Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein: The Man Behind the Monster

Armadillo Enterprises and Dean Guitars

Host Tony Pasco visits Armadillo Enterprises, home of Dean Guitars, in Tampa. Pat guides him through the USA custom shop, where guitars are made from carefully dried wood blanks and hand-finished into stage-ready instruments.

Customers can choose the wood, shape, finish and inlays. Builders also use artists’ preference sheets to match their setups, and the shop can custom-wind pickups to reproduce a particular sound.

DDrum and Luna

The tour continues through Armadillo’s other brands. At DDrum, Tony sees electronic kits, percussion pads and hybrid setups that let drummers add samples to acoustic kits.

At Luna, Eric Stewart introduces the brand’s art-forward instruments, including engraved and laser-etched guitars, travel guitars, ukuleles and sustainable bamboo models. Tony praises the creativity and jokes that he’s relieved to find “the only one that’s in” tune.

Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein

After a brief detour featuring Tony’s Ethiopia mission-trip footage, the episode heads backstage with Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein and his band. Tony is impressed by their huge sound and tight onstage interaction.

Doyle says the band works because its members enjoy playing together and share the same page. His advice to younger musicians is to stop imitating others: write what you like, make it your own and “fly your flag up.”

The band is recording new music, but taking its time rather than releasing anything half-finished. Doyle says the live show is central to the experience, and that poor stages or inadequate sound systems can prevent the band from giving audiences the performance they paid for. The band has built things independently, without label backing; Doyle jokes that they were even recording “in our underwear.”

Doyle also shares how he met his young drummer. He had seen him playing online and remembered him as a fan who once attended a show with his dad. Eventually, Doyle asked him if he wanted to play drums. When a young audience member reacts with delight to the drummer, Tony jokes that the kid has a chance with her.

The episode closes with more music and a charity guitar for the band to sign.

Personalities Featured

• Tony Pasco, host
• Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein
• Pat, Dean Guitars
• Andy, custom-shop assembler
• Eric Stewart, Luna
• Members of Doyle’s band, including its young drummer