Their guest list is a veritable who’s who of the hard rock and heavy metal world, with a few adult film stars and a comedian thrown in for good measure. However, unlike most guest lists, the one belonging to SIN CITY SINNERS doesn’t contain the names of people who get in for free. Au contraire, it features those who have performed with the band live on stage! Currently in excess of 125 highly recognizable musicians and counting, it can be viewed at the band’s MySpace page.

Sin City Sinners vocalist/guitarist Todd Kerns, formerly of THE AGE OF ELECTRIC and STATIC IN STEREO, lists his top three favourite guest stars. “Mine are probably a little strange. Sami Yaffa was huge for me. He was in HANOI ROCKS. That was a big deal. Sylvain Sylvain from THE NEW YORK DOLLS. Eric Dover from JELLYFISH and SLASH’S SNAKEPIT. There’s those couple of groups you saw when you were younger – from (Jeff) Pilson and (George) Lynch (of DOKKEN) to a couple of the GREAT WHITE guys (Mark Kendall and Tony Montana). All these bands I saw when I was 13 in a hockey arena. What a strange turn of events to end up on the same stage together. Those are probably my top three. Although guys like Carmine Appice and Vinny Appice, those guys are amazing. AJ Pero and Eddie Ojeda from TWISTED SISTER – that was definitely the ninth grade headbanger fun.”

As for his future wish list of rock icons to play with, Kerns immediately replies, “somebody from KISS. (Bruce) Kulick was another big one for me. I’m such a huge KISS fan so of course Paul Stanley or Gene Simmons. We’re actually working really hard on getting Peter Criss or Ace Frehley… you can pretty much get anybody really if you have the budget. But we’ve been lucky. A couple of guys who just happened to be in town will come by. But we’re always working on somebody from CHEAP TRICK or AEROSMITH – that echelon that wouldn’t come and jam with a bunch of jack-asses basically.”

Todd and his Sin City Sinners bandmates - guitarist Brent Muscat (ex-FASTER PUSSYCAT), bassist Michael Ellis and drummer Rob Cournoyer (RAGING SLAB) – are enjoying a residency in Las Vegas, Nevada performing four nights a week. “Yeah, sometimes five. It’s pretty crazy man. Ultimately I was supposed to be here for a couple of months (Kerns is originally from Saskatchewan, Canada) and now it’s been three years. Every Vegas person will tell you that story. Every dealer out there has a degree in something. But they’re making more money dealing cards than they would doing whatever they were trained to do.”

Splitting their time between a few set venues in Vegas including: Ovation at Green Valley Ranch, Hard Rock Café on The Strip and VooDoo Lounge at The Rio, Sin City Sinners rarely endure the rigours of the road. Kerns discusses the pros and cons of a residency versus touring. “I really haven’t found too many cons. At first it was like, when are we getting the fuck out of here? It’s been interesting being in one place in a lot of ways – at least one bed at night. The same place for breakfast every morning, then you come to the gig and go back home. It’s been a nice change. I never really looked at it as permanent. I always felt I’d be back to the pirate ship and off to the high seas. But it’s been fun actually. I suppose the con would be that you can only cause so much trouble, ‘cause you’re going to be here next Saturday. Whereas back in the day, it was like, I‘m never going to fucking see these people again.”

When performing live, Sin City Sinners do a fair number of well-known cover songs. However, their just-released debut album, Exile On Fremont Street, consists almost entirely of original material. “It’s actually ten originals, one cover and then a secret song – which is also a cover. We recorded a cover of DONNIE IRIS’ ‘Ah! Leah!’. It was a song in the ‘80s. I’ve played it in almost every band I’ve been in, even Age Of Electric. I saw it on Solid Gold as a little kid. I recorded a demo of it once with Static In Stereo, but we never released it. I found it one day and played it for the guys, next thing I knew we were doing it. That’s usually the way things work around here. It wasn’t like we’re going to do this and play that and write this. The whole thing about this band is it’s been a complete accident from the beginning. When I came down here… my friend asked me to help him out recording a CD and it turned out that Brent was the guitar player for this band. Then he decided to put his Faster Pussycat version together and take it to Europe. He couldn’t find Greg Steele so he asked me if I wanted to play guitar? Fuck yeah! Europe? Let’s go! Then we came back here and he and Taime (Downe, FP vocalist) had it out and we started doing this. It began as a Tuesday night jam thing in a bar not much bigger than this room, but it was a blast! It became the place to be on a Tuesday night. We were bringing guys like George Lynch there, into that tiny place. It was a lot of fun. Then it became this.”

