They say time brings everything to those who wait. And for hard rock vocalist Paul Black, it was almost two decades of waiting to finally reap his just rewards. Yes, twenty years after losing his job as lead vocalist for the up and coming Hollywood glam-metal band L.A. Guns, Black is back and touring with former L.A. Guns super-star guitarist Tracii Guns and original L.A.Guns drummer Nicky Alexander. These veteran performers are currently touring the country as the Tracii Guns Band with Tracii’s son Jeremy Guns rounding out the line-up on bass.

This unlikely reunion came together last year when Paul Black released a CD of demos that were recorded back in the early to mid 80’s when Black fronted LA Guns. Paul Black’s L.A. Guns “Blacklist” CD finally showed the world Black’s important contributions to the band. Before the release of this CD, many fans where unaware that Black co-wrote the majority of the songs from L.A. Guns fan favorite 1987 debut release.

While putting together “Blacklist,” Black rekindled his friendship with Tracii Guns, who left L.A. Guns in 2002 to form the Brides of Destruction with Motley Crue member Nikki Sixx. Then in early 2006 when Guns was looking to assemble a band for a solo tour, Black was his choice for vocalist of his band. The recently formed Tracii Guns Band has just finished a major U.S. tour and now has plans to continue on with the release of a CD and live DVD.

What follows is an exclusive interview with the comeback musician of the year, Paul Black. In this interview Black discusses the current tour and his past in L.A. Guns and his future projects. So get ready rockers, Black is Back!!!

                                                                                                                                                                                    

Paul, congrats on your return to the band that you should have been in for the last 20 years.
Thanks, it feels great.

In listening to your CD, “Blacklist,” I immediately noticed that the band was really extremely raw and sleazy. L.A. Guns with you in the line-up would have definitely made a mark.
Thanks, yeah, years back we had a really good band, with a cool vibe and a lot of energy. The band was great and we were selling out clubs and for some reason it just fell apart and relationships soured. All the great music that we had, just kinda got lost. But now we’ve been able to patch things up and bury the hatchet for the sake of getting together and doing what we love--playing rock n’ roll. There are no egos or rock star attitudes and it’s not about going out and getting a big record deal. This is about going out as friends, making music, connecting with the audience and making new friends. And so far, it’s been a real great time and a real good experience.

You were going to tour with the original L.A. Guns lineup last year after you released “Blacklist,” but it fell through. What happened and how did this tour with the Tracii Guns band come about?
Well, when the Black List record came out it started stirring up a lot of interest, controversy and curiosity. Mick Cripps had the idea of doing a little tour for old time sake to see how it went and to maybe make a little money and promote the record. We were trying to figure out how to do it at the time. We couldn’t do it right away because Tracii was out touring with the Brides. But then after Mick got us all hyped up on the idea, he lost interest and backed out. But, in fairness to him there were some issues going on in his life, which were more important. So then, we didn’t think it was going to happen, but Mick had got Tracii, Nickey and I talking again. And then eventually, we decided why not, let’s just do it. So we got Jeremy to play bass and booked a tour. Basically what we have now is the real original L.A. Guns with a new engine.

It must be a real trip for Tracii to be playing his songs with his son Jeremy Guns in the band.
It’s wonderful. Everyone thinks it’s awesome. He is 23 years old, has a great personality. He has a lot of energy, he’s a great bass player and all the girls love him. He’s a real rockstar.

Now isn’t this your first real major tour ever?
Yes. This is my very first tour ever. I did some short trips with LA Guns when I was with them before. But it was just some California dates or Arizona dates and things like that. We had no record at the time, so there really wasn’t any reason to do a big major tour. It wasn’t till the first LA Guns CD came out that they started touring and I wasn’t in the band at that point. I’ve been in other bands that were supposed to tour but for some reason things would always fall apart during the planning stages. I almost thought this tour wasn’t gonna happen. That’s what I’m used to. But…we’re doing it. My first ever. It’s really cool to do this with my old band-mates. Endless entertainment.

