The Hollywood metal scene during the 1980s was an extremely lucrative period. While thrash rose to prominence through the likes of Metallica and Slayer, the glam scene was also gaining worldwide exposure due to the mainstream success of Van Halen and Mötley Crüe. As the decade progressed more artists were emerging from the clubs, with Poison, Guns N’ Roses and Faster Pussycat also landing major record deals and climbing into the charts.
L.A. Guns had first formed in the early 1980s by guitarist Tracii Guns, although when he joined Hollywood Rose frontman Axl Rose to create Guns N’ Roses the band fell apart. Following his departure from Rose, Guns reformed his first group and began to gain support on the local music scene. Having worked with several vocalists, Guns eventually hired British singer Phil Lewis, who had enjoyed modest success with the English glam rock band Girl in the late 1970s, a group that had also featured future Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen. Finally landing a record deal in 1987, L.A. Guns enjoyed considerable acclaim for their first three albums, which were released between 1988 and 1991, before the grunge scene that had emerged from Seattle effectively brought the Hollywood glam scene to an end.
Following the poor performance of Vicious Circle in 1995, Lewis left the band and was replaced by Chris Van Dahl, resulting in the disappointing American Hardcore. Ralph Saenz, now best known as Steel Panther frontman Michael Starr, joined the group for the Wasted EP, before former Love/Hate singer Jizzy Pearl took over vocal duties for the recording of Shrinking Violet. Lewis finally returned to the group for Greatest Hits and Black Beauties, but after two new studio albums Guns decided to focus on his new supergroup Brides of Destruction, which he had formed with Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx. Lewis opted to continue with L.A. Guns without its founder and recorded an album of cover songs entitled Rips the Covers Off. A new record soon followed, Tales From the Strip, along with a second album of covers, Covered in Guns. In 2012 they released their first record of new material in seven years called Hollywood Forever. Guns, meanwhile, decided to form his own version of the group in 2006 and, despite an ever-changing line-up of new singers and no new recorded material, the band have continued to perform as L.A. Guns.
10. NO MERCY
Like many debuts, L.A. Guns’ first full-length album may have lacked the polish and commercial peal of their subsequent work but it successfully captured the energy and attitude that the band had displayed around Hollywood, having sent several years building up a reputation before Lewis joined the line-up. No Mercy, which featured songwriting contribution from drummer Nickey Alexander who, by the time of the album’s release had been replaced by Steve Riley of W.A.S.P., had already proven to be a live favourite and served as a strong opening track for the album.
9. CITY OF ANGELS
Despite Lewis having returned to the band, resulting in a new studio album, Man in the Moon, and a re-recording of Cocked & Loaded, Guns eventually grew tired and decided to form a new group, Brides of Destruction, alongside Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx. The last L.A. Guns album that he would perform on would be Waking the Dead, the highlight of which was City of Angels, in which Lewis sang, “I was not born to be a slave, I cannot be a part of that. A new religion on my hands and knees for you.”
8. RIP ‘N’ TEAR
While the first album had mostly consisted of short and sweet rock songs about sex, Hollywood and partying, the three main common themes among the hair metal scene, with Cocked & Loaded the band attempted to experiment with their sound, incorporating power ballads among other things. There were still a few nods to their earlier style, however, and among these was Rip and Tear, one of several music videos from L.A. Guns that would receive heavy rotation during the late 1980s.
7. YOU BETTER NOT LOVE ME
Since the decline of hair metal in the early 1990s, many bands who had enjoyed success in the years beforehand soon found themselves struggling with their own identity, facing the challenge of moving with the times without losing the essence of their earlier sound. Like many of their peers, L.A. Guns faced a similar challenge, producing numerous albums that attempted to distance their style from the glam rock scene that had become something of a joke to the metal scene. Yet following cover albums and issues surrounding two L.A. Guns performing under the same name, Lewis and his band returned in 2012 with a new album entitled Hollywood Forever. As a taste for the record, they shot a low budget video for the track You Better Not Love Me, which almost captures the energy and carefree tone of their earlier material.
6. IT’S OVER NOW
Unlike their debut, both Cocked & Loaded and Hollywood Vampires had mostly been written by the band as a whole, but the success that Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and Alice Cooper had enjoyed collaborating with professional songwriters had convinced other labels and artists to try something similar. L.A. Guns teamed up with Jim Vallance, best known for his Platinum-selling work with Bryan Adams, for two songs on Hollywood Vampires, My Koo Ka Choo and It’s Over Now. The latter, an acoustic ballad, was in a similar vein to their 1989 hit Ballad of Jayne, although it failed to achieve the same level of success.
5. NEVER ENOUGH
Following the minor acclaim of their first album, for their sophomore effort L.A. Guns teamed up with Tom Werman, whose recent success with Mötley Crüe’s Girls, Girls, Girls and Poison’s Open Up and Say… Ahh! had made him a go-to producer on the Hollywood scene. Also assisting the sessions were Duane Baron and John Purdell (who sadly passed away in 2003, just two days after his forty-fourth birthday), both of whom would later enjoy success with Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears. The result would be a record more polished and commercial than its predecessor, best represented with the radio-friendly single Never Enough.
4. SEX ACTION
While the release of L.A. Guns’ eponymous debut may have been slightly overshadowed by the impact of Appetite for Destruction, Guns N’ Roses’ phenomenally successful album, the record still brought the group a loyal following and saw them as part of a new wave of sleazy rock ‘n’ roll bands to emerge from the Hollywood rock scene, alongside the likes of Poison and Faster Pussycat. The material featured would be a mixture of older songs (such as a reworking of an old track by Girl), material written with former frontman Paul Black and new music composed for the album. Among the highlights of these was Sex Action, whose video would receive regular airplay on Headbangers Ball during the late 1980s.
3. BRICKS
Following the return of Lewis to the band in the late 1990s, L.A. Guns released a career-spanning retrospective called Greatest Hits and Black Beauties although, unlike most ‘Best Ofs,’ the band opted to re-record many of their earlier classics instead of featuring the original versions. Thus, new recordings of One More Reason and No Mercy were included in the tracklist. But instead of opening with their of their more known songs, they decided to kick off the album with a new track called Bricks, a short instrumental based around a heavy rhythm section, with a subtle industrial feel.
2. BALLAD OF JAYNE
By the late 1980s it had become a staple of what is now known as the hair metal scene to include a power ballad on an album, often released as the second or third single. This practice had already proven successful with Mötley Crüe’s Home Sweet Home and Poison’s Every Rose Has Its Thorn when L.A. Guns produced their own offering, Ballad of Jayne. Lewis’ vocals had never sounded better, soaring over the acoustic guitar, and the song brought the band a well-deserved hit, providing them with their most successful single to date.
1. OVER THE EDGE
While Cocked & Loaded had sold Platinum and brought the band to a wider audience, by the time that its follow-up, Hollywood Vampires, was released in 1991 the musical landscape was starting to change, with Nirvana leading the way. For the most part, however, L.A. Guns’ third album successfully moved with the times, providing the group with a harder and rawer sound than their earlier records. The five-and-a-half minute opening track Over the Edge served as a perfect introduction to their new style, and the song clearly made an impression as it was chosen the same year for the soundtrack to the Patrick Swayze/Keanu Reeves action flick Point Break.
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