21 GUNS

[Dave]

Saw this over on Melodic Rock

 

I'm excited.............Senfuckinsational..........Please be true..........

 

 

 

"Rumor has it that Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham has apparently put his other band 21 Guns back together for a new album in 2009, but featuring a brand new talent for lead vocalist."

[heaven&hell]

I loved that first album "Salute" but never heard the other releases.

[shamus]

I love this band. Salute is one of my all time favorite albums.

 

I heard the songs on their myspace page and this new singer is a talent for sure but Tommy Laverdi is the man imho.

 

Nothing's Real introduced Solli as their new vocalist but the best songs were the 4 or 5 demos included featuring Laverdi.

 

If you like Salute pick up their Demolition cd which features demo versions of songs meant for their follow up to Salute before Tommy left. Sound quality is actually quite good considering.

 

Just wish Tommy would come out of hiding and jump back into the genre.

[Geoff]

This is cool, but in all brutal honesty I can't really see anything great coming from it.

[Dave]

This is cool, but in all brutal honesty I can't really see anything great coming from it.

 

I sure as hell can

[Blue Charvel]

This is cool, but in all brutal honesty I can't really see anything great coming from it.

 

I sure as hell can

Me too, I hope the singer's good.

[London]

Gorham is a guitar god!

[Glen]

This is cool, but in all brutal honesty I can't really see anything great coming from it.

 

I sure as hell can

Me too, I hope the singer's good.

 

Backed - this has potential to be quite spiffing

[Jez]

This is cool, but in all brutal honesty I can't really see anything great coming from it.

 

I sure as hell can

Me too, I hope the singer's good.

 

Backed - this has potential to be quite spiffing

 

Indeed old chap, absolutely top hole, what!!

[Geoff]

This is cool, but in all brutal honesty I can't really see anything great coming from it.

 

I sure as hell can

Me too, I hope the singer's good.

Wow, I skimmed over the first post and missed that there was a new singer. Now I really, really couldn't give a shit. The singer was the best thing about this band.

[hardrockhaven]

Dammit, why couldn't they just bring Solli back. I like his voice. Wish he would do more stuff.

[Dave]

The new vocalist is a guy called Peter Shoulder who sang for a band called "Winterville" who supported Thin Lizzy back in 2005.

 

Some Demo samples of their new material are available here on their myspace page

 

 

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...endid=342262615

[Axelinger]

Geez, Gorham looks like he was separated at birth from Axel Rudi Pell...

[Dave]

Pretty interesting to read......Taken from an interview with Scott Gorham in relation to 21 Guns...

 

 

 

As you said, the next thing for you at that point was 21 GUNS. Keith Murrell, Tommy La Verdi, Hans Olav Solli, you had some great singers in that band as well, wouldn't you say?

 

Fucking singers, man! [laughs] Keith Murrell was just for the demos, Leif and I just needed somebody to get the melodic things over in the songs so we could listen back to it to see if we were going in the right direction. Keith was never actually a singer in the band. Tommy "fucking" La Verdi... Tommy was great, he was a really good singer, amazing sense of humor, and he had a really good voice. He was just, he was really shy in front of an audience, and he felt uncomfortable up there to the point of where we'd have to write up things for him to say to the audience because he couldn't talk to the audience. His voice would freeze up to the point of where we were only able to play thirty minutes a night; you can't go on like that. I love Tommy to death, but we had to part ways because it just wasn't working. And then we got Solli and... it didn't kill me. I got halfway through it and I thought "I'm not into this anymore." and really that album ["Nothing's Real"] just became... I call it the great demo album, nothing ever got finished on it. At best, things were like half finished, but for some reason Leif wanted to put it out, so he got into his studio, mixed it up and we put it out.

 

There's actually kind of an interesting connection here, Solli sings on Adrian Smith's first PSYCHO MOTEL album ["State of Mind"] while you appear on the second [WELCOME TO THE WORLD].

 

That's where I heard of him, he was working with him first and also Adrian was working with my drummer, Michael Sturgis. So we had this kind of incestuous thing going.

 

When the first 21 GUNS album came out in 1992, it was quite different stuff than what you'd done up to that point, wasn't it?

 

Yeah, it was way different from the THIN LIZZY stuff and all that. My manager would walk into the record companies and play the demo and they'd go "I love it, but it doesn't sound anything like THIN LIZZY!" and he'd say "Yeah, that's the point.” I did eleven years with THIN LIZZY; I needed to try something else. So finally the people at RCA, they did get what we were doing, they fell in love with it, so we got signed up with RCA.

 

 

 

By the time the second album came out, around 1997, times weren't really that great for that kind of music, were they?

 

That's the album that was the great demo album, for me it never got finished because just like you say the whole sound changed and everything. We saw that [grunge] and though it wasn't gonna work, so basically we just lost interest in the second album. Leif wanted to put it out, so he went in his studio and put like a quick mix on it and threw it out.

 

Then there's also the DEMO-LITION album that was released in 2002, isn't there?

 

That's just like first stage demos that we were doing.

 

Is there a chance you might do something again with 21 GUNS or are you done with it?

 

No, we're working on stuff right now. We've got a new singer called Pete Shoulder; he's 23 years old, a northern guy with a fucking kick ass voice on him. We've got probably twelve songs written now, right now they’re in the demo stages and we're just finding a window of opportunity for the three of us to get back in the studio and actually do the proper thing.

 

Are you planning to actually do some shows once the album's out?

 

Yeah, that's the whole idea, to give 21 GUNS the full treatment. We never actually gave the band a chance.

 

That's cool. Thank you for the interview, Scott!

[aXe mAn]

WOW...this is great news!

I was lucky enough to find the 21 Guns "Salute" album in the used CD store that I go to for only $4 a while back! And it's been a favorite in my collection ever since. Just fantastic AOR/melodic rock.

The ONLY thing that could make this better is if Tommy La Verdi was in the mix as well.

[phaffas]

WOW...this is great news!

I was lucky enough to find the 21 Guns "Salute" album in the used CD store that I go to for only $4 a while back! And it's been a favorite in my collection ever since. Just fantastic AOR/melodic rock.

The ONLY thing that could make this better is if Tommy La Verdi was in the mix as well.

 

I onyl got this other day too... only just getting into it now..

[T-BONE]

Although Salute had some good tunes on it, it was also pretty inconsistant. I was never too impressed with it, or any of their other releases for that matter. Some good tunes, but alot of filler

[melodicrockoz]

i never quite got fully into 21 guns albums........ but am keen on seeing what the band can come up with, they did have some cool songs after all

[manicego]

>> Just wish Tommy would come out of hiding and jump back into the genre. <<

 

He's making insane money doing voiceover work in Norway. I tried to hire him a while ago to do something for me but his manager blew me away with his rate.

[Dave]

I wonder what the hell has happend in regards to this album

Nothing new over on their Myspace page

[melodicrockoz]

perhaps a lack of quality interest.

[Shawn Of Fire]

As good as 'Salute' is, I don't see 21 Guns generating a great deal of general interest...

[Invisible_man]

Salute is a wonderful album...even bonus Cold Heart from Japanese release is some good mhr...

also I read that the singer is married to Morten Harket's (A-Ha) ex.... interesting..

Cold Heart

 

[AlphaMale]

What happened to this I wonder.

[Eric3]

Listening to Salute now. I was introduced to La Verdi's vocals through LRS (an album that has not aged very well IMO) and wow he used to be a beast! Much stronger vocal delivery on Salute.