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| Paul Black |
UNSEEN FOR YEARS, ORIGINAL L.A.GUNS SINGER (BEFORE THEY WERE SIGNED) PAUL BLACK SHOWS BACK UP ON THE SCENE WITH GUNS MAIN MAN TRACII TO PUNCH OUT A 25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR. THE PROBLEM IS PHIL LEWIS IS STILL OUT THERE SPLITTING HEADS WITH THEIR CONTINUING VERSION OF L.A. GUNS. 2 GUNS FACE TO FACE, HOW LONG CAN IT LAST? WE ASKED PAUL.
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DECEMBER 2006
HEY PAUL – HOW ARE YOU AND WHATS IN THE WORKS FOR YOU AT THE MOMENT?
I’m doin great. I’m singin with L.A. Guns again at the moment. We just played in SLO Town Ca. San Luis is great. Had a really fun show last night. We’re now in our last two weeks of our U.S. tour, which ends on Saturday Dec 16th in Hollywood at the Viper Room. It’s possible that show might be recorded for a live album. Then we’re gonna play New York on December 28th and New Year’s Eve in Alameda, Ca which is near San Francisco. After that we leave to do the European tour January 2nd. So were pretty busy
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SO WE MIGHT AS WELL ASK ABOUT WHAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT, AND THAT’S THE FUED BETWEEN YOU AND PHIL LEWIS, OR YOURS AND TRACII’S L.A. GUNS & THEIR L.A. GUNS?
There is no feud. It takes 2 to argue. But Phil seems quite upset that we’ve finally put the original band back together for the 20th anniversary tour. He’s not being very respectful and he’s been venting on the net but he hasn’t talked directly to me. He’s just been putting me down and anyone else who dares to say anything good about me. Tracii and I have periodically talked for years about putting the original line up back together for some special shows someday. What can I say? We started this band and we’ll put it back together if we want. I’m pretty sure Tracii will do some more shows with Phil at some point down the line and you won’t hear me complaining about that. I’m just havin fun for now. Anyway we’ve tried to include Phil in on this. I invited him to do a song with me at The Cathouse anniversary show. I also invited him to come sing with me when I was doin a Black Cherry reunion show and he accepted my invitations. So, I don’t understand the problem. Besides Phil knows how to contact me and I’ve asked him to call me so we can talk and try to coordinate things so that there is no conflict or tension. Instead of trying to talk to me directly he seems to prefer to try and bait me into a public argument. Well, I guess we’ll just let him howl. I prefer to just go out and play some rock n roll. So let’s talk about something else.
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Black City Breakdown |
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I THINK THEY SEE YOU GUYS AS A REAL ANNOYANCE TO THEIR BAND?
Well I guess the feeling is sorta mutual. We’re trying to have a good time and do something special. But they seem to be spending a lot of time and energy trying to sabotage our shows and trying to turn people against us rather than concentrating on their own thing. They’re trying to compete rather than joining in and supporting this celebration. It seems to be backfiring on them but nonetheless it’s still a little annoying. But really, let’s change the subject.
PHIL SEEMS TO THINK IT WON’T LAST LONG AT ALL?
Hey he may be right. The general plan anyway was to do this for a short time for a special tour and then give the name a rest and let it gain value. I’m not gonna pretend. I thought this band was gonna self-destruct myself during the first two weeks of this U.S. tour. We’ve had so many blowouts. We even had another one the other night. Tracii, Jeremy and I. But when it was all over we all hugged. For the most part we’ve learned to weather the fights because everyone of us passionately loves this band. Its levelled off now and we’ve gotten really tight and the shows are getting better and better. And as the word gets out, the crowds are getting bigger and bigger. We have a great rock n roll band now. But… you never know. We’ve broken up before. I guess all that means is you better come see the original L.A. Guns while you still have the chance. Wanna talk about something else now?
THIS IS WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT BRO! THEY DO SEEM A LOT MORE HOSTILE THAN YOU GUYS?
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Paul & Tracii get back into it |
Hahahaha yep. We just wanna play music and spread the love. If Phil were here I’d give him a hug…but, he’d probably push me away.
IT SEEMS TO BE AIMED AT YOU PERSONALLY AS WELL, HOW DO YOU COPE WITH THAT?
Nothing new. Why should I care? Phil has been promoting me as nothing but a junkie for twenty years and mentions it at every opportunity even though he has never seen me intoxicated or high. Now it’s getting more hostile with him to where he’s putting down my talent as a songwriter and a singer as well. Though, you’d think he’d be a little nicer to me considering his musical career centres around singing my songs. Ya know come to think of it, I’ve carried those guys for a long time now and I’m tired of it. Anyway, my friends and family know who I am and what I’m all about. That’s what’s important. Phil doesn’t even know me. He wasn’t around when I put L.A. Guns together and he wasn’t around during my drug battles. You really gotta wonder why it’s so important to him that he would spend so much of his time convincing people how they should view me instead of allowing them judge for themselves.
I HEARD YOU GUYS ARE GOING INTO THE STUDIO NEXT YEAR? HOW THE HELL DOES THIS WORK, WHO REALLY OWNS THE NAME AND WHATS THE ARRANGEMENT?
It works like this. We write some songs, we rehearse, we record some cool music and we put it out. It’ll be called L.A. Guns. I gave permission to Tracii and Mick to use the name without me for their new line up in a 1990 legal settlement agreement between us but I never gave up the right to use it myself. It was never my intention to give Phil and Steve rights to use the name on their own. I let the rest of em use the name only while they were collectively playing with Tracii and Mick and that’s not the case anymore. I guess they forgot that. They just simply decided to start using the name without permission from Tracii, Mick, Nickey or myself. Now they’ve released a couple records under the L.A. Guns name without any of the original players and they didn’t even have our permission. Just cause they did it doesn’t mean that they had the right to do it. In my opinion Tracii has more right to use the name than anyone.
