MUSIC / UGLY KID JOE : Deja Venue : Basking in the success of its hit single, ‘Everything About You,’ the band plays a homecoming gig in Santa Barbara.

These Santa Barbara party dudes have been on a yearlong binge from sea to shining sea following their surprise hit single, “Everything About You” made their mugs MTV-memorable. They have survived raucous road trips with legendary party animals, Scatterbrain and Ozzy Osbourne. And now the band will be having something of a homecoming gig Wednesday night at the Beach Shack in Santa Barbara.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Uglies were practicing in their Isla Vista garage and playing gigs for beer money at Santa Barbara establishments such as the Carnaval Club, which went on to become the Prime Directive and then Safari. While the venue was changing, the band was changing too. The initial EP was a big hit, and the follow-up album is selling well too. Now Ugly Kid Joe can afford a better class of beer--no more of that four-bucks-a-case hangover-for-sure stuff.

Guitarist Klaus Eichstadt and vocalist Whitfield Crane first met a decade ago in Palo Alto. Relocating to Santa Barbara to go to school and to extort some cash from mom and dad, Crane and Eichstadt formed the band about three years ago, and after the usual lineup changes, added Cordell Crockett on bass, Dave Fortman on guitar and Mark Davis on drums.

They’ve been on the road for more than a year, and thus, Eichstadt has no home address. He’s either in a motel room, at home or on his manager’s couch. In a phone interview from his manager’s office in the San Fernando Valley, Eichstadt discussed his favorite Ugly band, whose name is a takeoff on those L. A. pretty boys, Pretty Boy Floyd.

*

Your releases went from vinyl to . . . what metal are they now?

The EP is double platinum and the album just went gold.

*

So who’s Joe and who’s Ugly?

Ugly’s only skin-deep and we’re all ugly on the outside and the inside too.

*

What do you think about California lowering the blood alcohol level to 0.08%?

Thank God, I don’t drive. I never did drink and drive--we have a driver or else take a cab. Point oh-eight isn’t much, so I suppose this law will be an incentive for people not to drink and drive.

*

So is it true that you’re playing at the Beach Shack because the Anaconda Theater lost its liquor license?

Pretty much. We haven’t played in Santa Barbara since Christmas in 1991, so we want to make it a big party for our friends. We want it to be fun because it will be sort of a homecoming for us. We’ll probably give all the money to charity, anyway. A local band will open for us, probably Red River Gumbo.

*

You guys survived long tours with a couple of the most notorious party bands around, Scatterbrain and Ozzy Osbourne. Could you guys hang with them?

Hell, no. Those guys in Scatterbrain are into Scotch, and they can drink us all under the table. Ozzy was just great, and treated us just great. He just sent us a double-platinum plaque that he received for his last album, and he sent us all jackets with his logo and our logo on it. Mine says “To Klaus, love Ozzy.”’ He’d check us out all the time when we played, and sometimes he’d throw stink bombs in our dressing room.

*

OK, here’s the question every local band wants to know: How does a band get signed around here?

We didn’t really expect much when we just started out. We weren’t thinking about record deals, moving to L. A. or money, but getting gigs and getting better. We gave our demo to Will Carlin, a DJ at KCQR, and he passed it on to an entertainment attorney named Dennis Ryder. We thought, “Yeah, sure, whatever--just don’t make a bunch of copies and sell them.” When these record guys would see us they’d say, “You have a lot of potential.” And we’d say, “Yeah. Yeah. We know that.”

*

So, what’s the deal then? You make a demo and give it to some famous rock star attorney?

Yeah, that’s what we did, but it’s all a matter of the band itself. You have to make yourself accessible to the record people. A million bands have told us they were going to get signed, or never did get signed and none of them ever did anything, anyway. Other bands are so paranoid about giving their stuff up because they’re afraid of getting ripped off. You should make a demo of your three or four best songs and put it down on tape. You can look cool and have a cool scene, but if you don’t have good songs, it doesn’t matter.

*

Where you surprised by the success of the EP and especially “Everything About You”?

We didn’t think anything would come of it. We made the EP in six days for less than five grand. We wouldn’t have been shattered because it’s better to start slow from the bottom instead of spending a lot on videos and stuff. They make you pay all that stuff back.

*

Do you guys still have your practice garage in Isla Vista across from the Anaconda Theater?

No, we gave it back. We’ve been on tour for a long time, and there was a long waiting list for that place. The whole Santa Barbara scene is weird. It’s not a city scene, but a college scene. There’s a whole new crop of bands that changes from day to day, and play a lot of different kinds of music. Most of those bands wouldn’t do anything for a record deal. Santa Barbara’s a good place; it’s close to L. A. But in L. A. the competition is fierce. It’s very depressing compared to Santa Barbara.

*

So have you guys been interviewed by everybody yet?

Yeah, pretty much. We get a lot of good press and a lot of bad press. But you know what they say--any press is good press. The British press was pretty strange. They were always trying to get us to say something mean--they’re totally into that stuff. They come up with all these rumors such as Whit was hanging out with Madonna. It can be pretty humorous sometimes.

*

So (a) is he hanging out with Madonna; and (b) are there Ugly fans is Europe?

Hell, no. We don’t even know Madonna. Yeah, we have fans everywhere. Europe was great--there were kids flying everywhere.

* WHERE AND WHEN

Ugly Kid Joe Wednesday night at the Beach Shack, 500 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, 966-1634.