Bobby Steele: The Undead’s Horror-Punk Godfather Still Walks the Earth
In a Zoom call from his New Jersey basement “mad lab,” the Misfits and Undead legend talks new all-star album, surviving spinal bifida, a decade-old Chiller Theatre proposal story, and why he’s flying into Texas next.
Paul Salfen caught Bobby Steele mid-setup, guitars leaning against the wall, vintage Undead and Misfits records stacked like talismans. The man who helped invent East Coast horror punk in the late ’70s still sounds exactly like himself: raspy, no-bullshit, and genuinely thrilled to be talking music. This weekend he’s back at the Chiller Theatre convention in New Jersey—the same haunted convention center where, twelve years ago, he dropped to one knee (twice) to tie his shoe and accidentally sparked the greatest proposal story in punk-rock history.
The occasion is a short, sharp set Saturday night: a tight 20-minute blast of Undead originals mixed with a couple of Misfits classics “because people want to hear that and we like to keep the fans happy.” It’s the kind of guerrilla appearance that has defined the band’s recent years—fly in, play hard, fly out. “At this point it’s like once every 20 years” in some markets, Steele laughs. “We got to do better.”
The latest Undead record—recorded largely in that same basement during the long COVID slowdown—is almost sold out on physical formats. Colored vinyl, CDs, the works. “Diana put a lot of effort into just meeting a lot of these people,” Steele says of his partner and musical co-pilot. “I don’t have the nerve to go up to people and say, ‘Hey, you want to be on our record?’ But Diane is fearless.” The guest list reads like a punk-and-metal summit: Megadeth’s Doug Bjorn, Bumblefoot (Guns N’ Roses, Sons of Apollo, Asia), Des Cadena (Black Flag, Misfits), Alex Story (Doyle, Cancer Slug), original New York Doll Rick Rivets, Tim Cappello (the saxophone monster from The Lost Boys), Buzzcocks bassist Steve Garvey, plus local shredders Matt Witt and Paula Scola. “Nine out of ten of them said, ‘Oh, definitely, let’s do it.’”
The album captures the same ghoulish energy that made Nine Toes Later and the early Undead singles cult classics, but with a broader, harder-hitting palette. Steele is proud of it the way only a lifer can be. “It’s in the blood,” he says simply. And the blood has been tested. Born with spina bifida, Steele has spent a lifetime dealing with complications that would sideline lesser mortals. “I do get a lot of complications here and there from it. But you just keep moving forward. You get better, you spend some time in the hospital, you get back on your feet and you keep going.” He says it without self-pity or drama—same tone he uses when describing how he still sets up his own gear and tunes his own pedals right before showtime. “I’ve never had the luxury of other people setting up my stuff. It kind of keeps me from focusing on worrying about the show too much.”
That same pragmatic fire runs through his advice to the new generation discovering Undead and Misfits records on TikTok and YouTube. When a 15-year-old School of Rock kid was ripping Randy Rhoads solos next to him at a gig, Steele’s punk colleague turned and deadpanned, “Thank God for punk rock.” Steele still laughs at the memory. “My first advice is get away from it. Don’t do it. But no, seriously—just really practice. Be your worst critic. Record what you do and listen to yourself and see what you like and what you don’t like. Do more of what you like and do less of what you don’t like.”
He’s not a flashy guitarist and he knows it. “I’m not a great guitar player. But I’m good at what I do.” That self-awareness is pure punk. It’s also why the band is reissuing raw, low-fi recordings from their very first show as a new 45, The Undead Walk the Earth, pressed on glow-in-the-dark blue vinyl (orange and purple variants too). “Back then I would do a show and think, ‘God, we sucked.’ Forty years later I listen to it like the fan heard it and I’m like, ‘It wasn’t too bad.’”
The Misfits era still brings a grin. Steele recalls post-gig banana splits with Jerry Only as the kind of stupid, perfect memory that keeps the whole thing alive. “There were a lot of fun times,” he says. “That comes with the territory with any band—you’re going to have good and bad. But there were a lot of fun times.”
Right now the fun includes piecing together the next Undead record with Diana as full co-writer. “I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces—chord progressions, riffs. Now I just got to do a Lennon-McCartney thing and start Frankenstein-ing them together.” He laughs. “It’s a perfect theme for us. Dead right.”
Before we sign off, Steele circles back to Texas. The last trip was a brutal in-and-out: land at 6 p.m., play, fly home at 6 a.m. “We could do like three or four shows in Texas in one set of shots,” he says hopefully. Paul Salfen, calling from Houston, immediately volunteers to help make it happen. Steele’s reply is pure rock ’n’ roll: “That’ll be great, man. Keep in touch.”
This weekend at Chiller Theatre, the kids who grew up on the old seven-inches will stand next to the new kids who just discovered “My Mind’s Diseased” on streaming. They’ll all get the same thing: Bobby Steele, guitar slung low, voice raw, still doing what he was born to do. The undead never die. They just book the next flight, plug in the pedals, and walk the earth again.
See you in the swamp, Bobby. And save a glow-in-the-dark 45 for Texas.
