Phil Lewis - Lead Vocals
After I got expelled from boarding school for an incident involving a young lady a clock tower and a bottle of communion wine, I got my first job in the entertainment industry working as a hypnotist assistant. It was a technical gig, lights and sound, that lasted about six months. My last show with him went very badly. We were booked to play a used car salesman Christmas party. By the time we arrived they were already roaring drunk and pretended to be hypnotized during the set. The show ended in a bar room brawl and I vowed never to work a straight gig again in my life.
Shortly after, I answered an ad in London's local music magazine. A theatre company was looking for a guitarist who could act the part of a burned out musician from the LA music scene. I passed my first audition and within weeks I was touring England and Europe with the five male/two female cast. It was a magical time. I was a teenager in the 70s making money playing music. It was all I ever dreamed of.
That lasted almost two years. I was invited to stay on as an actor for a non-musical performance, but decided I had to stay with music. It was 1978 and I was ready to record my own songs. I rented a tiny eight track studio in London's Chinatown from Midnight till whenever. The guitar played from the band recording before us hung around and offered his help with my first session. I was delighted with what my new friend, Gerry Laffy, brought to my songs. We went back in a couple of weeks later with new co-written songs and decided to form an androgynous glam rock band, in the Japan/ New York Dolls vein, to completely freak people out and called it "Girl". We decided to run an ad in the local music paper that simply read "Peroxide guitarist needed for unconventional band." Within days we had recruited Phil Collen, who was playing in a pub band in the East end of London called Dumb blondes.
At the time, video was still a new medium. It hadn't quite killed the radio star. It was decided that we not only record a demo, but we would also make a movie of us playing it. It was a very revolutionary move back then, but it soon paid off and resulted in a record company bidding war for a band that still hadn't played a single show.
January 9, 1979: Girl was signed to Jet records - Don Arden's (Notorious 60s manager and father of Sharon who later married Ozzy) label and set about making a full length record in London's prestigious Morgan studio with Chris Tangereedes (Thin Lizzy, Japan) in charge of production. During sessions we were joined in the studio by the likes of Alex Harvey from SAHB and Garry Holton from The Heavy Metal Kids. It was a productive time and news about the band spread quickly. By the first few days of 1980 "Sheer Greed" was released with the song "My Number" as the first single.
The record was well received by fans and the media. We were invited to play a 60 show tour with UFO, and also found ourselves part of a musical movement that was to become know as "The New Wave of British Heavy Metal" (NWBHM).
Girl was immediately huge in Japan and we were invited to receive gold discs for Sheer Greed. We also played three nights in Tokyo's NHK Theatre to a sold-out three thousand seat audience. Other tours followed with Ted Nugent, ZZ Top, Ozzy Osbourne and Pat Travis. After extensive touring, we went back into the studio to record our second album "Wasted Youth," released in 1982. That failed to meet the expectations of the first record, so Don Arden put the band on Ice - not letting us tour, but not letting us go and find another record company either. It was a very difficult time. Having one of the most powerful, corrupt, men in the music business slowly choke the life out of a once vibrant band. Soon after, Phil Collen was recruited to play for Def Leppard. We performed our final show in Bangkok, Thailand in August 1982. Afterward, each member scattered to various countries all over the world. I returned to dreary, rainy London and, while considering my options, played a few shows on rhythm guitar with my friends Steve Dior and Barry Jones from the London Cowboys. We toured France playing huge festivals opening for Joe Cocker. It was a whimsical time, lots of fun, very low drama. A huge contrast to the madness of the final days of the band Girl.
