georgia. 16 people got arrested because all these underage kids were there with alcohol. Dino got arrested with GG and we didn't have enough money to bail them both out. So we had to bail GG out to go to the next show. We picked up a drummer, did the show and had to go back to Georgia to bail out Dino then go to the next show in New Orleans.
DRE: So from looking at your website it seems like there's still great interest in GG.
MA: Nowadays it's almost cool to be into GG. Over the last few months I've hung out with Hank Williams the Third. He's a big GG fan. I went to a show he played in New Jersey; I just wanted to meet him. I knocked on his tour bus and he invited me back after the show, we hung out. He had the Freaks, Faggots, Drunks & Junkies shirt right in his bus. A couple nights after that we hung out again in Manhattan and he wore his shirt onstage.
eople like him are into GG. Then there's band cKy. Chad, the guitar player, is my buddy now. They just played at Irving Plaza and we hung before the show. Then I got up on stage and played Bite it you scum with them. All the kids knew the words and they drew a big fucking crowd. Chad was calling me and I was kind of blowing them because I didn't know who they fucking were. Then I heard they opened for Guns N Roses. A whole new generation of kids are starting to know GG.
cKy said that if we get The Murder Junkies back together we could open some shows up for them. So I got in touch with [Bill] Weber and the rest of them and told them we have to make it happen.
DRE: When you look back on the Todd Phillips documentary [Hated] what do you think?
MA: It was a good thing except nobody fucking paid us. Not that we did it for money but we did it because we thought it would be cool. I think that was one of the things that helped get GG's name to a higher level. I'm glad we did but I'm pissed at Todd because he promised me a part in one his fucking movies and now that he's a big Hollywood hotshot I never hear from him anymore. That cocksucker. I remember when he was working the counter at Kim's Video and he wanted me to hook him up with GG. I'm sure one day I'll run into him and confront him about it.
There is another full length documentary in the works. It's going to have footage that no one has ever seen including me. There was some videos from 91-93 and there was another cameraman following us around. He's from Chicago and he's putting the documentary. Its going to be the story of GG's life as opposed to Todd's little timepiece.
DRE: From that maybe someone would do a narrative movie.
MA: I would love to see that happen. I would be all over that.
DRE: Maybe Howard Stern would be interested.
MA: I think Howard likes to talk about GG as a novelty thing to get a laugh or something. I always wondered what it would have been like if GG had gone on his show. GG wouldn't have taken any of his fucking bullshit.
DRE: You were in Tromeo and Juliet. What was the Troma experience like?
MA: It sucked. It was cool to work on it but these guys who took us out there to work on it were fucking assholes. They thought they were so fucking important. He wouldn't let us eat some food. We had to wait for leftovers. That kind of shit. He wanted to drop us off in one fucking spot. I told him that he was going to drive us where we had to fucking go.
DRE: So what's coming up?
MA: Well when the band broke up we were rehearsing and had written a whole bunch of new songs that we were ready to record but it didn't happen.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
VIEW 22 of 22 COMMENTS
wish'd i could have seen him play live.