JOHNNY From The BULLYS interviews ELECTRIC FRANKENSTEIN May, 2001 at Don Hill's, NYC E.F. tells it like it is! New York Waste caught The Bully Johnny (Heff), gassing to Electric Frankenstein. I'm Johnny Diesel (Heff) from the Bullys & I'm here with Electric Frankenstein doing my first interview for the New York Waste. (Does this mean it's not the last?) First of all, I need some names. I know the legendary Steve, but... We're going to ask you your names anyway. -My name is Steve Miller and I sing for a band named Electric Frankenstein. Very Cool. And you are? -Sal Canzonieri. And you play? -"With his mother!" -Bass and Guitar. I'm the Irish villain from the fuckin' ummm... -"He's just a mick!" And you? -Dan Canzonieri The brother of the legendary Sal. And this is Rob. Uh, Rob? Rob, this is Lucky, she's come to take pictures - and now he's walked away. -Yah, Rob doesn't want to be interviewed. He's the shy guy, yeah, very shy. So where are you from and where are you going? -Steve: Where're we from and where're we going? How about where've we been? Okay, where have you been? -Everywhere, basically. Okay, I know a little bit of the history of Electric Frankenstein, right? You guys are from New Jersey, right? -You know, kick ass. From New York City. -And Yonkers. Any new releases that we haven't heard? I think the last thing that I got was on Victory Records, How To Make a Monster. -Steve: There's a new one right now on Victory called Annie's Grave. It's five songs we recorded, Phil from Monster Magnet did some of the producing for us. We didn't know what to do with the songs so Victory said let's put them out a little bit pre to the main record. Annie's Grave is gettin great reviews, so if you do want to go out a buy it, it's out everywhere. -I've been told, I haven't seen it yet, that the new record's artwork is incredible. -Artist Dirty Dony. -Yeah, he did some of the Fistful comps. -From that period when he did that one, the red cover with the Frankenstein head. He's got that tattooed on his back. That dude's just amazing, great artist! -The record's not due out til September, we're working on it right now. We put in a few covers and some old stuff that we've done and they made a record out of that. Yeah, so that's coming out in September. On Victory.? -Yeah. -We're working at the Showplace Studio. They've got an amazing place. It's pretty much in our backyard. I used to go to the Showplace when it was a club. It was the only place where you could see the Runaways, The Dead Boys, you name it, they were there! Like on the weirdest nights, on off nights in Jersey, it was the greatest club. They've converted it into a GoGo Bar / Studio. Wow! -The names that we're recording around, when they fit us in, is like Keith Richards and Sheryl Crow. It's an amazing place. Does that mean that you get a bit of Lap-Dancing while you're rehearsing? -Ah, that's a secret. -Sheryl Crow gave me a Lap-Dance. -Yeah, and Keith Richard's gave me a Lap-Dance! You'd think Sal would know to keep Steve out of a place like that, with it's reputation. -No, it's great. There's a bar right there and there are the girls dancing when you take a break. And the best part of that is while you're in the studio you only have to walk around to the front door. There's a studio door that you can go into, like one of the rooms where they put amps, and the last one you can walk in, and as soon as you walk in, you're IN the GoGo bar. Fucking brilliant. The line-up has changed in the past, and I even personally played with you guys when Sal couldn't play. You guys have had substitutes. You guys switch around instruments... -It's not that, there's an absolute line-up right now for the band which is: Dan Canzonieri, Sal Canzonieri, myself singing- Steven Miller, Rob Sefcik on Drums and Carl , guitar. I never know his last name (Porcaro), it doesn't matter, he's a great guitar player, I don't really care that's all I need to know. That line up's been pretty solid for two, three years, close to. The Victory record had just come out right before Jim split so it's been that line-up since. Just doing a lot of gigs and now we've got to do some recording and I'm really looking forward to the new record with Carl playing on it. -You guys are going to be blown away with what's going on. We've kept all the good, raw energy, but Carl and Rob bring a totally different aspect to it so it's kinda took off, you know what I mean, which I'm absolutely loving it. He's writing, he's coming up with riffs which are insanely great. Like everybody's involved now, it's not one sided. I can't wait for the new record. Carl, are you main song writer? -He's