Loving?ro;”and Talking with?ro;”the L.A. Guns

In 1987 I threatened my parents at least once a week that I was dropping out of high school and moving to Hollywood immediately. I was bored at school, stranded in the suburbs, and it seemed that cross-country there existed a world where fast and fantastic things were happening. Although I was acquainted with this world only through my tv set and my headphones, I knew that Hollywood's main drag was infested with baby outcasts from places like Iowa and Indiana, now sporting outlandish duds and gravity-defying 'dos. There was rock 'n' roll on every corner and potential rock stars in the street, in the supermarkets and even in Denny's. I longed to be smack in the center of it all.

My parents informed me that if I wished to hightail it to Hollywood they would be more than happy to send me?one way, no return. I'd already had a crush on Whiskey-era Doors and a slight obsession with the scene that revolved around Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco (a place I discovered in an outdated magazine 15 years after the fact). I resorted to donning feathers, platforms and hotpants, scaring most of the neighbors in my town. My mother watched a few metal videos on MTV with me, rolled her eyes and looked at me in disgust. "What a bunch of posers," she said. "I can't believe you like this shit."

Now, Mom was right. Most of those bands sucked. But there was one group of three who obviously loved rock 'n' roll and had uncontrived attitude problems and a whole lot of style. L.A. Guns. Sex Action. They weren't the most popular band but they were certainly the coolest of the lot. The guys all had dark, disheveled locks, many tattoos and wore black leather like the Ramones. Their songs were fast-moving, dirty and deliberate and they looked as if they had sleazy sex?often. Formed in the mid-80s by guitarist Tracii Guns (the original Guns of Guns 'N Roses), after several member shuffles the group cemented its initial lineup with bassist Kelly Nickels, guitarist Mick Cripps, ex-W.A.S.P. skin pounder Steve Riley and vocalist Phil Lewis, formerly of the underrated British glam band Girl. Lewis had flown to the States assuming he would be here for two weeks. After an audition that consisted of blowing into a microphone and saying "check, check one, two," Guns, a fan of Girl, offered Lewis the gig.

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I hadn't thought about L.A. Guns in a very long time. I'd lost interest in metal and Riley and Lewis had left the group. The band put out several mediocre albums that no one seemed to notice and Nickels and Cripps left too. But then Lewis, Tracii Guns, Riley and a corkscrew-coifed bassist named Muddy put the band back together. Earlier this year they released Man on the Moon, their best record since the gold Cocked & Loaded. When I heard they were playing in the area, I was almost giddy. I missed L.A. Guns and their sleazy kind of metal. I'd had it with manufactured teen bands, wannabe bad-boy frat-rock bands, unworthy divas who don't write their own music. I'm especially disgusted with acceptable white rappers trying their damnedest to be black. I just want my rock 'n' roll dirty, fast and messy, as it is supposed to be. I decide to go all three nights to see the L.A. Guns/Faster Pussycat packaged tour.

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I haven't been to a place like the Birch Hill in 10 years. It's an hour outside of the city and looks like a cross between someone's rec room and a back drop for a 70s porno. There is carpeting on the floor and murals of folks like Axl Rose on the paneled walls. I spot people with mullets, stonewashed jeans, cowboy boots and other 80s-type gear. When L.A. Guns comes out, the floor swells and the kids go crazy. They know all the words and sing along. When the band launches into its biggest single from back when, The Ballad of Jayne, lighters actually go up. It's surreal.

The new tunes are fun too. There's a slutty, fast rocker, "Good Thing," which is about videotaping and sex, and "Don't Call me Crazy" is a serious number that snapshots Lewis' experience of dealing with someone who is mentally ill. "Beautiful" is a song that has the chops to be a top-40 hit if it was spurted out of the mouth of a prepubescent boy band rather than one that might be threatening to parents. After the show, girls are everywhere, discussing how to get backstage and on the bus. I'm excited to meet the Guns the next day.

I meet them in a parking lot on Long Island. It's late on a Sunday afternoon and I'm in heels and a skirt, knocking on their tour bus door, feeling like the biggest groupie on Earth. Fortunately, before anyone starts tagging me a Pamela or a Bebe, I'm invited aboard. After seeing the bus, it's really hard to imagine how anyone lives in these things for months at a time, though it's considerably easier to figure out why bands break up every second. Despite all their conflicts and time apart, the members of L.A. Guns seem remarkably comfortable with one another. With the exception of slightly more conservative hairdos and a few extra pounds, they look almost exactly the way they did 12 years ago.

I'm sitting across from Phil Lewis and I have to ask the singer the obvious: what exactly triggered his departure. I'm surprised when he answers, "The birth of my daughter Trinity. Everyone expects there was some sort of big blowup, but there really wasn't. Tracii and I were in different directions. He wanted to be Pantera. I wanted to be Tom Petty. L.A. Guns is neither of those things?it's somewhere in the middle. That's what we had to find out the hard way."

Lewis will admit that things got "bitchy" between him and Guns. He was uncomfortable with Tracii having so much control over his life, especially when he had a child.

"You know," he says "you can't be out there on the road doing the things I did with a clear conscience, with a kid."

Lewis got a day job mixing audio for Fox, initially hoping to keep his former life low-key. But it didn't work. One day, he walked into his workplace and was greeted with a 1979 pic of his former band Girl on every screen on every computer.

"I was so busted," he laughs.

Lewis worked on small recording projects and continued to play local gigs on the weekends, but he started to miss his old band.

"Tracii showed up at one of the shows, got up and played and it was like, this is good. Because you know everything else I have ever done solo or with other bands doesn't sound anything like me and him and Steve together. I have a lot of control in everything else I do but this, this is all equal. It's a challenge for me because they are such amazingly gifted musicians?I just sing and I just shout."

I wonder if the band has any concerns about touring with Faster Pussycat. Are they worried people might interpret the tour as a bunch of 80s novelty acts? Lewis gets really animated and asks me, "Do you think we should be playing with Lit, or Blink 182?"

"Lit 182?" Steve Riley bursts out. Everyone starts laughing.

"It is an 80s thing," explains Lewis, "though we're not doing the 80s schtick and neither is Faster. We developed. You know, we're just bands that have to survive."

Lewis leads me out to talk to Tracii, who is holding court in the front of the bus with a few girls and a tired Muddy draped over the seats. Hanoi Rocks is coming from the stereo.

"I have no idea," Guns blurts out when asked about the band's place in music today. "I think we're one of the last rock 'n' roll bands that can actually play."

This is true. L.A. Guns is a solid band and Guns had flashed some impressive chops the night before, even giving his guitar a Page-like bowing as an intro for "One More Reason."

"It's bad for the younger musicians that just listen to all this crap. Talk about posers and corporate rock. It's a joke right now. They know exactly who I'm talking about because just two years ago they were trying to be 'alternative.' Posers everywhere.

"You know, it's like fuck you. I like L.A. Guns. I dig Faster Pussycat 'cause they're a rock 'n' roll band, I love the Cult, and that's about it."

I have to ask. There was that place and time when L.A. Guns fit right in. What was it really like in the 80s on the Sunset Strip?

Lewis smiles. "We had the time of the century. You know, the 60s were good, but I think we had it better. I think they're going to make a movie about it, I mean, there's so much fodder." He turns to a friend.

"Couldn't they make a movie about our first year? What a great scenario!"

I certainly hope they do. Casting, casting, check one two...