By A. Lee Graham
London
LeGrand oozes rock 'n' roll.
From his
tattooed torso to the sweaty leather trousers hanging from his
hips, the guy personifies Hollywood decadence. That he formed
Brides of Destruction with Nikki Sixx and Tracii Guns is a
no-brainer. After all, anyone etched in ink, sporting charcoal
black tresses and vampire-pale skin would fit hand-in-glove with
Sixx and Guns, whose Motley Crue and L.A. Guns helped pioneer
the “hair metal” heyday. But LeGrand has an ace up his own
sleeve. That would be former Dokken guitarist George Lynch (read
companion interview on this site)
“George is
a great dude, man,” says LeGrand, speeding through the Texas
desert to the next Souls of We gig. Rounded out by bassist
Johnny Chow and drummer Mike Hansen, these Soul men proselytize
the neo-psychedelic vibe that seduced Jane's Addiction, Mother
Love Bone, Warrior Soul, and so many other late-‘80s, early-‘90s
outsiders.
When
LeGrand grabs the mike stand, the late Andy Wood seems to
inhabit his slender frame. Watching LeGrand on stage is like
mixing an Ian Astbury-Andy Wood cocktail with no fire
extinguisher. Imbibe at your own risk.
The
following interview happened quite unexpectedly. Calling for a
Lynch Mob chat with “Mr. Scary” himself brought a surprise. “Why
don't you talk to London first?” said George.
London? You
mean London LeGrand? Hmm, time to shift gears. No time for
Brides of Destruction questions. Heck, little time for
revisiting LeGrand’s Hollywood history. Let your interviewer be
your master as we chat some We...
Lee:
London? (static) This is Lee with Classic Rock Revisited
calling.
London:
This is London. I can’t hear on this phone. It’s a horrible
sound. It’s just muffles ... What’s up, dude?
(call
disconnects)
Lee:
London, are you there?
London: All
right, lemme try this. Can you hear me?
Lee: Yeah.
Glad we connected. So where are you guys headed?
London: I
have no idea. I don’t let anyone tell me because it’s just
exciting just to roll up.
Lee:
Barreling into the great unknown. Right. That rock ‘n’ roll
gypsy vibe?
London:
It’s just fun, you know. It’s the anticipation. Sometimes, that
can wake you up.
Lee: Is it
true that you and George met by sheer happenstance: he saw this
rocker-looking dude on Sunset and struck up a conversation?
London:
Yeah, we bumped into one another.
Lee: And...
London:
Just, you know, walking up and, ‘Hey, what's up, man?’ I was
going around at the time with the same story about the tapes I
sent him a while back when I was a kid trying to audition for
Lynch Mob. Sending him acoustic tracks. It was all good.
Lee: Sounds
like you probably had some specific song ideas by the time you
met. Did you just say “hi,” or did you mention that you two
should jam sometime?
London: It
was more like ... I didn’t push myself on him. I’m one of those
kinds of guys who believe if something’s going to happen, it’ll
happen. Fate. Know what I mean? It was ‘what's up?’ and one
thing led to another. Through all the years I’ve known him, it’s
turned into us being more comfortable with one another and ...
you know what I’m talking about? Growing up with somebody as
opposed to ... yeah.
Lee: So how
did you go about trying to contact George?
London: I
put an ad in Metal Edge or Circus or Hit
Parader, years ago. One of those. It was this ad saying that
if you were interested, they were holding auditions. You could
send in tapes if you wanted to. That’s what I did. That was in
1992. Maybe ‘91. I have no idea. It was when Lynch Mob was
getting together. Yeah. He never got back to me.
Lee: When
you finally landed the Souls of We gig, did you ask George if he
remembered the tapes you mailed him?
London:
Yeah, it was just like that. I can’t remember yesterday.
Lee: How
would you describe Souls of We compared to Lynch Mob?
London: I
wouldn’t compare it. They’re two different entities, you know
what I mean? It’s like, yeah, it’s just like two different
creatures. I don't wanna get cliche and start on cliches.
Lee: No,
feel free.
London: I
don’t wanna cheese it out. It’s two different things, two
different pieces of energy. There you go. I do like Lynch Mob,
but I’ve been concentrating on so many other things. Souls of We
is so reminiscent of things I loved when I was coming up. Mother
Love Bone, like when they first came out.
Lee: Yeah,
Andy Wood. What a loss.
London:
God, what an amazing kid, huh? He’s 23 years old and everybody
and their grandma wanted to be GNR. He would’ve been the biggest
mofo on the planet. I heard this kid on a [radio] interview.
People were saying, “Youre Seattle's answer to GNR.” Everybody
was trying to get somewhere close to that realm of, like,
status. This kid, like, they held up to him that you know,
people were saying this band was Seattle's answer to GNR. I was
19 or whatever, but I went to the store and went scrounging for
that CD.
