Eyal Levi from Dååth, Levi/Werstler, and Audiohammer Studios has obviously been in this business for some time now, and he’s learned a thing or two about a thing or two. This week, he imparts ten lessons about the music biz — and life in general — to you, our beloved readers, once a day, two installments at a time. You can read the week’s first two lessons here, and the week’s next two lessons here, and the week’s most recent two lessons here; check out lesson numbers seven and eight below!

#7: WEEKENDS? THERE’S NO SUCH THING

If you’re fortunate enough to get to a point in your life where you can actually support yourself from a creative endeavor, then be prepared to throw away all notions of having a normal life. Now ,I know that there’s no such thing as “normal,” and that everyone is an individual, but hear me out on what I mean by that.

Weekends are for resting and partying; weekdays are for working. That’s a normal concept, which fits in with the archetypical 9-5 jobs. It’s perfectly setup for ensuring that you can hold down a social/family life while working at the same time. And, for the majority of the world, it works. There’s a good structure to it. I can see how it would get repetitive and old, but at least you know what to look forward to. And at least you can get things done without too much hassle, because the rest of the world is set up to cater to your schedule.

In the land of creative jobs, good luck with that idea. More often than not, you will find yourself working all hours of the night, for weeks, or even months, on end. If you take breaks like the rest of the world, then you will be left behind.

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If my math is correct, the only band to ever go through more line-up changes than Guns N’ Roses is L.A. Guns. And since sometime around ’04/’05, there have been two versions of L.A. Guns in the world, neither of which seems to have a very stable line-up… although I guess, in all fairness, the version with vocalist Phil Lewis and drummer Steve Riley has the better track record, since they just keep losing bass players, and have managed to hold onto guitarist Stacey Blades (yes, the replaces a dude calling himself “Guns” with a dude calling himself “Blades”) for some time now, whereas the version with Tracii Guns himself goes through singers, drummers, and rhythm guitarists the way a thirteen year old boy goes through tissues.

But that doesn’t change the fact that, according to the most recent U.S. Census, if you are a musician living in the greater Los Angeles area, there is a 95% chance that you have been a member of a band calling itself L.A. Guns at some point in the past ten years. And if you’re somehow part of the 5% that hasn’t been in one of the bands, well, now here’s your chance, ’cause according to a posting on his message board, Jizzy Pearl has now split with Tracii Guns’ L.A. Guns:

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Photos by Brian Schroeter

Though hard rock has arrived at retirement age, its senior classmen are flourishing on tour. Really, these years are the first in which old metal musicians exist, and 2011′s foundation will be built on someday by geriatric Gojira, decrepit Devin Townsend, crotchety Cave In, et al. Right around 2025, those bands might look to Ronnie James Dio, who played all aces til his final days; to Metallica, who in middle age flagged fast; to Judass Priest’s withdrawal from major touring (or whatever) and to the renaissance of Whitesnake, whose recent face-blasting gig with L.A. Guns and Skid Row was like a survival guide for bands seeking to enjoy fruitful third and fourth decades! I was there and learned a lot! Check it out:  Click to read more…

According to Metal Undergound, Bret Michaels announced during a Canadian solo gig last night “that in celebration of Poison’s 25th anniversary, the band will be touring with fellow American rockers Motley Crue next year, who will themselves be celebrating their 30th anniversary.” That’s great news, unless you hate fun. Even with Vince Neil being bloated and winded, Tommy Lee devoting the remainder of his career to reenacting the C. Thomas Howell classic Soul Man, Mick Mars having less mobility than a corpse, and Poison being, y’know, Poison, it’s almost impossible for me to imagine this tour being anything less than awesome. Especially if they get another great glam band (by which I mean a band like Cinderella, not a latter-day cock rock wanna-be like Hinder or Saliva), to open. Seriously, just hook the alcohol dispenser up to my veins and let me go see this show. Hell, even if the just turned out to be a train wreck of drama and shit-talking, it would be awesome.

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Kevin Dubrow is dead, and I think that most of us assumed he would take Quiet Riot (the seventh most-often-miscategorized-as-a-hair-metal-band of all time) with him to the grave. Those of us who did make that assumption, however, forgot that desperate times call for desperate measures, and an empty belly holds no room for dignity.

So Quiet Riot are re-forming.

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Tracii Guns is working on his autobiography. This is easily the best news you’re going to hear all day and possibly all week or even all month, for the following reasons:

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Of all the 654 singers L.A. Guns has had over the years, Jizzy Pearl is definitely the best one whose name is a euphemism for cum. He only recorded one album with the band, 1999′s Shrinking Violet, but it was such a huge success that within months of its release, the band got rid of Pearl and reunited with Phil Lewis. This was a historic happening, not because anyone was really waiting Lewis to return to the group, but because it was the first step in the process that would lead to there being two separate bands called “L.A. Guns.” Looking back at that moment now, Tracii Guns must feel like a post-Revenge of the Sith Obi-Wan Kenobi: if only he had killed that annoying kid on Tatooine all those years ago, so much tragedy could have been averted!

