Ghoulies makes it to Ames just in time for Halloween

Stephanie Kobes

Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman once appeared in a 1970s cartoon. This weekend, they will re-appear as a West Coast pop-punk band.

The Groovie Ghoulies derives its name from the cartoon “Groovy Ghoulies,” which featured monsters who lived in a castle and started a band. Each member of the Groovie Ghoulies — Kepi, Roach and Scampie — takes on the character of one of the monsters in the cartoon and goes by one of the aforementioned monikers.

However, in the cartoon “Groovy Ghoulies,” there was a fourth character — the mummy.

“We are still looking for someone that can play the keyboard and portray a mummy,” says lead singer Kepi with a laugh.

Despite their lack of a mummy, the three Groovie Ghoulies, including Roach on guitar, Scampie on drums and lead singer Kepi on bass, have produced a total of eight albums and toured both nationally and internationally.

The group started touring about five years ago. Kepi says he got his start in California by recording full-track cassettes on a drum machine and driving up and down the West Coast until he could find gigs.

He says the group tries to maintain a positive spin in its songs.

“We do not play angry music,” Kepi says. “We are ambassadors of rock ‘n’ roll, bringing gifts of short, sweet music.”

All three members are huge Chuck Berry fans, Kepi says, and are more on the rock ‘n’ roll side than on the punk rock side. They draw inspiration from the world around them: 50-year-old rock ‘n’ roll bands, newspapers, radio and television.

“We get some inspiration from Oprah, a little less from Dr. Phil, but mostly from David Letterman,” Kepi says with a chuckle.

This is the group’s second visit to the M-shop, and Kepi says not one of the band’s shows is exactly the same. The Groovie Ghoulies take musical requests from the audience before each performance to keep a large variety.

“You can come to three or four of our shows and see a different performance every time,” Kepi says.

The band thrives on spontaneity not only in the songs it performs, but also in how it performs them. The Groovie Ghoulies may bring a pair of maracas onstage and draw a member up from the crowd to play with the band, Kepi says.

“College students should come to our show because of our uniqueness; it is educational — a rock ‘n’ roll history lesson and because it is a fun break from their studies,” he says.

“If anyone is truly unsatisfied with our performance, I want to know about it and I will reimburse them,” he says.

In the future, Kepi says he hopes to continue to tour with the Groovie Ghoulies and become a multimedia band, combining art, TV and music.

“I just want to be successful as an artist and see the world,” he says.


Who: Groovie Ghoulies, Flipsides, Shiloh Church

Where: M-Shop

When: 9 p.m., Saturday

Cost: $5 students, $6 public