Brides of Destruction Interview

If you had assumed that Slash, Duff and Matt were the only ex-Gunners that are currently enjoying a fair measure of bittersweet justice with their popular new project VELVET REVOLVER, you are well advised to think again. Tracii Guns has the benefit of an equally enjoyable vindication with his own batch of wild and reckless hotshots, BRIDES OF DESTRUCTION. Having already made a substantial impact on the scene with their auspiciously rocking debut, "Here Come The Brides", as well as the subsequent "Honeymoon From Hell" tour, the outfit that's now led by the sometimes shadowy, axe-shredding dude that put the Guns in that little band known as Guns N' Roses has found the ability to reach fans from as broad a musical spectrum as one can imagine. For the Brides, it's definitely an ace in the hole considering the band's capability to connect with those younger fans that watched their "Shut The Fuck Up" video on MTV2 as well as diehards that have tracked his previous act, those notorious Hollywood vampires L.A.GUNS, since the days of that band's classic self-titled debut and through career successes like the Top 40 hit, "The Ballad of Jayne," an homage to starlet Jayne Mansfield.


When the time came for the guitarist to shape Brides Of Destruction (which was originally known as the you-can't-say-that-on-radio "Cockstar") with Motley Crue's preeminent sleaze-metal mastermind Nikki Sixx, Guns realized that it was high time to explore a different angle 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." But Guns' latest collaborators have become the source for a renewed hunger, and when speaking of his charismatic, engaging vocalist London LeGrande, the guitarslinger 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 a bit more coolly, "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 and that's no way to create. 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 and he keeps coming up with this great stuff. "


Perceptibly revitalized by working with such a talented, youthful crew, Guns is utterly electric when talking about his newly rediscovered, budding inventive drive. With the departure of co-founder Sixx from the ranks to embark on a highly successful Motley Crue reunion tour, Guns has tapped into yet another hot young talent in former Amen bassist Scott Sorry. Tracii said of the co-ringleader's departure, ""Well, we always knew that he was gonna do that at some point for an undetermined amount of time. So, it came faster than we'd expected. It was kinda like "Oh shit, there goes our guy." Although the axeman has just wrapped up production on the Brides' deeply powerful sophomore effort, 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. I think it will keep on evolving." 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, 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. Working with new guys and 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 person to another, it seems like."


Ultimately, Guns communicates a great deal of positivity about the recording of the latest album, and in a large way he's broken the chain of outside pressures that he had previously experienced in the recording studio during sessions past. Obviously, Guns 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 open up creatively in the recording environment, Guns excels and his performance on "Runaway Brides", as the evidence, is shining. There is little doubt that this record truly is the one that the Sunset Strip star has wanted to make, in terms of the creativity of songwriting, execution of performance and the desire to see the project through until it became the most excellent he felt it could be.


The unexpectedly brisk departure of Sixx wouldn't be the only change for Brides Of Destruction as the group began to look toward their second effort. A move from roster-heavy Sanctuary to the long-running Shrapnel Records would be the ultimate spark that would give the band the artistic liberty they required in order to create "Runaway Brides." In making the move, the band found a new home in the musician-oriented label Shrapnel Records. 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 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?' I was like, 'Well, let me think about it', 'cause it's not something that I ever wanted to do. There's nothing more boring to me than the idea of just listening to me play guitar for forty-five minutes. 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, we're ready to go, what can you do for Brides? He 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, and they talked about it and they came back and we both said 'Hey look, if we can work together we can definitely work it out. And the thing that I really like about working with Mike is that he's a ripping guitar player, so any feedback that you get from him is definitely right on the money."


The wide latitude given to the Brides by Varney to make this new record made a great impact on the final outcome. This open course paved the way for the Brides to meld sounds that are even more artistically relevant than ever before without the distractions inherent in label bureaucracy. "When we first finished those nine songs for the first record, and we were told that this was our record that was a heartbreaker. 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 and go on tour and have a great time.' 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. That wasn't the way the process worked. This time it was, 'Make the record you want to make, take your time.' Certainly the time spent has proven 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" and the sleazy, retro-revamped styling of "Tunnel Of Love, a track that is driven by a completely rocking Scott Coogan rhythm."


Naturally, a major touring itinerary has been lined up in order to take this fresh material to the masses. There's no query whatsoever that Tracii is ready to take this 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, then it's back on another American run and back to Europe, we're gonna go out and kick some ass." Fans can fully anticipate the group to give an energetic performance, with the new album being quite well represented, as the group is all set to kick out ten of the tracks from "Runaway Brides" per evening along with the favorites from the group's debut being thrown into the concert equation as well. Positioned to headline 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 in front of an audience through his music is deep-seated and the guitarist seems more than eager to return to the stage with this fresh batch of material. "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!" His 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 continues to remain in the limelight well after the demise of the rather encompassing eighties Hollywood scene, Guns 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 like 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 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 have 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. 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, and 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 at all times, but we kind of 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." No doubt that attitude provides much of the fuel behind the fire expressed on the new album and it's even more likely that the record will be the proud parent of a handful of hits. This finely tuned, heavy metal hot rod known as Brides Of Destruction is up and running. Catch them if you can.






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Tags:  Brides of Destruction  , Tracii Guns, interviews

EF    September 19, 2005