Well, I've been playing guitar and managing bands since 1975 in NJ/NY area. Somehow I am always
in bands that were pioneers of doing new things.

The Doom Patrol was my hardcore / post punk band in the early 80s. It was me, one of my
brothers on vocals, and some local friends. We mixed together 80s hardcore punk with the killing joke
style post punk that was new.After that, I started a bands called Crimson Gash, that again was ahead
of its time, we were influenced by Venom and Slayer andwe played all tuned down and evil scary sounding, it sounded a lot like what Death Metal sounded like years later.

By the mid-1980s, I started The Thing, which people say is one of the very first modern Stoner Rock
style bands. We werearound a few years before Monster Magnet. The Thing was NYC based and we started
out at the very beginning as some Lower East Side NY art rock band influenced by Sonic Youth, Live Skull,
and bands like that. Within a year we changed a lot to what we were calling "Psychedlic Punk" or "Acid-Core". Other people starting calling it Stoner Rock eventually. We were mixing together Punk and Hardcore
with 60s and 70s Progressive Rock/ Acid Rock / Psychedelic music and also we mixed it with Jazz and
Classical Music. We would improvise songs and also write long songs in suites, using jazz chords and punk arrangements and rhythms and it was sounding really original.

The Noise Rock scene was also happening at the time, and we played with a lot of those bands
cause there was no name for what we were doing yet and people didn't know what to make of it yet.
The Thing wound up getting pretty popular in NYC and in Europe, after the BBC had us come to London to
record a John Peel Session. We outdrew Happy Mondays at CBGB during their heyday! Whenver we
played tons of well known muscians and even actors came to see us play. The Pixes came to one show,
along with Judd Nelson and River Phoenix at CBGBs. We had a great live show with all horror imagery, 3
films playing in the background, strobe lights, live nude dancers, buckets of blood dripping on the audience
from the ceiling, smoke effects, tape loops of horror movie sounds bites and soundtrack music in between
songs, and all kinds of stuff. We were good friends with White Zombie, we went to see all their shows
and they want to see ours. When we stopped playing, they picked up our live show thing and they
got famous from that point.

2. 15 years and a hundred records later how do you do it? What is the driving force behind
your music and the EF?

Mostly just because we have tons of ideas and we are the people that other people read about,
we do things, we never sit around and wait for other people. The driving force is the urge to create
something that other will appreciate and love, like the way that we appreciate and love the music
that we grew up on. Our goal was always to write music as great as the bands that we were influenced by. Electric Frankenstein is all about giving the fans what they want and making them happy
and excited and inspired from Real Rock & Roll.

3.Over the years you've developed an intense cult following, what feeds the beast?
How did it develop?

Because I did everything the way that I learned was the right way, not the way that other people
said was the right way. Electric Frankenstein (and my past bands too) developed an intense cult following
because we didn't play too much live, and we released a lot of vinyl singles on all the great small labels
that were known in the underground for putting out cool records. We made sure to have records out
all over the world on a lot of different labels so that no one was left out. And we got to know our audience personally and being fans like their were, we knew what they wanted to hear so we gave it to them.
Also, I did lots and lots of interviews in as many places as possible so that people could read what I had
to say and really get to know what the idea of Electric Frankenstein was all about and how we wanted
to resurrect Rock & Roll so that it was exciting and important again in people's lives. I think we succeeded
in doing that, because when we started in 1991 there was nothing happening, no scene, and we created
a scene for us to exist in.

4. The EF is very Fan based, not many bands care for their fans like you do, give us some insight
on how this effects your daily life and the life of the band.

Well, simply, we actually survey our fans and let them interact with our decisions. We ask them lots
of questions about how they feel about certain things we were planning on doing and we weigh their
comments heavily. We let them pick the songs that will go on our records, what singles to release,
where we should play live and so on. We ask them what they like, what things they are into, and all that.
As a result, we don't have to care about being desperate to have a hit record on the radio, like fake bands
do. We don't have to go to major labels for anything, our fans help pay for the recording of our records
and they sponsor what we did too.

5. EF is one of the few bands out there that has stayed true to the music, how did you avoid or work
around getting sucked into the corporate rock machine?

EF doesn't need the corporate fake thing. We see right through it. We don't have to use it. We sell our
records direct to our fans at live shows and the bulk of our sales is through the internet. We don't tour
all year round, we just play twice a month, so then we are not desperate like other bands that have to
compromise what their sound is in order to survive.

6. How do you feel about the current state of "Punk Rock?"

On the one hand, there is no more "Punk Rock" if you take all the really boring fake phony bands that are
thrown at people via the corporate labels, there are a lot of fake garbage bands that masquerade under
the "punk" name that do not ROCK at all, they are just silly punk sissy music bands. And on the other hand,
Punk Rock is alive and well again in the underground where it belongs because real rock n roll bands don't
need, thanks to the internet, big labels anymore to sell their records and reach their fans. Here there is a
whole new generation of kids that are getting into Punk and Rock music that are under 19 years old
that doesn't have a generation gap betweem them and their parents. The new generation of kids have
grown up with the internet, their parents are in their 40s and under and they both listen to the same music.
The new rock kids are into classic rock and punk because they listen to their parents records and they go to concert with their parents to see the classic rock and punk bands. They don't hate their parents because
they have the same values and interests as their parents now. These new young kids are rebelling
AGAINST the Nu-Metal and Emo thing of hating your parents and of being all full of deep anger and
resentment. The new kid are much more well adjusted because they are not all drugged up and damaged
from parental neglect. As soon as these under 19 year olds start making their own bands and so on,
there will be another wave like in the 1990s of ROCK music loving young adults that will make a big noise in
the music world.


7. EF has a HUGE art following, Large enough that an entire book was dedicated to the Art of The
Electric Frankenstein. Tell us about the book and how art plays into the band...

Well I always made sure that the artwork of our records was as important as the music. I always had
cool artwork on our records instead of band photos because I wanted people to appreciate all the great
artists that are around. Anyone can take a photo, but hardly anyone has the talent to make a great
illustration that really impresses you. I collected all the artwork that was ever done for all our shows
and records.

I showed them to a lot of people who said I should publish them in a book to show everyone all the great
artwork, which was done by almost every well know great artist out there like Coop, Kozik, Johnny Ace, Art Chantry, Alan Forbes, and so on. I made a book out and wrote a history of the band and showed it to some publishers that people recommended and picked the best one to work with. Dark Horse did a really
great job of making the book look fantastic and it sold really well and has been reprinted already.

8. Would you say that the iconic imagery of "Frankenstein" is the "Secret band member"?

Ha, yeah, really cause, the lyrics and attitude of the band is based on if Frankenstein was around
today and how he would feel and think about things.

9. The latest album, "Burn Bright, Burn Fast!", Features Cover art by Basil Gogos, who did all the
Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine covers in the 1960s and who did covers recently for
Rob Zombie and The Misfits. Back cover has art by Neal Adams! (who did the great Batman
and Deadman comics in the 1960s as well). And, Johnny Ace and Kali Vera did the inside CD cover
art and amazing animated scenes on the enhanced part of the CD. How was it working with suc
h world-renowned artists?

Its been great and rewarding working with all these great artists, I know about 600 artists now from all
over the world that I have worked with either in doing EF art or in appearing in my new Rock art book.
What's great is that many of the best artists are not only fans of the Frankenstein monster character
but they are also fans of Electric Frankenstein's music too. They listen to our music when they are
making artwork and it is a soundtrack to what they do. Just like their artwork is an inspiration to our music in return.

10.A FISTFUL OF ROCK & ROLL! 13 Volumes of Pure HIGH ENERGY PUNK ROCK & ROLL. What got you started on putting these comps out? Can we expect more in the future?

I have been putting these Fistful of Rock & Roll comps out for the last 6 years or so. They represent
all the great high energy punk rock & roll bands that I have come across each year and I present a lot of
new bands that I think people should really hear as well. I started doing these comps because everytime
when I was doing an EF interview I would mention a lot of other bands that we part of the New Rock
Revolution scene happening and the press would ask me to make them cds of the bands since they didn't
know about them. This happend so many times that I decided I should just start my own series of NEW
Rock comps so that all kinds of people from all over the world could hear about these great bands too.
Volumes 1 to 12 are out and I am looking for a honest labels to release Volume 13 next. I hope to find a
great label to work with so that I can do a second series that I can call " A Fistful More of Rock & Roll" !

11. Speaking of A Fistful of Rock and Roll. You've recently finished "A Fistful of Rock & Roll -
Real Rock Art for Real Rock Bands" a 1,200 page complete guide to rock posters with such artists
as Coop, Steven Cerio, Kozik, Alan Forbes, Art Chantry, Johnny Ace, John Pound, William Stout,
Dennis Worden, Cliff Mott, and any more. The enormous size of this book is enough to make any
one have second thoughts on tackling such a project. How did you get this entire project off the
ground and completed with such a huge history to cover?

Yeah, I decided to do a giant encyclopedia of Rock art that spring boards off from the Comp series.
I put together a 1,200 page book that features over 600 artists and shows a 100 year history of influences
that led to today's Rock art, which includes posters, t-shirts designs, and record covers. I doubt anyone
else can top this book and will have the energy to document all the artists that are doing this and no
one else knows all these artist like I do, they don't have the contact to be able to do such a book. I knew
that I was the only person that could pull such a big project off, so I had to do it, it was the right thing
to do. Dark Horse will be publishing this book sometime in the near future, I don't know the date yet,
they are still editing the book.

12. Tell us about the new EF band and what we can expect in future from the new line up

Well, we are excited to have Chris Lynn come back to EF on bass and to have Joe Martin from
Kill Your Idols come into EF on Drums. Me and Steve Miller are excited to be able to work with some
fresh people and to start touring again soon. The new lineup sounds really solid and powerfully ferocious
and very much like our records sound and we are all looking forward to impressing our audience and making
someexciting new music!


interview by: Doom Patrol