MARQ WHO? Marq Torien has been left out by his three original BulletBoys bandmates in new band Lies, Deceit and Treachery

LOS ANGELES — BulletBoys is still alive and well, yet there is a new band called Lies, Deceit & Treachery that features all of the original members except singer Marq Torien.

The group plans to play early BulletBoys material exclusively, and the concert debut is Saturday, Jan. 10 at Vamp’d in Las Vegas.

There exists a little sample of what Lies, Deceit & Treachery is all about in a new video that you can see HERE.

A phone call to Marq Torien went unreturned. Meatime, guitarist Mick Sweda and drummer Jimmy D’Anda were only too happy to grant Metal Sludge an exclusive interview, so here we go.

We’ll start with you, Mick. You have a great name. It’s always nice to have at least one guy named Mick in a band, right?

SWEDA: Yeah, I’ve made sure there was a Mick in the band in every band I’ve ever been in.

And you both have a new band, Lies, Deceit & Treachery which consists of all the founding members of BulletBoys except Marq Torien, the singer.

SWEDA: Yeah, it ended up being that way.

What do you think Marq is going to think about this?

SWEDA: I haven’t talked to him, so I have no idea.

I think he’ll be insulted by this — his three original bandmates plus a new singer. How he could not be?

D’ANDA: I’m sure he is concerned. He’s got the name BulletBoys, and he plays shows with multiple players. We’re the ones who wrote those songs. It would be a big difference if he wrote them; then it would have some weight. But we wrote the majority of those songs. This is who we are, and that music was really important to us.

When’s the last time you talked to him, Mick?

SWEDA: A couple of years ago. He called me and said something like I couldn’t use any of his songs on a record i was doing.

Were you going to use his songs?

SWEDA: No, I had never even considered it. That was the weird part. I haven’t even heard them, and I don’t expect to.

So then why would have said that? That does seem weird.

SWEDA: I don’t know. It’s hard to know what his motivation is. I’m really not sure.

We’re actually on good terms, but let’s just say Marq does tend to rub some people the wrong way. Is that a good way to put it?

SWEDA: That would be putting it lightly, but yes, I would agree wholeheartedly. You might even be understating that by planetary scales.

D’ANDA: That’s the reason why I left the band. Living with Marq was the hard part. As far as Marq being mad, i haven’t really thought about it. Do you think he is going to be mad?

I do.

D’ANDA: Well, what’s funny is, we didn’t put that much thought into the whole process. We just sat together and started playing the old tunes.

Now, both of you, you left BulletBoys and came back at some point. Mick, what was the story with you?

SWEDA: We were playing a show at the Palace in Hollywood, headlining, and somebody (in the band) went on a tirade at soundcheck, and it was really embarrassing. That was the last straw. I took the guys upstairs and let them know that I would support the record and fulfill my obligations, but there would be no more BulletBoys records. Ultimately, that was our death warrant.

What to you mean? Were you the one who wrote most of the songs?

SWEDA: I wrote a number of the songs entirely, but we made a deal to split the publishing four ways, and that was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. At the time, I didn’t have better judgement. I mean, theoretically, if everyone works on the record and everyone contributes in a sense, utlimately that would make sense. But that’s not what happened.

D’ANDA: I left in ’94, I think, and I came back once for a couple shows, but it was such a clusterfuck that I said fuck it. We had like 20 more dates, and ended up flying out after four dates. I just flew home.

Mick was not in the band at this point, right?

D’ANDA: No, our guitarist was a young Jason Hook. This band, we just kept arguing about stuff. Now, here’s the thing: It’s one thing to be arguing all the time but still having a song on the radio, a video on MTV, and you’re making good money. In that case, the pro’s outweigh the con’s. But when you’ve got no radio, no video, and you’re still arguing all the time, that’s something different.

BulletBoys, when you guys were at your best, you were a very good band. Right up there with the best, I always thought.

SWEDA: Oh, I completely agree, and I still have all the live tapes to prove it. I mean, everyone has an off night, one or two, but that’s about it.

And Marq Torien is a big part of that. He is very talented.

SWEDA: I totally agree. You pick that up right away when you see him. I was always a fan and always admired his ability to do certain things. People can say what they want, but for the most part he’s a professional on stage. I wish I had his natural talent. My talent, I had to work my ass off to get where I’m at. I look at Marq, and it looks to me like his talent is God-given.