Back in London I tried putting something new together with my guitarist friend, Rudy Rivera, recruiting the drummer and bass player from the band 720 (The Speed of Sound 720 mph). They had just lost their singer, Paul Young, who now has huge chart success as a solo artist covering Hall and Oats songs. Sadly we never got to release anything, but we did have some very productive demo sessions and some awesome gigs in tiny basement clubs in London's Soho district. At this point in my career I was starting to get the distinct feeling that my glory days were behind me and my musical path had pretty much hit a dead end, when out of the blue, I got a call from guitarist Bernie Torme (Ian Gillan, Ozzy Osbourne) inviting me to sing for a tour he had lined up three weeks later. He gave me a cassette of the band's set and to say I was blown away would be an understatement. It was a kind of a Hendrix meets the Clash fusion. Great songs and a killer three piece band with Chris Heilman (later to Join Shark Island) on bass and Ian Whitehead playing drums. The tour did 'Gangbusters". The first three shows at the Marquee were packed to record attendance, as was every show we played in the 30 date tour across England in the Summer of 1985. The UK music industry was in a terrible lull at the time, looking for bands like The Thompson Twins and Bucks Fizz (dreadful English Abba wannabes doing covers of lame hits from the 70s). The labels were terrified of our style and music, but couldn't deny we were the hottest new live band in the country and touted by the media as the next big thing. Unfortunately we never did get the big deal we were looking for, but we did get to record one album for Zebra Records, a small independent company
"Back to Babylon" was an eclectic, challenging and exciting album to make and was the most learning experience of my whole English musical career and to this day some of my proudest recordings. The album was released to huge critical acclaim and gobbled up by our army of loyal fans all over the country. But still, it was not enough to convince the timid record industry that we were a force to be reckoned with. We toured England and Europe promoting the record, however, the hopelessness of the situation soon became apparent and frustration turned to friction between the personalities within the band. I later found out that I had been on very thin ice, as the band had approached Spike (of the London Quireboys) to replace me. My musical and personal life at this point in time was a shambles. I was approaching my late 20s with nothing to inspire me to stick with music when I got a call from an English gentleman living in Los Angeles. He owned a couple of boutiques on Melrose Avenue and managed a band, whose members were working in one of his stores at that time, called LA Guns. The band was making some noise in the new late 80s LA metal scene. They needed a singer to replace the junky vocalist they had who was stopping record labels from taking the band to the next level. I arrived in LA to audition on April 1, 1987. The city was electric. Rock/Metal was like religion. Hollywood was reverberating to the sounds of bands like Jet Boy, Faster Pussycat and Guns N' Roses. I clearly remember my first practice with LAG. While the band was tuning up, I went to check the level of my microphone giving it a typical "test, test, one, two", at which point the guitar player, Tracii Guns, glanced over at me and said "Very nice. You'll do. Welcome to the band."
Tracii had recently been kicked out of Guns N' Roses; Kelly Nickels was the original bass player for Faster Pussycat, but had broken his leg in a horrendous motorcycle accident. The band had to replace him as they were heading out on their first American tour to support their first album. During the first three months after I joined, Kelly was on crutches and we'd have to lean him up against his amplifier for the first dozen shows we played. At this point we had a lot of label interest, but nothing solid. We were playing sold out shows at The Whiskey and many of the famous venues on LA's Sunset Strip. It was a very intense, exciting time and a far cry from the drudgery I'd escaped from in London. After about eight months of playing shows and recording demos, we were finally signed by Bob Scorro to Polygram Records. Soon after, we headed to the Village Studios in West LA to start work on our self-titled debut record. It was finally released on January 4, 1988. Six months after completion, we optimistically expected to sell about 5 or 6 thousand copies worldwide. We were all very pleasantly surprised when we sold twice that in its first week in the stores. We had a world tour lined up to support the record, playing our own small, crazy packed shows. We were opening for bands like AC/DC, Def Leppard (Thanks Phil), Ted Nugent and Cheap Trick. Within a year, we had sold over half a million copies in America alone and Gold discs were coming in from all over the world. The first tour I did in England with LAG was the greatest homecoming ever. All my doubters and all the supporters came to see this new London/LA hybrid. Support for my new project was overwhelming. We toured constantly for almost two years before going back in the studio to record our second record "Cocked & Loaded" produced by Tom Werman. Tom had just finished recording with Poison, another local band that had exploded onto the main stream. He's also produced Cheap Trick and Ted Nugent, who all came down to the studio offering wise tips and guitar licks. The record was recorded in two months time in W Hollywood and was a great experience, however, there was a problem. We had written a song called "The Ballad of Jayne" that was quite unlike anything we had ever recorded before. It split the band into two camps: one who thought the song was too sappy and would damage the band's hard rock credibility and the other camp, myself included, who thought we had a song that could elevate the band from cult to mainstream status. The issue was resolved and the song made it on the album. After we shot the video, Jayne projected LA Guns and Cocked & Loaded to new mega-Platinum sales. It eventually gave us our first top twenty hit and was the most requested song on MTV for over two weeks. Lots more touring. Europe with Skid Row, a disappointing East coast run with Billy Squire, and hundreds of sold out shows and lots of all day festivals. I remember tuning a radio in LA and hearing my voice on three radio stations simultaneously. This was our brightest moment. Ironically, due to the fact that I'd been on tour for so long and didn't have my own house, I was living in the Holiday Inn on Hollywood Blvd.
