Misfits Graves was born and raised in
Dumont, New Jersey. He was recording a demo with his band the Mopes in
Lodi, New Jersey, when their engineer, Bob Alecca, mentioned that the Misfits were reforming and holding auditions for a new singer. Graves bought the
Collection I and
Walk Among Us albums to familiarize himself with the band and became an official member about a year after trying out. In September 2008, Graves confirmed that he would return to the Misfits if asked: "
Jerry and I do not have a dysfunctional working relationship. Him and I both know and I know he knows that I am on board. It is a phone call away. I won't step back into what I walked away from, but the problem isn't with Jerry and I. The problem is with
Doyle and with
Chud." On December 26, 2009, Graves appeared on stage with Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein and Dr. Chud's band
Gorgeous Frankenstein at the
Starland Ballroom in
Sayreville, New Jersey, who was opening for
Danzig. While on stage, the band (along with Graves on vocals) played four late-1990s-era Misfits songs ("Helena", "Lost in Space", "Scarecrow Man" and "Shining"), but they were cut short from playing "
Dig Up Her Bones" due to time. Graves' singing can be found on
American Psycho,
Famous Monsters, backup vocals on the 1999 single "
Monster Mash", and "
Cuts from the Crypt". He also wrote original songs for the band such as "
Dig Up Her Bones", "American Psycho", "
Scream!", "Saturday Night", "This Island Earth", "Fiend without a Face", "Shining", "The Haunting","Devil Doll", "Witch Hunt", and "Fiend Club".
Lost Boys During a break in touring in 2000, Graves and
Dr. Chud formed a band called The Lost Boys. They played two shows before the Misfits regrouped to embark on another tour, which was their last tour with this lineup. The first Lost Boys show consisted of Graves on an acoustic guitar and vocals while Dr. Chud played drums. They played Misfits songs they had written as well as songs later used for the band
Graves which Graves wrote. The second show was the same music played as the first show, only this time the lineup consisted of Graves on vocals and electric guitar (he used Misfits guitarist
Doyle's old
Ibanez Iceman which was given to Graves as a gift upon joining the Misfits back in 1995), Dr. Chud on drums, and "J-Sin Trioxin" (Mister Monster) on bass. Later on as an encore set, J.V. Bastard (of
Mister Monster,
Gotham Road, Darrow Chemical Company, and
Blitzkid) took the stage joining the band to play guitar as Graves sang. The four played a set of "classic" Misfits songs from the 1977–1983 era of the band.
Graves After Graves and Dr. Chud's split with the Misfits on October 25, 2000, they formed the band
Graves which made one album called
Web of Dharma. Before the band finished writing songs, recording, touring and even solidifying a lineup, Graves rejoined the Misfits, but only as a guest vocalist for a month during the M25 kickoff tour. He would perform Misfits songs written during the time of his tenure with the band to raise money for his new project, Graves. During a two-day break on their
Web of Dharma 2 tour, the band recorded what was to be new material for a second album in Ripsnorter Studios, located in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. The studio is owned by members of the Minneapolis horror rock band Ripsnorter, who offered the band free studio time. The recordings were never finished due to disagreements between the mixing of the songs and have never officially been released. After two successful US tours and the verge of a breakout record contract, Graves dissolved due to differences between Graves and Dr. Chud, after only releasing one album.
Gotham Road Graves formed
Gotham Rd shortly after with Loki, JV Bastard and Paul Lifeless. Under the assumed name of
Graves they recorded a five-song demo of redone Graves songs, three which were released on
Web of Dharma and two other songs which had been written and demoed with the original Graves lineup but not officially released. Around this time is also when Graves announced via his website that he would begin producing other bands albums on his off time. One such band is Stressbomb from
Connecticut who recorded their first album,
Self Medicate, with Graves as producer and his drummer Quincy as engineer during January 2006. After a few months of the band practicing, they decided to change the band's name to
Gotham Rd. They released one album before going on hiatus so Graves could join the
U.S. Marines. His last show ever was to be on December 31, 2004. They went on two successful tours: 2003's
Seasons of the Witch tour and 2004's
Mourning Lights tour. Before their
Mourning Lights tour, the band entered a studio to record three new songs they had written after their first tour. Out of the three songs, only one ("My Way") had been mixed. The only way it was available for listening was by requesting it on
Seton Hall University's
WSOU, Pirate Radio. Before going on indefinite hiatus they would play one-off shows in New Jersey when home from the
Punk Rock Is Dead, Graves solo tour. Their second-to-last show to date was held at the now defunct Connections in
Clifton, New Jersey, in March 2005. The band announced
The Nightmare Rides Are Back all over the net and played a one-time-only reunion show in
Belmar, New Jersey, at the Goodwill Fire Hall with Cryptovyrus, The Zombie Mafia, Morbid Visions, and Johnny B. Morbid. They played a mix of material from Graves' solo works, Graves re-records, and Gotham Road, as well as some Misfits songs written by Graves. In 2008 and 2009, the band contributed some songs to the German compilation CDs
Get Acquainted Vol. 1 and
Vol. 2.
Solo projects and beyond 2005–2008 Right before his leave for the Marines, Graves was approached by Horror High Records to do a solo album. He eventually recorded his debut solo record
Punk Rock Is Dead in 2005. The entire album was written and recorded with friend and bandmate in Gotham Road, Paul Lifeless, on drums in only one month. After being
honorably discharged due to a back injury, Graves went to embark on a tour in support of the album with Loki, JV Bastard and Matt Johnson. In March 2006, Graves began a tour in support of
Damien Echols and the
West Memphis Three. Matt Johnson was replaced with Quincy Smash, who had played bass guitar for one of Graves' bands, The Mopes, before the Misfits. To coincide with the 2006 Halloween/
Almost Home 2 tour, Graves' second solo effort titled
Return to Earth was released on Halloween day of 2006. Graves has written an album entitled
Illusions with Echols. It consists of 15 songs and was released October 31, 2007. The lyrics are written by Echols and Graves, and feature J~Sin Trioxin and Quincy Smash. A year later, in October 2008, Graves released
Illusions Live/Viretta Park, a combination live album and demo EP. It was recorded on April 24, 2008, at Club Bourbon in
New Port Richey, Florida, and July 8 and 9, 2008 at
Bucharest, Romania.
Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg Graves began touring as the singer for
Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg, which features the namesake drummer and at one stage members of the band Antiproduct, although the band now features a rotating lineup. The band covers vintage
Ramones songs live, and in 2010 recorded a cover of a Graves song called "When We Were Angels", originally featured on
Illusions. In March 2011, Blitzkrieg also released another song written by Graves entitled "If and When".
2012–present In March 2012, Graves met Mark Allen Stuart, CEO of Hydraulic Entertainment. After several meetings discussing potential projects, Stuart and Graves decided to create their first album
Vagabond. On September 28, 2012, Graves began a pledge through
Kickstarter to release the album, which eventually was released on February 6, 2013. With
Vagabond, Graves showed a completely different side of his songwriting, as the album genre ranges between
folk, rock and
country. The release marked the beginning of the highly productive and successful partnership between Graves and Hydraulic Entertainment. On August 27, 2013, the album
Vagabond Acoustic was released, containing eight
acoustic songs from
Vagabond with a short description of each song. Later in 2012, a second Kickstarter release was announced,
Lost Skeleton Returns, which Graves referred to as a return to horror punk, and stated would feature ten re-recorded classics as well as four new songs.
Lost Skeleton Returns was released on June 20, 2013.
Motionless in White vocalist Chris Motionless provided guest vocals on the track "Forbidden Planet". The album was supported by nationwide touring with Graves performing as his infamous "Skele-Crow" character for the first time in nearly a decade. Following the release of
Lost Skeleton Returns, an instrumental version of the album was issued and made available to fans online. An extremely limited number of copies of this edition were made. An acoustic album called
Supernatural was released on February 7, 2014, and features acoustically performed songs of
Lost Skeleton Returns. On June 3, 2014, Graves released a new album titled
Wanderer, a musical follow-up to
Vagabond, which was once again funded through his Kickstarter project. An acoustic version of the record called
Wanderer Acoustic was released on February 3, 2015, following the tradition of
Vagabond Acoustic and
Supernatural. Later in 2015, a CD titled ''The Hydraulic Entertainment Demo's Volume 1
with demo recordings of songs from Vagabond
, Lost Skeleton Returns
, Vagabond Acoustic
and Supernatural'' was released. In January 2016, the full-band album
When Worlds Collide was released as the follow-up to
Lost Skeleton Returns. The album contained 11 new songs and combined punk, horror punk and monster rock in Graves' typical manner. The record also included the sequel to the fan-favorite song "Crying on Saturday Night", which is called "Dying on Sunday Morning". In summer 2016, Graves recorded and released the album
Bedlam, which is the acoustic counterpart to
When Worlds Collide. A new take on "Dying on Sunday Morning" was added with the song "Feels Like I'm Dying". In the spirit of
Lost Skeleton Returns Instrumental, Graves released
When Worlds Collide Instrumental later that year. Graves and Hydraulic Entertainment also made the demos of
When Worlds Collide available for the fans and released a limited CD with early versions of the songs. So far, Graves has produced and worked on 14 music projects/albums with Hydraulic Entertainment. Michale Graves' current solo project is managed by Arturo Santaella (Lynch-Moore Studios). Graves and Santaella started an acoustic tour around the U.S. in September 2021 performing in venues and private parties. Per Santaella, Graves is scheduled to tour in South America in 2022.
Other projects / guest vocals Along with the month-long writing and recording session of
Punk Rock Is Dead, Graves also laid down vocal tracks for the band Summer's End's debut self-titled release. He wrote the lyrics and recorded the vocals for the song "Headwound". Graves wrote and sang on the album
The All-Star Sessions, made by all the bands which reside on the
Roadrunner record label, before his departure into the Marines. His vocals can be found on the track he penned with
Trivium's guitarist/singer
Matt Heafy, "I Don't Wanna Be (a Superhero)". Graves appeared as a guest vocalist on the song "Zombie Romance" in Snow White's Poison Bite's album ''Snow White's Poison Bite: Featuring Dr. Gruesome and the Gruesome Gory Horror Show'', released in April 2013. In October 2014, Graves and the Russian punk band Night of Samhain released a double-album on the Hydraulic Entertainment label. The first disc contains the entire album with English vocals, translated and sung by Graves. The second disc contains the original album by Night of Samhain, sung in Russian by the band's lead singer Michael Shaforostov. The concept for the two-CD album was created by Hydraulic Entertainment CEO Mark Allen Stuart and the project was nominated for an Independent Music Award – Album of the Year. In 2015, the second double-album
Revenge of the Zombies was released, featuring acoustic renditions of songs from
Zombies Unite. The first eight tracks are English versions performed by Graves, while the second eight are Russian versions performed by Night of Samhain. On August 28, 2015, Graves started another Kickstarter campaign for
Nightmares, featuring a collection of classic horror stories read by himself. The project was successfully funded and released in late 2015. On August 27, 2016, Swedish punk band Zombiesuckers released their album
From Ashes, including the single "Endless Sleep" featuring lead vocals by Graves. On April 23, 2021, American horror punk band The Sadists released the album
Moonlight Murders, which included the song "Bride of the Monster" taken from studio sessions recorded a few years prior with Graves on guest vocals. == Political views ==