Electric Frankenstein.

PUNK ROCK AND ROLL straight out of the garage of Jersey. These guys are not young or pretty and who cares? EF gives it loud and fast; straight to their fans, bypassing the corporate bozos. If they come near your town, steal your cousin's Hot Rod, pick up a few slices and some cold ones, and go get electrified. Here's Sal Canzonieri ...--Rhino

How did the band's name come about?

Well, because we wanted to sound like a cross between The Dead Boys and AC/DC we came up with the name this way: AC/DC is another name for electricity and Dead Boys were first named Frankenstein, originally, so then we got Electric Frankenstein.

You're from Jersey, right? I hear occasionally that EF is a West Coast band.

We play there so much, and hardly ever play in NJ. Plus we had guest singers, Rik L Rik of F-Word and Negative Trend and Scott Wilkins of Verbal Abuse, both from the West Coast.

Who are your favorite bands out of Jersey?

Monster Magnet, The Misfits, Adrenalin OD.

Out of all the band members, who resembles Frankenstein the most?

Jim used to be in Electric Frankenstein; he was the previous lead guitar player and he was the one that most people in the audience said looked like a Frankenstein 'cause he was tall and gangly, had a big chin and a mean expression when he played. Today people would say Steve our singer, 'cause he looks scary!

Rock and roll was not meant to be "pretty and young." What do you think of the alternative music-or should I say lame bands that are coming out on big labels-pushed on MTV looking like models on a GAP commercial to be marketable?

Those bands are not playing real rock and roll; they are manufactured assholes that are music prostitutes. Frank Sinatra said: "Rock and roll is the marching music of millions of sidebumed delinquents." And Mick Jagger said that the only good rock and roll band is a dangerous one! Almost every big label band is wimpy sissy stuff made for creeps that are here-to-day-gone-tomorrow, fair-weather friends.

How have you steered clear of that?

I have had A-and-R people from every major label contact me or come to my shows and I just laugh at them, 'cause being on a major label is a big rip off. I make more money selling thousands of indic records than some major label bands who sell millions of records. They get pennies per record and owe the major labels millions of dollars in charge backs. We get 50-percent royalties and sell stuff to people that care about music and collect it.

Does anyone in the band hold down other jobs or does the band alone pay the bills?

We do well as Electric Frankenstein. We keep our day jobs because we want to. We don't want to become desperate like a lot of bands do, and then prostitute ourselves with crap music. We get over a million visitors to our website and we have tons of fans that order stuff from us every month. Plus we sell loads of stuff at our live shows. We have lots of great labels from all over the world that want to release our records too.

Talk about the US Post Office's commemorative Frankenstein Stamp and the Frankenstein Society.

Well, the Frankenstein Society has been around for decades and they are dedicated to keeping the Frankenstein character alive. They, of course, collect all things Frankenstein and they keep our stuff in their archives, and so since we have done so much to keep the Frankenstein image popular they asked us to be the official band to commemorate the release of the Frankenstein stamp by the US Post Office.

Name one pro skater from New Jersey, and it better not be Jeff Jones.

Quim Cardona, Brian Wenning, and of course there is Mike Vallely.

Have you ever met Joey Ramone? Do you know if he's ever been to an Electric Frankenstein show?

Of course. I met him many times since the late 1970s and he was also a big Electric Frankenstein fan. He came to our NYC shows all the time. We were supposed to record a single together, but then he got sick again and it never happened.

You just put out a 160-page poster book. How have you been able to hook up with artist's such as Kozik, The Pizz, Coop, Mad Marc Rude and others over the years to do artwork for the band?

All these artists were already fans of Electric Frankenstein's music and they wanted to do artwork for our posters and record covers. I met most of them at art gallery shows and at parties. I collected all the art from the last 14 years and made a book out of it and I showed it to different publishers, and Dark Horse were the coolest people to work with so I went with them as the publishers.

What is coming up in the future for Electric Frankenstein?

More books, I already have deals being set up. A line of Electric Frankenstein toy figures based on the art from our records and posters, skateboards, clothing, more touring, more festival shows.