{"id":5246,"date":"2023-10-27T11:27:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T16:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=5246"},"modified":"2023-10-27T11:27:21","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T16:27:21","slug":"former-l-a-guns-and-w-a-s-p-drummer-steve-riley-dead-at-67","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=5246","title":{"rendered":"Former L.A. GUNS And W.A.S.P. Drummer STEVE RILEY Dead At 67"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former L.A. GUNS<\/strong> and W.A.S.P.<\/strong> drummer Steve Riley<\/strong> has died at the age of 67.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news of\u00a0Riley<\/strong>‘s death was first reported by\u00a0Metal Sludge<\/a>\u00a0and was confirmed by his longtime friend\u00a0Jason Green<\/strong>, who shared a new video on his\u00a0Waste Some Time With Jason Green YouTube<\/strong>\u00a0channel in which he said that\u00a0he had suffered from various health issues prior to his passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A source close to\u00a0Riley<\/strong>\u00a0told\u00a0Metal Sludge<\/strong>\u00a0that the drummer died yesterday (Thursday, October 26) after he had been recently hospitalized. He had also been using a cane to walk in recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riley<\/strong> was the drummer for W.A.S.P.<\/strong> on the first four albums and world tours from 1983 to 1987. After leaving W.A.S.P.<\/strong> in 1987, Riley<\/strong> joined L.A. GUNS<\/strong> and played on the band’s most commercially successful albums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, singer Phil Lewis<\/strong> and guitarist Tracii Guns<\/strong> reunited in a new version of L.A. GUNS<\/strong> that didn’t include Riley<\/strong>. Steve<\/strong> later launched his own version of L.A. GUNS<\/strong>, which played its debut concert at the M3 Rock Festival<\/strong> in Maryland in May 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April 2021, an out-of-court resolution was reached between\u00a0Riley<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Guns<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Lewis<\/strong>\u00a0over the rights to the band’s name. Under the terms of the settlement agreement,\u00a0Tracii<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Phil<\/strong>\u00a0continued to operate under the\u00a0L.A. GUNS<\/strong>\u00a0trademark, while\u00a0Riley<\/strong>\u00a0and his bandmates from the other version of\u00a0L.A. GUNS<\/strong>\u00a0carried on under the new name\u00a0RILEY’S L.A. GUNS<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, RILEY’S L.A. GUNS<\/strong> released a new single, “The Dark Horse”<\/strong>, via Golden Robot Records<\/strong>. The track was set to appear on the band’s upcoming sophomore album of the same name, tentatively due in early 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RILEY’S L.A. GUNS<\/strong> featured Riley<\/strong> alongside Orlando, Florida-based guitarist\/vocalist Kurt Frohlich<\/strong>, Nickels<\/strong> and guitarist Scott Griffin<\/strong>, who played bass for L.A. GUNS<\/strong> from 2007 until 2009, and then again from 2011 to 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2011 blog for\u00a0Modern Drummer<\/strong>,\u00a0Riley<\/strong>\u00a0wrote that he was “blessed to be involved in both waves of hard rock and metal in 1980s Los Angeles.” He explained: “The first of the two was the\u00a0M\u00d6TLEY CR\u00dcE<\/strong>,\u00a0RATT<\/strong>,\u00a0W.A.S.P.<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0DOKKEN<\/strong>\u00a0movement. Then came the\u00a0GUNS N’ ROSES<\/strong>,\u00a0L.A. GUNS<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0FASTER PUSSYCAT<\/strong>\u00a0bunch. I’m one of those rare drummers that played in two successful bands from both waves. Pretty cool stuff!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years ago, Massachusetts native Riley<\/strong> spoke fondly about his early years on the Sunset Strip rock scene, telling Antihero Magazine<\/strong>: “I’ve said it in many interviews, W.A.S.P.<\/strong>, RATT<\/strong>, M\u00d6TLEY CR\u00dcE<\/strong>, DOKKEN<\/strong>, GREAT WHITE<\/strong>, that first wave of metal out of Los Angeles, we were working so much, we were on the road all of us so much that we never really even noticed what was happening in Los Angeles because we’d only be back for a few weeks or a few days actually sometimes, and then back out on the road or back into the studio. So we didn’t notice the second wave of metal coming out of L.A. with GUNS N’ ROSES<\/strong>, L.A. GUNS<\/strong>, FASTER PUSSYCAT<\/strong> and JETBOY<\/strong>, we didn’t see that happening. So when Blackie<\/strong> [Lawless<\/strong>], then behaved by firing Randy Piper<\/strong>, then he fired me and then eventually fired Chris<\/strong> [Holmes<\/strong>]. He disbanded that great band. But when that happened with me in 1987, and he let me go, I was just fortunate. I was approached by these guys in L.A GUNS<\/strong>. They were big, big fans of W.A.S.P.<\/strong> I mean, huge fans, the guys in GUNS N’ ROSES<\/strong> were too. I didn’t realize that, that they were all huge fans of W.A.S.P.<\/strong> and they approached me, and they asked me if I wanted to join. And I kind of went right from headlining Long Beach Arena to playing a club show with L.A GUNS<\/strong>. So I didn’t really know about the second wave of metal and I was really fortunate to go right from W.A.S.P.<\/strong> into L.A GUNS<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former L.A. GUNS and W.A.S.P. drummer Steve Riley has died at the age of 67. The news of\u00a0Riley‘s death was first reported by\u00a0Metal Sludge\u00a0and was confirmed by his longtime friend\u00a0Jason Green, who shared a new video on his\u00a0Waste Some Time With Jason Green YouTube\u00a0channel in which he said that\u00a0he had suffered from various health issues prior to his passing. A source… Read More »Former L.A. GUNS And W.A.S.P. Drummer STEVE RILEY Dead At 67<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5248,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5246\/revisions\/5248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}