10 Obscure And Rare Hard Rock & Metal Albums
2. Misfits - 12 From Hell (1980)
In 1980, punk rock icons the Misfits had been in business for three years but had yet to release anything more than a few singles and an EP. It wasn’t for lack of trying - singer Glenn Danzig had managed to wangle thirty hours of studio time from Mercury Records two and a half years earlier to record an album’s worth of songs, as the label wanted to use the name of the Misfits’ own DIY label, Blank Records.
Those sessions should have resulted in the Static Age album, but the Misfits were unable to get a record deal to release it. Those songs were released in dribs and drabs over the years until finally the whole album received a full release in 1996, nearly twenty years after the original recording.
The story behind 12 Hits From Hell is oddly similar. By August 1980 the Misfits were looking to jettison their guitarist Bobby Steele. Having determined that personality was a better fit for their volatile dynamic than talent, bassist Jerry Only was keen to recruit his sixteen year old brother Doyle to replace Steele. The problem was that Doyle couldn’t play guitar: so the band proceeded to record the new material while Doyle learned, recording his own guitar parts separately.
Once Steele was out and Doyle was in, it was determined that the resulting tracks just didn’t sound like the Misfits. While they’d used guitar overdubs before, this was different: the tracks clearly showcased two different guitars and two different guitarists, and the Misfits had never been a five piece.
As with the songs from the Static Age sessions, many of the songs from the 1980 sessions found release in different forms and formats over the years. In 2001, Caroline Records attempted to release the session as 12 Hits From Hell, even going so far as to print and send out promotional CD copies before Danzig and Only, who hadn’t had a huge involvement with the release, expressed their displeasure (with either the liner notes, the mix or both) and the launch was cancelled, the first pressing destroyed.
Still, enough of those promotional copies - including, tantalisingly, a rumour about three (3) vinyl records - found their way to fans and collectors for 12 Hits From Hell to remain one of the rarest and most sought after records in rock n’ roll history.