NEW YORK—Oingo Boingo, considered one of the more inventive of the recent crop of new Los Angeles bands, has actually existed in one form or another for more than 10 years. But it wasn't until around 1978 that it became an eight-man rock group; previously, Oingo Boingo was known as a theatrical ensemble.

"Boredom" was the reason for the change, says Danny Elfman, the only remaining member of the original troupe. [sic] He started it in 1971 with his brother Rick, who is now a moviemaker.

"We were very successful doing that multi-media cabaret twisted show that we ran, and we were offered backing from a major theatrical family to take it on the road. It was what I was working for, but unfortunately at the same time I was losing my inspiration for the show. I was writing this stuff, getting waves of inspiration, but it just wasn't fitting in."

"Taking the show on the road for two years, even though I was bored with it, was something I promised myself I would never do. Once you start taking the money, going on the road, and you are not inspired by what you are doing, you will never stop. It will never happen."

Elfman says he consequently "canned the whole thing," losing half his group and 90% of his audience. He started a new electric rock band, playing quirky, poly-rhythmic music that defies easy classification. Back in 1978 in Los Angeles, there wasn't much of a scene where this music could be played, and Elfman says there still isn't.

"We had to make our own scene," he says. "Back in 1978-79 there was an L.A. new wave sound that was completely minimal, and we were doing something completely different. There was a lot of hostility from all the powers in the press. There was a seven-part article in the Los Angeles Times about the L.A. club scene in 1980, by which time we had become one of the three top drawing acts in the city, but we were never even mentioned as existing in the scene."

"We realized that we created our own scene. The kids and us were our scene, apart from whatever establishment. The fact that we are not part of the L.A. new wave scene is not something that we are ashamed of," he says. Oingo Boingo currently has an LP, "Nothing To Fear," on A & M Records, brought to the label via the International Record Syndicate, whose founder, Miles Copeland, manages the band.

"We had a four-song demo that was turned down by the record companies for the 50th time, when somebody who worked on the production of one of the tunes brought it to IRS, who said they would release it, as it was, as an EP," he remembers. "It was my intuitive thing to let them do it, rather than waiting for some pie in the sky. They put it out and it did very well, so I was proved to be right. When it was time to do the album they asked if we wanted to move to A & M, and it seemed like a very simple logical move. There weren't even any long negotiations. In three days it was done. There was no holding out for a million dollars. You figure out what you need, and you take it," he says.

Oingo Boingo is booked by Frontier Booking International, which had the band playing a lot of Midwestern and Southern dates on its last tour. Much to Elfman's surprise, the audiences there knew who Oingo Boingo was.

"We went off to the South, the area of the country we thought would be the most difficult, but it turned out to be incredibly receptive."

Oingo Boingo's largest area of strength still remains the West Coast, where the band can sell 8,000 to 10,000 tickets for a show. Elfman credits KROQ-FM in Los Angeles for getting him this exposure. "I have never seen FM radio like this," he says. "When I was a kid, FM was for kids, for us. Now that I'm pushing 30, FM still seems to be gared [sic] to my same age group. It seems to have followed my age group all the way up, leaving this gap for kids. I think that is slowly changing. I think KROQ has proved a lot in L.A. going up in two years from a laughable underground station, strictly geared for the kids audience. Now it's right behind KMET and KLAC."

"We became so popular because of massive requests from that (kids) crowd to KROQ. It was the only station that went strictly by requests for its playlists, and it started playing us. We have been on heavy rotation on that station for the last two years."