Lodi Native Doyle Supporting New Album

Former Misfits guitarist Doyle is finally hitting the road in support of his debut solo album, “Abominator,” and the jaunt included a home state gig last week in Long Branch.

Doyle was on tour with former Misfits singer Glenn Danzig when “Abominator” was released last October. His band’s first tour was scheduled for this summer, opening for GWAR, but it was cancelled after the latter’s frontman, Dave Brockie, passed away in March.

“Abominator” is an intense disc with appeal for both punk and metal fans. The album features aggressive muscular riffing, some great sing-along choruses and lyrical imagery of death and destruction. While the lyrical themes and some of the music recall the horror-punk legends, which is only natural, Doyle also convincingly puts his own musical imprint on “Abominator.”

The Lodi native’s backing band includes singer Alex Story, bassist “Left Hand” Graham Reaper and fellow Misfits alum Dr. Chud on drums. We recently spoke with Doyle by phone.

Your band on your new album is the same guys from Gorgeous Frankenstein, your last band. What made you decide to change the name of the project to Doyle?

Our singer said I think we should change the name of the band to Doyle. It’s a good idea because with Gorgeous Frankenstein I didn’t have the monetary backing to promote the name so people knew it was my band. We toured and had 50 people a night and people didn’t know who was in the band. People said, I didn’t know you had a band; we just came out tonight to see some music. It was a no brainer and it’s working great.

How did you go about making Abominator?

I write and arrange all the music and hand it to our singer and he puts on the vocal melody and the words. He knocks it out of the park. I give him a list of things I want to sing about. We recorded it and engineered it ourselves. We bought all the gear and learned how to use it and found out we needed more gear and started over after doing five or six songs.

I heard you have an additional album’s worth of material recorded?

We recorded two albums at once. We’re just going to keep touring and hopefully drop the next record while we’re out there and not stop.

What was it like being a punk rocker in Lodi in your teens in the late 70s and early 80s? I can’t imagine you were in the “in” crowd.

I was the first person to go to my school with fluorescent pink hair. I just sent my daughter to school in fifth grade with blue hair. Me, Steve Zing (Samhain), Eerie Von (Samhain, Danzig) and Dr. Chud were all in the same class. All the kids in cover bands used to laugh at us. You know what’s funny? We’re the only ones who are still playing professionally.