Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands.
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Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands. |
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L.A. GUNS: REVENGE OF THE HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES: RIP Magazine, August 1991 By Adrianne Stone The recording studio is located several blocks from the ocean in Santa Monica, California. Although a giant green awning sports its name, it's easy to miss the narrow building among the banks and shops and restaurants whose shadows stretch across the street, dwarfing it with their presence. After a couple of spins around the block we finally realize our stupidity (notice I don't take full blame for this example of ineptitude!) and pull into the parking lot that flanks this small wooden structure. Inside, there is a simple, no-frills studio. It's comfortable, clean and replete with the necessities a musician might need in order to record properly. I am instantly reminded of several time-worn adages; "It's not the size of the ship, it's the motion of the ocean," "It's not the size that counts...it's the strength," "Good things come in smalt packages," and so forth. Why I'm inclined to think in terms that are most often used in reference to sex, I don't know. It probably has something to do with the band I've come to visit. L.A. Guns, an outfit that began when lead guitarist Tracii Guns split from a certain now-famous red-tressed singer (W. Axl Rose, as if you didn't already know!) to form his own group back 'round '86 or so, has passed the test of time. Several lineup changes eventually ended with a stable melange of footloose musicians: ex-New Yorker Kelly Nickels on bass, ex-Bostonite Steve Riley on drums, Australian-turned-Californian Mick Cripps on rhythm guitar and British immigrant Philip Lewis providing the vocals. What emerged from these five souls was a form of music that was prevalent during the late-'SOs; street tough, raw rock and roll with sexy, sleazy themes and a generous helping of rebellion. What set them apart from their peers in those early days, however, was that instead of merely churning out their music like so much pabulum for the masses, L.A. Guns' natural sincerity always pervaded their tunes. When Philip's raspy voice sang of "Sex Action," there was no need for an MTV visual to spell out his intentions. When the band grinded into such hard-hitters as "Rip and Tear" or "Letting Go," their passion for healthy, youthful nihilism seemed downright righteous. And sweet tunes like "Never Enough" (check out the beauteous chorus) or the hauntingly lovely "The Ballad of Jane" put them on the map as capable songwriters with a strong melodic bent. With two albums of such material under their belts, the band is showing no signs of. altering their approach. Certainly, though, some changes are to be expected. Philip, casually clad and sneakered, folds his slim. limbs into a fetal position on a studio couch, while Steve collapses in a folding chair, absentmindedly tapping his ever-present drumsticks against each other. They've both been hard at work, contributing their shares to the Hollywood Vampires album (due out by summer), and it shows on their weary faces. Pale from weeks spent inside these four walls, thin from diets of grains, nuts and berries, exhausted from the 14-hour days of musical creativity, the two are hardly the same energetic whirlwinds they appear to be onstage. "We have the AC/DC tour from May 17 to July 10, and hopefully maybe even the last three weeks after that," Steve announces incredulously. Although this isn't the first time they've opened a tour for the Australian mega-group, the coveted position of performing in front of sell-out crowds nightly is not taken lightly by the appreciative musicians. "They're just incredible people to be around," Philip says of the headliners. "They're very professional, very together. They also happen to be one of my favorite bands, so it's great. After you do a show, you take a shower, hang out and go watch your favorite band play. Who can ask for more?" But certainly, if any band deserved a break, it would be these guys. Unable to secure a slot on a strong tour last year (due mostly to a lack of majors out on the road), they were forced to go it alone. "We just did the worst kind of tour that you could do," Steve acknowledges. "Clubs and small theaters, and nothing major at all. But see, we stay out and tell (our record company] to keep us out even if we're playing shit holes. We played clubs that I don't think some bands would play, just to fill the time and get to the next city." When they say there were some real dives, they mean clubs that were one step above latrines. "There was one place on the beach," recalls Phil. "Oh, man, it was a great show, and the kids were great, but the place was khazi." Say what? "Errr...it was a toilet," he says, seeing my look of confusion at the Indian term. "There was water on the dressing room floor. You walked in, and you felt itchy." "Yeah," Steve joins in excitedly, "You didn't want to touch anything. We stood on our toes when we got dressed." "It was really grim," continues Phil, embellishing the story with more gory details. "It was very, very hot and humid that day, and it was towards the end of the tour. We had just gone from playing to 10,000 people at Irvine Meadows to this awful khazi, and it was like, 'Oh, my God! This has got to be the worst!' But we did it." While most bands would've packed it in when the going got rough, L.A. Guns was a case of heroism in the face of adversity. "We stayed on the road when Kelly had to have another leg operation; we stayed on the road when I got sick with pneumonia," starts Steve. "And we stayed on the road when Mick got some horrendous virus. At one point it was just me and Tracii in the