So with this being your first major tour did anything occur that surprised you or caught you off guard?
Getting asked for my autograph was a little surprising. It was really cool. People showed up with the L.A.Guns “Black List” record, the Sonic Boom record and The Joneses record. Also they would come to me with the first two L.A Guns records and ask me to sign those. I pointed out that I didn’t actually play on them and they’d say “That’s OK we know you wrote the songs”. And I realized then that I would always be a part of L.A. Guns.
Also, this tour was a real test for me. They booked 17 days in row and we made it up to 16, because the 17th show fell through. But it was good to know that I could do 16 shows in a row, night after night, and still have a voice left. Tracii told me that LA Guns never used to do more than three shows in row in the past.
                                                                                                                                                                                       Wow, that’s incredible that you could do that many shows. Does the band have any future tour or recording plans?
Yes, as a matter of fact we do. This tour was rather a last minute thing. I don’t think it was promoted too aggressively. But, we’re out here and we’re having fun. It’s been more of a test to see if we could recapture the same chemistry we had back in the day. And of course we still had it, in fact better than it was back then. The energy is great. In July we’re doing two weeks in Arizona, Texas and some other southern states and then in August we’re working our way back north to tour Canada. After that I want to do Europe, South America, Japan, Australia well…just the whole fucking world. Tracii and I have even started writing together again since we’ve been on the road which. is another thing we haven’t done for twenty years. We decided that when we get back to LA we are going to start recording a new record. Plus, at the end of July we have plans to play a private party at Swinghouse Recording studio in L.A. and film it for a live DVD.

With Mick Cripps as well?
Yeah, we are hoping to get Mick back, at least as a special guest during the show. We also plan on having some other guests as well.

What does the new material that you’re writing sound like?
It’s interesting. We’ve been trading a lot of Ideas and its very mixed and there is a lot of music to choose from. I told Tracii I want us to write an opera. We’re a rock band so it’s very rock n roll. It’s not 80s or glam or metal. It’s just pure rock n roll. And it’s quite different than any other L.A. Guns stuff. We’ll be exploring new territory and taking quite a few risks.

Will the band be called L.A. Guns or will it be called The Tracii Guns band?
Well of course whatever it ends up being called, this line up is, in fact, the true L.A. Guns. When Mick first talked to me, the original plan was to put the real original L.A. Guns back together for a reunion. We were absolutely intending on calling it L.A. Guns. No one even imagined that it should be called anything else cause that’s what it is. But right about the time we were planning this we found out that our replacements had put a band together and adopted the LAG name and were booking gigs in the same towns we were. That made it difficult and confusing for promoters. We really wanted to build this into a special event since we were finally reuniting 20 years after our label broke us up. But, with them using the same name and still playing our music it just kinda put a damper on the situation. How do you explain to a promoter that that the L.A. Guns playing down the street at another venue is a different L.A. Guns? So, for this tour we used Traciis name to avoid the confusion. Still, we all kinda felt strange that we’ve reunited the original L.A. Guns which we started so many years ago and yet our name is being used by a completely new line up without a single one of us left. I’m on good terms with Phil though. He sent me an email before I left wishing me luck on this tour. I think had we been able to communicate with him about our intentions further in advance that the use of the L.A. Guns name would not have been an issue. We released the Black List record which featured the original L.A. Guns just as they were releasing an album under the L.A. Guns name with new recruits. Their release was a surprise to me cause I actually thought there was no current L.A. Guns since Tracii was taking a break. I think next time there is a record released we should discuss with each other how it will happen so we don’t compete with each other. I’m sure Phil wouldn’t want to stand in the way or compete with the original line-up’s release and promotion of the songs, which were lost so long ago. After all, it’s for the fans so I would hope he would support us. I understand though that Tracii did request that they not use the name in order to allow it to gain some value. Kinda like an absence makes the heart grow fonder concept. It makes perfect sense. But apparently so far they haven’t been honoring Traciis request even though he is a founding member. I really hope that changes in light of the new situation. So at the moment I’m not really sure what’s in store for us as far as the name goes. We had talked about using Cock Star, which I really like. But our first project will probably be to record the first L.A. Guns record which we never got to make because the label tore the original band apart before we got to make it. We have some really cool songs that never even made it to tape including a great ballad called “Shattered Mirror”. So we’re planning on re-working some of the old original LAG songs we wrote way back then which got lost. We’ll probably throw in a few of the new songs too. It’s a record, which should have been made long ago. Of course that album will be for L.A. Guns fans and since it will have the original lost songs of the original L.A. Guns and recorded by the original members it’ll go under the L.A. Guns name without a doubt. And the live DVD will have the L.A. Guns name as well. We may decide though, to create a new name when we do all new material. Tracii Guns, Cock Star, L.A. Guns, Britney Spears… I don’t know yet. We’ll see what happens.

