Sleazeroxx — Former Autograph guitarist Steve Lynch was recently interviewed by Jason Green (Sin City Rejects bassist, Sin City Sinners manager, ex-Ratt (Bobby Blotzer version) manager) for the Waste Some Time With Jason Green podcast.
Lynch was one of the founding members of Autograph back in 1983 and played on all of their best known albums including Sign In Please (1984), That’s The Stuff (1985) and Loud And Clear (1986) before leaving the band in July 2019 to explore new musical adventures. In 2013, Lynch reformed
Autograph with bassist Randy Rand, drummer Keni Richards and new singer Simon Daniels. Richards didn’t last long and was replaced by Marc Weiland in 2014. Richards ended up dying on April 8, 2017 in what has been described as an unsolved drug related homicide.
With respect to Richards, Lynch indicated (as transcribed by Sleaze Roxx): “Keni, Keni, kind of, he got into — unfortunately he became addicted to heroine and you know, put him into the wrong group of people and there were some bad dealings that happened and he actually ended up getting shot. They killed him.”
Green noted that when Autograph were reforming with new lead singer Simon Daniels, Richards was part of the line-up but things didn’t work out. Green asked Lynch what exactly happened to which the guitarist replied:
“Well as far as the police report, they believe, because of the fact of the people that he was associating with and everything, they think it was drug related and they even think that there’s a good possibility that the Mexican drug cartel was involved. So, but that’s the kind of people that he was dealing with, that he was associating with, I should say. And the first rehearsal that we had, it didn’t go very well. I could tell that he hadn’t played drums in a long time and then the second rehearsal, he kept on stopping in the songs and everything. He was going to to bathroom a lot and taping up his foot so I think that he was shooting up drugs in his foot because he’d come back out, he was way wired. I think he was dong meth. I said, ‘Keni, that was the one stipulation — no drugs. Otherwise, I am not going to have anything to do with this.
Then the next rehearsal — [you] see, I was flying down for these rehearsals from Seattle [Washington] down to L.A. [California], and we were rehearsing and meeting down there. The third rehearsal, he didn’t even show up. He didn’t even bother to show up and so I just thought, I told the rest of the guys. I said, ‘You know what? That’s it. I am bowing out. I’m not going to deal with this.’ So, then Simon said, the new singer, ‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I’ve got this drummer. He’s a great drummer. He’s got this really good attitude. Lots of experience and everything. That’s where Marc came into the picture. Marc Weiland — great drummer, great guy, great attitude and great look and everything to him. So he fit in perfectly and I decided to give it a shot.”
The above courtesy of Sleazeroxx
Interview with Steve Lynch on Waste Some Time With Jason Green podcast:
