Post by Kari on Aug 22, 2008 8:28:29 GMT -5
www.tbrnews.com/articles/2008/08/22/stepping_out/step1.prt
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Stepping Out
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Blazing Guns
by Michael Hixon
(Updated: Thursday, August 21, 2008 10:09 AM PDT)
Pictured is the L.A. Guns who will be at Saint Rocke with its founder Tracii Guns Friday, Aug. 21.
Heavy metal bands ruled the Sunset Strip in the 1980s and groups like L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat were at the forefront of the “glam metal” scene.
L.A. Guns, featuring founder Tracii Guns, and Faster Pussycat, with founder and original lead singer Taime Downe, will be performing at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach Friday, Aug. 22. Also on the bill is another Los Angeles-based hard rock band that formed in 1987, Bang Tango.
More than 25 years ago, Guns formed L.A. Guns but the band has gone through a multitude of changes over the years. Originally Guns and Axl Rose formed the band Hollywood Rose. Guns left that band to form L.A. Guns and Axl formed Guns N’ Roses. Guns then left L.A. Guns in 1985 to join another band as Paul Black took over but Guns returned at the end of 1986. But it wasn’t until 1988 and after more changes that the band had its first hit album, “L.A. Guns,” that went platinum, or more than 1 million copies sold. Another platinum album “Cocked & Loaded” followed the next year and then the gold-certified “Hollywood Vampires” was released in 1991. Their success led them to touring across the globe as headliners and with AC/DC, Def Leppard and Ted Nugent, among others.
But band members came and went as Guns joined the supergroup Contraband in 1993 and Brides of Destruction in 2002 with Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx. As Brides of Destruction started a world tour, L.A. Guns member Steve Riley, Phil Lewis and others splintered off and continued on as L.A. Guns.
Guns soon formed a solo band, the Tracii Guns Band, after Brides of Destruction disbanded, which featured former member Paul Black and Nickey “Beat” Alexander, and started touring as L.A. Guns.
After some legal wrangling and more band shuffling, a new L.A. Guns, which Guns jokingly calls the band over the years a “homeless refuge for musicians,” was formed with Jeremy Guns on bass, Chad Stewart on drums, Alec Bauer and Guns on guitar, and new lead singer Marty Casey, who was the runner-up on the “Rockstar: INXS” reality show.
While on tour in Boise, Idaho, Guns recently discussed the many changes of L.A. Guns over the years, lawsuits against a former band member and a new album, which is expected in March 2009.
The Beach Reporter: Over the years, there have been so many changes with L.A. Guns. You’ve come and gone, and now there’s a new lineup. How difficult it is to create momentum for a band when there are so many changes?
Guns: I think that’s the only way this band has been able to survive for me. I get bored really quickly and the only way I’ll be able to keep it fresh, what I’m doing, is if I’m feeling good about it. When I get bored I either go do something else for a while or I change the lineup. It makes it more fun for me. It’s more fun to create with different people until you get the chemistry that you go, ‘Wow, I can get behind this. I can really believe in this.’
It’s been about 20 years since your first big album came out in 1988. Has making music changed for you over the years?
For me it really hasn’t. I think that back then I was 22 when the first record came out and I was oblivious, it just seemed like, wow, this is the way it should be. I didn’t know any better. As time goes on, you find out this is a lot of fantasy, a lot of baloney, a lot of people saying one thing and doing another thing. I think it’s typical probably for any business. I don’t think it has so much to do with the creative process or anything like that. The only thing that’s changed is that I actually make money now and I’m in control of it. I think the control stuff switches over when you get older and you start to understand business better.
Being so young when you started, was it a pretty crazy scene?
It was a really crazy scene. It was kind of like, just picture the first Christmas you understand at about 7 or 8 years old and you kind of get every present you want in life and you think that’s how every Christmas is going to be for the rest of your life. That’s what it’s like when you’re that young. It’s great.
The business of music has changed quite a bit. I remember back in the 1980s, you had MTV and ‘Headbangers Ball’ was on a lot and it seemed metal got a lot of airplay where now it seems to me that it’s harder to find on TV.
Yeah. Obviously media is a great tool to have great success with the public and especially nowadays because as time moves forward things get faster and faster and faster and attention spans get shorter and shorter so it’s still a great tool. I think, though, that the time when L.A. Guns came out was almost kind of like — people call it brand names now. I never wanted to call my band a brand name. I think I was lucky enough to come with a name and have enough success to where we had enough media at one point in time and sold enough records to where people are still aware of it and they know what’s up. Even now with VH1 Classic and stuff like that, they play a lot of everything, they play L.A. Guns but they also play A-ha. So I think it still helps now and I think that Guitar Hero, for some of my friends, it has created a whole new young audience. That is the single one that has improved some of my friend’s careers. It’s pretty amazing.
As a musician, who were your inspirations?
Jimmy Page and Keith Richards and as I got a little bit older Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen and Michael Schenker. So there’s really like five guys and Jimi Hendrix, of course, but I think that I try to emulate and I always have since I was a kid a Jimmy Page, Keith Richards kind of character and that’s where my heart lies. I like to be really bluesy, but kick it in the ass. I also grew up when The Germs came out and Devo came out. I was really into that scene, too. I never fit in with any crowd. It’s like either you’re a longhaired punk or you’re a shorthaired rocker, make up your mind. I really like all that stuff and I think it confuses the hell out of people.
In doing a little research on your band, I noticed there were two L.A. Guns working and it kind of got confusing at times. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that came about?
It’s fairly simple. In 2002, I started a band called Brides of Destruction with Nikki Sixx. It was a great opportunity for both Nikki and me because it was really hard to create any excitement about L.A. Guns and at the time Motley Crue was dead in the water. We decided we could come up with something that could get us out there, could get us playing and get something fresh going, and draw attention to him and I as individuals more than just the band. It would be especially good for L.A. Guns because all of a sudden I’d be attached to someone who had more star power or more commercial appeal. In the process of putting that together, one of our indie labels, Spitfire Records, called and said, ‘Where do you want your royalties sent to?’ I was like, ‘What royalties?’ I hadn’t seen any royalties in seven or eight years from any of these indie labels. They said, ‘We’ve been sending them to your drummer Steve Riley for the last three years. I went, ‘Oh, interesting.’ So it’s been a long process since then, but as soon as I heard that I knew I was never going to play with the guy again. He hadn’t paid me the royalties and he hadn’t paid me any splits of merchandise from our Web site. That was like the beginning of finding out some creepy sh**. Now the lawsuit is already at the end. I filed a lawsuit for him to provide accounting, as he was my business partner. It’s like 11 years of not providing royalties and merchandise or statements of how our business was being run. He defaulted on that lawsuit so toward the end of September there’s going to be a judgment. So that’s why I don’t play with those guys and the second one is I had in order to get the name back solely in my name, I had to cancel the trademark which was mine and Steve Riley’s, and he had the opportunity to challenge that, to say, ‘Hey, we use this name so we own it.’ He also defaulted on that and that comes to a head a month later than the other lawsuit. So in a couple of months depending on how the judgment goes with the judges and the court, I’ll probably end up with everything and at that time I might put it to bed and call the new band something else.
Well then, tell me about the new band and the new album?
I’m really enthusiastic about it, because the original plan was I had this guy Paul Black singing in the band who started the second generation of L.A. Guns, which evolved into the popular L.A. Guns. I had this guy singing and it was going good live. He was a really good entertainer, but most of the public they had never heard his voice or anything like that so he was basically singing live Phil Lewis songs but singing them his own way and the crowds were really tolerant. But I always had this feeling that once we got this crazy record deal, I had a feeling once we got up there and we started working on songs and writing, that it was going to go in two directions and it wasn’t going to go in the direction that I wanted to go. Because he was 10 years older than me and really folksy and like ‘Beatle-y’ in a mellow kind of way, which I love and it’s the kind of music I really love to listen to. But L.A. Guns is really a high-energy rock band. I had actually hired Marty Casey, who is in the band now, to help write with Paul and it was just rubbing too weird. Between the president of the label and Steve Thompson, who produced the record, and myself and the rest of the band, we had to make a decision and we fired Paul and hired Marty to sing the album. So we basically came up with a new band. It’s really not a classic L.A. Guns, whatever that is, I don’t even know what classic L.A. Guns is, but it’s super high-energy rock record. Marty, instead of being 10 years older than me, he’s almost 10 years younger than me, so he brings a little modern approach but not so modern that it sounds ‘modern.’ He’s able to incorporate a little David Lee Roth with a Robert Plant but also with whoever is kind of current. You have these giant riffs and really giant guitar sounds and a really great singer. It really doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before especially coming out of L.A. Guns. We’re really trying to keep a lid on it until the record is mixed but we’re damn proud of it.
So this version of L.A. Guns could have a name change too?
Yeah, exactly.
Are you going to perform any of the new stuff at Saint Rocke?
We do one; it’s the second song in the set. It’s called ‘Fired Up’ and it is a classic L.A. Guns-sounding song and that’s why we do it live. It’s definitely got a party kind of thing going. It’s real high energy and the crowd gets involved right away and that’s why we do that song. That’s the only one we’re doing.
Do you do a lot of the classic L.A. Guns songs?
