L.A. Guns’ Steven Riley

By Jay Oakley

First off, Steven, thank you very much for making some time for me.

Oh man, no problem. Thanks for having me on.

Absolutely, I’m stationed near Baltimore so I’ve been able to see you a lot with variations of L.A. Guns because you would play Fish Head Cantina quite a bit.

Oh totally, man. Baltimore is a great rock town. It’s always a pleasure going to Baltimore, it’s a killer town.

Well, let’s start right off with L.A. Guns, your version of the band, you had your first show at M3 last year, I was able to see that as well, so thank you for playing that show for us and how did that feel for you?

That felt great, ya know. It was great, awesome being back with Kelly Nickels because he’s my battery mate and the other half of the rhythm section that I played with for so long and he’s one of my best friends so it’s just awesome having him back with me. That show was a really great experience because once we did that show stuff really started snowballing for us. A big management out of L.A. wanted to handle us and they brought us over to Golden Robot Records and got us a nice agency to book us so a lot of stuff came from doing that M3 show. We went over so well at that show that that’s why a lot of good things came about from it so that was just a gas, doing that show last year.

Talk about when it came to that show and the lead up, Steven. Was that the initial basic plan? Let me get together with my mates and of course Kurt (Frohlich) and play these songs that we had such a hand in creating. Was the plan to do a one-off or small series until the snowball effect you previously mentioned?

Yeah, ya know, because Kelly had gotten with me in 2017 and we started writing and exchanging ideas of songs because he’s in New York and I’m in L.A. and then once we did that we started thinking about who we could get to play with us and Scotty Griffin was kind of a no-brainer. He had played bass with us but he’s a great lead guitar player and we knew that and we told Scotty, “Why don’t you jump on and play guitar with us.” and he was totally gassed about doing that. We didn’t have to go through the long process about auditioning a lot of singers, we were really fortunate, the first guy that we checked out was Kurt Frohlich. Somebody had suggested him, a friend from Vegas, and said, “You have to check this guy out!” and when he flew out to L.A. to play with us in a rehearsal studio he was the very first guy we checked out and he was the guy we wanted to play with. Once we knew that, we knew that the M3 show was going to be a show where, even though we hadn’t recorded anything yet together but we had a bunch of material, we hadn’t recorded it or rehearsed any of it, so we knew that it was going to be basically us going out and playing all the classic material and really, ya know bro, that’s what classic bands do right now. When we go out, no matter what we do, the fans want to hear three quarters of the set, maybe more, of the songs that they know and if you’re lucky enough you can pepper it with some new material, a couple of songs you’ve just recorded but you’ve got to do a certain amount of the old material that everybody loves. That’s cool with us because it’s stuff that we wrote and we recorded and we’re still proud of all of that stuff so with the M3 show we knew that that was going to be a show of older material and we tried to pepper the set with some deep cuts like doing “Wild Obsession” and letting Kelly do “Nothing Better To Do” so we tried to change it up so it wasn’t the ordinary set we would normally do and now when we go out this year when it does happen, we should have been out by now and done about a dozen shows, but when it does start up in August, our revised schedule has us starting back up in August hopefully because of the pandemic, we will do a couple songs off Renegades. We’ll do “Crawl” and maybe the next single that we’ll release in June and then the whole album will come out in July, Renegades and that way we can go out in August and do a set that will include two of the new songs.

Absolutely, Steven and you are currently scheduled to return to M3 again this year. If everything still goes off without a hitch are you still going to be a part of the lineup?

Oh yeah, we’re on it, it’s in September and we’re going to be on that show. We’ll be on the Saturday show and we are definitely doing to do that, we’re looking forward to that big time. We’re going to be doing a different schedule of dates now. Kelly and I don’t want to do 250 club shows. It’s a brutal schedule and we’d been doing that for years and we don’t want to do that anymore so we’re going to be doing festivals, fairs, casinos, so maybe about twenty-five to thirty of those shows in the U.S. and then do the odd club show here and there that could be a satellite gig for one of those bigger shows but we’re definitely looking forward to doing M3 again this year in September. We’ve got our fingers crossed; we’re hoping everything comes off.

They just lifted Maryland’s stay at home order. We still don’t really have access to anything and staying at home is still safer but you’re not going to get hassled anymore if you need to get out of you house for any reason.

