Sometimes the music industry can be a cruel and heartless business. If you don't play by their rules, or fit a certain image then you will be replaced. One singer that found out first hand about all of the trial and tribulations that often arise in the music business is original  LA Guns singer Paul Black.
 
Many LA Guns fans do not realize that singer Paul Black actually helped co-write a lot of the songs on the debut album of LA Guns on Polygram Records, including "Show No Mercy," "One Way Ticket,” and "One More Reason To Die." 
 
In 2005, Paul Black released LA Guns (Black List), which is a collection of demos recorded in the early eighties, when he fronted LA Guns for three years. 
 
Paul Black has a style that is heavily influenced by his punk roots. Paul Black is a true artist whose passion for creating music has survived for over twenty years. Black has never giving up his musical beliefs to compromise for commercial success.

Now after 20 years, three members of the original line-up of LA Guns have reunited and are currently touring the country. The band features Tracii Guns on guitar, Paul Black on vocals, Nickey Alexander on drums, and Jeremy Guns on bass.
 
I had the opportunity to witness the original line-up of LA Guns this past summer. Paul and Tracii both have a dangerous and sleazy- punk rock style that when combined on stage, results in a cutting edge sound. Along with the punk infused rhythm section, which consists of drummer Nickey Alexander, who also has performed with The Lords of the New Church, and bass player Jeremy Guns, the original LA Guns has a punk/glam sleaze sound that is reminiscent of their early days on Sunset Strip, when music was raw and exciting.
 
I recently spoke to Paul Black and we discussed the early origins of LA Guns, what it was like to hang out with GNR back in the heyday of metal and why the original line-up of LA Guns has reunited after twenty years. .

In this interview, Paul Black discusses, the past, present, and the very exciting future of one of the most influential bands that started the whole Glam-metal scene, LA Guns. I urge everyone to check out the original line-up of LA Guns, when they come to your town this fall. If you like your music raw and in your face with a touch of punk/Glam-metal, then you will love the original line- up of LA Guns.

                                                                                    

Hi Paul, where is LA Guns performing tonight? I know that you will be heading to the East Coast next week.
Right now we are heading towards West Virginia. We are driving through the Appalachian Mountains in Maryland. We are on the way to West Virginia. We are doing a show there tonight, and then we are heading to Toronto, Canada tomorrow. I kind of take it day by day. Next week, I know we are playing in Newport, Rhode Island in New England on Tuesday, and the Webster Theatre on November 16.
 
I am looking forward to the New England shows. Tell me a little bit about the tour.
This is the original LA Guns. It is the founding members that started the band 20 years ago. We just recently got back together. This the 20th Anniversary Tour to celebrate the 20 years of LA Guns. We were in Argentina for a week. Then we went to Mexico for a week. Now we are doing the U.S. We will be out about two months on the road in the U.S., then we are going to take a few weeks break, then we are going to go to Europe again.
 

Yes, you are going to be heading to Spain and Italy. Now is this your first time performing there with LA Guns?
Yes, actually this is one my first time on tour with LA Guns. When we started to play, we played around the West Coast twenty years ago. I was with the band for three years, I wrote and co-wrote most of what is on the first record. I left the band right after we got the record deal. 
 
Who orchestrated getting the original line-up of LA Guns back together? Was it Tracii Guns idea?
Actually, it kind of was fucked up, because I released a record called "Blacklist" that was all of the original recordings that we did prior to the record deal. These are all the original versions of the songs. There are 18 songs all together. It is kind of a documentary record. It started getting a lot of good reviews and a lot of attention. I was in Europe just visiting, when I got back I got a call from Mick Cripps, the bass player. So originally I think, it was his idea. He wanted to know if I wanted to get together to do a few shows, to just have some fun and make some money. I said, "Yeah it sounds great." I left the band in 1987, so it has been almost 20 years since I played any shows with them. It would be good to get together with old friends, and play the old songs. But then, as we were putting it together, Tracii was on the road with Brides of Destruction at the time, so he was busy. We were just trying to find the time period when to do it. Mick got caught up with other personal problems. Then we kind of put the idea to rest. Then it got Tracii and me talking. Tracii gave me a call one day and said,” Why don't we just do it?" I have a tour we can do, we can call it the Tracii Guns Band. So we ended up calling our original drummer Nickey Alexander, we did a lot of Brides songs, cover songs, some LA Guns songs. We just went out having fun. Then eventually it just evolved into becoming LA Guns again. We now have Jeremy Guns on bass. Mick Cripps was the original bass player of LA Guns.
 
How does it feel Paul, after twenty years to be finally touring with LA Guns? You were so instrumental in writing some of LA Guns biggest hits.
I wrote "Show No Mercy", One More Reason To Die," "Sex Action." "Sex Action" was actually the song that got the band signed. All those songs were pretty much put together by this line-up that is touring right now. Not too many people know that though.
 
Yes, I am a big LA Guns fan and I did not know that. It is great to be able to see the original line-up of LA Guns.
A lot of people either come up to me and think that I am either Tracii or Phil. Then I tell them that I am Paul Black, and they say who are you? People are shocked that I was the original singer, because nobody knew about me.
 
Was it the record company back in the day that brought Phil Lewis in? Was that what transpired twenty years ago?
Yes, that's what it was. At the time, we built up the band so that we were selling out clubs, we were coming neck in neck with Guns N' Roses. GNR had just got signed. The record company was trying to control me. They wanted me to write a certain kind of song. A lot of my songs were kind of like drug oriented. They were controversial. But that was what I was going through at the time. What the band was going through, what the whole rock and 'roll scene was going through. That is what I wrote about. I wrote about what I felt. There were rumors that Guns N' Roses were going to get dropped from their label because they were too reckless. They wanted me to tame down my lyrics. I was not really willing to compromise my art. I was a songwriter. I didn't feel it was the record companies job to tell me how to write a song. I wanted to keep them the way they were. My manager kind of betrayed me. He had a friend named Phil that was in England. So him, the management and record label sat down together, said we are going to give you the record deal, but we are going to put our singer in there. So they changed my songs on the first record, they changed my lyrics, without my permission. Regardless of my wishes. They pretty much collected all the promo material from all of the magazines and re-wrote the bio's to make it sound like the band actually started in 1987. So they got Phil Lewis to front the band for twenty years.
 

Well that was kind of unfair to you. After all of your hard work and dedication to the band.
That is the way the record business is. It isn't fair. Life isn't fair.
 
Did you ever hang out with Guns N 'Roses back in the day?
Yeah, we did shows together.
 
Was Tracii in Gun N' Roses when you were hanging out?
I was in a band called The Joneses. I was the drummer. Tracii was playing in Guns N’ Roses, he was the original guitar player. I think he did seven shows with them. I think he had falling out with Axl. He dropped out of Guns N' Roses. I was putting a band together with Mick Cripps. Tracii was putting together a band with Nickey D. I wanted to put a side band together other than the Joneses, so I could put my own songs in. Mick ended up jamming with Tracii and Nickey, and he called up me and said why don't you come up and sing with these guys because they already have a drummer. Nickey Alexander and I use to replace each other in bands all the time, we were both drummers. Then we ended up in the same band. We put LA Guns together. Originally when we were putting LA Guns together, we were calling it Faster Pussycat. 
 
But Taime was never the singer for LA Guns? How did that name come about?
No, Mick and I decided we were going to call the band Faster Pussycat. We were talking to Taime about singing. But then I ended up being the singer. But when we put this line-up together, a guy named Raz asked if we would use the name LA Guns and he would financially back us, if we would use that name. So we wound up with him backing, and we dropped the name Faster Pussycat. So when we dropped the name Faster Pussycat that is when Taime picked it up and put another line-up together calling it Faster Pussycat.
 
Paul, that is a great story. So that is how the original line-up of LA Guns got together. It was amazing how everyone knew each other and how really close all the musicians were on the LA Strip. It must have really been a really tight knit community. No other scene in the country, I don't ever think could compare to the heyday of 80's metal on Sunset Strip. Would you agree?
It was a real incestuous scene. We all played with each other. That is how different line-ups were formed. One guy would leave one band, and form another band. That is how it all came together.
 
On the current tour, are you playing any of the Blacklist songs live? What is the set list like these days on tour?
Yes, we are. We are playing "Winter Fool", Blacklist versions of "One More Reason To Die," "Show No Mercy" and One Way Ticket". We are playing "On and On " that song was never released on a major label.
 
One of the most interesting aspects of the new line-up that I noticed when I saw you perform recently, was that you and Tracii have the same kind of punk musical style that first drew me to LA Guns. I really enjoyed that raw, sleazy, in your face sound that LA Guns is so famous for. Did The Sex Pistols, and New York Dolls punk movement heavily influence you?
I am a huge New York Dolls fan. I love the Pistols. I was really into the punk rock scene. I grew up playing drums. I started out as a drummer. I played a lot of bluegrass bands. I grew up in the hills of Northern California. That is kind of where my roots were. Then I started to get interested in rock and roll like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones were really a big influence for me. Then I started getting into jazz and other styles of drumming. I went to San Jose State University. I was a music major and percussion major. Then I moved to LA, in 1980. When I was going to school in San Jose, I was always hanging out in the San Francisco punk rock scene. I was going to see bands like the Dead Kennedy's. I was like 19. In May of 1980, I moved to LA. I got really heavenly into the punk rock scene. To me the punk rock scene was something that I could really believe in. It wasn't like a rock star kind of thing, it was like stripping everything down to basic rock and roll. I took all of the techniques that I learned in school and turned them into raw rock and roll. I was in a band called the Mau Maus. It was a lot of fun.
 
What about your band Black Cherry? Was that punk oriented?
Black Cherry was more rock and roll. I played in a band called The Joneses, which was kind of a mix of punk rock, New York Dolls style mixed with Aerosmith. It was a little before bands like Guns N' Roses and LA Guns, Faster Pussycat and Poison. Then I started a side band LA Guns, which started becoming really popular. So eventually, I left The Joneses.
 
What made you want to make the transition from drummer to singer? Do you enjoy both the same equally?
I always sang from behind the drums, because I thought it would be more versatile, as a musician. It wasn't that I really wanted to, it just sort of happened that way. It was very hard for a drummer to teach a singer to sing. I had songs in my head. I already had a band that I was playing drums with. The Joneses I played drums in, and LA Guns I sang in. There was even a show one night, when I played with both bands. Johnny Thunders was in town, and he played two shows at The Roxy. One was at 8 o'clock and one was 11 o'clock show. So for the 8 o'clock show, The Joneses opened up, and for the 11 o'clock show LA Guns opened up.
 
Did you ever get to open for the notorious Stiv Bators and Lords of the New Church?
LA Guns did at Center Ballroom at Long beach. I did twice. That was a good show.

It was so sad that Stiv Bator’s passed away. A car in London hit him.
Yes, he was cool. 
 
Paul, You have worked with some interesting people in the music business. Tell me about working with Robby Krieger of The Doors?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I have an album that he produced of mine that I am going to put out. That was I was in the Mau Maus. The Mau Maus was a really big punk rock band on the LA scene. There are some recordings that we did that never got released. One of them was a recording that we did at Mad Dog Studios in Venice, California with Robby Krieger producing. It was a two-day session, our guitar player didn't show up the second day to do leads. So Robby Krieger just happens to have his guitar with him, and he said he would do the leads. I have one recording that actually has Robby Krieger playing with me in The Mau Maus. He went out to his car and he took out a little pig nose amp and the guitar that he was playing. I expected him to come out with a big Marshall or something. He brings in this little pig nose amp. I said,” You are going to use that for this recording?" Robby said, "Yeah, this is what I did on all of The Doors stuff with." The pig nose amp sounded huge. So it was a little unusual because it was a punk rock band, with The Doors guitarist playing leads, with a Doors sound. It is really unique. He gave me all of the master tapes and gave me permission to release it. It is being mixed right now. I have been busy out on the road. I have a lot of stuff that I have been sitting on that I want to get out. I want to get out all the Black Cherry stuff and all of the Mau Maus stuff.
 

Any plans for the original line-up of LA Guns to record new material?
Yes, we already have been writing. We have a one song called, "I Do." We have been playing live. The plan is, if we ever get a break from touring, to write some new songs, and record a record that is going to be half old songs that never got released that we have written from years ago, and half new songs that we have written twenty years later. We have one song that was called,” Shattered Mirror," that was our first ballad that we wrote, and it never got recorded or released. We are going to mix with old and new. 
 
Paul that sounds exciting. I am looking forward to it. Is there anything else that you would like to say to the LA Guns fans at Glam-Metal.com TM?
The tour is a lot of fun. If you hear us coming to town, come on down and say hello. We want to meet our friends and fans. It is really great to be back together with old friends. It is not about going out and getting a big record deal or that. That is all behind us. It is about going out and playing rock n' roll and having fun. We hope everybody comes out and supports this thing. It is a real unique opportunity to see the actual original members of LA Guns. Because this is the first tour ever of all the original members all around the U.S. People still don't know, even on this tour that still don't know, who I am. They come up to me and say hello Tracii, or hello Phil. I did a bunch of shows, and they would say thank you so much Phil for putting on a great show. They associate the names with LA Guns, by they don't know who the original members really are.
 
Thank you Paul, It was great discussing the 20th Anniversary Tour with you. Best of Luck on the tour. We are looking forward to the hearing the new material! LA Guns have a huge fan base at GlamMetal.com. It is so exciting to see the original line -up on tour!

For tour info check out www.tracii-guns.com