Rock fans shouldn’t assume that Slash, Duff McKegan and Matt Sorum are the only ex-Guns N’ Roses members currently enjoying a measure of bittersweet musical justice with their blues-rock supergroup, Velvet Revolver. Prudence also requires that attention be given to the contemporary works of a axe-slinger who facilitated the formation of the world’s most notorious rock band. Tracii Guns’ latest music reaps a vindication that’s equally as enjoyable as that of his pedigreed peers, rocking listener’s speakers and eardrums with his own batch of feral, out of control, heavy metal hotshots — Brides Of Destruction.
Led by the shadowy, streetwise axe-shredder who literally put the “Guns” in Guns N’ Roses, Tracii Guns, Brides Of Destruction has discovered the capability to connect with fans from the broadest rock spectrum imaginable. The band’s rough-and-tumble sonority made a sizeable impact upon the scene with the auspiciously ear-catching debut, “Here Come The Brides” spearheaded by an aggressively anti-authoritarian anthem, “Shut The F**k Up.” Fiery and spunky, the band’s punk-metal hybrid was hailed by press, peers and fans alike. Subsequently, the foursome embarked on a successful jaunt in support of the effort, the appropriately titled “Honeymoon From Hell” tour. In concert venues across America, Brides Of Destruction won audiences over with a brash attitude, shunning authority and embracing anarchy in an identical sonic instance.
For those rock diehards favoring the guitarist’s previous act — LA Guns, it should be small surprise that his playing continues to bear weight upon the world of hard rock music. Countless fans look back with fond memories of the days of LA Guns’ classic, self-titled debut and widely recognized follow-up “Cocked And Loaded.” Career successes like the Top 40 hit "The Ballad of Jayne," a heartbreaking homage to starlet Jayne Mansfield, still cause quite a commotion on active rock radio today, and it’s this longevity that separates the music of Tracii Guns from that of most of his early-on competition to the throne of rock guitar.
When the moment to structure the original incarnation of Brides Of Destruction had arrived, the guitarist teamed up with Nikki Sixx, the sleaze-metal mastermind behind Hollywood bad boys Motley Crue. Guns realized that he was due to examine a new viewpoint in terms of creativity. “I was doing L.A. Guns since I was seventeen, basically, and when you’re looking at thirty-seven…. Twenty years of anything is plenty, especially when you’re doing one style of art.” Originally, the group brandished the radio-unfriendly moniker Cockstar, but the band name changed for obvious reasons soon after.
Working with fresh collaborators became a source of renewed hunger for the musician, and when speaking of his charismatic, highly engaging vocalist London LeGrande, the guitar slinger is purely emphatic. “London, when you give him music, he comes right back with ten pages of lyrics and I go ‘Oh, shit! What are we gonna do with all of these lyrics?’” Guns further alliterates, this time a bit more coldly, “It was very creative for years with L.A.Guns and then somehow, it got to a position where if we don’t work all the time, we’re gonna starve and die — that’s no way to create.” Perceptibly revitalized by his talented, youthful compatriots, Guns becomes unreservedly electric when speaking about his newly rediscovered, budding inventive drive. The guitarist’s imaginative spark has been seemingly re-ignited, as he explains, “With this band, the more that everybody puts in, the better the product. London gives it his all with every song and we’ve been letting him run with the ball and watching his confidence grow. London’s really one of those classic singers. He keeps coming up with this great stuff.”
While speaking about the contributions of his young partners in crime, Guns states, “The thing I liked that was different as opposed to the L.A. Guns records is that it’s a different dynamic in the band in having a younger singer, where his whole musical education starts somewhere around Guns N’ Roses, you know? So he has a different perspective all the time. In terms of writing and in terms of influences, it’s so much different than what Phil was doing and what Axl was doing. So he brings another perspective every time we go to write and it’s refreshing. That’s the best way to describe it, it’s fresh.”
