There’s a certain stigma that sometimes comes with playing in a cover band, let alone a tribute band to one particular band or artist. What some people consider homage, others consider a lack of skill or creativity. Which is why a band like the Mismiths is a breath of fresh air. Taking the gory horror punk of the Misfits and pairing it side by side with the emotional longing of the Smiths; creates a balance you didn’t know you needed or wanted.

While perfectly adept at playing covers of each band, the Mismiths released a record of original music inspired by both of them in 2021, Every Night’s Like Halloween. This week they released the Dead to ME.P. Five songs that keep with the original spirit of their band and the two they pay tribute to. Throughout band member changes and an ever-evolving set, The Mismiths continue to be one of the most entertaining acts you can see. We were able to catch up with lead singer Gorrisey to talk about forming the band, the new record, and mashing up two of music’s polarizing bands.

(edited for clarity)

Steven Gorrisey – Mismiths

Dying Scene (Forrest Gaddis): I’ve seen you guys a couple of times and it’s always so much fun. I’m trying to get a bunch of people to go out to the Fullerton show.

Steven Gorrisey – Oh, okay, Programme (Skate & Sound).

Yeah, it’s down the street.

Yeah, we used to play Slide Bar a lot. We used to pack it out. One of my favorite places to play. I was really sad when they stopped doing shows. We always played the inside room.

I saw TSOL and Nerf Herder (separately) in that room, they used to get good bands in that place.

It was the first time a fight broke out at one of our shows, and it was during a Smiths song. I literally stopped the whole show. I’m like, “Hey, hey, hey, guys, there’s better songs to fight to than this song.”

How did the Mismiths form?

I was going back and forth with my friend, just joking around with mashup band names. I can’t remember all the stupid names, but you know, like Creed Biscuit or something like that. Just trying to make each other laugh, and my friend Kevin said, “Mismiths.” I just looked at him like five seconds later, started laughing, like, “Wait, what? A Misfits Smiths cover band?”

We’re just cracking up. We thought it was so funny. I want to say, about a year later, that was always in the back of my head. I just started putting together this whole idea in my head. I’ll have a Danzig guy. I’ll be the Morrissey guy with skull makeup. I was kind of throwing ideas around. I brought it to a few of my friends and bandmates at the time, and they asked, “What are you talking about? That makes absolutely no sense”

I’m like, “Can we just try this once? Trust me, it’ll be fun. We’ll just do it. We’ll do it one time on Halloween.” It was like eight years ago. It was kind of a joke; we were just trying to have fun. We played a show on Halloween and it was packed. Everyone loved it. I thought that’d be it, but then so many people after a show asked, “When are you doing this again?”

I’m like, “Again? Maybe next Halloween?” The only reason I even thought of the idea is because I grabbed the mic. I was in a not very big punk band at all. I grabbed the mic and I started imitating Morrissey, and no one laughed. They’re like, “Where did you learn how to do that?” I didn’t even know I could do that. Like, I had no idea. So that’s what triggered the whole Mismiths thing. I definitely can’t sound like Glenn. I need someone to help me out with that part.

What band did you play in before?

I was actually a touring drummer most of my life. I just started singing maybe ten or fifteen years ago, and I was really bad for a while. Then I worked really hard to be mediocre, but I only sang in one band called the High On Lows. We only did local shows. I did Mismiths, and we would play like a couple shows a year for the first few years. It just started picking up steam. We’re playing shows in June and September. I’m like, what is going on? Are we a band now? That’s how it basically started.

I saw that you guys went to Alaska in April. Where else have you guys gotten to play? I mean, outside of Canada or Mexico or anything like that?

We haven’t gone to Canada. I don’t know if they’ll let us in right now. Yeah, border stuff’s a little weird right now. We’ve done Alaska. We’ve done two West Coast tours. We’re doing a third West Coast tour, and I’m booking a tour in February. We’re doing like the Panhandle Bible Belt area: New Orleans, Florida, Alabama, Carolina shows, Georgia. I think we’re playing the UK in April. We played Mexicali last month.

How many songs from each band can you play?