Is this unbelievable or what, bro? This is an amazing thing we’re through right now and it’s everywhere, all over the world. The concert industry is just getting hit so hard and I’m trying to gauge it from the sports industry because it’s a similar thing with so many people gathered together. I can see that sports is about to start up but without fans but that won’t work with concerts [Laughs] because they can televise sports and all that to get it out so we’re trying to gauge it based off sports but we’ve got our fingers crossed but our shutdown is still all the way until the end of July here in L.A., it’s brutal. I’m just trying to follow the quarantine thing and stay in and keep my family safe but this is just an insane thing we’re going through.

I’m working on an article about where I think the state of the music business will be after this is over but in general we know the bands stand, they want to play for people and need the people. They don’t want to play to an empty hall, that’s a garage practice, that can’t be fun for them.

Nice, yes and that’s true. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do and if they’re going to do it in a slow motion way of opening things up but if they open up the concert situation and try to do the social distancing with one seat taken and six seats not taken what is that going to be like? I don’t know what it’s going to do because the promoters need the fans to pay the guarantees to the band. So, if they have to cut down their attendance I don’t know what it does to all the shows. It’s just going to be a real unknown for all of us right now. We don’t know how this is going to come off, we don’t know how all the clubs, theaters and indoor casinos are going to do, how are they going to pull this off. Man, we’re in an unknown territory right now, aren’t we?

I do think that smaller clubs are in a slightly better position, to put a smile on this as best as I can, simply because as long as they can get enough fans in attendance to cover those guarantees they do still have control over when they cut off ticket sales and can protect the fans by not over crowding the venues and allowing for safety to still be a top priority.

Right, right. I wonder how they are going to enforce a lot of stuff too. Taking temperatures and making sure that everybody’s cool. The whole thing is an unknown area we’re going into where nobody really knows how they’re going to do it right now. I’ve got a revised schedule in front of me because, like I said, we should have been out doing about a dozen shows by now, some big festivals and they’ve been pushed back and everything starts early August and I still have my fingers crossed about that. I’m just hoping that something cool happens and we can pull this off and pull it together so the promoters can get the bands on their bills and are able to make their money so they can pay the guarantees because everybody’s travelling there, they have to figure out the hotel situation, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to go on right now.

I think another thing that is worth discussing quickly is I believe the recovery is also going to have a lot to do with the fans. I’ve been very critical of fans in the past about their, at times, unwillingness to go to shows or support bands because they don’t like the day of the week or they have to drive or they have work the next morning, I think those excuses are weak. I understand that this is a different situation then we’ve dealt with before especially when health is involved but it’s going to give the fans a chance to really step up and save the industry.

You’re right about that. It’s going to be up to the fans because there’s going to be a certain amount of them, could be a big percentage too, that are going to be a little freaked out too because they have families and at the very beginning of this when we get back going some of the fans, I’m sure, will be a little freaked out about the situation. Is it going to be safe? What is the situation? What are the protocols now of doing a show in a club, a theater, a shed or even a casino? What do we do now? How do the promoters do it? Do they hire a lot more security? Do they hire a bunch of medical people? What goes on now? So, like I said, this is unknown territory and I know the promoters for M3 very well and they are thinking about the social distancing. Scenarios like the one seat and six non seats and then one more seat; I don’t know how they might pull that off financially but that’s how they’re thinking right now so they might have to cut the bill down and not have as many bands on. I don’t know, it’s just going to be a pretty wild scene coming up and how this whole thing is going to come together.

Absolutely, Steven. But, how has everyone been in your family? Has everyone been safe and healthy?

Yeah, thank God. Nobody’s been affected by this, everybody’s trying to be as safe as they can be right now and the same thing with everybody in the band. Everybody has families and everybody’s been trying to follow the, so called, rules of staying safe but I think everybody’s so tired of it, oh my God, everybody is just so blown away by this and it’s been going on now for months and everybody wants to just let loose. I do know that when it does open up everybody’s gonna have a blast, oh my God!

Hey, Steven, let’s jump back to “Crawl,” you’re first single. Talk a little about the reception and how it’s felt to you guys.

