Before it was commonplace, GG Allin was covered from head to toe in tattoos and he had a fondness for scraggly facial hair. GG and his brother, Merle Allin were in GG’s last backing band, the Murder Junkies during the early 90s.
“There were shows where we feared for our lives…” – Merle Allin
While GG Allin made a name for himself in the US punk underground during the 80s, the 90s marked the first time that GG undertook the Sustained tour with a set backing band. It was a complete disaster with Merle remembering, “There were shows where we feared for our lives. People would love us before we went on and by the time the show was over, they wanted to kill us.”
Jesus Christ Allin born in Lancaster, New Hampshire
Both GG Allin and Merle were born in the small town of Lancaster, New Hampshire in 1956 and 1955, respectively. They were raised in a log cabin with no running water. Their father, Merle says, was a manic recluse, very much a hermit who named his youngest son Jesus Christ Allin saying, “It was pretty much turbulent the first 10 years of our life…” Their father even pondered the idea of offing his entire family before taking his own life. The Allin’s eventually relocated to Williamsburg, Vermont and Jesus Christ Allin changed his name to Kevin Michael Allin.
Both Allin boys became heavily influenced by the 60s British blues invasion but when glam rock hit in the early 70s, they took it a step further and adopted the dress of their heroes. GG would take up the drums while Merle would take up the guitar. The pair would play through such local bands as Little Sisters Date playing stuff like Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper and Malpractice.
Eventually the brothers would check out the scenes in Boston and New York. Merle would explain, “Me and GG had been hanging out, writing songs and that’s where the very first job or single was written in Vermont…
When we stopped being Kevin Michael Allin and became GG Allin was when we came out from behind the drums, took the mic and was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna start my own thing.’ We really didn’t even have a name. We just went up and recorded the three songs, Beat Beat Beat, One Man Army, Import to Death, which eventually came out on GG’s debut album but that was in 1978. When I left to go to Boston and GG moved to Manchester, he got married and moved and put The Jabbers together.”
“… He pretty much got banned from every place.” – Merle Allin
When Merle and GG Allin stopped performing together during the 80s, Merle still kept a close eye on his brother attending some of his gigs. At that point, GG had transformed himself taking Iggy Pop’s confrontational style and taking it to whole new heights. Merle would recall, “He would flip somebody’s table over, go up to somebody and take their drink and pour it over their head, roll around on the floor or grab the pipes and climb up them and that was all it took to get thrown out of a club back then. He pretty much got banned from every place.”
GG Shocks Rock N’ Roll on His Own Terms
The Jabbers couldn’t take it anymore and the band eventually broke up.
GG Allin would still continue to shock rock n’ roll on his own terms. A tour for GG in the 80s was getting on a Greyhound bus, riding around the country and playing two or three shows in different towns with bands that would learn his songs. He never really kept a solid band together and because of this, a lot of band names have been linked to GG shows and recordings from this era including The Disappointments, The Toilet Rockers and The Holy Men.
Some of GG Allin’s best-known albums were released during this time including You Give Love a Bad Name. His live shows around this time were also becoming more violent and dangerous.
GG may have been making waves in the punk underground scene but his personal life was in shambles. Due to the circumstances surrounding his death, many assumed he was addicted to drugs. Merle would clarify by saying, “People have this idea that GG woke up and fell asleep with a needle in his arm. That’s not true. He was drunk all the time, messing up the bed every night and drinking until he fell down.”
GG’s Plan to End His Life on Stage
Feeling that he’d done everything he could onstage, GG decided he was going to end his life on stage and even announced the date he was going to do it, October 31st 1990. Fate would interrupt his grand plan when he was sentenced to jail in Michigan. His brother revealed, “GG got arrested in 1989 for intent to commit bodily harm less than murder. While in jail for two years, the date of his plan taking his own life came and went. He said he wasn’t going off himself in prison, that would have been anticlimactic.”
During his prison stay, GG largely sobered up and shaved off his long unkept beard. When he was released from jail in 1991, he was a new man but he was just meaner and angrier. Merle could sense that GG’s pent-up aggression would translate to more outrageous onstage antics.
Allin Brothers Were Bandmates Once More
For the first time since the late 70s, the two Allin brothers were bandmates once more. The Murder Junkies were formed shortly afterwards with a guy named Chicken John as guitarist who recommended a drummer named Dino. Chicken John was fired and the group placed an ad in The Village Voice which resulted in the hiring of a pair of guitarists, Cincinnati’s Bill Weber and Dee Dee Ramone.
That line up with The Murder Junkies lasted for only a few rehearsals before Dee Dee left. It was also around this time that up and coming filmmaker Todd Phillips began shooting GG and his adventures in hopes of putting together a documentary. This documentary would be the cult classic, Hated.
The Murder Junkies hit the road with GG opting to skip parole. Merle recalled, “… There was one show in a skate park with 17 kids that got arrested. They were all underage and drinking and Dino and GG both got arrested so we had to bail GG out because we couldn’t go on without GG but we didn’t have enough money to bail them both out so we bailed GG out, went to Atlanta, picked up a drummer and used him to play the show. Then we drove back to Dalton, Georgia and picked up Dino and then drove to New Orleans for our next show.”
GG Was Arrested for Skipping Parole
It was only a matter of time until GG was arrested for skipping parole. Merle would remember, “During our 1992 tour, he got arrested in Austin for lewd behavior, all the things GG does on stage.
The cops came in and arrested him and then they decided they would extradite him back to Michigan and he served the remainder of his sentence for another year. So from March of 1992 until April of 93, we basically recorded Brutality and Bloodshed and when he came out of prison, he had all the lyrics written and he just put them on music and a month later we were on the road again.”
Unlike after his first prison stay, when GG was freed this time, his health appeared to be on the decline. With Merle remembering, “Me and GG were in Chicago and this was next to the last date of the tour in late June of 1993 and he just looked bad. He’d been on it on the road for a month, abusing himself and we talked about him dying and about his funeral and GG was like, ‘Well, when I die, you guys better have a party.'”
GG soon got his wish but not before playing one of the most violent shows which would be captured on video and included in the film Hated.
Playing a small New York City venue called The Gas Station, GG got primed and ready beforehand, doing coke with a photographer friend. Merle remembered, “Once he got into the gig and played those two songs and got shut down, he was just wired out of his mind…”
GG Allin Dies from a Heroin Overdose
The next morning, June 28, 1993, Merle received a phone call telling him that GG was dead from a heroin overdose. Almost immediately after his death, GG’s legend would grow, thanks in part to the popularity of the Hated documentary, which came out a year after his death. A number of renowned rockers began voicing their appreciation of GG, namely Faith No More, CKY and Hank Williams the third.
After GG’s death, Merle attempted to continue the Murder Junkies but when a vocalist proved hard to find, he shut it down and concentrated on running GG’s official website and selling merchandise, CDs and videos.
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