Excerpt from Sunday Old School at MetalUnderground.com

If you lived in Southern California during 1983 to present day there is a very good chance you have played for a band named L.A. Guns. I demand a VH1 Classic documentary on this phenomenon. I already have the title: "Eight is Enough: The story of nine albums and eight lead singers.”

This is the story of L.A. Guns.

To start we need to get the administrative part out of the way. Instead of populating every other sentence with a line-up change, here we go.

We will refer to the “Classic Line Up” of L.A. Guns as Phil Lewis, Tracii Guns, Mick Cripps, Kelly Nickels, Steve Riley. The “Steve Riley L.A. Guns” a.k.a. L.A. Guns #1 as Phil Lewis, Stacey Blades, Scott Griffin, Steve Riley and the “Tracii Guns L.A. Guns” a.k.a. L.A. Guns #2 as Jizzy Pearl, Tracii Guns, Doni Gray, Jeremy Guns. Recently Jizzy Pearl has left Tracii’s version of L.A. Guns, being replaced by Dilana Robichaux. So now the story is “Nine Lives: Nine albums, nine lead singers”.

Need a comprehensive list of lead singers? Why not, here they are: Phil Lewis, Jizzy pearl, Paul Black, Axl Rose, Michael Jagosz, Chris Van Dahl, Ralph Saenz, Marty Casey.

And finally other members (non lead singers) that at one time were members of L.A. Guns: Nickey Alexander, Ole Beich, Rob Gardner, Robert Stoddard, Michael Gershima, Johnny Crypt, Brent Muscat, Muddy, Keff Ratcliffe, Adam Hamilton, Keri Kelli, Scott Griffin, Kenny Kweens, Chad Stewart, Alec Bauer, Danny Nordahl.

Push the paper to the side and let’s see if we can figure out how this band bio grew to the size of a phone book.

The band was formed through several lineups that included members of Hollywood Rose (William Bailey, i.e. Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin) and what would later become Guns N’ Roses. Even Tracii Guns was part of Guns N’ Roses for a short while before reverting back to L.A. Guns. The picture became clearer (for Guns N’ Roses) after Duff McKagan joined the band and took the band up the coast of California for what was know has the “hell tour” and solidified the original GNR line-up. Hollywood Rose was long ended and by default, many went back to L.A. Guns.

READ the FULL column at METALUNDERGROUND.com

David S. Grant is the author of several books.  His latest novel, "BLOOD: The New Red" is now available.  For more information go to SILVERTHOUGHT PRESS.  Follow David on Twitter: .david_s_grant