We’ve really been so pleased about the reception. So many people really dig it and obviously there are some people that don’t like it and that goes with the territory and with every band too, some people will like it or won’t like it. The overall reception of it has been so good and people have really dug it and I think it’s because we’ve really tried to stay true to the sound of L.A. Guns and how L.A. Guns has been over the years and what kind of music we write and not veer off in too much of a left hand situation where we try to get to heavy or to light and just try to stay true to L.A. Guns’ sound. I think “Crawl” did that too, it sounds pretty close to L.A. Guns and how we do sound and the rest of the album is like that too. There’s some great rock on this album. I can’t wait for everybody to hear the whole thing and we’re just trying to utilize the internet as much as we can and try to promote it on the internet as much as we can because that’s the way to go. Nobody really expects huge album sales anymore; it’s pretty much a promotional item when you do an album right now. It’s a promotional item to get out on tour and so nobody expects huge, huge sales. I don’t even think a band like Aerosmith expects to put out something new and sell millions like they did. It’s pretty much you’re doing something fresh and new, something you can go out and support and maybe pepper the set with a couple new songs but “Crawl,” so far, has been really received well and we’re really proud of it, we really like the way it turned out.

For sure, I’m very excited to hear the new album. Honestly, I’m an L.A. Guns guy top to bottom; I’ve seen the various lineups. I understand that business is business and I have nothing but respect and understanding for the decisions that have been made. Like I said, I saw you and Kelly with Scotty and Kurt last year and now again this year, I’ve seen you with Phil multiple times and I’ve seen Phil and Tracii multiple times. Everyone in both versions has always been nice to me.  I’m excited for new music, which goes for their albums too, I’ve enjoyed them. I want to be respectful to the L.A. Guns banner and I can appreciate that you all supply us with new music and it’s phenomenal.

Absolutely, I totally agree too. It’s all good to us too. Kelly and I, we’ve always taken the mantra of not really mudslinging. We don’t go on the internet and put people down or put band members down it’s just in our orbit that we don’t go there and we just respect everybody too and what they’re doing and we just hope that everybody likes what we’re doing now and I think that once everybody hears the rest of this album, they’re gonna be surprised. It sounds pretty good and we’re really proud of it.

Touching back on the history that you have with Scotty, I’ve always been a big fan of the Hollywood Forever album.

Oh yeah, I dig that and really like the way that one turned out too. That was the last of four albums that we did right in a row with Andy Johns producing it. I’ve been so fortunate in my career; I’ve got to work with so many good producers, Gene Simmons, Andy Johns, Tom Werman, Michael Wagener, Todd Rundgren, I got to work with a lot of really good producers so I got to produce this Renegades album and I got to draw on a lot of the experiences that I did with other producers and I was jazzed doing this whole album and we did it, pretty much, old school with a tight schedule, not over thinking it and just going in and, pretty much, doing it in a rye format. I was so proud of the way it turned out; I can’t wait for everyone to hear it.

Performing with this new lineup of L.A. Guns, I wanted to ask you about this new design of the traditional L.A. Guns logo.

Ya know what, all of the artwork you see, whether it’s the new logo or anything with merchandise or any kind of thing you see on our website, laguns.net, its all Kelly Nickels. Kelly is the art director and he comes up with everything and when we got together we wanted to take the badge and do something with the badge that hasn’t been done and that was Kelly. Kelly came up with the idea of doing that new badge and, like I said, he does all of the artwork on the merchandise and all of the artwork on the website and he’s just got a great eye. He’s not only a really good and prolific song writer because, ya know, he wrote “Ballad Of Jayne” and a bunch of other stuff but he’s a really, really good artist as well. So, I just told him to run with it, it wouldn’t be a round table, go with what you feel and I love what he did with the badge too. I think it looks great.

Steven, if you don’t mind there was another part of your history that I’d love to talk to you about because before L.A. Guns you spend a solid amount of time with W.A.S.P..

