In August 1977, guitarist Frank Licata joined the band under the pseudonym Franché Coma, allowing Danzig to phase out the electric piano and focus on singing while pushing the band's sound in a punk rock direction. Danzig and Only deemed Martínez unreliable and replaced him with drummer Jim Catania who went by the nickname Mr. Jim. The band found a recording opportunity when Mercury Records wished to use the name Blank Records for one of its subdivisions and offered Danzig thirty hours of studio time in exchange for rights to the name. Danzig accepted, and in January 1978 the Misfits entered a New York recording studio to record 17 songs, 14 of which were mixed for the proposed "Static Age" album. The band were unable to find a record label interested in releasing it, so they released four of the songs in June 1978 as the "Bullet" single on their own label Plan 9 Records, named after the 1959 science fiction horror film "Plan 9 from Outer Space". The other songs would see release on various compilation albums throughout the 1980s and 90s, but "Static Age" was not released in its entirety until 1997.