Following the departure of group co-founder Sixx from the ranks (to embark on a highly successful reunion tour with Motley Crue), Guns chose to tap into yet another hot young talent, recruiting Amen bassist Scott Sorry. “Now that Nikki’s doing Motley Crue, we’ve got this new guy, Scott. Oh my god, he’s so talented. I go from one (talented) person to another, it seems.” The departure of Sixx didn’t exactly take the group by surprise. “Well, we always knew that he was gonna do that at some point…for an undetermined amount of time.” Tracii said of the co-ringleader’s exit. “So, it came faster than we’d expected. It was kinda like “Oh shit, there goes our guy. Moreover, the unexpectedly brisk leaving of Sixx wouldn’t be the only change for Brides Of Destruction. As the group readied ideas for a second effort, a move from roster-heavy, cash-poor Sanctuary to long-running indie metal imprint Shrapnel Records would provide the ultimate thrust toward artistic liberty for the band. It was exactly the environment that Guns required to create “Runaway Brides.”
When asked about the jump to Shrapnel, Guns mused, “Well, I was looking for another label, other than Sanctuary, there was some stuff coming down the pipes at Sanctuary. There was a transfer (disagreement) there, between Nikki and the guy that runs Sanctuary. So, Mike Varney called me up and said ‘Hey, do you wanna do a solo record?’ The idea of recording a guitar focused album, as most Shrapnel artists do, was unappealing to Guns. “There’s nothing more boring to me than the idea of just listening to me play guitar for forty-five minutes.” Tracii went on to say, “ I thought about it and there was no way I wanted to do just an instrumental guitar record. So we thought about it and called back and said, “Here’s what we wanna do, I have my band and we’re ready to go, what can you do for Brides?” Initially, Varney balked upon taking on such a large, big-name project. “(Varney) thought, ‘Wow, that’s a lot for me to bite off.” He loved the band, but he didn’t know if he could put as much time and as much effort at the level that we expect to be placed at. So he asked his partner in Europe. They talked about it and came back and we both said ‘Hey look, if we can work together…we can definitely work it out. Guns gushes when asked about Varney’s creative input, saying, “He’s a ripping guitar player, so any feedback that you get from him is definitely right on the money.”
Guns is reasonably positive about the recording of the latest album, and in a large way he’s broken the chain of exterior pressures that he’d previously experienced in the recording studio during sessions past. Obviously, the songwriter has found the liberation to be a blessing. “I had one hundred percent freedom. It was a situation where I actually didn’t have anybody standing over me…having that kind of freedom, I really like that. We’re not renting studios by the day, nobody’s going to be like ‘Hey man, I’ve got to get out of here, you’ve got to finish that solo,’ you know what I mean?”
In being allowed to flourish creatively in a recording environment, the songwriter excels. His performance on “Runaway Brides” is shining evidence of his renewed musical vigor. Doubtlessly, it’s the record that the Sunset Strip star has longed to make, both in terms of creativity of songwriting and execution of performance. Armed with the aspiration to see the project through until it became the most excellent he felt it could be, Guns’ gritty aural reality is reflected with a deadly sonic accuracy.
With the broad latitude offered by Varney paving the way for Brides to meld sounds in a more artistically relevant manner than ever before, Guns was more than happy to discard the distractions historically inherent in bureaucracy of record labels. “When we first finished those nine songs for the first record, and we were told that this was our record that was a heartbreaker,” he said. “Not that there was anything wrong with the record, we just weren’t prepared for someone to say ‘Well, you’re done. Put it out, go on tour and have a great time.’ Shocked to discover the demos would become the actual first album, the members of Brides Of Destruction became a tad apprehensive about the debut’s release. “Everybody was of the mindset that these were nine demos and everything was written and we want to go in and make a record now” Guns revealed. “That wasn’t the way the process worked (for the second record). This time it was, ‘Make the record you want to make, take your time.’ Certainly the time spent has proven well worth it, as fans will agree upon hearing tracks like the mesmerizing “Lord Of The Mind”, a track which slightly recalls mid-career Soundgarden at times, the attitude-laden lead single “White Trash” or the sleazy, retro-revamped styling of “Tunnel Of Love, a track that is driven by an absolutely rocking Scott Coogan rhythm.
