Steve Riley indicates that there’s something special with him and Kelly Nickels playing together

Steve Riley indicates that there’s something special with him and Kelly Nickels playing together

L.A. Guns (feat. Riley and Nickels) drummer Steve Riley was recently interviewed by Tony Keefer for The Music Room. Last year, the rhythm section of Riley and bassist Kelly Nickels reunited in a L.A. Guns line-up with the duo being joined by guitarist Scott Griffin and lead vocalist Kurt Frohlich. Riley and Nickels had previously played together in L.A. Guns during the band’s classic line-up era and on the studio albums Cocked & Loaded (1989) and Hollywood Vampires (1991) along with Cocked & Re-loaded (2000).

In terms of how it feels to be playing with Nickels again, Riley indicated: “It’s awesome being back with Kelly. Not only do I have one of my best friends back with me, and one of the classic guys back with me… but he’s my battery mate too. He is my rhythm section partner. We have such great chemistry. We knew we did, obviously, but playing with him again is just awesome. We felt like we could power anybody who plays in front of us.”

On whether he would be able to forge ahead with his L.A. Guns line-up without Nickels, Riley replied: “You know what, it’s just better with Kelly because of our history of recording and touring together. But I’ve played with some really good musicians since Kelly left. Hopefully, we were powering it well too, whoever played bass with me. But there is no substitute in L.A. Guns than playing with your battery mate. There is something special with us playing together. This is the first thing that we’ve done together in a while, and we just clicked automatically. The two of us together as bass player and drummer, we just clicked. We know how to play off of each other.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Steve Riley by Tony Keefer at The Music Room‘s website.

L.A. Guns (feat. Steve Riley and Kelly Nickels) ‘Making of “Crawl” Behind the Scenes” video: