Blabbermouth — Steve Riley‘s version of L.A. GUNS recently released its debut single, “Crawl”. The track is taken from the band’s first album, “Renegades”, which will arrive in late summer or early fall via Golden Robot Records.
Riley‘s version of L.A. GUNS is not to be confused with the band led by guitarist Tracii Guns and vocalist Phil Lewis, which issued two well-received albums, “The Missing Peace” and “The Devil You Know”, plus the live release “Made In Milan”, under the L.A. GUNS name over the last three years.
Riley‘s version of L.A. GUNS made its live debut last May at the M3 Rock Festival. The drummer is joined in the group by Orlando, Florida-based guitarist/vocalist Kurt Frohlich, bassist Kelly Nickels (a member of L.A. GUNS‘ “classic” incarnation) and guitarist Scott Griffin (who played bass for the band from 2007 until 2009, and then again from 2011 to 2014).
In a recent interview with “The Classic Metal Show”, Nickels spoke about Riley‘s decision to call his new band L.A. GUNS. He said (hear audio below): “This is what it is because we put a lot of work into the band. We split everything equally back then, and we all contributed to the songwriting and to the playing and the meet-and-greets and the charity stuff and all the things — we did everything together; everybody always put a hundred percent into everything back then. And we feel like we have as much a right to play those songs — I should be able to play the songs I wrote, and so should Steve.
“Steve‘s played every show since the first album was released,” he continued. “No one ever asks what happened to the old drummer. And I know, but I won’t say, ’cause I would let him tell that story, but I was there. And we were lucky to get Steve. He’s taken care of all the business for the last 30 years, and he’s the only guy who never quit, and that’s a fact. And legally, he has a 50 percent right to use that name — trademarks, whatever. He feels like he’s earned it, and I’m not gonna argue with him. If you feel like that, Steve, you’ve been there the whole time. Mick [Cripps, guitar] quit, Phil quit, I quit, Tracii quit, everybody’s quit and come back to him and they quit again, but it’s always Steve who’s been back there keeping that groove for everybody for all that time. But at the same time, I totally understand how people feel. I get it. It’s complicated, and it’s a shame. But we’re just playing music. And you don’t have to choose — you don’t have to feel bad about liking one person or the other. As far as we’re concerned, we’re just putting out some tunes, we’re playing tunes that we wrote and played on. It is what it is, unfortunately.
“We are in our mid-50s and we’re lucky to be alive,” he added. “We have this chance to go out and play. To start from scratch, though, would be totally impossible. Change the name — you build your name; it’s what you have. And you worked on that name a lot, you put all this effort into that name, so you can’t just really change it — it’s not that simple. It’s complicated. We don’t have that press machine to get it out and change it and everything.”
Read the full story at Blabbermouth Listen to the interview with Kelly Nickels on The Classic Metal Show below.
