L.A. Guns guitarist and founder Tracii Guns was recently interviewed by Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon for Canada’s The Metal Voice. Guns was promoting L.A. Guns‘ upcoming new studio album Black Diamonds, which will be released via Frontiers Music Srl on April 14, 2023
When asked how long he was a member of Guns N’ Roses in the early years, Guns recalled (as provided by The Metal Voice with slight edits): “A year. Axl [Rose] was singing for L.A. Guns. We did a gig. There was a big throw down with our manager based on a big throw down with another band we played with that night. Our manager fired Axl but we all lived together. We sat on the couch and decided what we were going to do next and it was Guns N’ Roses. That’s all we did, we just changed the name and we added Izzy [Stradlin].”
With respect to whether they were rehearsing the early Guns N’ Roses material that we know today, Guns indicated: “We were playing them in L.A. Guns, a lot of those songs. Songs like “Don’t Cry”, “Anything Goes”, “Think About You” — a bunch of them.”
In terms of whether he helped in the arrangements and compositions of the early Guns N’ Roses songs, Guns stated: “Yeah, some of them because me and Izzy lived together so by the time we had Guns N’ Roses, when basically he joined L.A. Guns, Izzy had some of those songs that they had played in Hollywood Rose. Because earlier, Izzy and Axl were in a band called Hollywood Rose and when Slash was in Hollywood Rose, they wrote “Welcome To The Jungle”. But for some reason, when we got together as Guns N’ Roses, we didn’t play “Welcome In The Jungle”. I don’t know why. I don’t remember but that was always a favorite song of mine that they had. When I was in the band [Guns N’ Roses], we were heavier than what people know as Guns N’ Roses now. It wasn’t as blues based. It was a little bit more metal. So more straight ahead, more L.A. Guns-ish really.”