Ex-MISFITS Frontman MICHALE GRAVES: How 'I Surrendered My Life To Jesus And Became Born Again'

Former MISFITS frontman Michale Graves recently joined CCM Magazine for a powerful CCM Spotlight conversation about leaving the chaos behind, finding Jesus, and stepping into a new chapter of music and mission. In this interview, Michale opened up about his early faith, his time with the MISFITS, the pain and loss that shaped his life, and the moment he surrendered to Jesus. He also shared why his new music is aimed at people who are hurting, searching and often far outside the walls of the church.

Speaking about how he became   an artist singing about Jesus, Michale said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, I was raised in a Catholic household, so I always knew God. I had a relationship with Jesus for a good part of my life, really up until about my teenage years. And I went to Catholic school, and once I was taken out of Catholic school, I got away from the Bible. I always had a relationship with God, I always knew God was there, but Jesus and I kind of drifted apart. I started to look at ways that I could manipulate my life and make things happen for myself. And then I found the MISFITS."

Graves continued: "I always knew that God had me on the path to play music. When I was young, I wanted to — first I wanted to be a preacher. I wanted to tell people about Jesus. And then the story goes, I was in New York City. My mom and dad always used to take my sisters and brothers and I to New York City around Christmastime to see everything. And I had never seen homeless people before, and I saw a homeless guy, and I couldn't believe that everyone was just walking past this man, and something in my heart changed. I wanted to communicate in a more sort of profound way. And I had this relationship with music. I listen to music, and I can almost see it. I can feel it in such an amazing way. And so my heart changed, and I wanted to play music. So my path really led me to the MISFITS in a very Forrest Gump way. I was at the right place at the right time. Then when I got into the MISFITS, as you can imagine, this world that I was propelled into was insane, and the things that I saw and the way that people... The things that they were doing, and I got to a point where sex and drugs and just insanity… There was a lot of violence in the MISFITS — I mean, in the shows — and it was a very crazy, tumultuous world. And I got to a point on the road, I said, 'Well, maybe this is the way that I'm supposed to be in order to be part of this world.' And it felt very strange and uncomfortable. And ultimately, and standing at that crossroads, do I sign the deal with the devil and go this way, or do I go a different way? And ultimately, I decided to step away from the MISFITS."

Michale added: "God was always there, but I didn't have this relationship with Jesus. And along the way, again, my life was difficult. Lots of loss, lots of pain. I was so uncomfortable… And I would say, 'God, I'm a good person. I'm trying to do good things. I'm making these decisions that I think are correct.' It got to a point I thought that I was being puni[shed]. I used to say, 'I must have been something terrible in, like, a past life, and I'm being punished for what I did. Why are you doing this, God?' Even after the success… I couldn't find happiness. I couldn't find happiness in anything that I did — in anything that I did. I developed a taste for drugs, and my life just went out of control.

"I spent some time in Arkansas with these people, and I started to hear about this... They took me to a cowboy church, and there was 'born again' stuff. And I always thought, like, being born... You hear 'born again Christian', and you just open the door and say, 'No, thank you.' But then somebody turned me on to, started telling me about Johnny Cash, and then I heard about this guy named Billy Graham, and I heard a sermon that Billy Graham gave about being born again and the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus, like, 'How can a man be born again? And 'what is born of flesh is flesh. What is born of spirit is spirit.' And all of a sudden, it clicked, and I sort of got it. My life got to a point where I [was at] the lowest of the low, and I found myself in a hotel room on my knees just calling out to Jesus. And I surrendered my life to Jesus and became born again. And here I am.'

After the interviewer noted that Graves has an opportunity to "open a door" and reach a non-Christian audience due to his success with the MISFITS, Michale concurred. "I see a lot of people, I meet so many young people, so many people that are hurt and that are lost, and they just ... And they don't have God. They don't have God," he said. "[And] they are responding to it. I get pushback from some Christian crowds about the music and some of the things that I'm doing. But my response is that Jesus said that we have to be fishers of men. So what's the point in me playing to just a room full of believers? That's easy. We already have those. They're already in the stable. They're part of the flock. I go out and I'm talking to kids that are lost and that are hurt, the crowd that when you say 'Jesus', everyone gets weird. And I have this perspective, I have this world of MISFITS stuff that I can use and that I have used to be able to reach some people. And especially when I'm in Latin America, I see it. It's profound. People have come to me and have said they've given their life to Jesus. They've seen what I've been doing. They hear the things that I'm saying. And I'm a simple man. I don't have a lot of material things at all, but that's treasure to me. That's everything."

Michale previously talked about his faith this past March in an interview with When Words Fail, Music Speaks. Graves said at the time:  "I've been a Christian all my life, and the music that I've written and the lyrics that I've written have always come from that place. Not all the songs, but many, many, lots of those songs come from that Christian perspective. It's another thing that [MISFITS bassist] Jerry [Only] encouraged. You have to also remember that before the MISFITS got back together, Jerry and [MISFITS guitarist] Doyle [Wolfgang Von Frankenstein] were in a band called KRYST THE CONQUEROR. And so Jerry's spirituality and his love of Christ and his faith, he was never ashamed of. This man blessed himself every night before he went on stage. And that encouraged me, as well as he encouraged me, to not walk away from that, and to somehow… And that again, when I was talking about challenging and creative challenging, it was the challenge to create from my Christian perspective in this environment, in this world of — the dark places."

Michale continued: "All along, especially when I was working with Damien Echols [an American author who first became known as one of three teenagers, the West Memphis Three, convicted of a triple murder in 1994 despite the lack of physical evidence connecting them to the crime and the dubious nature of the other evidence] and making 'Illusions' [the 2007 collaborative album between Graves and Echols] and that part of my career, there was a lot of people that came from the Christian side of things that were — they didn't understand. I don't wanna say that they were disgusted, but I got a lot of flak because here I was talking about my Christian, how I feel, my spirituality, my faith in the Lord, and they were, like, 'How can you say that when we see the imagery of the MISFITS and these songs that you're writing?' And I tell them, look, what's the point of me walking into a worship service or going to a church and playing for people or speaking to people who are already believers who are already there? They're already there. We're not doing anything. There's this whole other world out there, this dark world, that the MISFITS are in."

Graves added: "When I go out into the world, I'm talking to kids that have — there's a lot of church hurt. When you say the word 'Jesus' at a MISFITS show or a Michale Graves show, there's a lot — not now, a lot less now — but these kids, they look at you, like, 'What are you talking about?' So writing about these fallen worlds, the dark worlds, writing about demons, writing about angels, writing about coming from a place where you're at your lowest. These kids are broken, they're sad, they're lost, they're hurt, they're confused. And do you think that they're gonna just walk into a church or you're gonna have somebody that they don't respect, the second that they see somebody with like a buttoned-up cardigan and this and that, and they talk and they start talking about Jesus, and they're, 'Nope.' They're gonna turn their back and they're gonna walk away. But if I walk up to them and I say, 'Hey, man. What are you wearing on your shirt there?' There's demons or something. I don't know. And we start talking about Baal or Moloch or we start to get into demonology. And now we start to talk. And then I tell them about my faith. And that's how you run a monster ministry. And that's what I've been focusing on, really, since 2012. For the past 14 years, I've really, really tried to make that the forefront of what I'm doing."

Earlier in March, Graves announced the signing with Epochal Artists Records, a label under the TLG family and distributed by Virgin Music Group.

Michale recently embarked on the "God Bless America Tour 2026", bringing a unique and deeply personal live experience to audiences across the country.

"These shows on my 'God Bless America Tour' will be an intimate, story-driven live experience that blends acoustic music, testimony, and storytelling," Graves previously said.

Michale is an internationally recognized artist who has been creating music and telling stories for over two decades. Before his 20th birthday, he was recruited to be the lead singer and primary songwriter of the legendary punk band the MISFITS. Graves faced an uphill battle of immense criticism while trying to fill the shoes of original MISFITS vocalist Glenn Danzig, but he injected the group with freshness, youth and energy which rewrote the history of the band in a way that even his sharpest critics found undeniable, reaching a whole new generation of music fans in the process.

After recording two albums with the MISFITS, "American Psycho" via Geffen and "Famous Monsters" through Roadrunner, as well as touring the world to meet millions of fans, Graves quit the band to blaze his own path. Michale steadily built a reputation as the working-man's punk rocker. He reintroduced himself to the scene with non-stop touring around the country before taking his new act worldwide.

In recent years, some of Graves's concerts ended up being canceled over his reported affiliation with the right-wing group Proud Boys.

When Graves testified on behalf of five Proud Boys members in March 2023 that he was asked to perform for them on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, he acknowledged that members of the Proud Boys may have been guilty of trespassing on Capitol grounds that day, but he said he did not believe they had any intention of targeting Congress.

The singer, who gained notoriety for his conservative views, has claimed that his "candor" got him "canceled", resulting in him being removed from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

He went on to resurrect his show called "Radio Deadly With Michale Graves", which he brought to the Censored.TV platform.

Photo courtesy of O'Donnell Media Group