By the time we started to prepare for our third release "Hollywood Vampires," tension between band members, management and the record company had become very frayed. The result was a very fragmented album, horribly produced by Michael James Jackson, who was actually auditioning alternative singers on days that I wasn't in the studio. The record took almost a year to record and cost close to a million dollars. It was released in 1991, to luke warm reviews and very disappointing sales. However, one good thing did come from the experience, our song "Over the Edge" was placed in the cult classic, surfer/bank robber movie "Point Break". I recall a brief moment of pure joy, sitting in a movie theater, listening to our music in a brilliant movie that to this day still holds up against the test of time.
By 1992, Nirvana and the whole grudge movement had taken over the air waves and the LA music scene was dead and rotting. We were contracted to record one more album and embarked on our first "written in the studio" project that later became "Vicious Circle". In my opinion, it is a very underrated record, but the reality was that even if we had delivered "The Dark Side of the Moon," we were still doomed. I clearly remember finishing the vocal track on the last cut, "Kiss of death", and knowing that my time in LAG had come to a sad end.
In 1993, I formed a band with my friend Steve Dior from London Cowboys called Filthy Lucre. We recorded a cool record called "Pop Smear", drank a lot of tequila and drove around America in a van playing clubs and having a blast.
In 1994, I built a recording studio in the San Fernando Valley and started producing local bands. I also started recording my first solo record "More Purple Than Black". A record, as the title suggests, that was a lot more mellow and introspective than anything I'd previously done. It was a magical experience and a far cry from the Pantera wannabes that LAG had become in my absence. I particularly enjoyed being in control of every aspect of the record from playing all the instruments to engineering the entire project. It was first released as "El Nino" in Japan. Within a few months, I was over there playing the entire record myself on acoustic guitar. It was extremely different from the Beatle-mania I had experienced just a few years earlier on LAG's last trip to the Far East. It was very intimate, personal and extremely artistically rewarding.
In 1995 I was joined by my friends, Brent Muscat and Eric Stacy from Faster Pussycat. We formed a band called "The Liberators". Sadly we never got a chance to release a record, but we toured a lot playing LAG and Faster songs, as well as some of our favorite covers. One night, we were joined on stage by Chaka Kahn, who sang a few songs with us and then finished our set playing drums.
From 1996 through 1998, I worked as a recording engineer/editor for the Fox Sports Network. Sports was never my thing, but most of the people that worked there were also ex-musicians and I found the work challenging and rewarding.
In 1999, I got a call from Mick Cripps, LAG's guitarist, inviting me to rejoin the original band to make a record and tour. Honestly, I wasn't sure. but my colleagues at Fox encouraged me to take the offer. I accepted and we started re-recording our first two records for Cleopatra Records. It was a strange move that to this day I don't understand, but I wasn't complaining. I was back on a tour bus with my old road mates, all the past animosity was long behind us. Soon Kelly Nickels and Mick Cripps decided they really had had enough and quit for the last time and were replaced by Muddy (Burning Tree) and Keff Ratcliffe, a fellow Brit who had played in a bunch of local bands in the LA scene. Soon after we went into the studio to record a full length original record "Man in the Moon", produced by our friend Gilby Clarke from G N'R. We promoted the record by playing every Hard Rock Café across America. After the Man In The Moon Hard Rock Tour, Muddy left to record an album with Gilby Clarke in a jam band they had called Col. Parker. Muddy suggested Adam Hamilton as a replacement. in fact Adam was a well know session drummer in the LA scene. He could also play very good bass guitar and fit perfectly in LAG. We were invited to play on the Rock Never Stops tour with Dokken and Warrant, then on our own tours in England, Japan and Europe.
By December 2002, we started working on a new record with the legendary producer Andy Johns. It soon became apparent that we had turned a creative corner and were heading in a very specific musical direction. Andy's mentoring had given us an incredible boost of confidence. It soon became obvious that we had made the record we had always dreamed of making. the only problem was, after the album was done, Tracii Guns announced during the photo shoot for the cover that he was quitting the band to work on a side project with Nikki Sixx (MC). He suggested we make wise decisions regarding our own individual futures. The result was the wisest decision we made. We would continue without him.
Chris Holmes, Steve's mate from WASP, was the first guitarist to come help us. We played a dozen or so shows with this gentle giant. I heard he was a wild crazy man, but I was presently surprised to find out he was in fact a very cool dude with amazing ability and great fun to be around. Chris was also involved in a project with another ex-WASP member, Randy Piper, and that was his first priority. The band and I will always be grateful to him for helping us out in a time of need. Many guitarists followed. Our old friends Keff and Brent helped out. We also had a brief run with Punk rock legend Charley Paulson. That was fun. We had Keri Kelli in the band for almost a year and played a lot of killer shows together. Although we never recorded new songs with him, there is a great live DVD featuring Keri playing amazingly. Finally, a month before going back in the studio to start recording, I was introduced to Stacey Blades. Stacey had been in Roxx Gang and wanted to come jam with the band. I asked him to learn a couple of songs. I heard he played excellent slide guitar. We were blown away at the very first practice. Not only did he in fact play great slide, but he'd also learned our entire set. As we blazed through Electric Gypsy, it was obvious we had finally found our man.
Rips the Covers Off, as the title suggests, is a record of some of our favorite songs that was also recorded in West Hollywood at Bruce Whitkin's studio, with Andy Johns producing. It was an easy, fun record to make and we soon realized with Steve Riley, Adam Hamilton and now Stacey Blades, we were ready to embark on a new original record. I'd already started writing lyrics during the final mixes of Rips and I knew I wanted to write and record a record entirely on my early experiences in Hollywood. I'd been slammed in the press for the song "OK, Let's Roll," a song I'd written as a tribute to the bravery of those who perished on Flight 93 on 9/11. I was hurt by the guy's words, but maybe he was right and I should stick to the subjects I know best. Few people know the nefarious side of West Hollywood better than I, so even before we recorded a single note of the record, I already knew we were about to embark on our first concept record.
We were back in the studio with Bruce and Andy in the summer of 2005, working around the title "Tales From The Strip." It was a challenge to come up with an original record better than "Waking the Dead," but our hard work and dedication paid off. We soon realized we had made the most important record since "Cocked and Loaded." Tales was released in August 2005 and immediately received rave reviews from the music press, our fans and even those who doubted we could still make a relevant album at this stage in our career.
As you can see, it's been an exciting ride with lots of highs and lows, but like Frank Sinatra, I have few regrets. I've traveled well over a million miles. Played at least ten thousand gigs. And kissed over a thousand girls. Not bad for a kid from Kensington who, my school said, would never amount to anything. And to this day I'm just as excited and passionate about this strange, wonderful thing called Rock and Roll as I was when I used to walk around London trying to be cool, sporting an empty guitar case and hoping people would think I was in a band coz' that was and still is the greatest job in the world.
Hollywood ~ March 25 2007.