band!" laughs Philip. "And the rest of the band was our road crew! It was like Ouster's last stand! We just wouldn't cancel!" But rock-and-roll lifestyle aside, there was a more serious reason they kept moving. "We knew that if we cancelled and came off the road, that's when the record company drops everything, and the album just dies," Steve says. Indeed, their biggest battle at that time was with a record company that was undergoing a major restructuring. "We had a Top 30 hit ["The Ballad of Jane"] and a Top 40 album [Cocked and Loaded], and a strong record company could have done serious damage," laments Steve. "But those [the record and song] still did well, and led us into another level." Which leads us to the late spring of 1991. Present tense. Here in this building where they're laying down tracks that will be permanent parts of musical history. Has the subject matter changed any? Have their creative talents evolved? "Yeah," Philip says slowly. "On the first album we had songs like 'Down in the City' and 'Fight for Your Rights,' and it was more of an 'attitude/punk rock/f?!k you' album. Now we tend to be more like storytellers than gutter trash. But there's still that in us. It's just that it would be pretentious for us to be any other way than the way we are." Certainly it wouldn't be very honest of them to write about living in the gutter when they no longer are. "Exactly," says Philip. "There's a lot of truth in that. I just feel that, for me, personally, I've always been 'skin,' which is an English term for poor. Now I don't have to worry so much about getting thrown out of an apartment, and I can concentrate on what I really enjoy doing most, which is writing and performing, but I'm never gonna forget what it was like to go without shit." Never far from his proper English manners, he grimaces slightly, pauses and says, "No, scratch that," in reference to the "s" word. "I'll always keep the edge," he says with a smile. "I think we're getting a good mixture of the two," Steve says in reference to demeanor and talent. "On the first album we had an attitude, and on the second album we found sort of a song structure formula to write. Now we're trying to mix it and find that middle where we can have both." To prove their point, they play back the track they've been toiling over today. "It's called 'Dirty Love,'" Philip explains, winking. "It's a song about love." After hearing the pumping rocker, I opine that it sounds like it's more about a stud or a pimp than about true, romantic love. "Actually," Philip says, correcting my assumption, "it's about date rape." If the lyrical content of Hollywood Vampires is more intricate or serious, it's because the group as a whole has grown into this style. "I honestly believe that life is stranger than fiction," Philip maintains. "The things that I write are little parables, little stories talking about things, like on Cocked and Loaded. 'Sleazy Come Easy Go' was like a little story. Stuff like that. That sums up my style. It's neither autobiographical nor fictional, but it's somewhere between the two. It's just observations through slightly rose-tinted glasses. I don't have a beef with the world. The world's been very good to me. I've had a great, adventurous existence, and I just kind of write and have those observations." Still, the songwriting in L.A. Guns is a collaborative effort. "What we do basically," explains Philip, "is any song that ends up on the album, we split five ways. I brought in 'Crystal Eyes,' 'I Found You' and 'Over the Edge' on this album as ideas, but it's what the band does to it...it would be immoral of me to say, 'Thanks for your help, guys, but it's still my song.' That's not fair. That's greedy. And every contribution, no matter how small, is important when you're dealing with music. So, consequently, we have a very democratic approach to dealing with this problem, which has been responsible for the breakups of more bands.... Royalties and wives, I think, are the two things that bands have the most trouble with." But has the band changed? Now that they've got digs of their own (no matter how modest they may be) instead of the floor of whatever place they passed out in the night before, now that they're able to purchase their food instead of swiping it, now that they know the distinction between being a struggling, unsigned band and a struggling, signed one, have they become jaded? Has the fan adoration led to a bit of ego swelling? Not that I could tell, but I allow Philip to answer this one. "It's still all about long, black, greasy hair and old leather jackets and cowboy boots whose soles are so thin that you could taste the gum on the floor!" he laughs. "Nothing's changed in that respect, and the whole 'road warrior' vibe comes out again every time we get on a tour bus. That's the thing. That's the fantasy/circus/rock-and-roll rodeo feel. That's the same as it's ever going to be. It's not going to be about, 'Ooh, let's see if we can stay in the fanciest hotels.'" "I just think the exposure gets bigger right now for us," says Steve, going back to the AC/DC tour. "I don't see the band changing much. We're a lot more mature. We've been doing it for a while, but I think we're pretty much the same band as when we started out." Does it ever seem unreal? "It's an amazing thing," nods Philip. "You look around, and what little we've achieved materially, I look at it, and I think, Wow, this is the fruits of my music! And that's really satisfying. It's like, we haven't committed any crime! It's a great feeling. I feel blessed. Even if we weren't being paid, we'd probably be doing exactly what we're doing now." When I leave them, they're hunched over the controls of the huge studio console, laboriously creating the music that is the stuff that dreams are made of. Buy L.A. Guns CDs: |
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