Yeah, that was one of several bands I’ve been in over my career, I’ve been so fortunate. I did the Keel album, The Right To Rock, in early ’84 and at the end of that album when we were right about ready to mix it I got a call from Blackie (Lawless) to join W.A.S.P. and it was a very difficult decision because Keel was really a good situation with Gene Simmons producing and being on A&M Records, the guys in Keel were really cool and I thought the material on The Right To Rock was great too and the way it turned out but when I was presented with joining W.A.S.P. it was a very difficult decision but it was a good decision to make to go with W.A.S.P. and I just look back at those years very fondly too. I thought that W.A.S.P. was a great band and Chris Holmes, Blackie, me and Randy Piper, I thought it was just a terrific sounding band, a theatrically great looking band and we really made headliners get on their heels because after following a W.A.S.P. show, back then, you had to really come out and do your best show because we were just tearing it up. So, I look back on those W.A.S.P. albums that I did with them and those four years I was with them very fondly and I’m still close with all of the guys in the band. I don’t get to talk or see them that much but I still consider them really good friends.

That’s so cool because I’ve always been a W.A.S.P. fan so I was also stoked to ask you about them because you played on all of my core favorite W.A.S.P. songs. My favorite song is “Scream Until You Like It” along with other greats like “Wild Child,” “Harder Faster” and “Ballcrusher.”

Those are all great songs and I enjoyed recording those so much and one of my favorite albums that I’ve done in my career was The Last Command and we came out with “Wild Child” and “Blind In Texas,” “Sex Drive” and it was just a lot of really good material that Blackie and Chris Holmes had written and I’m very proud of being on The Last Command and Inside The Electric Circus. Those are some really, really good albums in my career and I look back on that as a really good period of my life.

Another big thing about bands performing now, taking the pandemic out of this situation for the time being, is anniversaries and reunions are becoming a pretty big thing. Have you been in contact at all with those guys about possibly doing something?

Yeah, ya know what, a few years ago Randy Piper and I got invited to Las Vegas to sit in with the Sin City Sinners who are a cover band in Vegas and Brent Muscat from Faster Pussycat, he was running that whole band at the time, and he invited me and Randy Piper to come on the same night and play “Wild Child” and “Blind In Texas” and some other W.A.S.P. stuff with them. So, we went and the 30th anniversary of W.A.S.P. was coming up and Randy said we should really try to get Chris and Blackie to do like a short tour, a short anniversary tour with the original guys. I was doing L.A. Guns and Randy was doing something and we knew that Blackie still had W.A.S.P. out so we knew that everybody was doing their separate things but we tried, me and Randy for a little period there to see if we could pull it together and see if Blackie and Chris wanted to do a 30th anniversary and we just go out and do maybe about fifteen, twenty shows and just tear it up with all of the old stuff and celebrate the 30th anniversary. We just couldn’t pull it off, I don’t think Blackie wanted to do it and Chris didn’t want to do it and so me and Randy were kind of disappointed in that but we made a little bit of an effort on that, to do an anniversary thing with W.A.S.P. and it just never came about.

Oh I totally understand, if that happens in the future that would be awesome. But either way, we appreciate you giving us that music. Steven, you’ve had your hands in so many cookie jars for this kind of music that I can only imagine how that feels to you when you look back on it.

Oh totally! I’ve been so fortunate to be able to get into so many good situations, with so many good bands. In the 70s I did a bunch of stuff, worked with Todd Rundgren, did a couple years with Steppenwolf and did The B’zz album and gone on American Bandstand, this is all before I did Keel and W.A.S.P. and L.A. Guns. So, I was really fortunate in my career to keep moving around and then when the 80s came along to do the Keel stuff and then the W.A.S.P. stuff and then to get right into L.A. Guns and be involved in that whole ten year thing of the L.A. metal scene, I was right in the middle of it and I’m just so fortunate that I was. I feel like such a lucky person to be able to do that.

Steven, this has been great and the most important thing and what matters most is what you thought about this. Did you enjoy yourself, did you feel respected and did you feel your time was valued in this?

Absolutely, brother. I can tell you, I only look back on everything I did fondly. I don’t really have any regrets about anything I did, I know that I was fortunate, I know that there are musicians like Kurt Frohlich, the singer with us and like Scotty Griffin that are so talented and there’s thousands of people like that in the country that never got a chance to do a high-caliber thing but they’re so talented and I know that I was one of the lucky ones to be able to do a bunch of stuff. I think that my attitude towards it too, without being a mudslinger and going on and talking shit about anybody, I think that worked in my favor too and I think that the fans kind of dug that too. But, anybody appreciating anything I played on really means a lot to me.