Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein On Changing His Band's Name and Making His Own Guitars

Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein is likely best known for his stint in legendary punk band Misfits, which he joined at age sixteen to play guitar with his brother, Jerry Only, Glenn Danzig and a string of drummers. When Misfits returned in 1995 after a twelve-year break, Doyle rejoined the band until departing in 2001.

Doyle and Jerry worked in their father's screw machine shop growing up and helped prep machine parts, making hobby knives and crafting other machine parts and tools. This experience led Doyle to making the guitar he uses today, the Annihilator. The guitars are custom-made to Doyle's specs and when he was younger he crafted the first Annihilator in his father's shop. Doyle used to draw guitars on the paper covers his mother put on his school books to protect them. Taking one and drawing it to scale to fit his specific hand measurements, Doyle made a guitar to perfectly fit his proportions as a human being. A far cry from buying something off the wall at Guitar Center, that sort of precision is something more like how swords were once made for samurai, especially considering the mass and height of the person wielding the sword. “It's a mathematical equation,” says Doyle on his process. “If your measurements work, it works. If not, it doesn't.”

In 2007 Doyle released an album with his then-new band Gorgeous Frankenstein. At that point, Doyle had also started performing Misfits songs with his old bandmate Glenn Danzig and frequently played on tour with both bands. Not everyone made the connection between his new and old projects. “I would play a show and people would come up and say, 'Oh, I didn't even know you had a band.' Like when I would open for Danzig,” Doyle says. “My singer suggested to me that we change the name because it was the most recognizeable part of the band and I said okay.”

The debut Doyle album, Abominator, came out in 2013, but touring in support of the record had to be delayed. In 2013 Doyle was touring that year with Danzig. In 2014 the tour with Gwar that had to be canceled following the untimely death of Dave Brockie.

In 2015 the band Doyle was finally able to properly tour. This even though it was roughly at the same time as Danzig, who recently announced his retirement from touring, and Misfits fronted by Jerry Only and a November 24th Denver date at The Summit performing Static Age in its entirety sans Doyle and Danzig. Though Doyle will be focusing on his current music, he will probably his audience to some Misfits songs. Besides that, the crowd will catch Doyle, the imposing figure who still looks like he walked out of a vintage horror movie, and the Annihilator in action.


Doyle performs with Lotus Gait, Throttle Bomb and Straight Outta Luck at The Marquis Theater this Thursday, November 19th. Doors are at 7 p.m.. Tickets are $14 adv./$16 day of show and it is an all ages event. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit the Soda Jerk Presents website.