Tracii Guns (born January 20, 1966) is an iconic metal guitar slinger who has played with a number of well-known metal bands and solo artists over the years. Among these are Guns N' Roses, Brides Of Destruction, L.A. Guns, W.A.S.P., Poison, The Misfits, Killing Machine, and Johnny Thunders. He was also briefly a touring guitarist for Faster Pussycat. He guested with the band Bang Gang.
In the mid-1980s, as a side project, Tracii put together the legendary Guns N' Roses with Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Rob Gardner. Tracii and Rob later ended up leaving the band and were replaced by Tracii's childhood friend Slash and Steven Adler, respectively.
In 2003, Nikki Sixx and Guns formed the band Brides Of Destruction. Brides Of Destruction has two other members Scot Coogan and London LeGrand.
The first band to be called L.A. Guns was formed in 1983 by bassist Ole Beich, drummer Rob Gardner, guitarist Tracii Guns, and singer Axl Rose (replaced by Michael Jagosz).
Michael Jagosz sang on the Collector's Edition No. 1 EP.
The band broke up and In 1984 Tracii, Axl, and Rob left to form the band Guns N'Roses. Tracii later left Guns n' Roses to form a new band (Faster Pussycat) with (Paul Black, Mick Cripps, and Nickey "Beat" Alexander) and was replaced by the guitarist Slash. Rob Gardner also left Guns n' Roses and was replaced by Steven Adler; Guns n' Roses became very successful and made several platinum albums.
The name L.A. Guns was owned by their friend Raz who offered to financially back this new group featuring Paul Black on vocals (The Mau Maus, The Joneses), Tracii Guns on guitar, Mick Cripps on bass, and Nickey Alexander (Lords Of The New Church and The Weirdos ) on drums if they would play under the name L.A. Guns instead of Faster Pussycat. So the name L.A. Guns, which had been abandoned for over a year, was adopted for this new band. The name Faster Pussycat was dropped and was picked up by their friend Taime Downe to start another great band. Soon after this line up formed they added guitarist Robert Stoddard who also played in Dogs D'Amour under the name Ned Christie and also recorded as a solo artist.The L.A. Guns with Paul Black as the singer (1985 to 1987) is considered to be the original L.A. Guns because it was these members who created the music which was the majority of the first album and earned L.A. Guns their record deal with polygram. Also, the music created during this time remain as the main core of the of the L.A. Gun live set to this day and have carried L.A. Guns revolving door of replacement players ever since. Robert Stoddard and Paul Black left before inking the deal and Nickey "Beat" Alexander was replaced after recording the first record but songs they left behind helped propel a new line up to success, and are lasting classics today. No one in L.A. Guns since has been able to duplicate the success of the first record and the music written by Paul Black, Tracii Guns, Robert Stoddard, Mick Cripps, and Nickey "Beat" Alexander during those few years between 1985 and 1987.
After the departure of Paul Black, Robert Stoddard and Nickey "Beat" Alexander, L.A. Guns Management and Polygram Records went to all the magazines and collected any press, Bios & Pictures they could of these members and claimed they wanted to borrow these documents to copy them and return them. The pretense was that they wanted to document the history of L.A. Guns when in fact these picture and bios were never returned. Video Tapes were confiscated and the master tapes of all their recording sessions disappeared.
The band bios were re-written and the label and Management promoted the band as a new beast which formed in 1988. Manager Allen Jones bought a ticket for his friend Phil Lewis to come to L.A. and sing Pauls songs on the record and Paul Blacks name was even removed from his own songs. Although Paul Black wrote much of the classic L.A.Guns set like "One More Reason To Die" and "Show No Mercy", "Love & Hate" (Which became "Sex Action") "Looking Over My Shoulder" (Which became "Never Enough)" along with many others, all mentions of Pauls Roll in the band after that were merly that of a drug adict who happened to be in the band nothing more.
Paul Black went on to form another great band (Black Cherry) but the vicious politics of the record industry surrounding his lawsuit against Polygram and his former band kept him from signing another deal. Paul, Robert and Nickey faded into relative obscurity.