Report: '80s Hard Rock Musicians Fighting Over Band Names
March 2, 2008Neil Shah of the Los Angeles Times reports: Steve Riley is a survivor. At 51, he still plays the drums for L.A. GUNS, a biker-themed hair-metal band famous mostly for once featuring GUNS N' ROSES singer Axl Rose. Riley and first mate Phil Lewis, who sang L.A. GUNS' only Top 40 hit, "The Ballad of Jayne", toured Australia last fall before joining MÖTLEY CRÜE singer Vince Neil for a show in St. Paul, Minn.
But Riley and Lewis are finding life on the exurban nightclub scene harder these days. Promoters want them to play for less. That's because lately there have been not one but two L.A. GUNS bands milking the nostalgia circuit — locked in a mutually destructive price war and consequently dueling, like a growing number of their shred-ready brethren, over the band's name.
Guitarist Tracii Guns, who formed the band in 1982 and was the original "Guns" in GUNS N' ROSES, says his crew is the real deal since it includes one of the band's earliest singers, Paul Black. "Phil and Steve were not even the original members of the band," Tracii wrote in an online post after declining to be interviewed for this article. "Now they . . . say that I am not the 'real' version of L.A. GUNS?"
Read the entire article at www.latimes.com.
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