Between the white pants and all the chest hair, it's hard to determine from the photo whether it's a wedding band or a New Jersey crime family.

Gene the Werewolf is neither, at least for now.

What we have here is a Pittsburgh band that doesn't seem to belong in this decade formed "to play music that's as ridiculous as it is awesome." It's hard to nail down which '80s pop-metal band Gene the Werewolf sounds like, but Def Leppard, Poison, Bon Jovi and even Kiss are all in the running.

The strange thing, as if there's one, is that frontman Jon Belan's roots are in a pair of prominent Pittsburgh pop-punk bands -- The Berlin Project and Punchline.

"I think what happened is, we're all older now," he says. "When you're younger, a teenager or early 20s, you tend to play music for what you're listening to at the time rather than music that comes from your roots. There's also that thing when you're a teenager as well where you play music to fit in a little or conform to a certain genre because that's what you think is cool now. But I think the more we've matured we'd rather just play the music that comes out. I tend to write songs now based on my roots."

Which are?

"I grew up in the '80s as a young kid and I listened to Def Leppard or Kiss," he says.

Gene the Werewolf formed in early 2007 with Belan and Drew Donnegan, who both played in the Berlin Project, joined by keyboardist Aaron Mediate, bassist Tim Schultz and drummer Nick Revak.

"I didn't want to call the band Jon Belan," he says, so he deferred to his alter-ego.

As the story goes, "When I was younger I came from a very strange group of friends who would actually sit around and make up names for each other. Back in the old days I used to have really, really long hair and a big bushy beard and this guy came up to me and said, 'You look like a werewolf. I'm going to call you Gene the Werewolf.' I said 'My real name is Jon, why would you call me Gene?' He said because Jon doesn't have that good ring to it."

OK, so there must have been alcohol involved or something.

In any case, the band took the name Gene the Werewolf and set out to conquer audiences with over-the-top arena-rock songs like "Superhero" and "Heart Attack," which appear on the band's six-song debut EP "Light Me Up," recorded at Innovation Studios in Steubenville with producer Jamie Woolford (The Gin Blossoms).

"We've had lots of different reactions," Belan says. "I think we tend to appeal more to the 21-and-over crowd. I think the main reason is, we want you to come out to our show and have a good time and basically party. We want people to leave the show and be like, 'Wow, that was fun, man.' I think a lot of bands today you kind of go to the shows and the songs are about 'My girlfriend left me' or 'I want you to feel my pain.' Which is fine, there are moments when you want to see that. We're trying to be the band that's like 'They didn't care about any of that stuff. All they cared about was having a good time, partying and jumping around.'"

Now, rather than mingling with the pop-punk crowd, Gene the Werewolf finds themselves opening for the likes of Eddie Money and Blue Oyster Cult. They even got to hang with Donnie Iris, another obvious musical influence.

"We're actually really big Donnie Iris fans. We played with him at the Homegrown Hoo-ha in 2008. We got to meet him, which was cool because we grew up listening to him on the radio."

In addition to the EP, the release party at Diesel will feature the premiere of a video for "Superhero," shot by Pittsburgh director Thom Glunt, who's also shot videos for Anti-Flag.

"It's me running through the streets of Pittsburgh on hot August days in a white suit," Belan says.

That's something he never got to do when he was in Punchline. Having been Gene the Werewolf now for more than two years, he's come to the conclusion, "It's definitely more fun to be the frontman than the guitarist and backup singer."

Critics Andrew Druckenbrod and Scott Mervis talk about music on "The Beat," available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.