I see. So getting back with Tracii after all these years must give you a sense of closure on the whole ordeal.
 Yeah, it does. I love playing with Tracii he’s a great guitarist and really knows how to excite a crowd. We have a lot of fun on Stage together. The fact that we are able to get together and play the songs we wrote together when we were young really helped solidify our friendship all the past resentments have flown out the window. There have been some real magical moments on this tour and a lot of music has been popping out on stage unrehearsed from out of the past and some from out of nowhere. Tracii broke into a great version of “One Way Ticket” a ballad we had written for the first record. It was about my girlfriend at the time. I sang along and I think that was our best moment so far. It was really interesting to talk to Tracii about what happened and get to the bottom of it. We were kind of comparing notes with one another and we found out some rather interesting things. The record label and management did a lot of things behind our back. They wanted to change my lyrics because, in their mind, they were too controversial. I didn’t want to change my lyrics, it’s my art, I wrote them that way because that’s the way I felt at the time. I didn’t think it was their place to tell a songwriter how to write his songs. Sign the band or don’t but don’t fuck with the music. That was my attitude. I guess my unwillingness to conform really damaged my career. But, I didn’t want to change my music or compromise myself. Apparently, they wanted a singer who was willing to let them call the shots. Polygram wanted to hire outside songwriters to change my lyrics and stuff. They had a meeting with the band and told them that they would only give us the record deal if they could put a new singer in. My manager who was supposed to be looking out for me supported this move and probably even instigated it. He brought in his friend Phil Lewis as my replacement. And Tracii and Mick who had a million dollar record deal hanging in front of them didn’t know what else they could possibly do but agree to the move in order to hold on to the deal we had all worked so hard for. Funny thing, after my manager brought Phil into the picture the Label then told the band to get rid of the manager. So that pretty much gives you an idea of what happened and why I left the band. That move caused Nickey to leave too. The record company wanted a band of their own making with the essence of what we started. Tracii told me that he always felt bad about that and that the band was never the same with his friends gone. But, it doesn’t matter anymore. Our friendship has been renewed and the past is the past. We were able to put all the bitterness behind and just concentrate on the most important thing, the music. And at the moment, there is no major label around to fuck with us. And our goal is and will remain very simple. Good Music and Good Times.

Well Paul thanks for you time and we’ll catch up again with you soon.
Thanks Tom.

                                                       www.blackcitymusic.com

Check out my 2005 interview with Paul Black here !!!

Hey GlamMetal.com readers, how would you like to ask Paul Black your own question? Well, now you can!!! Here at GlamMetal.com we are pleased to announce that Paul has agreed to do a column for us called “Dear Paul Black.” Feel free to ask him anything about his musical career. e-mail you question here and we will forward it to Paul Black and post it on our “Dear Paul Black” page coming soon. So do it now, exclusively here at GlamMetal.com !!!

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