We know so many songs. Sometimes we get hired to do almost three hours of music. It’s exhausting because people sometimes book us, and we’re just a normal, high-energy punk band. We generally play one hour, maybe a little more. Some people are just like, “Oh, it’s a cover band. They can play all night.” We’re not playing Top 40. We’re not a wedding band. We’re balls to the wall the whole time. When they want us to play for three hours, sometimes the money’s too good to say no, so we do it. A lot more balance is in there.

If you’re playing a one-hour set, are there enough interchangeable parts that you can play a different set each time, or do you keep it the same?

A lot of places generally just want us to play for an hour, so we’ll plan an hour set and a few songs planned if an encore happens. If we have an opening spot, like forty minutes, then we’ll have to plan for that too. It all depends on how long they want us to play. Otherwise, we’ll just play the same set the whole tour. We don’t want to keep redoing the same bits at shows, but it’s kind of hard to remember, like, “Wait, did we do that bit there?”

How has the set evolved?

Oh, the comedy has gone way up now. When we parted ways with the other singer, the bass player kind of took on his duties, and he’s a silly dude. He’s more willing to work on some of the bits and comedy. When we had the two-singer thing, the other guy didn’t really want to share misfit songs too much. You know, he’s like, “Well, I’m not gonna sing in this Smith stuff.” I’m like, “Okay, well, what am I supposed to do?” A lot of the time, I just felt like a dancing monkey, but now I can sing the whole Smith song and my bass player can just play the bass, and it looks fine. I think the flow of the shows has gotten a lot better because of that.

I think people are surprised here that there’s humor throughout it.

Like, I always tell people, “You don’t even have to like the songs we cover, but you will be entertained for sure.”

Have you had any offers to open for anybody big?

You know, the band Berlin?

Yes, I saw Berlin with Madness, actually.

We opened for Berlin at the Boohaha like a couple of years ago at the OC Fairgrounds. That was probably the biggest show we ever played. Calabrese is kind of big.

That’s a name I’ve heard in a minute.

Green Jello; we played with them at The Whiskey, but almost always, people just want to book us to headline. I would love to open for bigger bands because it’d be so much more helpful for us to get bigger, playing in front of different crowds.

I’m surprised they haven’t gotten you in with something like Mac Sabbath or something. You guys would fit perfectly with Mac Sabbath.

My friend fills in for Grimace sometimes. He put our band name in their head, and they thought it was cool. I would love to play with them. They’re awesome.

Do either the Misfits, Danzig, the Smiths, or Morrissey know you exist?

Early on, it must have been like our third show, whatever. You know Bar Sinister? We’re playing there and I was walking around. Steve Zing, Danzig’s bass player, who also played in Samhain, was there. I ran up to him and go, “What the fuck are you guys doing here?” He just came to see the show. It sounded interesting. I ran up to my old singer. I was like, “Dude, look who’s here.”

Like it kind of bothered us. Obviously, we’re huge fans, and we’re like, that was super rad that they came. I was like, what the hell’s going on? I’m pretty good friends with Steve Zing now. Not from that, just being around. A lot of Danzig’s People come to our shows. I doubt Danzig reads Dying Scene, but they all say the same shit to me. We don’t tell Glenn we’re here. Like, Glenn hates cover bands. He will throw Cease and Desist out.

The guy who tours with Elvis songs?

Well, bands love cover bands because cover bands are playing their songs. That means people are going to go listen to their songs even more, and they keep those bands alive. I mean, if the Misfits were touring all the time, but they play, like, what, you know, two to four shows a year in stadiums and arenas. Like a lot of people that come see us say, “Dude, I’m so glad you’re doing this because we can’t afford those tickets.”

We also get a lot of people who hate Morrissey, but love his music. They say, “You know, I know you guys won’t cancel.” You know, they’re happy to come see this weird band that I started. I don’t think any of Morrissey’s people have come to see us, though.

No Morrissey or Johnny Marr or anything?

I wonder if we’ve ever been on their radar. I don’t know. Probably, right?

Marr seems like he’s cool. He seems like he’s into music still. Morrissey just doesn’t.

There are some mutual friends of Morrissey that have listened to us or come see us before, though. Not on the famous side of things.

