L.A. Guns vocalist Phil Lewis has shared his opinion on the quality of Guns N’ Roses material following their debut, labelling it “pretty average.”
The story of Guns N’ Roses’ early years is quite an interesting tale. Formed in 1985, the group began as a combination of two Los Angeles bands, Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns, when the latter sought a vocalist by way of the former’s Axl Rose.
Before long, these musicians had formed a new band, which they had named in honour of their previous groups. Of course, while GNR were shot to fame with the success of 1987’s Appetite For Destruction, L.A. Guns’ Tracii Guns had returned to his former group, with whom he still plays to this day.
However, in a new interview with Canada’s Thorn Of Rock radio program (via Blabbermouth), L.A. Guns vocalist Phil Lewis seems to think that Tracii Guns made the right move.
Discussing the early days of the bands, Lewis was asked whether or not L.A. Guns ever felt intimidated by the success of their rivals.
“Well, yeah, of course,” Lewis began. “Guns N’ Roses were a phenomenon, and they were a band that were in the same place at the same time. We shared personnel. Tracii had been involved with both bands.”
“We did good. L.A. Guns did really, really good. We got gold records. We did incredibly well. But it was never enough. Compared to Guns N’ Roses, it was one percent, and that’s a little bit frustrating, of course.”
Check out Phil Lewis’ interview with Thorn Of Rock:
https://soundcloud.com/user-607609575/phil-lewis-s-laguns-interview-march-19th-2019
“The difference between us and Guns N’ Roses is they had one album,” Lewis continued. “And people are gonna be mad at me for saying this. Appetite For Destruction is a masterpiece, but everything else isn’t — everything else is pretty average.”
“Now, we just carried on. We just went one album after another, interesting albums. And now with this reunion [between me and Tracii], we’ve been together for three years and we’ve already put out three records — we’ve put two studio and one live record. Guns N’ Roses hasn’t written one song.”
Of course, while Phil Lewis is indeed correct in noting that Guns N’ Roses haven’t released an album since 2008’s infamous Chinese Democracy, it appears as though this drought could soon come to an end.
In fact, while Slash has revealed the group are working on new music, and Duff McKagen has noted the band’s new songs are “magnificent”, a new tune from the band recently appeared in an episode of New Looney Tunes, which featured Axl Rose himself.
Whether or not the music will be on par with Appetite For Destruction or “pretty average” remains to be seen, but either way, we’re pretty excited.
Check out Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Welcome To The Jungle’:
