As the founding front man and bassist for Brooklyn-based metal band Biohazard, Evan Seinfeld was instrumental in the fusion of the New York hardcore sound with heavy metal riffs and hip-hop-like vocal delivery. After establishing Biohazard as one of the biggest names in underground metal, Seinfeld crossed over into acting, portraying the leader of a prison biker gang in the HBO series Oz. Seinfeld was further embedded into pop culture when he appeared alongside Ted Nugent, Sebastian Bach, Scott Ian and Jason Bonham in VH1‘s Supergroup reality show. After his marriage to porn star Tera Patrick in 2004, Seinfeld dove head first into the adult entertainment industry, appearing as as Spyder Jonez in several films. After nearly 25 years with Biohazard, Seinfeld parted ways with the band a little more than a year ago only to form his latest musical project, biker rock band Attika 7.

Alongside famed motorcycle builder Rusty Coones (president of the Orange County Chapter of the Hells Angels), Seinfeld’s Attika 7 recorded its debut album Blood of My Enemies with former Static-X bassist Tony Campos (now touring with Soulfly). Having already had some of its songs (and the band itself) featured on the Discovery Channel show The Devils Ride, Blood of My Enemies sounds as tough as its members look. Seinfeld’s vocals are more soulfully angsty than before while Coones’ guitars alternate between Black Sabbath-like psychedelia and pure hard rock heaviness. As the band celebrates the release of the album today, Seinfeld takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about music, porn and his inherent love or pro wrestling.

How did you and Rusty come to form Attika 7? Was he already a musician or did he take that up just for the band?

Rusty played guitar as a kid, but more like rock ‘n’ roll/blues guitar. When he went to prison for seven years, he kind of invented himself as a songwriter and heavy metal guitarist. It’s very hard to not be influenced by the things around you and everything is somewhat derivative of something, which is somewhat derivative of something, which is somewhat derivative of The Beatles. Being in prison that long and having no knowledge of popular metal or any of the groups we actually sound a little bit like, when he was writing music it was straight off his emotion and his experience. When he got out of prison, he had these songs he’d written and he wanted to start a band. He was banging around with different lineups until he and I connected, then it took us a year to make an album, sign a deal and find the right lineup.

What’s the significance of the name?

Because the album and the band originated in prison, Rusty was looking for a name that symbolized his struggle and the oppression that takes place in the American injustice system. Most people never go to jail or prison, and most people don’t really pay much attention to what goes on there or to the fact that so many of their tax dollars go towards incarcerating people who are nonviolent offenders or were innocent in the first place. America prides itself on being the most civilized country in the world, yet we are the most incarcerated country per capita in the world. Attica was the famous prison in upstate New York that had all those riots where so many inmates were killed by guards and it seemed like the world didn’t care. The 7 represents the seven years Rusty spent in the federal penitentiary. I’ve always hated when I heard a band’s name and it wasn’t anything serious, unless it’s a non-serious band. Music doesn’t always have to be political or serious, but if you have an opportunity to have a voice, at least be clever.

Today is not only the release date for the album, but also the deadline for the motorcycle helmet contest on Facebook. Have you decided on a winner yet?

We may extend it. We’ll probably give a prize to whoever has the best helmet on the day of release, then extend the contest. I think it’s a really cool thing to see people express their creativity while supporting the band. Our goal was just to have a million people riding around on their motorcycles around the world with the Attika logo on their helmets. Two of my helmets are at the painter’s right now and it might be something we sell as part of our merch line in the future.

The Attika logo is kind of like an anarchy symbol, but it’s also kind of like a pentagram. But when you look at it, it’s actually an A and a 7. So it represents our band, it represents chaos and anarchy, it represents the dark side. What we want it to mean, whether it’s a sticker on your car or your helmet, it’s kind of like “I’m free and this is my statement that I don’t give a fuck what you think about me.”

Which is a common theme on the album.

Absolutely. I come form the school of “say what you really mean and mean what you really say.” We tried to put that down on the album as best we could. The album has a lot of different topics, but one recurring theme is, “Be yourself. Be free. Freedom isn’t free, you have to pay for it and, once you have it, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to waste it? Are you going to squander it? If you can live forever, what are you going to do with your time?”

Being free and making good use of your time is something you obviously carry out on a daily basis. From Biohazard to Oz to adult entertainment to Attika 7, you always find creative outlets for yourself. Are you still doing any of those other things or is Attika 7 your main focus at the moment?

I never really lay out a map and say, “These are the things I’m going to do.” I’m an idea guy. I have incredibly bad attention deficit disorder, and at the same time I have nonstop creative ideas. I don’t know how to just have ideas, so I have to follow through and try to make them into realities. Not everything I do succeeds, but if I’m passionate about something I put my life’s energy into it. So, yeah, I’ve done a lot of different things – I ran Biohazard for 25 years and that was an idea I started in high school. In the ’90s we sold millions of albums and I went around the world with that group. Then I was on Oz for five years.

The adult entertainment thing wasn’t something I was so passionate about. I love sex and girls, but what straight guy doesn’t? To me, the challenge was how do you figure out how to make money having sex with as many women as possible? I thought that was a challenging puzzle. That’s like walking into a restaurant and saying, “How can I have this amazing meal, then have them pay me when I’m leaving?” That was kind of the goal and I’m fascinated with connecting the dots. I love synergy. I have a production company called Sinnergy Entertainment because my thing is outlaw entertainment, the dark side of the entertainment business. If I’m going to produce a mainstream movie, it will be a gangster movie with some snuff in it. If I’m producing porn, its hardcore and over the top. If I’m making music, it’s Attika 7. If I’m promoting parties in Las Vegas, it’s hosted by porn stars.

My wife is Lupe Fuentes, aka Little Lupe, and I also manage her career. She’s an incredibly amazing woman who actually now has a music group called the Ex-Girlfriends. It’s an all-girl group and all the girls are really hot and really small and really exotic. They sing and dance and it’s all choreographed, so they’re something like the Spice Girls. It’s funny the power of sex. Last week after the girls’ dance rehearsal, we went to a diner to get breakfast and talk some business. There’s this diner in North Hollywood and there’s always people eating there, and it’s a bunch of Hollywood flunky guys wearing T-shirts with the name of their production company on the back. We sat on the other side and as we were walking out I went to the bathroom and when I come out the whole place is in dead silence staring over by the door. When I look at the door it’s my wife and her friends standing there. It’s just incredible the effect it has on people.

Haha. Yeah. Well, with the album out today, will we be seeing Attika 7 on the road sometime soon?

Absolutely. Back in the day, Biohazard was an underground, non-commercial band. We always made our money touring and selling merchandise. Other bands would sell albums and stay home, but I never did that. Not because I didn’t want to, but we just never sold a lot of records. And the records we did sell were based on touring. But now we’re a brand new band. We’ve got no expectations for this. But we’ve got an amazing lineup. We’ve got Scott Reeder from Kyuss on bass, we’ve got Zach Broderick from Nonpoint playing guitar, we’ve got Tommy Holt from U.P.O. on the drums, Rusty and myself. We rehearse at Rusty’s motorcycle shop, Illusion Motorsports in Orange County. We’re tight as hell and we really feel like we have not just a great sound, but we’re a great a live band and we’re really developing our act. Now that the album’s out, we’re really pushing to get tour dates solidified so we can go out and play this for people.

At the end of the day that’s what I’m passionate about is connecting with people through music. Porn is a way to make money and it’s kind of a joke. My friends I grew up with love to text me little one-liners about how funny it is that everybody watches porn and now somebody they’re friends with does it. For me it’s even funnier because it’s me, I’m doing it. But I’m not passionate about it. I’m passionate about the message of the Attika 7 Blood of My Enemies album. I’m passionate about the messages behind “Crackerman” and “Blood of My Enemies,” and I love singing “Serial Killer” and “Devil’s Daughter” and “All or Nothing.” And that’s kind of how I live my life, so I feel like I’m sharing my philosophy and my ideals. This is who we are as Attika 7 – we are all or nothing and we stand for what we believe in and fight for what we believe in. Whatever you’re into, whatever you believe, be passionate because this is the only life you’ve got.