We do a lot of stuff from the first two records and then we do a Stones song. We do Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here,’ an acoustic version because when you have the energy going that much it’s good to bring it down a little. When you beat people over the head, they get bored. The set’s pretty dynamic and we even do some of the slower L.A. Guns songs like ‘Over the Edge’ and ‘The Ballad of Jane.’ But then we do all the fast stuff
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Stepping Out
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Blazing Guns
by Michael Hixon
(Updated: Thursday, August 21, 2008 10:09 AM PDT)
Pictured is the L.A. Guns who will be at Saint Rocke with its founder Tracii Guns Friday, Aug. 21.
Heavy metal bands ruled the Sunset Strip in the 1980s and groups like L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat were at the forefront of the “glam metal” scene.
L.A. Guns, featuring founder Tracii Guns, and Faster Pussycat, with founder and original lead singer Taime Downe, will be performing at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach Friday, Aug. 22. Also on the bill is another Los Angeles-based hard rock band that formed in 1987, Bang Tango.
More than 25 years ago, Guns formed L.A. Guns but the band has gone through a multitude of changes over the years. Originally Guns and Axl Rose formed the band Hollywood Rose. Guns left that band to form L.A. Guns and Axl formed Guns N’ Roses. Guns then left L.A. Guns in 1985 to join another band as Paul Black took over but Guns returned at the end of 1986. But it wasn’t until 1988 and after more changes that the band had its first hit album, “L.A. Guns,” that went platinum, or more than 1 million copies sold. Another platinum album “Cocked & Loaded” followed the next year and then the gold-certified “Hollywood Vampires” was released in 1991. Their success led them to touring across the globe as headliners and with AC/DC, Def Leppard and Ted Nugent, among others.
But band members came and went as Guns joined the supergroup Contraband in 1993 and Brides of Destruction in 2002 with Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx. As Brides of Destruction started a world tour, L.A. Guns member Steve Riley, Phil Lewis and others splintered off and continued on as L.A. Guns.
Guns soon formed a solo band, the Tracii Guns Band, after Brides of Destruction disbanded, which featured former member Paul Black and Nickey “Beat” Alexander, and started touring as L.A. Guns.
After some legal wrangling and more band shuffling, a new L.A. Guns, which Guns jokingly calls the band over the years a “homeless refuge for musicians,” was formed with Jeremy Guns on bass, Chad Stewart on drums, Alec Bauer and Guns on guitar, and new lead singer Marty Casey, who was the runner-up on the “Rockstar: INXS” reality show.
While on tour in Boise, Idaho, Guns recently discussed the many changes of L.A. Guns over the years, lawsuits against a former band member and a new album, which is expected in March 2009.
The Beach Reporter: Over the years, there have been so many changes with L.A. Guns. You’ve come and gone, and now there’s a new lineup. How difficult it is to create momentum for a band when there are so many changes?
Guns: I think that’s the only way this band has been able to survive for me. I get bored really quickly and the only way I’ll be able to keep it fresh, what I’m doing, is if I’m feeling good about it. When I get bored I either go do something else for a while or I change the lineup. It makes it more fun for me. It’s more fun to create with different people until you get the chemistry that you go, ‘Wow, I can get behind this. I can really believe in this.’
It’s been about 20 years since your first big album came out in 1988. Has making music changed for you over the years?
For me it really hasn’t. I think that back then I was 22 when the first record came out and I was oblivious, it just seemed like, wow, this is the way it should be. I didn’t know any better. As time goes on, you find out this is a lot of fantasy, a lot of baloney, a lot of people saying one thing and doing another thing. I think it’s typical probably for any business. I don’t think it has so much to do with the creative process or anything like that. The only thing that’s changed is that I actually make money now and I’m in control of it. I think the control stuff switches over when you get older and you start to understand business better.
Being so young when you started, was it a pretty crazy scene?
It was a really crazy scene. It was kind of like, just picture the first Christmas you understand at about 7 or 8 years old and you kind of get every present you want in life and you think that’s how every Christmas is going to be for the rest of your life. That’s what it’s like when you’re that young. It’s great.
The business of music has changed quite a bit. I remember back in the 1980s, you had MTV and ‘Headbangers Ball’ was on a lot and it seemed metal got a lot of airplay where now it seems to me that it’s harder to find on TV.
Yeah. Obviously media is a great tool to have great success with the public and especially nowadays because as time moves forward things get faster and faster and faster and attention spans get shorter and shorter so it’s still a great tool. I think, though, that the time when L.A. Guns came out was almost kind of like — people call it brand names now. I never wanted to call my band a brand name. I think I was lucky enough to come with a name and have enough success to where we had enough media at one point in time and sold enough records to where people are still aware of it and they know what’s up. Even now with VH1 Classic and stuff like that, they play a lot of everything, they play L.A. Guns but they also play A-ha. So I think it still helps now and I think that Guitar Hero, for some of my friends, it has created a whole new young audience. That is the single one that has improved some of my friend’s careers. It’s pretty amazing.
As a musician, who were your inspirations?