I assume its Guns’ 20/20 hindsight that led him to re-hire Pearl after L.A. Guns vocalist #678, David Spade, left the band. And while in February Vince reported that the latest re-incarnation of La Guns (as they’re known in France) would be recording a new album for Steve Vai’s Favored Nations label, they’re actually just going to re-release Shrinking Violet with the perfunctory new artwork/bonus tracks. I’m guessing this is because a) Violet was never really properly promoted when it was initially released, b) it’s cheaper than recording a new album, and c) the band has somehow fallen under the impression that they need a record to tour behind, when, in fact, they are the very definition of a “legacy act.” (Actually, Tracii might have some self-awareness about being a legacy act: the bonus tracks on this reissue will be include live recordings of Pearl fronting old Guns hits like “Ballad of Jayne.”)

Here’s some live footage of the Shrinking Violet track “Dreamtime.” The re-release will occur on May 25. Shrinking Violet was produced by Gilby Clarke, a.k.a. The Guitar Player Who Tour with Guns N’ Roses for Longer than Tracii Guns Ever Did but Never Got to Write or Record Any Original Material with Them.

-AR

Passover starts at sundown tonight! If you’re like me and you hate your extended family, that’s terrible news. On the other hand, I get to ask the Four Questions a-fucking-gain, since my cousins and I all refuse to grow the fuck up and have babies to replenish the family, which gets a little smaller every year as another member of The Greatest Generation goes the way of Crazy Town’s career.

On the flip side, Passover is the only Jewish holiday for which there is an appropriate metal song. (Unless you include some of that NSBM stuff. But until those dudes start writing outros with titles like “But we survived! Let’s eat!”, they’ll really only be getting half the equation.) Yes, it’s “Creeping Death” by Metallica, and yes, we talk about this every fucking year. Give us a break. It makes us happy. And it’s not like having Scott Ian and Tracii Guns on our team is such great shakes.

Just to stir shit up a little, here’s a live version of the song, filmed in 1989.

Does anyone know of a power metal cover of this song? I really wanted to do “Power Metal Passover” this year but couldn’t find one.

-AR

P.S. Yes, I know that “The Passover Story” is also known as “Exodus.” Why Exodus didn’t write a song about “Exodus,” I dunno.

Man oh man, Jani Lane’s life just keeps getting better and better. After grunge basically killed his band’s record sales, he turned into a drunken mess who would perform live while openly wasted, on top of doing everything in his power to look more like Sally Struthers And he’s been in and out of so many different incarnations of Warrant that he should just join L.A. Guns already and get it over with.

And now there’s a warrant out for him.

Yep. A warrant for the dude from Warrant. Rimshot!

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Let’s play a little game. Which of the following does not belong?

• Steve Vai
• Petrucci/Rudess
• Allan Holdsworth
• L.A. Guns
• Eric Johnson
• Marty Friedman
• Vernon Reid

See what I did there? I didn’t even put the obvious choice last, but it’s still just as fucking obvious that L.A. Guns stick out like a boner in gym shorts on the shred-heavy roster of Favored Nations, the label owned by Steve Vai. But apparently Favored Nations will release a new L.A. Guns album come April.

For anyone keeping track, this is the version of L.A. Guns that actually includes the band’s namesake Tracii Guns, not the Phil Lewis-led version that claims the other guys are imposters.

If MetalSucks ever receives a prestigious award the first band I’ll thank will be L.A. Guns (both versions) for providing us with excellent headline fodder throughout the years.

-VN

If there’s any justice in the world, The Red Chord’s excellent new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine (read my four out of five horns review here), will cement Mike “Gunface” McKenzie’s status as one of his generation’s great guitar gods while introducing his truly unique playing to scores of new fans. Now The Red Chord’s sole axe slinger, Gunface really steps up his game on Teeth – the riffs and solos on this album are easily some of the year’s very best.

That being the case, I was very, very excited to have the opportunity to e-mail some questions to Gunface earlier this week. He follows bassist Greg Weeks and vocalist Guy Kozowyk as the latest member of The Red Chord to humor me by answering some truly idiotic (and hopefully a few intelligent) questions (I’m sure we’ll get to drummer Brad Fickeisen sooner or later). After the jump, get Gunface’s thoughts on the creation of Fed Through the Teeth Machine, writing solos, his various side projects, the value of the Death Star, and more.

Fed Through the Teeth Machine is out October 27 on Metal Blade.

