LA Guns - Still rocking after a turbulent 24 years.
In the late 1980s, when hard rock and hair metal bands were all the rage, bands like Motley Crue, Aerosmith and Skid Row reached most enviable levels of success and fame (or notoriety??) especially with major albums. Poison were sitting between their two most successful albums and even lesser established bands like Faster Pussycat and Junkyard had their 15 minutes of fame. Come the 1990s (and grunge!), and most of these bands’ highs quickly turned into lows: completely slipping off the radar, becoming full time celebrities and unfortunate parodies of themselves or releasing insignificant covers albums.
Good time rockers LA Guns also had their taste of success back then but the Los Angeles sometime quartet/sometime quintet have continued as “a working band” over the past years too. On the eve of their first ever Australian tour, long time drummer Steve Riley reflects on how the band has evolved since their heyday. “Everything’s turned around. We’re one of the fortunate bands that had lots of stuff going on in the 80's and 90's. We got so much exposure on radio and TV and because of that we’re one of the lucky bands that can keep recording new material every year or two. Of course it was all on a bigger scale back then, it was like being part of a big machine. We still sell records at our shows now but it’s not done by the big machine anymore. It’s on a smaller label. It was great to have the big machine – everyone had one back then but now it’s skilled down. Now we take care of our own affairs, have our own offices and we’re lucky to be able to do that. A lot of our friends from bands from the 80's and 90's can’t do what they used to do anymore.”
The LA Guns story is one reflective of clashing egos, excesses and the stresses of being on the road for too many years. Tracii Guns formed and named the band in 1983 and underwent a merry-go-round of members (including Axl Rose) until settling on the band’s most successful and long standing line up from 1988 to 1992: former WASP drummer Steve Riley, British star vocalist Phil Lewis, Tracii and Mick Cripps on guitar and Kelly Nickels on bass. Under this tight and productive unit, they released their second album Cocked and Loaded, which reached gold status, spawned several radio hits and is still a mighty fine listen! The follow up, 1991’s Hollywood Vampires didn’t fare as well and personnel dramas flared again: Riley was fired, Lewis and Cripps left the band, and by 1995 so did Nickels. Riley was back in and with Guns and a rotating host of musicians they toured and released a sixth album. Talk of a reunion of the classic LA Guns line-up resulted in a greatest hits album and tour in October 1999. In 2002, founding member – and the only one who hadn’t departed the band - Tracii Guns succumbed to an exciting project started by Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx, Brides of Destruction. Riley and Lewis continued with LA Guns, signing up new members Stacey Blades on guitars and Scott Griffin on bass.
In an awkward and unsettling move – for fans and the existing band – Tracii Guns hooked up with one-time vocalist Paul Black and reformed a band. He called it LA Guns. A guaranteed talking point within music circles, Riley (who shares 50% ownership of the band’s name with Guns) explains, with a little bias – how the touchy situation unfolded: “After the five original guys from the 80's broke up, Phil, Tracii and myself kept going. Phil and I never left the band. Tracii left to do Brides of Destruction. Once a band has been in business for so long and has had so many singles and videos out, what’s important is to have the original lead singer, the main focal point in the band. We tried to do it without Phil but it was terrible. Phil’s on top of his game, I’m the original drummer pushing the sound from the back so we really have a strong band together.”
So, will the real LA Guns step forward? “The ones coming here are the real LA Guns.” Steve asserts. “The ones that have been together since the beginning. Tracii left, he’s burnt a lot of bridges and is in a desperate situation now. He’s putting together a band with no experience in LA Guns. It is a bit of a thorn in our sides but we’re taking it head on. We know fans are smarter than people think, they wanna hear the real thing with Phil, not the other thing.” He pauses then continues with a scathing anecdote. “Phil calls them The Dreadfuls. Someone told me to watch the other LA Guns on You Tube so I checked it out – it was just as bad as I thought. In the future people are gonna enquire ‘is it the real LA Guns with Phil singing?’ People wanna go see Phil, the original frontman.”
When reflecting on his bands very colourful and full career, it baffles Steve how they never got to tour Australia. “We don’t know why it never happened. We went to Japan so many times, it’s so close, we were in that area and never got to come over. It’s all so odd but we’re glad it’s happening. We’re really excited that it’s finally happening. It’s gonna be a jam-packed show. We’ll have new material and there’ll be the old things because people wanna see that. There’ll be anything that people saw from LA Guns over the years,” he promises with enthusiastic candor.
The real LA Guns are touring for the rest of the year while also writing new material, and hope to enter the studio to record in January 2008. With their last studio album in 2005 (“Tales from the Strip”) and the release of a live album last year, the signs are ominous that this version of LA Guns has its future secured. “This line up’s been together five years and we’ve done 3 or 4 albums together. We’re proud of LA Guns and what we did. We never sold out shows or had number one albums but we’re proud and we’ll keep recording. I mean you can’t keep playing old songs so we’ll keep comin’ up with new songs. We’re fortunate to still be doing that,” he concludes.