Jimmy Page and Keith Richards and as I got a little bit older Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen and Michael Schenker. So there’s really like five guys and Jimi Hendrix, of course, but I think that I try to emulate and I always have since I was a kid a Jimmy Page, Keith Richards kind of character and that’s where my heart lies. I like to be really bluesy, but kick it in the ass. I also grew up when The Germs came out and Devo came out. I was really into that scene, too. I never fit in with any crowd. It’s like either you’re a longhaired punk or you’re a shorthaired rocker, make up your mind. I really like all that stuff and I think it confuses the hell out of people.
In doing a little research on your band, I noticed there were two L.A. Guns working and it kind of got confusing at times. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that came about?
It’s fairly simple. In 2002, I started a band called Brides of Destruction with Nikki Sixx. It was a great opportunity for both Nikki and me because it was really hard to create any excitement about L.A. Guns and at the time Motley Crue was dead in the water. We decided we could come up with something that could get us out there, could get us playing and get something fresh going, and draw attention to him and I as individuals more than just the band. It would be especially good for L.A. Guns because all of a sudden I’d be attached to someone who had more star power or more commercial appeal. In the process of putting that together, one of our indie labels, Spitfire Records, called and said, ‘Where do you want your royalties sent to?’ I was like, ‘What royalties?’ I hadn’t seen any royalties in seven or eight years from any of these indie labels. They said, ‘We’ve been sending them to your drummer Steve Riley for the last three years. I went, ‘Oh, interesting.’ So it’s been a long process since then, but as soon as I heard that I knew I was never going to play with the guy again. He hadn’t paid me the royalties and he hadn’t paid me any splits of merchandise from our Web site. That was like the beginning of finding out some creepy sh**. Now the lawsuit is already at the end. I filed a lawsuit for him to provide accounting, as he was my business partner. It’s like 11 years of not providing royalties and merchandise or statements of how our business was being run. He defaulted on that lawsuit so toward the end of September there’s going to be a judgment. So that’s why I don’t play with those guys and the second one is I had in order to get the name back solely in my name, I had to cancel the trademark which was mine and Steve Riley’s, and he had the opportunity to challenge that, to say, ‘Hey, we use this name so we own it.’ He also defaulted on that and that comes to a head a month later than the other lawsuit. So in a couple of months depending on how the judgment goes with the judges and the court, I’ll probably end up with everything and at that time I might put it to bed and call the new band something else.
Well then, tell me about the new band and the new album?
I’m really enthusiastic about it, because the original plan was I had this guy Paul Black singing in the band who started the second generation of L.A. Guns, which evolved into the popular L.A. Guns. I had this guy singing and it was going good live. He was a really good entertainer, but most of the public they had never heard his voice or anything like that so he was basically singing live Phil Lewis songs but singing them his own way and the crowds were really tolerant. But I always had this feeling that once we got this crazy record deal, I had a feeling once we got up there and we started working on songs and writing, that it was going to go in two directions and it wasn’t going to go in the direction that I wanted to go. Because he was 10 years older than me and really folksy and like ‘Beatle-y’ in a mellow kind of way, which I love and it’s the kind of music I really love to listen to. But L.A. Guns is really a high-energy rock band. I had actually hired Marty Casey, who is in the band now, to help write with Paul and it was just rubbing too weird. Between the president of the label and Steve Thompson, who produced the record, and myself and the rest of the band, we had to make a decision and we fired Paul and hired Marty to sing the album. So we basically came up with a new band. It’s really not a classic L.A. Guns, whatever that is, I don’t even know what classic L.A. Guns is, but it’s super high-energy rock record. Marty, instead of being 10 years older than me, he’s almost 10 years younger than me, so he brings a little modern approach but not so modern that it sounds ‘modern.’ He’s able to incorporate a little David Lee Roth with a Robert Plant but also with whoever is kind of current. You have these giant riffs and really giant guitar sounds and a really great singer. It really doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before especially coming out of L.A. Guns. We’re really trying to keep a lid on it until the record is mixed but we’re damn proud of it.
So this version of L.A. Guns could have a name change too?
Yeah, exactly.
Are you going to perform any of the new stuff at Saint Rocke?
We do one; it’s the second song in the set. It’s called ‘Fired Up’ and it is a classic L.A. Guns-sounding song and that’s why we do it live. It’s definitely got a party kind of thing going. It’s real high energy and the crowd gets involved right away and that’s why we do that song. That’s the only one we’re doing.
Do you do a lot of the classic L.A. Guns songs?
We do a lot of stuff from the first two records and then we do a Stones song. We do Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here,’ an acoustic version because when you have the energy going that much it’s good to bring it down a little. When you beat people over the head, they get bored. The set’s pretty dynamic and we even do some of the slower L.A. Guns songs like ‘Over the Edge’ and ‘The Ballad of Jane.’ But then we do all the fast stuff