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We make fun of L.A. Guns quite a bit, mostly because, well, they’re really worth making fun of. For one thing, they’re one of those bands where there’s actually two different versions of the band touring around, claiming to be “L.A. Guns;” the version that doesn’t feature founding guitarist/namesake Tracii Guns hired a dude named – no shit – Stacey Blades as their guitarist. Plus, Tracii is the “Guns” in “Guns N’ Roses,” but quit the band before they got signed, and has spent most of his career trying to prove that he could have been Slash, if given the shot. And they’re one of those bands that claims they were never hair metal even though there’s really no other way to categorize them. So, yeah, they’re pretty silly.

They’re also one of the better hair metal bands of their era, even if they never made it that big in the scheme of things. On Friday night during some drunken rambling about Kix and Love/Hate and whatever other wussy bands crossed our Peroni-soaked brains, a friend and I started reminiscing about the song “Over the Edge” from Hollywood Vampires. I don’t know how the song holds up in the whole pantheon of songs that were cool when you were a kid but aren’t cool anymore, but I still have fun listening to it from time to time.

All I could find for a embedded video was this rip from the Point Break soundtrack. Since Swayze just died, I figured, y’know, fuck it.

-AR

Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler, former Guns N’ Roses/L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns, former collaborator of a former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Eric Dover, and former Guns N’ Roses appreciator Chip Z’Nuff have formed a new supergroup, Guns of Destruction. Aside from being a redundant reminder of the obvious – that guns, y’know, destroy things – the name is a reference not only to Guns N’ Roses and L.A. Guns, but to Brides of Destruction, the last supergroup no one cared about that featured Tracii Guns.

It might also be a really sad way to try and invoke Appetite for Destruction, an  album that 75% of this band made no contribution to but really, really enjoy.

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Paul Black, the “original” singer of L.A. Guns who never actually sang on any old L.A. Guns records, has now split from the “new” version of L.A. Guns featuring original L.A. Guns guitarist/namesake Tracii Guns.

Although this would seem to point to a reunion between Tracii Guns and his old bandmates Phil Lewis and Steve Riley, who have continued on with the “old” L.A. Guns in Tracii’s absence, Tracii still has plans to make a new L.A. Guns album with his “new” “old” version of L.A. Guns, who have hired an “as-yet-undisclosed replacement singer with ‘blond’ hair,” according to Blabbermouth*.

Meanwhile, Lewis and Riley carry on with the “old” L.A. Guns and Tracii Guns’ replacement, Stacey Blades.

If you can make sense of any of this, please shoot yourself in the face**.

-AR

*The fact that the word “blond” appears in quotes has to get ya thinking. Are they quoting a source who says the singer is blond? Or do the quotes denote that he’s not a natural blond, like so many singers on the L.A. strip? Stay tuned for the exciting answer!

**MetalSucks does not actually endorse suicide. Please don’t sue us. Thanks.

I’ve really never understood Tracii Guns’ incessant need to publicly express regret over quitting Guns N’ Roses in 1985, well before that band had a record contract or written most of the material for Appetite for Destruction. It would be like Richard Gere bitching and moaning about his decision to drop out of the John McClane role in Die Hard; it’s just foolish to think that Bruce Willis’ interpretations of that character had nothing to do with the box office success of that franchise. Dave Mustaine might have a legitimate reason to believe he could be rolling naked in dough, since material he wrote for Metallica appeared on both Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning, but there’s nothing in the L.A. Guns’ repertoire to suggest that GN’R still would have become the biggest band in the world sans Slash. And yet it was just a couple of years ago that Guns admitted he had recently emailed Axl Rose to offer his services in the new GN’R. Sheesh.

This bizarre, completely unwarranted sense of regret must be what led Guns to leave his only recently reunited L.A. Guns to form Brides of Destruction with Nikki Sixx; but then Sixx, who is as guilty as Guns of only doin’ it for the payday, split to go make some real moolah with Motley Crue, and Guns was left holding the bag (Note to Guns: if it’s the 21st century and your lead singer’s name is “London LeGrand,” your band is going nowhere fast.). So now Guns had to scramble to find a way back into L.A. Guns and rather than just kiss up and make nice with Phil Lewis (who had replaced Guns with some dude named, I shit you not, Stacey Blades), he allowed vocalist Paul Black to live out his own path-not-chosen fantasy and start a new “old” L.A. Guns. And so while there wasn’t really a demand for one L.A. Guns post-1992ish, now we actually have two L.A. Guns.

So Tracii’s version of the band is recording a new album, with Steve Thompson producing. Thompson, in case you didn’t know, is most famous for… wait for it… mixing Appetite for Destruction.

Yeah. Cause now Tracii’ll sell 16 million records.

Below, enjoy Brides of Destruction performing “Shut the Fuck Up” – some advice Tracii would do well to heed – on Jay Leno. LeGrand’s shouting “Shut the Uh Up” because he couldn’t say “fuck” on television is hysterical, if for no other reason than because it shows that the band didn’t even have the common sense to release a first single that did not prominently feature a swear word in its title.

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Gosh, I wonder where this band went wrong?

-AR