Who owns the name?

D’ANDA: Marq and Lonnie both own the name.

Both of you came back at some point.

SWEDA: i can’t remember what year. Marq had set up a record, and he offered me a little money. I thought, “Allright.” My reason was, it was the end of our career, so we went in the studio and played all the songs from the first record like they should have been recorded in the first place.We were like a brand new band again, and the songs felt pretty fresh, and the guys were all nice. i thought we had turned the corner, and that the timing was right. But then when the record came out, everyone said it sounded like crap.

Now you’ve got a new singer, Shane.

SWEDA: I love the guy. I love him to death, and he’s an awesome person. I think his voice has a quality that’s just really meant for the material that i write. I’m glad we met. It’s just kind serendipitous.

His voice, he sounds much different that Marq.

D’ANDA: I love Shane’s voice, but it’s definitely a different animal than Marq’s. They’re different, but Shane is really solid in a lot of areas, especially the high notes, and that’s what I like about his voice.

You’re not playing any new material or covers, so you’re obviously capitalizing on the BulletBoys name.

SWEDA: We’re not going to shy away from that. Maybe we should, but at this point we’re not we’re not going to do it. This kind of thing, we’ll do flyouts and play shows here and there.

D’ANDA: You look, and there are a lot of bands out there, different versions. Jack Russell’s Great White and Great White, plus Queensryche, all these bands. We just want to get out there and have fun and play the songs we wrote.

You’ve got your first show coming up on Saturday, Jan. 10 in Las Vegas at Vamp’d.

SWEDA: Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. We have some good chemistry, and it’s just fun, loud and nasty with feedback. I get a huge kick out of it. Of all the bands I’ve done, I end up making it sound like the BulletBoys.

It’s your favorite band.

SWEDA: Well, it should be.

D’ANDA: We’re moving at an adult pace. We’re not all crazy like we’re going to take over the world. The Vegas show, this is our first show with a different singer. I mean, how many different musicians has Marq used through the years? We’re not doing a BulletBoys thing. We’re not trying to relive anything. I think we had a great past, and we have great memories, and we want to leave it at that. We just got a singer and said let’s do the songs. Why not try it out and see what interest there is out there?

Now Jimmy, you were one of the first ones to work with Jeremy Brunner in what would become X-Drive.

D’ANDA: Yeah, I had met him on tour with Lynch Mob. He was doing a radio station at the time, we did an interview, and we became friends. Then he called and asked if I could play on some stuff with him, and we actually worked on it for a couple of years, but then at one point I was gone and he was just recruiting everyone under the sun.

The CD sounds really good.

D’ANDA: Well, he got some heavyweights to produce it because he wanted a certain sound, some band, I can’t remember which one.

I think it might have been Warrant.

D’ANDA: Yeah, maybe. I had a great time with him, even though he would get so bogged down and so frustrated and so nervous. Sometimes I would just leave and chill out and go to my hotel room until he was ready again.

I guess we should do some lurid stuff since this is Metal Sludge.

SWEDA: I was hoping so. I’ve been waiting.

Well, the thing that comes to mind is your most popular songs on that first record. “Hard as a Rock” and “Smooth Up,” which at first was called “Smooth Up In Ya” but got changed, they’re both about the same thing — sexual intercourse, right?

SWEDA: That’s because at that point, sex was such a mysterious subject. We had such a hard time engaging in activity like that, so it was all fantasy.

Who got the most girls?

SWEDA: My guitar tech, Dale Meekins.

Really, how?

SWEDA: That’s an excellent question. He had many ways. He was pretty good.

I remember the night you opened for Poison at Long Beach Arena. It was totally packed. What a night, eh?

SWEDA: The big triumph of the night, from what I remember, was kissing Lorraine Lewis backstage. I just walked up to her and kissed her fully on the mouth, and I had never even met her. That was a demonstration of my triumph, I felt. I was like, “Yeah.”

Did she kiss you back?

SWEDA: She just laughed. I also remember wasting this beautiful Gibson that night, beating it till all I had was the neck and some strings hanging down. We just felt like we needed to destroy some equipment that night.

Did you have to pay for the guitar, or were you endorsed?

SWEDA: I was endorsed, but I don’t think they liked it very much.

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