the man. He's the Man! Sal takes most of the credit, we know. -No, I'm not the main song writer. He comes up with some great riffs. I write about two or three songs per album okay, and Sal would do the rest. -Yeah, Sal, our hero. -Steve: Na, usually it's like everybody is involved. Sal might come up with a great riff in different parts and we put them all together. Is that Sal's song? Or I might come up with something, but nothing comes in one-sided and everybody says, oh, here's my song. Somebody says, how about we do this to my song or to his song. You know it basically starts as somebody's song, but it ends up being an Electric Frankenstein song, it's as simple as that. I have a question for you Steve. Your voice, I would say has got to be the anchor of Electric Frankenstein's sound, although there's been other singers on other records and stuff like that, the intensity that you put out, you must have to condition your voice someways, right? -I'm doing it right now. (Holds up his bottle o' beer) Alcohol? Just alcohol? -I've always had a very strong voice like that. When I grew up listening to Rock'n'Roll, I mean I jumped onto Punk when it happened, when the Pistols were out, and I was there, I was so happy for that, I was like 14 years old, it was great. Right before that started I was a big fan of Aerosmith and the Faces. I always loved a really raspy, you know what I mean? So I kinda mimicked that at home and I guess that's just what it grew into. I've had people in the crowd yell: Is your voice sore yet? But it naturally does that, it's not like I put it on, it's just the way it is. So doing three, four, five shows in a row? -The first time we went to Europe we did nine gigs, wait, we had 27 shows in 30 days. We did nine gigs in a row without a break and there were points when I was talking to them like, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but a couple shots of Whiskey and then it starts happening, it might take like a song or two to get, but it gets out there. I mean, I can only thank god for that I guess or my family, 'cause my parents and grandparents were all singers and musicians. My whole family's from Scotland, so everybody's singing songs. To me, sometimes I can just be laying here and minute we go on, without a voice, and when we get on stage it just kinda comes out. It must be the attitude. -Yeah, that's a great question, that conditioning thing, but I'm in awe at some of these singers that I hear and I can't do that, know what I mean? I can mock it and imitate it but, I have one thing going for me that's a really strong, raspy, balls out voice. You gotta use what you got. It's as simple as that. And that's what separates you guys from the Pop-so-good, ladidadi thing. That strong voice, that's Rock'n'Roll to me. What's your favorite position? (One or another Frankenstein talking:) -Wow, man. Honestly? Well, it's not even like with both of her legs up. One leg through mine and one leg up. I'm fucking for real. Put it this way, as much stuff as you can get out of the way, just to... That's where it's at. That's the position I like. -Here's the real deal, obviously there's no... -No, but think about that, you know what I mean. Her leg's through yours and one leg's up and pined, you're in, man. When you're on the road, I guess you get a lot of groupies. You get a lot of experience, a lot of positions. -Well, I don't know if I should tell you, but ah...I don't have a bad drug habit, but I've heard Steven Tyler say this which freaked me out for a long time, I mean he's a pretty good looking guy and chicks always want to fuck him, but he blew getting laid so much because he was in a closet, stoned out of his fucking... you know what I mean. I'm kinda, when we go to gigs, I'm the guy always searching out like, where's the --, where's the --... It's a bad thing to say, but that's just the way that I am. You know what I mean? So the Groupie thing, it's a good thing, but... Does that mean the other guys are looking for the chicks while you're looking for the drug dealer? -Ya, well, I can't mention any names. (Laughter) I don't want to incriminate anybody! The names have been changed to protect the guilty! No, I can't say anything about that. What's the drug of choice? -Usually like Bayer Aspirin, I'm not going to tell you that, are you fucking nuts? Come on this is the Waste. So we'll do a check list. Marijuana? Reaction? That's a 2 out of 5, Cocaine, it's gotta be 5 outa 5? -Anything that doesn't bring me down, I'm on it. Doesn't matter what it is. Well, we've covered sex, we've covered drugs, we've covered Rock'n'Roll. Sounds great to me. BACK TO HOME