Drummer Steve Riley's version of L.A. Guns - featuring Kelly Nickels on bass, Scotty Griffin on guitar and Kurt Frohlich on lead vocals and guitar - recently released their new single, "Renegades". In a new interview with BigMusicGeek.com, Riley discusses how he deals with there being two separate versions of L.A. Guns.

Says Steve: “When Tracii (Guns) quit in 2002, he went on and did a few other bands after that, but (vocalist) Phil (Lewis) and I had kept battling on as L.A. Guns. I never stopped trying to get classic guys to not quit. I was always there. I was the longest chain and I'm still the longest chain member of L.A. Guns. I never really quit the band, but everybody else has left the band for some reason or another. When Tracii decided to do a second L.A. Guns in 2006, that's when all of this started. It's been something I've just had to deal with because the two of us owned the name and the trademark. We're classic members and we're former partners, but there was nothing I could do to stop him. Phil and I just had to deal with it. So, for the last twenty years, I've been dealing with it and it's nothing new. It's not like 'Wow, this is a new situation where there's two bands that have the same name'. He'd already been doing it for a while because when he quit, Phil and I went on for fifteen years without him.”

From a personal and professional point of view, that must be incredibly frustrating to regularly work with. Steve adds: “It is. It's totally frustrating. It's something that I don't want to happen and I wish would never have happened. Like I said, you wouldn't believe how much I tried to talk to the classic members out of not quitting the band. I would tell them 'We all have a good thing going here. Let's just keep on going'. When Tracii left in 2002, he left Phil and I up in the air, but it was a situation where we were determined to keep pushing forward. Of course we ended up doing another four or five albums before this all happened again with Phil leaving the band. So it's something that's frustrating, but there's really nothing you can do about it. It's like it is what it is.”

Read more at BigMusicGeek.com

"Renegades" is also the title-track of L.A. Guns' upcoming album. Check out the single below, purchase it here.

 

"Renegades" is the follow-up to the singles "Crawl" and "Well Oiled Machine", which can be heard below.