The six members of Lollipop Lust Kill strolled onto the stage of the Hard Hat Cafe last Saturday in their maroon suits, looking like characters from a horror flick where the funeral directors go berserk.

The Munchkins' “lollipop song” from The Wizard of Oz blared out of the speakers, before segueing into “Natural Born Killaz” by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube as the band prepared to celebrate the release of its excellent major-label debut, “My So Called Knife,” with about 1,200 fans.

Lead singer Evvy Pedder, bassist D. Human, and guitarist DeadGreg stalked the stage while their mates fiddled with their instruments on the dark stage. Out of the din of screaming fans, guitarist Pill began slamming out a few power chords and the crowd cheered even louder.

Then the band took off as if a thousand Harleys were revving up at once, six guys from Bedford Township and Toledo plugged into the same high-voltage wire, thrashing around with a coordinated frenzy that would be frightening if it weren't under such tight control.

This is the Lollipop Lust Kill that Michael Chambers, co-owner of Artemis Records, saw at the famed CBGB club in New York last year when he decided to sign the group to a recording contract that has taken them from a Toledo band to one with national aspirations.

“The popular thing now for bands is to start off their songs real quiet and then get loud. These guys were just full-bore all the time,” Chambers said in a phone interview from his office in New York.

“We're the kind of guys who root for the bad guys,” says Pill, aka Gary Redick, at the Hard Hat a couple of weeks before last Saturday's show.

They're also the kind of fellows who come up with somewhat goofy nicknames for themselves - spell Knits backward - that they occasionally discard, like Dr. Distorto and R. Cynic. (The band's name was the result of a brainstorming session where they were throwing words around, trying to come up with something appropriate for their act and that didn't sound like anyone else's moniker. After different variations were tossed out and considered, Pill came up with Lollipop Lust Kill.)

They dress in the snazzy “funeral suits” for live gigs, and write intense, dynamic heavy metal songs that pay homage to horror movies and at least one video game, dripping in violence that is as macabre and cartoonish as it is threatening.

In the makeshift dressing room, the band members sprawl on couches and chairs, alternately coming across like earnest young artists who take their work very seriously and wisecracking rockers who trade inside jokes and routinely rag on each other.

The band started in 1994 when Pill, DeadGreg, aka Greg Dillabaugh, and D. Human, aka Dan Nichols, started playing together. Pedder, aka Tom Redrup, joined in 1996; Killer K, aka Keith Sunday, came aboard in 1998; and Knits, aka Chris Tesch, joined three years ago.

As their sound gelled, the band self-produced a compact disc called “Motel Murder Madness,” named after a phrase lifted from a Doors song, and made a three-song EP entitled “Candy Canes and Razor Blades.” They played a lot of gigs around the region, winning a local battle of the bands contest and honing their sound.

Unbeknownst to the other members, Pedder exercised some business savvy and posted some of the band's cuts on Internet. The songs, including one of the band's strongest, “Like a Disease,” caught the attention of Chambers when he was surfing the Web and the label contacted the band's management to ask if Lollipop Lust Kill would play a try-out gig at New York's famed club, CBGB.

Chambers said the odds of a band being signed because a record company's co-owner discovers them online are slim. “This was a real freak, one-time coincidence,” he says. “This never happens where they turn out to get a record deal.

The band understands how odd, and fast, the signing was.

“You do everything you can to get signed and then one night someone stumbles across you and the next thing you know you're signed,” Pill says, looking slightly incredulous.

Chambers said the key for Lollipop Lust Kill was the quality of their music - “it blows your hair back a bit, but it's never so heavy it's not accessible” - and their tryout in New York.

DeadGreg says the band wasn't exactly awed by the attention from a major label, much less nervous about playing in New York or anyplace else because they'd been at it for years.

“We always knew we'd be signed. We had dedication and we had worked [hard],” he says. “It seems like an eternity to get signed and then everything goes real fast.”

They recorded “My So Called Knife” in Weed, Calif., with producer Sylvia Massy, who has worked with bands like Tool - a significant influence for Lollipop Lust Kill - System of a Down, and Sevendust.

The result is a disc with a huge sound that plays to the band's strengths: Knits' precise, powerful drumming, Pedder's psycho-intense vocals, the roaring guitar attack of Pill and DeadGreg, the muscular, rumbling bottom laid down by D. Human, and Killer K's creep-show side effects.

Artemis makes reference to the band's subject matter - killers, torturers, lunatics, and other unsavory characters and themes - in most of its promotional material, hinting at the dark nature of the lyrics and music with tongue firmly in cheek.

“The members of Lollipop Lust Kill are six law-abiding individuals - who love their parents - with a morbid curiosity for the macabre or bizarre and a strange fixation on low-budget horror films,” one press release says. “Contrary to popular belief, none of the members of LLK are actual killers or dead.”

For the band, the selection of material for cuts like “Kill Greedy,” “Can't Get Away,” “Black All Over,” and “Knee Deep in the Dead” is pretty simple. They really like horror movies and they didn't feel comfortable writing songs about their emotions.

“We can't write about love or relationships, it's not about that,” Pill says. “And none of us had anything really emotional to say.”

They're aware that lyrics that feature death, torture, and gory subject matter can be taken too literally by young, or twisted, fans like the murderous teens at Columbine High School who were fans of shock rocker Marilyn Manson.

Which explains the record company's disclaimers and the band's self-awareness of their themes.

“You can never be too careful, especially with Columbine and all that,” DeadGreg says.

At the same time, the band resents the double standard that rockers must live by, compared to their counterparts in other genres.

“For some reason Stephen King can write a horror movie and gash everybody to bits and no one says anything,” Pill says. “But if you write a song in which you gash everybody to bits...”

Cinematic influences include Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, “anything by Stanley Kubrick,” and “really cheesy horror movies,” DeadGreg says.

They came up with the nicknames to round out their overall act and complement their big, aggressive sound and menacing look.

“Why would you want to use your real names with a band like us?” Pill asks with a slight smile.

Now Lollipop Lust Kill is preparing for a 56-date tour opening for Coal Chamber on a bill with the headliner and two other bands. It begins Wednesday in Anaheim, Calif., and concludes in August. The tour hits Toledo July 7.

“This is a huge tour. We're playing in front of 2,000 and 3,000 kids a night and it's huge to get our names out there,” DeadGreg says.

The band is in debt to the record company - don't think a band with its first album deal gets rich - and all of the members have officially quit their day jobs for full-time rock `n' roll.

“We're going to tour until we bleed to death,” DeadGreg says. “That's the only way a band like us can make any money.”

First Published June 8, 2002, 12:15 p.m.