The album’s title, Exile On Fremont Street, is a tribute to THE ROLLING STONES’ Exile On Main St., a record Todd is particularly fond of. “Sticky Fingers is my favourite, but Exile is definitely up there. I’m one of those people that prefers the Mick Taylor period. I get a lot of arguments about that. But Exile is pretty much also a play on the fact of being here. When you come to Vegas, it’s like - people live here? Just like Disney World in Orlando. But you realize it’s just a town; it’s very strange. That was my perspective. I think almost everybody in this band – we’re talking Redondo Beach, Hollywood, Louisiana, Canada – everybody has that perspective of being here and having that objective point of view. For me it was like being in exile in Las Vegas and really feeling like a fish out of water. But it turned out to be home in a weird way; it’s the strangest thing. So that’s of course a tribute to The Stones, but it also has some meaning to it as well. We also copped the Abbey Road cover (from THE BEATLES). It’s all tongue-in-cheek. We think it’s hilarious. A lot of people wouldn’t understand the references even though it’s a famous cover and THE CHILI PEPPERS have done it.”

Some of the songs on Exile On Fremont Street have been part of Todd’s catalogue for quite some time now. “I know,” admits the frontman. “Again, being down here, somebody said we should play that song. Next thing you know we’re doing it and it becomes popular. It was readdressed as a new band. Basically the whole mentality of this thing is so punk rock as far as like, whatever. You want to make a record? Sure. You want to do this? Ok. There’s not an A&R; guy going around discussing it with management. It’s a bunch of guys saying let’s do this. We play these songs and people like them.”

Two of those songs, ‘Turn It Up’ and ‘It’s Not You It’s Me’, originally appeared on Todd’s 2004 solo album, Go Time! Do they sound markedly different six years later? “Well they do to me. It’s not like we added hip-hop beats or bagpipes, it’s basically the same song. It’s funny to readdress those things ‘cause even the last time I recorded those, it was like, let’s make a demo. Then it becomes, this sounds great, let’s put it out. I’m not really the kind of person that sits around – although I have been through it – that process of writing it and putting it under a magnifying glass. What do you think about this three-second part? It just drives me bananas! But you do look back at the old version and wonder, why did we put that in there? Snip. It’s still your baby, but you’re able to trim this away and cut that away. Basically it’s still the same version though.”

Going back even further, ‘Blow Up Doll’ and ‘Ariana Incomplete’ were initially on the self-titled Static In Stereo album, released in 2001, “which is even stranger,” admits Kerns. “I’ve always played ‘Ariana’ in acoustic versions. In Canada, there are two kids named after that song – not mine! There’s two different women who have written me saying they named their daughter Ariana. I’m like; did you listen to the fucking song? Again, people down here don’t know any of that stuff. You really become ignorant to Canadian music when you’re here. The best thing in the world was I get home one time, I rent a car, start it up – TEA PARTY. When you’re here, it’s NICKELBACK. You’re only aware of the huge stuff. Every once in a while Brent will say, ‘Juno Award Nominee’ and it’s like, what’s that? The handicap awards?”

In addition to singing and playing guitar on the new album, Todd also produced Exile On Fremont Street “I’m the kind of person that’s pretty uncomfortable with the term – I don’t really like songwriter as much – maybe in the DREAM THEATER world. But for ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ or ‘Deuce’ or ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, I look at it more like that. So production to me is more an overview of how things are going to go. For me, production has never been where to place a microphone. It was more making sure we’re all on the same page musically as far as the songs go with arrangements, that kind of thing. I was involved from pre-production right through to mastering.”

Looking back on it though, this studio session was pretty smooth. “Yeah, I think it was. It was relatively painless. But I usually have a good time in the studio in any situation I’m in. It’s enjoyable. It’s funny ‘cause it takes so long in a lot of ways. I wrote somebody and said, I forgot how much fun and how much of a drag the studio could be.” All in all though, “it’s a pretty straight-up aggressive rock ‘n roll record. I’ve never tampered with loops or sampling. It’s just like, you play the drums and I’ll play the guitar. We’ll record it and it’ll be fine. Beyond that, we did record a big BOWIE-type thing that Brent came up with. It’s got quite a bit of production to it, as if uneducated guys tried to do The Beatles.”

Just prior to Valentine’s Day, Sin City Sinners filmed a live DVD that is slated for a summer release. “We recorded a batch of songs that have never been played live. We did all of the record and threw some extra stuff in there as well. The whole idea was going without a net, just doing it and seeing what happens. You never know, we might look at it and say, we’re not releasing this! We’ve talked about it a million times ‘cause they film every single night and hand us the DVD at the end of the night. We could cop something together but what’s the point? It’s funny how DVDs in general are neck and neck with CDs. We have the resources so we may as well put it out. We may do it again if we look at it and these songs turned out great… then do another show to compile some sort of… I’ve done enough live recording in my life. If you’re ok with the rawness, which I usually am, then it’s fine. I love Aerosmith: Bootleg – it’s warts and all. But then you’ve got the KISS records that have been tampered with.”

In closing, Todd reveals the origin of the band name. “I did actually come up with it. It’s one of those things where the joke was, around the time we did it everything was Sin City: The Sin City Stripper Chics, Sin City Brewery. It was so stupid so we said Sin City Sinners. Then we had a gig and that became the name. About that much thought went into it.”