Tracii Guns opines no chance of L.A. Guns reunion with Steve Riley and Kelly Nickels

Tracii Guns opines no chance of L.A. Guns reunion with Steve Riley and Kelly Nickels

L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns was recently interviewed by Pariah Burke for the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show with Pariah Burke. Guns and singer Phil Lewis recently settled their lawsuit over the L.A. Guns band name and use against a number of people and entities including drummer Steve Riley and bassist Kelly Nickels. The settlement terms include that Guns and Lewis can use the L.A. Guns name while Riley and Nickels have to operate under another band name, which they have chosen to be Riley’s L.A. Guns.

Guns was asked whether thinks the lawsuit, which was started in or about January 2020, would have settled sooner if Covid hadn’t happened, to which he replied (as provided by the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show with Pariah Burke):

“No. I had to keep making decisions, you know, every step of the way, because we actually, we were suing like 13 different entities. You know, there were, there were people that were putting my logo on t-shirts for example, and selling them that were deals that were made with the other guy, you know, that were all fraudulent, you know, so it was very complicated. And I could have taken it further because, you know, one of the…

Another part of the lawsuit was this question of royalties that none of the band members had been paid. For years starting in like 1994, 95 including one of the guys that’s in that other band, he had never been paid, but the deal is, is that what it costs X amount of dollars to take it that far do, do the audit, all these things. And then what’s the return on that, you know, and that guy’s got no money. So it’s like, ‘Hmm, well, you know, if we spend this kind of money, we’re not going to get any money back.’ And then, so what’s the point of wasting more time. And then that would have taken a lot more time at the end of the day where it ended up and what I settled on makes the most sense, you know, for everybody.”

On whether the royalties have now been worked out, Guns indicated: “Yeah. Unfortunately a lot of that stuff, you know, those royalties were from album and CD sales, you know, and those don’t really exist anymore. You know? I mean yeah, but I mean, yes, things have been redirected to where they’re supposed to go, but you know, that part of the business has kind of gone so that’s life.”

In terms of whether there is any chance of him and Lewis doing a L.A. Guns reunion with Riley and Nickels, Guns opined: “No, there’s not even the slimmest chance. And there’s a lot of reasons for it. You know, one, the musician guy’s the laziest musician in the world, and then the other guy is too old to play the new stuff. So it just couldn’t ever happen, you know?”

After indicating that Nickels was the “laziest musician in the world”, Guns added: “I’m not being a dick. It’s a fact, you know, after, you know, after those guys, Kelly quit and I started playing with guys like, you know, Rudy Sarzo and Johnny Martin, Nikki Sixx, you know, these guys that are real bass players, it’s just like, it’s like, whoa, you know, ‘what was I thinking?’ You know, but when I got Kelly, I was all about image, and I wanted a guy that looked like he was in Mötley Crüe, and he looked like Tommy Lee. So it made the most sense at the time.”

You can listen to the interview with Tracii Guns (Show #303) via the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show with Pariah Burke‘s website.