Is it Dead To Me.P. or Dead To Me EP? 

Oh man. Uh, it’s Dead To Me.P. I see people posting it as Dead To Me EP. I had to fight for this name. I know it sounds stupid, but I like combining things to mash it up to be annoying.

It’s five songs. I got a “Send Them To Hell” shirt when I saw you guys a couple of weeks back. I’m not big on Supernatural, but I like the shirt.

I always wanted the shirts to be so cool that it didn’t matter what was on it.

Your original songs are accurate songs from both of the bands. You’re doing songs about horror movies and shows. If the Misfits were still making music, they would have a Supernatural song.

I guess I’m going for horror more in my era or things I watch. Danzig’s going super old school, horror and sci-fi. And then I don’t know what that second lineup of Misfits was thinking. 

Tell us about the single, “You’re Dead To Me And I Don’t Shag The Dead.”

The song is basically about an ex who is majorly toxic and terrible, but she’s so fun and a great hook up. Then you finally snap out of it and you’re done being a mentally and emotionally abused loser.  Even though god damn it you’d love to sleep with her again but she’s such a bad person haha.  

All our videos are always very camp or blood splatter or silly and it’s so awesome and we love doing that and we’ll do it again but for this video we wanted to go in a different direction. Something a little bit more weirder and more creepy and a little bit on that David Lynch tip. None of us were sure how to do this. We’re  all kind of silly dudes so we got Danika Asbury as a creative director and Trevor Campbell doing the videography.  We are so blessed that they both wanted to do this cause we are so happy with the outcome. And all the actors killed it as well.

Were people coming up and asking you to play “Saturday Night” so much that you had to write a song about it (“Stop Asking for Saturday Night”)?

I want to say if not every show, then every other show. Someone’s always yelling it. Some of us really like that song. I made a commitment a long time ago; we’re only doing Danzig Misfits. I went and saw those early Michael Graves era shows, and they’re actually pretty awesome. At the time, I was probably a hundred percent sure they would never get back together. I was like, “This is the best I can see,” and it’s got Doyle and Jerry. So, fuck it. I just wish they never called it Misfits. It should have just been a different band, and Graves has gotten a little strange over the years. Even more reason I don’t want to, personally.

When we’re demoing songs, my bass player said, “Hey dude, I got this song. I want it to be in the vein of ‘Saturday Night.’”

He had written some horror-type lyrics. He had a melody, and I just popped real quick. He thinks he came up with it, but I’m pretty sure I did. We just started going crazy on the lyrics, and now we have a super fun song.

Is that the only kind of post-Danzig era sound you guys dip into?

I think so. It’s just a swingy three, four kind of thing.

Are you a Danzig purist?

I saw a bunch of the Graves era. I even saw when Jerry was singing.

When Dez (Cadena) was in the band?

Yeah. Dez and Robo. Things were just getting so weird.

My brother called it the Jerry-only band at that point.

Yeah. Marky Ramone was in it for a second. I only listen to Danzig Misfits, personally. I used to listen to American Psycho a bunch. I don’t know; I’m over it. I don’t know about the other guys, but my friends absolutely love that shit.

Is it easier to make the Misfits horror punk songs or Smiths songs?

Oh, Smiths for sure. Mostly the guitar stuff. Like the first album we put out, those songs didn’t sound very Smiths. They sound more like Morrissey solo, I guess you could say. We’ve gone through a bunch of guitar players. Only in the past year and a half, maybe two, our guitar player, William H. Business, is definitely the best guitar player we ever played with. He grabbed those Johnny Marr skills so fast. When he started writing with us, I never heard it like this. This is what I always wanted. No one can play like Johnny Marr, but he got the vibe so fast. You’ll hear it on the songs on that EP. It was like, holy crap. The only thing that was kind of a Smiths vibe was my voice, I guess.

That’s not to take away from the horror punk stuff because Danzig is just one of the best songwriters ever in general. Everything he writes is just so perfect and catchy. It sounds easy, but to actually write something that amazing isn’t an easy task either. We don’t try to nail it exactly Smiths or exactly Misfits. We want it to be our thing, you know?

I like the deviations to other bands you threw in the set. I almost don’t want to put this part in the article because I think it’s a really good surprise when people see you guys play. It’s fun because you’re not expecting that, you know.

We love a good mashup. It’s hard, because you have to figure out what the tempo is, what the key is, how that’s going to work. You can’t keep doing the same bit over and over, but then you play the same places and it’s different people. Then I see videos popping up everywhere of us doing bits. I’m like, shit, now it’s out there.

It’s going to be like a comedy special. You’re going to have to come up with a whole new thing each time you go out.

People like hearing the same bit here and there; I guess it’s not a big deal.

You had Charlie Paulson from Goldfinger producing the album. How did he get involved?

Well, I became friends with him thirteen or fourteen years ago, but I didn’t really know anything about Goldfinger, just being around local LA. How did we meet? I forget the exact story, but his ex-girlfriend DM-ed me, and he found out about it. He called me. He’s like, “Look, I don’t want any problems or whatever, but you need to know about this.” We just kind of bonded over a shady chick.

He would come see Mismiths and be like, “You need to do this. You need to do that.” He produces stuff here and there too. I was never like a Goldfinger fan, but then I saw them probably a few years back now and Holy crap, man. Those guys go off. I always think of Charlie. He’s just Charlie’s dude. I hang out with and I can go to diners with or whatever, but seeing him play live with that band, I realized, “Oh, my friend’s a fucking rock star, kick ass guitar player.”I just couldn’t, I was just blown away by his talent. 

We always wanted a producer, especially with bands. Everyone has an opinion, and then you start to get attached to things. You get different perspectives with someone looking in from the outside, and sometimes you’re just like, “How do we make this better?” You know, we’ve tried everything. He said he would love to have a crack at producing us, and that’s how it kind of happened.

He was pulling things out of Todd that I just had no idea about. He just made us all better. It was so easy to work with him, which I wasn’t sure about either. ‘Cause, you know, he’s kind of a grumpy old man at times, but dude, he was amazing. All the advice he gave and all the things he had us try. Yeah, it was mind-blowing. I’m very grateful to him. We never worked with a producer before either. The old singer wrote most of the stuff on that album, and some of it, I wrote too.

Are those ones that pretty much survived the set?

Yeah. Like we still play “Every Night is Like Halloween.” I only wrote a verse on that. What else? “The Show Has Been Canceled.” We play that.

The EP releases on September 14th?

Yeah, it’ll start trickling into whatever stores we can get them in, and it’ll be available. We’re going to release the single, “You’re Dead to Me And I Don’t Shag The Dead,” online as well, but we’re not going to release the whole record on streaming until September 18th. If you want to buy the vinyl, you can hear all the rest of the songs.

The Mismiths are coming to your town. Check out the dates below and pick up the Dead to ME.P. from them when you do!

Aug 16th – Kensington Club – San Diego, CA

Aug 23rd – The Barn and Grill Company – Yucaipa, CA

Sept 12th – The Mixx – Pasadena, CA

Sept 13th – Regal Inn – Lakewood, CA

Sept 25th – The Ugly Mug – Washington DC

Sept 26th – Norfolk Taphouse – Norfolk, VA

Sept 27th – Cafe Nola – Fredrick, MD

Sept 28th – The Ritz Theater – Scranton, PA

Sept 29th – Manny’s Performance Space – State College, PA

Sept 30th – Berlin – NYC

Oct 1st – Koto – Salem, MA

Oct 2nd – The Williams Center – Rutherford, NJ

Oct 3rd – The Cellar on Treadwell – Hamden, CT

Oct 4th – Wild Air Beerworks – Asbury Park, NJ

Oct 5th – Philamoca – Philadelphia, PA

Oct 16th – Tukut Lounge – Yaamava, CA

Oct 17th – The Dive Bar – Las Vegas, NV

Oct 18th – Tower Bar – San Diego, CA

Oct 30th – The Barn – Riverside, CA

Oct 31st – Yucca Taproom – Tempe, AZ

Nov 1st – Harvard and Stone – Hollywood, CA