L.A. Guns is an American hard rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1983 by guitarist Tracii Guns (born Tracy Ulrich), one of the foundational acts of the Sunset Strip glam metal scene and a band whose early history is inseparable from the origins of Guns N'Roses. The first incarnation of the group, then called Pyrrhus, included Guns and drummer Rob Gardner alongside a rotating cast of early members. In March 1985, Guns and Gardner merged their band with Hollywood Rose — the group featuring Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin — to form Guns N'Roses. Guns departed almost immediately and reformed L.A. Guns, eventually settling on a lineup with vocalist Paul Black and guitarist Mick Cripps before Black was replaced in 1987 by Phil Lewis, a British-born singer who had previously released two albums with the UK band Girl and one with Torme. Bassist Kelly Nickels, a veteran of Faster Pussycat, joined to complete the classic lineup that would carry the band through their commercial peak.
Signed to Vertigo/PolyGram, L.A. Guns released their self-titled debut in 1988, a gritty, sleazy hard rock record in the true tradition of the Sunset Strip underground that went gold. The follow-up Cocked and Loaded (1989), produced by Tom Werman with Duane Baron and John Purdell, was the commercial breakthrough that went platinum. It produced the rock radio hits Rip and Tear and Never Enough, and The Ballad of Jayne — a power ballad co-written by Kelly Nickels and the band with outside writer Steve Diamond — which reached number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 25 on the Mainstream Rock chart, becoming the band's signature song and one of the era's defining power ballads. Hollywood Vampires (1991) was the third album, showing a more mature and musically ambitious side of the band, going gold on the strength of 700,000 copies sold and featuring the fan-beloved Crystal Eyes alongside the harder Kiss My Love Goodbye. Across their Tracii Guns and Phil Lewis era lineup the band has sold over six and a half million records.
The band's subsequent history is a chronicle of departures, feuds, and parallel incarnations that became one of rock's more tangled legal and personal dramas. Tracii Guns departed for various outside projects including Contraband and Brides of Destruction; Phil Lewis led versions of L.A. Guns throughout much of the late 1990s and 2000s; Guns eventually formed his own version of the band under the same name around 2006. Both versions toured and recorded simultaneously until 2012 when Guns's version dissolved. The longstanding rift between the two founding members was finally resolved when Guns and Lewis reunited in 2016. The resulting album The Missing Peace (2017) on Frontiers Records became the label's highest selling release of that year and was received as a genuine creative return to form. The Devil You Know (2019), Hollywood Forever (2020), and subsequent releases have continued the reunion era with consistent output.
Wayne Dennon photographed L.A. Guns as part of an archive that documents the Sunset Strip scene from the inside. Few bands carry more authentic credentials from that era — Tracii Guns was literally in the room when Guns N'Roses formed, and the band he built after departing has been making hard rock on its own uncompromising terms for over four decades.