For the Brides, crossover potential is definitely an ace in the hole. Considering the band’s capability to connect with younger fans who viewed their “Shut The F**k Up” video on MTV2 as well as their ability to bring in the rather substantial eighties metal audience, wildly diverse crows can be expected to attend the band’s upcoming concerts. Naturally, a major touring itinerary has been aligned in order to take this fresh material to the masses. There’s no query whatsoever that Tracii is ready to take his badass rock ‘n’ roll circus on the road. “We have an amazing schedule coming up for the next twelve months”, the six-string shredder illuminates, “We leave in ten days for our first American run, which is seven weeks. We’ll be coming home after that for a week and then we leave for Europe. We’ll be home for the holidays and into January, and then it’s back on another American run and back to Europe. We’re gonna go out and kick some ass.”
Fans should expect an energetic live performance. In concert, the group’s latest material should be well represented, as they look toward performing ten “Runaway Brides” tracks per evening. For good measure, favorites from the group’s debut will also be thrown into the concert equation, but the guitarist stresses that the focus will definitely be on the new album. Positioned to headline events throughout the first three legs of the tour, the group intends to take a victory lap around the major European festivals in the summer of 2006.
Tracii’s desire to express himself through his music in front of an audience is deep-seated. More than eager to return to the stage with this fresh batch of material, the guitarist states, “Look, the reason I wanted to go public with my music, back from when I was probably eleven years old, is that I really wanted in my mind, to have a big impact on people. I wanted to have the impact of a Kiss or a Ted Nugent, people like that. I thought, ‘If I could write cool music like that and have people admire my music like I admired those guys, that would be awesome!’”
Enthusiasm for the stage is seemingly as strong as his creative impulses. As for the fact that the guitarist is among one of a handful of musicians that continue to remain in the limelight well after the demise of the rather encompassing eighties Hollywood scene, Guns thoughtfully states, “I don’t really look at it that way. I don’t want to be egotistical, but I remember when Guns N’ Roses and L.A. Guns and Jane’s Addiction came out…You know, Slash is really the only contemporary that I feel that I have left. We were friends all through High School, we still are to this day and really, it’s in a non-nostalgic kind of way. Where a lot of bands that had come out at that time, they’re still doing it, but a lot of people weren’t moving forward, kinda sittin’ on their asses and doing the bare minimum to get by.”
Critics that wrongly wrote the Brides off as a novelty, one-off project are due for the consumption of a substantial portion of crow as “Runaway Brides” is undoubtedly all of the proof that listeners need in order to know that Guns and the boys in Brides Of Destruction can bash it out with the elite of their ilk. From the weighty thunder exhibited on “Criminal” to the highly determined emotion contained in “Brothers”, this latest effort showcases the band’s dynamic ability, all the while retaining the edginess and attitude more commonly associated with punk rock and further, more aggressive types of metal. Guns perceives his craft to be at something of an evolutionary watershed, saying, “ I think it will keep on evolving.” Although the axeman has wrapped up production on the Brides’ deeply powerful sophomore endeavor, he is already looking toward the character of the band’s future work. “I think I’m gonna cut the really heavy stuff off at this record. I think I’ve proven to myself that I can write the heaviest rock riffs ever, but that’s not what’s really necessary in this band today.”
Tracii sums up the band’s rowdy underpinnings when illustrating, “Punk rock is more of an attitude, especially for the guys that were there when it happened. It doesn’t need to reflect so much in the music, but I don’t look at this band as a definite punk rock thing. I think it has a definite punk rock attitude. I think that Chuck Berry has that attitude and I think Hendrix has that attitude. These are roots that we share, and I think that those are solid roots…. We have the ability to maintain a proper asshole attitude at all times, but we bring a hippy aspect into it as well. We’re not a band that are punks one day and hippies the next, we’re more like hippy punks. That’s where we’re at; it’s the only fair label we can give ourselves.”
Surely, such an attitude provides the fuel behind the fire that is unleashed on “Runaway Brides.” Change has brought opportunity for Tracii Guns and his band of scary men and if the striking, versatile rockers that grace the outfit’s latest are any indication, fans should wield a particularly powerful new appetite for the destruction that Brides will be dishing out in concert venues across the nation this summer.