Rusty and I are working on a concept for our own tour where we bring our whole lifestyle deal out. The culmination of the whole thing would be the band playing, but Rusty builds some of the best bikes in the world for the Sons of Anarchy show and real bikers. I see a different bike every single day that Rusty is customizing or adding to. That’s something Rusty and I are both passionate about is motorcycles and the freedom you feel from riding them. Rusty’s very well known within the motorcycle world. We’d love to have a tour where we bring 50 incredible bikes for people to check out, a bunch of hot and famous girls, whether they’re porn stars or models or just super hot chicks, and bands are playing and people are eating delicious food and drinking and maybe getting tattooed. Maybe we’ll have a side event where there’s a cage fight or something, like a rolling Thunderdome.

You seem like the kind of guy that might be into professional wrestling. Am I right in guessing that?

I was on your website last night and it’s very cool. It reminds me of me and Rusty, in a way, as people who have an entrepreneurial spirit who are like, “These are the things I love. I love heavy metal and wrestling, so I’m going to combine them in a website.” I think that’s awesome. Not everybody who likes heavy metal likes wrestling and not everyone who likes wrestling likes heavy metal. It helps turn people on to other things, but at the same time it makes you realize there are a lot of other people who like the things you like. I was a huge wrestling fan as a kid, so I can talk wrestling with you all day.

Have you ever parlayed your heavy metal career into anything wrestling related? It seems like your style of music would be a good fit with a lot of those guys.

I’m in my 40s, so as a kid I was a huge fan of the WWF, the NWA, the AWA, and I used to go to lots of wrestling matches and see all the old-school guys like “Superstar” Billy Graham, Dusty Rhodes, Ken Patera, Ivan Putski, Baron Mikel Scicluna, the Wild Samoans and my favorite wrestler was Mil Máscaras. Me and my friends used to build a wrestling ring in my friend’s back yard and emulate what we saw on TV. Everybody’d be a character and I understand the mania that it is. I got an autograph from George “The Animal” Steele in his heyday and I still have it. It’s on a trading card and I think it might be the only autograph I own.

I’ve become friendly with a few wrestlers over the years. The Undertaker is a bro of mine, he’s a metalhead. I know Tazz, who is a cool dude who always used to wear a Biohazard shirt to the ring. He’s used some of my music in the past. I come from Brooklyn, a place of street fighting and gangsters. So I write music about confrontation and the fight, in general. The fight could be a war, a wrestling match, your personal struggle with drugs, people who are after you, your war with yourself, your war with the world. And a lot of people connect with the adversarial thing. With Attika 7, every song sounds like someone’s fight entrance music. If I was a wrestler, I’d come walking out to the intro from “Crackerman,” the first thing on the Attika album with the bell ringing and Rusty playing that Sabbath-y guitar riff.

With all the things you have done, did you ever consider becoming a professional wrestler?

I wanted to be a wrestler when I was a kid, then you meet the guys and realize how big they are. Rusty’s 6’6″ and is as big as any pro wrestler I’ve ever met. People think he’s a wrestler all the time when we go out. People ask Rusty for his autograph and they have no idea who he is. He’s huge and jacked with long hair and a beard and when he walks into a room people are like, “I don’t know who that guy is, but I want to know him.”

I know a ton of MMA fighters and I trained on-and-off for years. I’ve written music for a couple of brothers from Long Island,  Matt Serra and Nick Serra. Matt fought in UFC and they’ve both fought in all different leagues and I wrote music for both of them.

But I was always a wrestling fan and I used to picture the way Hulk Hogan would command a crowd back in the day. In the back of my mind, I was always way more Baron Mikel Scicluna. I always identified with the bad guy who had a foreign object down his pants.

For more information, go to www.attika7.com.