Utter Trash--King Dapper Combo

Ten Years of Terror-ific Tunes

An interview with Zombo of the King Dapper Combo

By Bob Ignizio

KDC at Cedar Point. Left to right: Bodini, Flam, Skeeter, Ghouliscious, and Zombo

For the past decade, the King Dapper Combo has forged a unique path to success. In that time, they’ve released two full length CD’s (a third is in the works), played shows everywhere from seedy punk clubs to K-marts, and survived assaults by vicious grade schoolers. They’ve seen musical trends come and go, even briefly jumping on the swing bandwagon (“We kind of jumped on the swing band wagon and got crushed by the wheels,” jokes Zombo), and come through it all with their sense of humor and love of music intact. The band (Zombo on bass, vocals and theremin, Bodini on accordion and Vox Jaguar, Skeeter on lead guitar, Ghouliscious on vocals and percussion, and Flam on drums) is currently busy gearing up for the Halloween season. Still, founding member Zombo found time to chat with me about his ten years in the terror trade.

“We had two rules when the band was first put together,” says Zombo. “One was that we all had to wear suits. The other rule was that we had to have an accordion player. We wanted to really get people’s attention when they saw the band for the first time.” The group started out playing a wide variety of obscure fifties and sixties rock ‘n’ roll, but eventually came to focus on monster oriented material from those eras, as well as writing a few songs of their own in the same vein. “Whenever you think monster music, you think the Misfits or something kind of heavy and spooky. With us, it has a silly kind of fifties/sixties drive-in movie type flavor to it,” Zombo says. “There aren’t a lot of blood and gore songs. We have songs about mummies, Frankenstein, and what not. Some people have said we’re like a happy version of the Cramps, kind of like a roots rock band with a B-52’s slant, and a little bit of garage and a pinch of punk.”

Not long after putting the band together, Zombo came up with a scheme to get a CD of the band’s music recorded, pressed, and distributed nationwide without spending a dime of his own money. “This was before everybody had a studio in their basement, like now,” he explained. "Back then (1993) it would cost $4500-$5000 to do a CD. I worked for a novelty company that made Halloween tombstones. So I had this idea to go to the company and said “how about if we learn a whole CD’s worth of monster music, you pay for the studio time and pressing, and we get 200 CDs out of every 1000 you press.” It worked out great. It was originally called ‘On Monster Island’ but we changed the name to ‘Rockin’ Halloween Party’ because it was easier to sell to the Halloween market. The CD sold over the years about 7000 copies, of which we probably only got about three or four hundred. When the company changed hands the new owner wasn’t so keen on fulfilling the agreement, and we hadn’t really signed anything. We were featured in goofy catalogs like Harriet Carter, Carol Wright Gifts, and Funny Side Up. They have like vegetable peelers and sell vibrators as neck massagers, so on.” Since then, the group have released another full length album (‘Big Dumb Party Music’), appeared on a couple of compilations, and plan to enter the studio again soon for another CD they hope to release before year’s end.

Like the best cartoons, the Combo is kid friendly while still having something to offer for the parents of the little monsters. “It’s nothing that we really contrived,” explains Zombo. “It wasn’t done to cater to kids, but kids seem to like it too. When Ron joined in ’94, he brought a Vox Jaguar into the band which really gives it a real nice bite. It got kind of a harder edge, but it still kept that fun.” As an aside, I spoke briefly with Ron as well and asked him how he came to be a rock accordion player. “Mike was talking to my wife and said his keyboard player was leaving and asked her if she knew anyone who played keyboards, and she goes “Ron plays keyboards”. I kind of got roped into it,” Ron said, laughing. “I made Zombo buy me an accordion because I was too cheap.”

Of course, you can’t please everyone. “Most of the teen crowd thinks we’re not cool enough. Little kids are like “oh boy” and adults are like “I get it”, but for the angst ridden teens I guess there’s not enough hatred in our music.” Probably further alienating the Korn and Limp Bizkit crowd, the band spices up their live performances with bits of audience participation. “We’ve done everything from a story time with the kids to putting bubble wrap on the ground and rather than people applaud have them stomp on the bubble wrap,” says Zombo. One gag that won’t be showing up in performances anymore, however, is the Woo Hoo human percussion device. Basically a trench coat covered in drum heads and wood blocks, Zombo would wear it out into the crowd and give drumsticks to the audience. “The last time we did that was at the Cuyahoga Falls Rib Burn-off. I gave drumsticks to all these kids and they just started hitting me. Not even hitting the suit, just wacking me in the hand,” Zombo recounts. “I crawled underneath the stage and the kids followed, still hitting me. After that, I was like, “I can’t do this anymore. I think we’re going to retire the suit right now.” I don’t know what happened to the suit. I think we had it burned or buried in a landfill or something.”

Although the band has played all kinds of shows in the past, they now focus primarily on horror conventions and Halloween related events. “We’ve played K-marts, we play Cedar Point every year, and we’ve played punk clubs. We’ve opened up for the Groovie Ghoulies, Webb Wilder, Sleepy LaBeef. We’ve opened up for Mojo Nixon three times, and that’s always a lot of fun. The Beach Boys, The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Southern Culture on the Skids. We also play a lot of horror conventions like Frightvision, the Big Chuck & Lil’ John Fest. We hardly play clubs any more; we just bounce around between conventions and theme parks. But we always stay true to what we’ve wanted to do.” In closing, Zombo adds, “The band is like an entity of its own and it’s indestructible. It’s been through everything you can imagine, and it just seems to always land on its feet and be fun. We’ve found a really weird niche and we’ve always managed to get paid.”

You can catch the Combo this October at Cedar Point's Hollow Weekends. Zombo also plays in a band called The Legion of Incredibly Strange Superheroes, does a radio show, and is involved in way more projects than any sane human would ever undertake. For info, visit his website. Accordian/Vox Jaguar player Bodini, in his other life as Ron Mullens, does a great punk rock radio show on Akron’s WAPS 91.3 every Sunday from 9pm to 11pm. You can also listen on the show’s website.