Lee: His
death was such a tragedy.
London: He
was so special. One of my biggest influences is Mother Love
Bone. They had all kinds of stuff going on in their music, know
what I mean? I mean, they’ve got Hendrix influence, and George
has Hendrix influence, and I’ve been playing with George since I
was 16, if you think about it — on a stereo system in my room.
You get a little older and you get this vibe and, bla bla bla,
and I’ve been rocking you since 1986.
Lee: How
have you carried those sorts of influences into what you’re
doing now?
London: OK,
well, I always wanted to be ... it was so hard to find, to find
my own ... it’ll happen when it's ready, if it’s meant to
happen. Years passed by, and I hear George’s stuff, and it had
that Hendrix swing — room to, kind of like, room to get kind of
gritty. You know what I mean? In order to do what I want to do
back then. Anyway, right now ... (London pauses and asks George
what's passing by the bus) Dude, what's happening?
Lee: What's
going on? Something wrong with the bus?
London: We
almost wrecked 10 times in the last five minutes.
Lee: George
needs a nap.
London:
(laughs) We’re looking at some culture (laughs) We’re in South
Texas — guys with machine guns and boarded-up houses. Yeah, guys
with machine guns and, yeah, looking at us with, like, a hunger
for butt-loving. They’ve got passion in their eyes and it's
kinda scary.
Lee: I hope
your gas tank’s full.
London:
Check it out, man. I can't hear you. I was going to be tell you
how the music correlated from my past. When I heard George’s
stuff, it had a Hendrixy swing to it. It also had this element
of something fresh, but not a carbon copy or anything trendy.
Does that make sense? It was something that would drive the boat
rather than something that was part of the boat that was already
being driven.
Because in
the end, you just become flotsam and jetsam, you know what I
mean? I’d much rather be part of something that’s creating
something or starting something new even if it's reminiscent of
something 20 years ago. A lot of people never got to see that,
so this is us. This is us giving our respect back. I want to
take what I was entertained by and ... yeah, and like trying to
maybe take that a step further. We incorporate that psychedelia
and do thatt whole … just true experiences we’ve ... life
experiences we’ve all gone through along the way. Rather than
bitching and moaning about it to your friends, it’s just like
pick up and pen and then, like, for sure, you’ll get some
listeners. And if that ain’t therapeutic, fuck dude. I don’t
know what to tell you.
Lee: You’re
taking what influenced you and sharing it with a whole new
generation.
London:
Yeah, maybe. That’s how I’d like to look at it. I mean, I guess
you could also look at it like I’m just being a little whiny
bitch (laughs) Sorry.
Lee: No,
no. Go on.
London: I
hope it’s enjoyable. We do a lot of delay and reverb. It has
this whole like ... the whole trippy experience when you go to
see the show we’ve been working on, trying to hone in on this
one sound where we can give audience the sound we want to give
them. A big wall of sound. We want to make it like everyone’s on
something. Like tripping. Someone, some band I used to love
growing up on was Jane’s Addiction. “Mountain Song” — just that
opening was sick. After you listened to their ass, you feel you
needed to go to rehab. I love that shit. That was the harder
drug that, like, opened me up to a whole new world of, like,
college rock and, you know, everything else.
Lee: It
expanded your horizons.
London:
Absolutely. It set my taste buds on fire.
Lee: I hear
you. Hearing that first Jane’s Addiction live album really blew
me away.
London:
That was Jane’s Addiction? Was that the first one?
Lee: That
first Jane’s Addiction album was awesome. The live one.
London:
That was just Jane's Jane's, right? The first one?
Lee: The
first one. The one on Triple XXX Records before Nothing’s
Shocking.
London: I
swear I remember pictures ... I can’t seem to find anybody who
remembers what I’m talking about, but there were pictures of
Perry [Farrell, Jane's front man] sitting up in the rafters in
the lights and in the scaffolds with a big-ass hat with striped
socks.
Back when
no one was doing it, you know. And they had the whole, you know,
just loaded up on LSD experiences. Oh my god, so fucking
beautiful. Euphoric, dude. I love feeling good, you know. What
can I say? Something that you love kind of, you know,
necessarily disappears, but dissipates because things, you know,
everything happens the way it does. And something comes up and
sometimes some people aren’t in your face as much as they were.
So why not instead of waiting for what you love to come back
that you love, why not create and hope to God it's not
synthetic?
Lee: Do it
yourself. It has to flow, right?
London:
It’s rock juice. It’s good for you. It's good for the Souls of
We (laughs). Smoke up, everyone.
Lee: The
souls of you and me and everyone.
London:
Smoke up, everybody.
Lee: Smoke
this!
London:
Smoke this (laughs) Smoke this while you take some Microdot.
Lee:
Smoking the ol’ Microdot in the Stonehouse.
www.soulsofwe.com
www.shrapnelrecords.com
