Watch Hardcore All-Stars Cover The Misfits’ “Halloween II”
It’s Halloween season, which means it’s Misfits season. Two Minutes To Late Night — the video series where comedian Jordan Olds gets all-star bands of metal, hardcore, and punk musicians to cover classic songs every week — has already saluted the Misfits once. In August Two Minutes To Midnight gave us a version of the Misfits “Earth A.D.” that featured the E Street Band’s Max Weinberg, Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta, and My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero. That’s all the Misfits tribute that any person could reasonably need. But Two Minutes To Midnight is bringing us more anyway. Today, we get a new take on a holiday classic.
Today, Olds leads a new band through a new take on “Halloween II,” one of the silliest singles from a very silly band. The Misfits’ “Halloween II” is the B-side of the band’s self-released 1981 single “Halloween,” and it’s pretty much just “Halloween” reprised, but with Glenn Danzig growling goofy stuff in Latin: “Metamorphosis! Lycanthropy!” (Danzig’s next band Samhain also included a version of the song on their 1986 album Samhain III: November-Coming-Fire.)
There’s no such thing as a Glenn Danzig substitute, but Two Minutes To Late Night still found a towering figure to take his place: Dwid Hellion, longtime frontman and sole permanent member of the enormously influential Cleveland metallic hardcore institution Integrity. Back in the long-ago days of January, I saw Integrity play a warehouse show, and they ended their set with a Misfits cover. (I think it was “Hybrid Moments.”) Hellion said something about how they were another band with a skull logo. It ruled.
Today, Hellion has applied his massive scream to “Halloween II.” In the video, we see Hellion stalking his way through a graveyard, and a little kid dressed as a skeleton joins him. Bassist Liam Wilson, formerly of math-freakout greats the Dillinger Escape Plan and currently of the supergroup Azusa, also filmed his parts in a graveyard. Abby Rhine, from the enormously tough Chicago band Life’s Question, plays guitar, and she taped her bit in front of a back-yard half-pipe. (Someone wipes out behind her while she’s playing.)
Danny Lomeili, from Long Island greats Incendiary, plays drums, and Jordan Olds joins in on guitar in his Gwarsenio Hall performance. Olds and Rhine really lean into those riffs. Below, watch the Two Minutes To Midnight version of “Halloween II” and listen to the Misfits’ original.
Check out the Two Minutes To Late Night Patreon here. Also, some of us may now have an overwhelming urge to buy an Integrity-logo facemask. You can get the gaiter version of the one Dwid wears in the video here.