SO WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM A NEW RELEASE FROM THE ORIGINAL L.A. GUNS?
Well we’re planning on coming back with some original classics from years ago which have been lost and mixing it with some new songs which we are currently writing right now.
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YOUR GAME WILL HAVE TO UP TO COMPETE WITH THE LAST COUPLE OF L.A GUNS RELEASES, I GUESS YOU DO HAVE TRACII AFTER ALL?
First of all I don’t recognize those as legitimate L.A. Guns releases other than the Black List record which does feature Tracii and the entire original line up. Yes we do have Tracii. He’s a great guitarist and it was Tracii more than anyone who helped define the L.A. Guns sound. Obviously everyone is looking forward to finally hearing a new L.A. Guns record with him. We also have Nicky Alexander, Jeremy Guns and me. I’m confident that this record will win a lot of people over. That is if we don’t self-destruct before it’s finished haha. |
Black List |
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I HEARD YOU GUYS ARE HEADING TO THE U.K?
We leave on January 2nd for Italy, were also playing Spain, UK, Turkey and Greece. We’re all looking forward to that.
IT MUST HAVE BEEN HARD TO SEE THAT ORIGINAL L.A. GUNS ALBUM RELEASED WITHOUT BEING CREDITED AT ALL!
Yeah that was really fucked up and did a lot of damage to my career. But I’m only telling you that now because you’re asking me that now. All that happened years ago and it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me by a long shot. It’s water under the bridge. Life is tough. Ya need to learn to roll with the punches and be grateful for the good things you get to experience and not live in the past. You can remember it, learn from it, talk about it, and sing about it, but…don’t live in it. Life is too short. I’ve fought some major battles and I’ve experience some major victories. I’m glad to be alive right now and be able to experience whatever comes along…good or bad.
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Paul and some L.A. punk named Axl Rose |
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THEN YOU HAD TO FIGHT HARD TO GET THAT, ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU RETIRE FOR A WHILE I TAKE IT?
Nope. Not even close. All I did was make some lawyers a good chunk of money. But I had no other choice. I tried to work things out with my former band mates and Polygram directly but it couldn’t be done. Had we all been a little smarter we’d have talked prior to the record coming out. They’d have given me a few simple credits where they were due and avoided a costly lawsuit and they’d have had more money from the label for promotion. They also could’ve kept a relationship with me to co-write more songs and I would’ve signed with a different label. We all could’ve been financially set. Well, we were stupid. Now they still wanna fight over a few crumbs that are left? There’s nothing to fight about and I don’t care anymore. I’ve said it before and Ill say it again. I Love Music, that’s why I play. Rock n roll should be fun. |
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L.A. Guns circa 1986 |
YOU ACTUALLY STARTED FASTER PUSSYCAT AS WELL, RIGHT? MAN YOU GOT STIFFED A FEW TIMES?
I didn’t get stiffed there. The first version of L.A. Guns is what we were calling Faster Pussycat. We dropped the name and started using the name L.A. Guns so Taime put a different band together called Faster Pussycat. It was a really cool band with Brent Muscat, Eric Stacey and Greg Steele. What we were calling Faster Pussycat briefly actually became L.A. Guns instead.
SOMETHING HAS TO BE SORTED OUT EVENTUALLY WITH THE TWO BANDS? OR CAN THEY BOTH GO ON TOGETHER?
Well I suppose we could both go on together because we’re kinda doing that now. We seem to be butting heads though. The conflict is that they’re using the name L.A. Guns and disrespecting the founding members. They conveniently forget that they are able to do what they’re doing mostly because of the groundwork we laid out during the first few years of the band. To top it off they’re ungrateful. They get to reap the benefits of all our groundwork and then instead of recognizing us, they insult us. Again, from my point of view having been there in the very beginning, it’s completely impossible for me to recognize them as L.A. Guns because they’re not L.A. Guns. I don’t know any of them and I can testify that none of them were around when I put this band together in 1985. They’re campaigning to be accepted as L.A. Guns and they’ve been able to convince people who don’t know any better just like the record label did after I left in 1987. It’s continuing a big lie only worse cause there’s not even one of us in that line up. We’re all back together though in this line up. We are L.A. Guns…period! At the very least there should be some communication to avoid conflict just as there should have been way back then. That’s my honest opinion since you asked but... do I care?....Not really. I’m just gonna sing the songs and have some fun. We’ll see what happens. It will work out however it’s supposed to work out.
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AND FINALLY, ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD
Well, like I said… we don’t know what’s in the future. I honestly didn’t think the original L.A. Guns line up would ever be back together again and I honestly don’t know how long its gonna last. But, for right now it’s a really special occasion for L.A. Guns. It’s too bad that demands to choose a side have taken away from just how special this is by dividing people. So…to all my friends, to all the fans of L.A. Guns, as far as I’m concerned you don’t have to choose a side. Come together and support both bands if you like. I will love you regardless of who you favour.
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One Way Ticket! |
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SAVIOURS OF ROCK WILL ALWAYS BE MASSIVE SUPPORTERS OF PHIL AND THAT L.A. GUNS, BUT THANKS AGAIN TO PAUL, HE’S A REAL NICE GUY AND HE DID GET STIFFED ALL THOSE YEARS AGO, SO GO VISIT HIM AT:
http://www.blackcitymusic.com/
Interview by Jarrah Loh
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