MUSIC : The Munkafust Phenomenon : The band has been winning new fans on the campus circuit and has sold about 10,000 copies of two self-produced CDs.

There will be so many females gathered around the stage, it will look as if Oprah is raffling off dream dates with a shirtless Brad Pitt. But nope, Saturday night at the Voodoo Lounge in Santa Barbara, it’ll be rock ‘n’ roll--very popular rock ‘n’ roll in the form of Munkafust.

The band was voted No. 1 local rock band in Santa Barbara in the 1994 KTYD-Independent poll, but it’s always been No. 1 in the hearts and minds of the female hordes that follow it from club to club. More girls than guys at a gig is not a problem, according to front man Evan Brau.

“Yeah, we get enough of those,” he said during a recent phone chat. “The last time we played in San Francisco, the whole front row was nothing but girls. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Brau and Rob Colby, a couple of school buddies majoring in music at UC Santa Barbara, started the band 2 1/2 years ago. Shortly thereafter, the band doubled in size when bassist Kristyan Ransonnet and drummer Stephen Gelfand signed on.

Naturally, the happy quartet didn’t last. Personnel changes in all-male bands are usually due to three basic reasons: The first is a variation of Irate Girlfriend Speech No. 31, which goes something like: “You’re going where with those guys?”

Another is the ubiquitous “creative differences,” and finally, the seldom-realized fact that the band truly stinks and girlfriends and moms are just being kind.

“Rob and I started the band, but he left about a year and a half ago because he didn’t like all the travel,” said Brau. “Plus his girlfriend had something to do with it. It took a while to get used to being a trio.”

The three remaining Munksters, after surviving numerous frat parties in Isla Vista, conquered State Street and the immediate area.

“Well, it really hasn’t changed much since we started. The Downtown-type sound depends on the band who plays and how many people they can draw,” said Brau.

One of the fans turned out to be the girlfriend of TV dude Jason Gedrick, and in 1993, Munkafust had two of their songs featured on his Fox show, “Class of ’96.” That the show had the life span of a butterfly sneeze is no reflection on the band.

Last year in the So-You-Call-This-Work Department, the band joined something called the “L.A. Ski & Sun Tour,” where they not only played ski resorts but also numerous campuses in the Midwest. In the fall they did several shows with the Samples, the blueprint for a successful do-it-yourself rock band.

“We have a mailing list of about 5,000 but that can be expensive, so we mail something to designated reps at schools who we know will spread the word that we’re coming,” said Brau.

“And soon, we’re going to be on the Internet. We’re trying to enlarge our region like in Arizona, for example, so we can go back about once a month and just keep on touring right now.

“We’re just trying to slowly build our fan base more. It’s not like a job, but the worst thing is all the driving.”

Being self-contained, self-promoting and self-employed has worked for bands such as the Samples, Phish and Michael on Fire, and it seems to be working for Munkafust. The band has two self-produced CDs on its own label that have sold about 10,000 copies, and a third threatened for later this year.

Now they have a distribution deal with large retailers such as Blockbuster, Tower and Tempo. According to Brau, all this puts getting signed on the back burner.

“I guess to get signed, it’s just getting approval of the record people, but we’re just playing to make more fans,” he said. “The fans are more important to us than the record industry because being successful doesn’t mean you have to be signed.”

Besides flocks of frenzied female fans, the band also has a growing repertoire of songs written by Brau, which he once described as “bluesy pop funk rock.” What are Munkafust songs about? The usual.

“Life, my life, life in general,” said Brau. “They just really come out of the air. One minute they’re not there, and the next minute, they are. The songs are very emotional, very personal. I play my guitar every day, and usually the music comes first, then the lyrics.

“We have 24 songs that have been recorded, but we can play a lot more than that. We only do two covers, ‘Good Lovin’ ’ and ‘Crossroads.’ And if someone asks for it, we can do ‘Hound Dog.’ It’s pretty much just original rock ‘n’ roll. It’s somewhere between Metallica and Barbra Streisand.”

Details

* WHAT: Munkafust.

* WHERE: Voodoo Lounge, 500 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara.

* WHEN: Saturday, 9 p.m.

* COST: $5.

* CALL: 966-1634.